Employer Insights Archives

It’s hard to avoid the buzz around artificial intelligence these days, and unlike some fads that have come and gone over the years, there’s good reason to take notice of this one. Marketing and communications teams are amongst those who have the most to gain from these technologies, thanks to their immediate, practical application for organizations today.

In this setting, AI makes more sense than ever: after all, why walk up the stairs in a tall building when you can take the elevator instead? In fact, McKinsey estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of roughly $3 trillion to the global economy, with 75% of that falling into marketing and other areas directly related to the customer experience.

Great Results, with a New Kind of Partnership

With customer expectations to receive personalized content, offers, and experiences constantly increasing, brands are feeling added pressure to ensure their content marketing is multi-channel, brand-compliant, and personalized down to the customer in the moment they need it. This means that more content is needed, and creating it at scale, across the channels, and in the multiple variants that are needed for hyper-personalization requires a level of effort that few if any marketing teams can produce on their own, let alone sustain. Thus, a new kind of partnership is needed.

The partnership we’re referring to, of course, is one between creative talent and their AI counterparts: the methods and platforms that are the toolset of the creative talent of tomorrow. This partnership leads to effective results, while saving copious amounts of time and focusing your creative talent on the work that matters. According to Gartner, 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be personalized using generative AI tools by 2025, up from less than 2% in 2022.

Better ideas, More Quickly

With remote and hybrid work, plus an increased demand on marketers, it can be hard to schedule in-depth brainstorming sessions for every new initiative that “needed to launch yesterday.” Smart brands are getting great concepts and ideas more quickly by combining human and AI brainstorming.

Generative AI is great at building on starting points provided by humans, and skilled creatives who understand how to prompt artificial intelligence-based tools effectively can supercharge the idea generation process with this AI-human hybrid method. When working with well-crafted prompts, AI can generate a multitude of potential ideas that creative teams can edit and build upon, eliminating any that may not be as relevant.

Scaling to the Occasion

If you operate on multiple marketing channels, have several audience segments, conduct business in several geographies, and/or have other demands that require content variations, you know the scaling issues that come with creating content for even the most routine campaigns. And when it comes to hyper-personalizing content down to the individual customer level, even the largest marketing department can quickly become overloaded.

Take this for instance: If an apparel retailer that sells several product lines on its multi-channel marketing platforms to different audiences in more than one geography creates a targeted campaign, they’ll need to create the following:

Multiple variants of copy and materials for each combination of product (e.g., shoes, shirts, jackets, etc.) and audience (e.g., gender, age, HHI, etc.)
Resized and reformatted the materials for each marketing channel (e.g., social media platforms, email, website, mobile app, etc.)
Unique country/language variations for each geography (e.g., US English, UK English, Spanish, German, etc.)

Keep in mind that this doesn’t account for personalized content that is tailored to the individual. This type of hyper-personalization can build on the above and tailor content to the individual based on things like:

Recent purchase behavior and frequency of purchases
Specific demographic information
Customer loyalty information

All of this adds up to many variations of content to be created. Rest assured, though, generative AI is up to the task of scaling content creation to meet customer expectations for personalized content and experiences.

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Takeaway

Maximizing the results of generative AI with the right tools and methods, piloted by skilled prompt engineers and creative talent, means forming a new kind of partnership between humans and artificial intelligence — and it does not require any sacrifices on the outcomes you should expect either.

For organizations that are unsure of where to start, bringing in freelance experts to help with strategy and setup of an AI strategy can accelerate this shift. Whether it’s automation of text content variations or something more advanced, having the right team to set up a personalization strategy can take a generic-feeling marketing campaign and make it compelling and increase conversions.

Our AI Insights blog series continues, exploring what it truly means to effectively personalize content at scale with generative AI. Continue reading here!

It’s been a tough year for the tech industry. Nearly 200,000 employees from about 700 tech companies have been laid off, glutting the market with top-tier talent, now available at a potentially reduced cost. Companies are at a turning point, and they know it.

According to a survey conducted by Blind, 56% of tech workers would take lower or equal pay when accepting a comparable or lower salary for a new position, with 45% of respondents citing current job market conditions as their rationale. While tech workers may be willing to lower salary expectations, the flip side is that there’s a “newly heightened emphasis on non-monetary benefits like career growth, work-life balance, and company culture,” according to the Blind survey.

