Sitting Down with Nnenna Kalu, Recruitment Manager at CloserStill Media

Luckily for us, we have a fantastic people team here at CloserStill Media, organisers of HR Technologies UK. So, we thought, how better to understand today’s recruitment landscape than to sit down for chat with our resident Recruitment Manager, Nnenna Kalu?

After attending law school, Nnenna found herself in the world of events when she began working at HelloFresh, before then moving into the entertainment industry. Following a career shift during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nnenna joined CloserStill Media. Now, she spends her days surrounding herself with both incoming and resident talent in the business, sorting interviews, tracking data and collaborating on internal communications and training.

What would you say is the most valuable piece of technology you use in the recruitment process?

I think our ATS system is massive. We funnel all the applications through that. And not only does it help us see where we are in the market – because we can measure ourselves against our competitors – but it helps us with more data driven information. It helps us with candidate satisfaction as well – after every interview we ask candidates to give us an NPS score. It helps us tailor what we need to work on training-wise, with our demographics, with engagement, and where applications are coming from. So, I think that's our biggest tool at the moment, our most useful bit of tech.

How do you use tech improve the candidate experience?

We use it to automate the process a lot more, make it a lot smoother. It helps the candidate feel a lot more in control of their application. Especially when you're a one-man band – or, like us, when you’re scaling and recruitment is a massive focus – it just helps to streamline everything so candidates know exactly where they are in the pipeline. Without it, candidates could get lost in an inbox for, I don’t know, a year and no one would ever know!

We set up our process a little bit like a social media platform, where candidates can engage with content, they can click and connect with people, and they get notifications when their application has been seen. Candidates know where every single checkpoint is now. We also inform them that we do blind CV screening, so they’re not at risk of being subjected to any biases based on their name or their gender, for example.

Another example is the opportunity candidates have to interview remotely if they want to. We’re a tech-first company and it’s important that we back that up in our interview process. If a candidate can't come into the office to interview, especially for the first round, we need to make sure they have access to the process remotely as well, without slowing it down in any way. So, we utilise all the tools that we have in order for the candidate to have a really smooth experience.

Do you think this use of tech helps communicate the company’s identity?

We are a very youthful company, and I don't mean age-wise. I mean that there's a lot of youthful energy in the way the business is run. And since as a company we're always on the go, we’ve made sure we’re able to target mobile audiences as well. We’ve enabled a lot of useful features to make applying for jobs here easier. So, people can sync things to their LinkedIn, they can easily do applications on their phone on the train, whereas other businesses have these very long and often tedious, boring application processes. We’re able to reduce a lot of that friction, and I think that says a lot about us.

How do you feel about the use of AI in recruitment? Do you use it at all?

It's come with its challenges, but there’s so many useful applications of it. For one thing, it really helps to automate things. So, for example, candidate screening: when candidates are applying for jobs, they can compare their CV to the job spec and the AI will let them know how suitable they are for the role. Then there’s scheduling, where hiring managers can open their calendars to allow candidates to book in themselves, again just speeding up the process. In essence it’s a big project management tool that automates a lot of manual tasks.

We’ve also been using AI to see how people align with our values. We’ll feed an application through the AI and it’ll come back with a surprisingly genuine assessment based on how they’ve answered our questions.

The downside, however, is that it struggles to detect soft skills. It may be able to tell if an applicant is qualified for the job, but do they have the right character? Do they have interpersonal skills? How do they work in a team? You simply can’t train an AI tool to do that for you, you have to assess it yourself.

You also have to be very wary around DEI. We, of course, want to foster a diverse, multicultural and multidimensional business. But we all have some bias in some way, and if you aren’t careful to recognise what those biases are, they can end up affecting the way the AI behaves. Generally, you’ll start to hire the same people every time and AI will perpetuate the problem. Certain demographics can get overlooked when the AI doesn't necessarily pick up on those nuances. So, for us, we've tried not to use that side of it so much; we’re doing things much more manually.

Have you had any problems with candidates using AI in their applications?

It is a problem, but not because they use AI. We use AI tools, of course, and teams often use AI to create content for job specs, for example. So, it would be unfair to say candidates can't use it. The difficulty is in determining what’s genuine, being able to decipher who’s used an AI as a template versus who’s had ChatGPT write their application verbatim. How much of their own skill are we seeing? We’ve found sometimes candidates will write these elaborate applications, but once it comes to the interview, they’ll be unable to actually justify what they've written. They’ll give verbal answers that conflict with what they’ve told us in their application, or even forget what it is they supposedly wrote.

So that is a big problem. But, it's the technology now. People are using it. If we can use it, candidates can use it. I would say to them, embrace the tool, but first write something in your own words, have some creative flare with it. Then, you’ll be able to back up whatever you’ve written when you're actually in an interview. I suppose it’s about balance.

What developments in the recruitment space are you most excited about?

I think I'm most excited about technology bringing in a more holistic view on recruitment. Some of these tools that are emerging have begun allowing people who perhaps don't necessarily have a degree or a more conventional employment background to get into the market. In some cases, a person’s work history communicates just the same experience and competency as a degree, and these tools are starting to recognise that. It just opens up a flood of potential applicants. Requirements aren’t so set in stone anymore. You don’t have to have 5 years’ experience in this or that; sometimes the experience you already have is equivalent. It means that we can be more diverse and open-minded when it comes to our candidate pool, while making everything a bit fairer.

Other tools help you to personalise your interviews based on someone’s work history; so, if one person has had 5 years in sales, and one has had 5 years in education, you’re able to provide questions that align to each of them, that they each can resonate with, rather than a one-size-fits-all set of questions. Again, that makes it more accessible, not just for people who are of different backgrounds, but also people who are neurodivergent, people with disabilities, or people who took a career break. It just makes it more fair.

What’s the biggest challenge in recruitment right now, and how might tech help?

I think the hardest part is how competitive the market is, and how unclear it is. There's some good candidates out there, but there's also really good technology. How do you identify good candidates? Is a good application down to their skills, or the technology they’ve used to apply? Should the competency and initiative to use that technology factor as a skill in and of itself?

Secondly, people’s expectations are changing. They want more flexibility in their work, which is fair. It’s all about getting your employer brand to the 21st century, really. It's difficult trying to resonate with everybody. Some businesses do it incredibly well – Monzo, for example, has an ability to captivate such a wide audience. But, someone more old school will struggle to attract certain types of talent. You’ve got to find that nice middle ground, and it’s tricky; we want to offer applicants what they want without overselling things and mismanaging expectations.

But, in a competitive market such as this, some companies will simply say whatever someone wants to hear. It can be daunting. So, we instead try to make the process as smooth as it can be early on, reducing that friction to make the application itself easy and engaging. That way you can give candidates a good experience and improve your employer brand whilst remaining true to the company’s identity.

Conclusion

Technology is, as ever, a tool to be used responsibly and wisely. It can make a lot of our tasks much easier and much quicker, and its potential developments are incredibly exciting. But, as we’ve seen in our conversation with Nnenna, talent professionals have to be careful not to allow it to take over too much of the human.

We’re incredibly grateful to Nnenna for taking the time to speak with us. Her insights have given us an invaluable perspective into the world of recruitment, which will only help us to shape HR Technologies UK 2025 into the best show it can possibly be.

For more updates about the world of HR and recruitment, ensure you subscribe to our monthly newsletter. And don’t forget to register your interest in attending the show in April!