Yes, it’s been a tough year for tech, but the good news is that things may not be so bad — one door closes and another opens. While the lay of the tech job market is more complex than it once was, opportunity is still knocking — just in different ways than before.

While the layoff headwinds from earlier in the year are still being felt, hiring is still happening, though the employment structure has increasingly shifted from classic full-time opportunities to more project-based ones.

Role-based versus Project-based — The Tech Paradigm Is Shifting

Traditionally, most tech jobs have been full-time “roles,” where career growth is characterized by leapfrogging from one role up the rung to the next in search of better-paying and more rewarding opportunities. But in today’s recruiting world, particularly in tech, a new model is gaining traction: project-based work, where workers focus on one specific project for a number of weeks or months until it’s finished.

The emergence of two distinct models — role-based and project-based — epitomizes a shift in the structure of tech work that impacts both employers and employees. For jobseekers and hiring managers, understanding which model works best is critical to getting the job done right, as well as in a way that aligns with work style and career goals.

Increasingly, tech companies are looking at their budgets through a more project-based lens instead of focusing on full-time headcount like they traditionally have, allocating budgets for discrete projects instead of for roles. It’s too early to tell if the future of tech jobs will be role-based or project-based, but things are fast evolving. Each approach has pluses and minuses for all involved, but from the tech employer side, recasting work into discrete projects can be economically beneficial. And for some workers, it may be, as well.

Project-Based Work in Tech: Is It the Beginning of a New Era?

The pandemic accelerated an increased demand for flexibility by workers. Project-based work is flexible by nature, which may help explain its rise in popularity with tech workers. If a project fails, finding a new one is more straightforward than getting an entirely new full-time role. Many tech workers and executives feel burned out, are anxious about layoffs, and want opportunities that offer more flexibility, more fun, and more choice about what they work on.

And it works for employers as well. Suppose your company is launching a new product or needs a new strategic direction or restructuring; looking for project-based talent engagement may be an innovative, forward-thinking solution.

A project-based approach makes companies nimbler, allowing for more optimized adaptation to fast-changing market shifts. An enduring reality is that despite market shifts, competition for tech talent remains tight, and many tech companies are still hiring for full-time roles — just more slowly, with project-based opportunities filling in for what was once a more traditional full-time hire.

An intelligent approach may be to embrace a middle way, by taking the best components of each employment model and allowing companies to fine-tune what will best work for them today. Interestingly, this shift toward more project-based work has also infiltrated the C-Suite with the rise of fractional executives.

The Rise of the Fractional Executive

Let’s say you need a top-tier, deeply experienced executive for your team — a CEO, CMO, or CCO — but don’t have the capital to craft a compelling comp package to get someone like that to come on board full-time. Say hello to the world of fractional executives, experienced professionals who serve in a strategic capacity for a company — but in a project-based or part-time way. They might work a few days a week or perhaps just a few days a month — all based on the organization’s needs.

While the concept may seem foreign when taken to the upper echelons of management, it’s proving to be a game-changer for many businesses, who can now access top-level, seasoned leaders that would otherwise be out of reach. Here are some top reasons why going fractional may be shrewd.

Budget Conscious — Executive comp packages can be sizeable and out of reach for start-ups or companies needing restructuring. Going fractional lets companies get the benefit of top-tier business leaders without the sky-high cost of compensating them for full-time engagement.
Dial engagement up or down as needed — Companies can let business needs guide whether they ramp fractional executives’ engagement up or down. If they need support during a product launch, they’re there. But companies can ramp down their time if they need less help during less busy times. Fractional executives can mold themselves to what is required.
Access to best-in-class expertise — You can access the wealth of knowledge these seasoned industry experts bring, gaining invaluable insights that can quickly catapult your business forward.
Out-of-the-box thinking — Fractional executives are not mired in the day-to-day details or internal political struggles, which lets them bring a fresh perspective to the table while letting them focus on the big picture and strategic growth initiatives. Fractional is a significant paradigm shift across the board for companies of all sizes — start-ups can leverage top-tier expertise without breaking the bank, and larger organizations can harness fractional execs for specific strategic initiatives and high-impact projects.

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Takeaway

The traditional 9-to-5 employment model is constantly changing, and the rise of project-based engagements is a testament to this ever-changing environment. The beauty of thinking more project-based or fractional, for whatever level of worker, is versatility, which can benefit many types of businesses — especially in tech. If you think your company could benefit from a more project-based approach, Creative Circle’s offers a full suite of solutions that can help and a top-notch line-up of creatives and technologists to make the magic happen.

The best way to make work “work” better is to capitalize on your people’s strengths, building a company that lets them thrive while giving employers the flexibility to adapt to a fast-changing world in the most cohesive way possible. Here’s to the power of change!

GET IN TOUCH

Algorithms, automation, and machine learning are quickly becoming entrenched in today’s recruitment process. According to a recent survey, at least 99% of all Fortune 500 companies are now using AI tools to screen candidates during their hiring process.

Recruiters and hiring managers are using AI to help sort through vast quantities of applications and skim the cream off the top of the applicant pool, often using AI technology to “parse” resumes to streamline the hiring process. Resume parsers extract, analyze, and store resume data, which is then categorized, sorted, and searched via an automated process to assist a very human hiring manager or recruiter. Here are some tips that make a resume parser-friendly:

Brevity wins the game — think bullets over paragraphs
Keep the design simple — use a standard font, include your name in the file name, and nix the headers and footers
No infographics, tables, or word art
Keywords are key — research the role and cross-reference skills from past jobs that are in line with what is in the job description

By filtering out resumes that don’t have the necessary criteria, parsing software driven by AI can save countless hours that it would otherwise take to read through each application manually and has been largely adopted across industries. But just as hiring managers have leveraged AI to make their jobs easier, candidates have similarly gotten on the AI bandwagon, using the technology to quickly craft resumes and cover letters.

Like It or Not, Candidates Are Using AI, Too

Hiring managers, however, are not the only ones using AI to get a leg up in the hiring game — candidates have caught on to this time-saver and are increasingly using generative AI apps like ChatGPT to ramp up their resumes. Savvy job seekers know that customizing their resume to match a job posting gives them a leg up in the initial screening process — which can be tedious and time-consuming. AI resume-builders, however, promise fast and easy CV customization. It’s no surprise that the adoption of generative AI for resume-building is on the rise.

Results from a poll of more than 1,000 job seekers who had used ChatGPT in their job search by ResumeBuilder.com found that:

Nearly half of those surveyed — 46% — said that they had used ChatGPT to write their resumes or cover letters.
70% shared that they had a better response rate when they used AI-generated materials.
40% believe that their interviewers were not aware that they had used ChatGPT to craft their job application materials.
Just 11% said they were turned down for a job because they’d used ChatGPT.

The potential risks are outweighed by the time-saving benefits for most job seekers, with 88% of those surveyed saying that they’re “somewhat” (41%) or “highly” (47%) likely to keep using ChatGPT to write their resumes and cover letters in the future.

Screening Resumes Is Now More Involved than Ever

Just as AI has inculcated itself into hiring managers’ toolkits, it is increasingly becoming a candidate tool, too. While we like to think that most candidates are honest when listing their skills and professional experience — as AI technology proliferates and expands in use, so do those who use it disingenuously.

Candidates who rely solely on AI to craft their resumes may end up with ones full of inaccurate information. And in a bizarre twist of tech fate, they in theory could even find themselves using the same exact resume as another candidate who used the same AI tool to craft theirs.

As AI ramps up for hiring managers and job applicants, it has become even more critical to develop innovative screening strategies to ensure that the person on paper matches the abilities of the one in real life. Some simple ways to see if AI has overly doctored a resume include generic phrasing, repetitive language, and odd formatting. AI could be at play if the resume you receive has a markedly different writing style than the other application materials.

The good news is that some identification strategies can help you get the quality candidates you seek.

Here Are Some Smart Identification Strategies for Hiring Managers

While the game is changing, not all hope is lost. The hope is that after you interview a candidate, you’ve gained a sense of who they are. To ensure you get quality (and qualified) candidates, here are some smart strategies that can help.

Ask questions that are experience-based as part of your hiring process. To see if a candidate has the knowledge to succeed at your company, ask questions about their process for solving business problems specific to your industry.
Pay close attention to the skills section. While it’s a smart move to use the job description to guide what skills are highlighted, if a candidate’s skills are identical to the job description, however, with little deviation, it may be a sign that AI authored the resume and that the applicant did not refine it to reflect their true professional abilities.
Rev up your use of references. Be curious and take the time to contact all a candidate’s references. Take stock not just of the answers, but the tone in response to questions you ask. And perhaps look to see if there are any testimonials on a candidate’s LinkedIn page when vetting potential hires.
Carefully assess emails versus interview presentations. Listen for possible variances between what is written on a candidate’s application and what they share about their experience during the interview. Your goal is gauge how authentically the candidate has depicted their professional skills and background. If a resume shows stellar experience, but the person doesn’t seem to be familiar with the industry in the way you would imagine from the document — it can become quickly apparent that the author was ChatGPT or some other AI resume builder.
Cross-reference the job application with how the candidate is positioned on LinkedIn and other professional platforms. Be on the lookout for divergent narratives. If the story on LinkedIn is inconsistent with the experience listed on a candidate’s resume or does not match up with how they talk about their experience in an interview, it may indicate that some of their story was falsified with the help of AI. Take the time to compare materials and interactions to get the complete picture.
Go beyond resumes and cover letters to ensure that you hire qualified candidates. During the interview, make sure to ask questions about how the candidate might solve a real problem they may face in the role to gauge how ready they are to hit the ground running. For certain roles, sample projects and practical exercises can help you determine if a candidate can do the work that they say they can do.
AI resume screening tools are just one tool in the box. Resume screening is just one step in the hiring process — the value of this type of tool is to make sure that spam candidates who are not qualified are eliminated as quickly as possible, so hiring managers can focus on those with the skills and experience to succeed in the role. Please keep in mind that AI screening is a tool, not a total solution — it can speed up screening and reduce manual effort, but it’s just one part of the process. It’s critical to do your due diligence and spend time interviewing and vetting possible hires on a more personal level.

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Takeaway

Resume screening has always been a critical step in the hiring process, but the game has changed with the advent of AI. While existing tools can help separate the qualified from the unqualified candidates, it’s essential that you dive more deeply into a candidate’s skills and background to ensure that the potential hire you are considering has the experience and know-how listed on their resume.

Change is the only constant — hiring processes will keep evolving — and it’s essential that your company’s practices do, too. If you’re looking for guidance on how to best leverage the power of AI and talent, Creative Circle can help keep you ahead of the curve.

The ability to opt out of ads changed the advertising game and set the stage for a new era of branded streaming content—here’s why. The rise of new digital technologies that let audiences ixnay the ads—from DVRs to cable networks and then the internet—made it infinitely more challenging for brands to buy fame (aka get ROI from their paid TV advertising). Getting a brand noticed meant competing in the same arena as the entertainment companies—which meant that brands had to up the ante.

According to Harvard Business Review, “BMW pioneered the practice of creating short films for the internet. Soon corporations were hiring top film directors (Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Wes Anderson, David Lynch) and pushing for ever-more-spectacular special effects and production values.” These nascent digital efforts led brands to believe that delivering Hollywood-level entertainment content at the speed of the internet would garner huge, engaged audiences around their brands. “Thus was born the great push toward branded content.”

A Brief History of the Golden Bull

Red Bull is hands-down one of the most acclaimed branded-content success stories—they transcended being a single-product energy drink company into a world-renowned multihyphenate brand with a particular focus on extreme and alternative sports—we’re talking TV, YouTube channel, magazine publications, radio, live events, and high-end documentary films. They’re doing it ALL.

Dietrich Mateschitz founded Red Bull in the mid-1980s, taking inspiration from functional energy drinks he discovered in East Asia. The launch of Red Bull heralded the birth of a whole new drinks category—today, Red Bull has the largest market share of any energy drink product in the world and sold 11.58 billion cans in 2022. Welcome to the world of Red Bull!

Red Bull found their customers and audience early in the game—in 1988, they sponsored their first-ever sporting event, “The Red Bull Dolomitenmann,” known as one of the most challenging relay races in the world. And through that, discovered that extreme sports are fueled by adrenaline, and that adrenaline could be fueled by (cue drum roll)…Red Bull. They leveraged this first success into an empire built on branded content, which catapulted their brand into the stratosphere. And now, others are looking to replicate their success with their take on the branded content streaming game.

Enterprise Giant Enters the Streaming Branded Content Space

Sales enterprise software juggernaut Salesforce has just stepped into the branded content game in a big way with Salesforce+. The pandemic shifted the media landscape and how people consume content. The days of white papers in B2B settings had lost luster—it was time to pivot.

When asked how the idea to enter the branded content game arose, Colin Fleming, Salesforce’s Senior Vice President of Global Brand Marketing, shared that “…people watching Disney+, the people watching ESPN+, are the same people watching Salesforce content in a business setting, so why wouldn’t we follow that sort of direction? That’s really the genesis of this idea.” Salesforce’s goal was to provide opportunities for professionals to hear and learn from inspirational trailblazers in their field—and that people at multiple levels could have targeted content that would speak to where they are on their career journey.

Salesforce already amassed a library of original content, like Leading Through Change, The Inflection Point, and Connections; Salesforce execs took a long hard look at successes and viewer behavior before deciding to greenlight Salesforce+, their upstart, branded content strategy.

When asked who Salesforce+ is for, Fleming replied, “You’re going to see content within Salesforce about individuals that have gone from hairdresser to senior vice president; some incredibly impactful stories we think are really critical for us. You’re just going to hear people tell their authentic stories.”

FORTUNE Favors the Brave

FORTUNE decided to leverage its best-in-class business acumen and storytelling prowess by founding FORTUNE Brand Studio, dedicated to telling authentic, insights-led brand stories to influential global business audiences—focusing on streaming video, digital, and social. Their mission? To help brands make their business better by crafting purpose-driven content—tailored to their audiences—that’s delivered the right way. FORTUNE Brand Studio has fueled many businesses’ entrees into the streaming branded content space, working with Salesforce+, PayPal, Target, Boston Consulting Group, and more.

In partnership with Salesforce+, they produced a series called The Ecopreneurs, a docuseries in which the production team traveled worldwide to profile pioneering entrepreneurs leading the charge on climate action. Within the first month, the premiere episode had amassed over 3.3 million views on YouTube alone. The idea? Drive engaged audiences to the Salesforce+ platform, where there are long-form articles on climate issues, animated infographics detailing data and insights, and exclusive interviews with ecopreneurs highlighting the mission behind their companies.

With PayPal, FORTUNE Brand Studio produced a two-time Anthem Award-winning video focused on the company’s actions to close the racial wealth gap, where PayPal CEO, Dan Schulman, talks about PayPal’s commitment to creating structural changes to effectively fight racial inequality with the company’s partners, Samara Hernandez (founding partner of Chingona Ventures) and Bill Bynum (CEO of Hope Credit Union).

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Bottomline

Brands succeed when they break through culturally and generate cultural relevance. Digital media and technology have given rise not only to influential social networks—they have radically transformed how culture works. If you are looking to maximize your impact and ROI with branded streaming projects, having the right team can help ensure success. Creative Circle can provide streaming content specialists that can help your content reach more people and get maximum results.

About the author.

An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist—Karina writes, produces, and edits compelling content across multiple platforms—including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Yahoo News, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties and has spanned insight pieces on psychedelic toad medicine to forecasting the future of work to why sustainability needs to become more sustainable.

Hollywood is in flux. Once upon a time, movie stars themselves were the franchise or brand, but those days have softened away. With audiences less willing to seek out original films and newer adaptations, studios are leveraging nostalgia-hued intellectual property, packaged with robust co-branded collabs to craft movies and products that can sing soprano at the box office and cash register—and toys are leading the way.

This summer, it was almost impossible not to notice the hot pink posters signaling the release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie. The film is the Mattel doll’s live-action film debut and, coupled with the dizzying number of brand collaborations, captured the cultural zeitgeist as people of all ages rushed to post their best Barbie-inspired outfits on their social channels—TikTok videos featuring #barbiecore have had nearly 1 billion views.

In the history of Hollywood, 29 people have had the sole directing credit on a billion-dollar movie—28 men and one woman: Greta Gerwig. Barbie has made about $1.36 billion to date—the top-selling movie in Warner Bros.’s 100-year history, and the buzz that surrounded the film is no coincidence. Mattel’s Barbie division has spent nearly $100m on marketing this year, marking a major transformation of the company from a toymaker to an intellectual property-driven organization. The promotional Barbie buzz began over a year ago when an official image of Margot Robbie (the star of Barbie) was released by Warner Bros. at CinemaCon in April 2022, igniting the phenomenon that hit fever-pitch this summer.

From Pinkberry to PlayStation—brand collaborations gone wild

To promote the Barbie movie, Mattel partnered with over 100 brands and retailers on collaborations that span beauty, fast fashion, food, homewares, and more. And while brand collabs are nothing new, there’s something about the sheer number and zeal of Barbie-branded collabs that dropped this summer that is something to behold. Collaborations have been gaining popularity among brands as a way to access new customer bases, but now, there is a growing synergy for franchises, as well.

#Barbiecore began to gain momentum months before there was even a live-action trailer teaser and was bolstered in large part by brands pushing their Barbie collabs. From PlayStation controllers to sweet treats by Pinkberry to fast fashion collabs with Zara, GAP, Forever 21, and more, companies lined up to officially hitch their brands to Barbie, and in doing so, helped fuel the Barbie-fever that took the world by storm this summer—and is a look at how movies, merchandise, and brands are becoming entwining their fates.

Discoverability has become more fluid

Entertainment companies are looking to Mattel’s success in leveraging its IP with the Barbie movie, and the consensus is that leveraging branded consumer product collaboration is the key to fueling a sense of tribal fandom to keep consumers coming back for more. Historically, entertainment marketers saw franchise discovery as being more linear than they do today.

Once, the customer journey primarily began with a film’s release, continuing via in-home entertainment, followed by branded consumer products and (if successful) holiday sales. But today, franchise discovery is more fluid—with 68% of licensed product shoppers likely to purchase a product featuring IP in anticipation of a movie or series release and 78% likely to buy after watching the release, according to a 2022 Kantar and Amazon Ads study.

Consumer products are helping grow long-term fandoms and moneymaking opportunities by giving them multiple ways to engage with brands. “Consumers want more of the things they love,” Brian Robbins, the president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon, shared at a recent investor conference. “They want to see the movie, watch the show, read the book, wear the pajamas, use the toothpaste, ride the ride.” And some will buy the jammies before they see the flick. Welcome to the future.

It’s no secret that translating TV and movies into merch is a BIG business. Significant monetization from consumer products comes hand-in-hand with franchise development and helps establish a more long-lasting relationship, which is more lucrative for all involved. Retail sales of Disney’s licensed consumer products hit an estimated $56.2 billion in 2021, according to an estimate from License Global, while Warner Media and Warner Bros. made an estimated $15 billion—and streaming companies are moving in for their slice of the pie.

Streaming services are also muscling in on the action. Netflix and Hulu have debuted branded merch shops, and retailers like Walmart and Target are selling products tied to Netflix shows like Stranger Things. The days of sitting and waiting for a show to be successful are gone. Branded products give consumers multiple ways to engage with brands and help grow loyalty to the franchise.

Today’s media landscape has become more exciting than ever for fans. They can now engage with characters and stories beyond the traditional mediums of film and TV via podcasts, video games, in-person experiences, and more. The companies leading the charge are leveraging the power of fandom to drive engagement (and profit). If you’re looking to up your creative pitching game, reach out to us at Creative Circle—we’ll get you hitting home runs in no time soon.

About the author.

It’s that time of year: The September Surge has arrived, and it’s time to take full advantage of this golden opportunity. While September brings back-to-school vibes and fall transitions, it’s also the time when the business world comes alive with a substantial increase in hiring. Learn how you can seize this moment to level up your game during this major hiring period.

Understanding the September Surge

The Fiscal Year’s End:

September marks the grand finale of the fiscal year for countless organizations. It’s when leaders lock in budgets and set the stage for resource allocation, including new talent acquisition.

Seasonal Changes:

As summer gracefully bows out, businesses gear up for the bustling holiday season and the year-end hustle. This means they’re in need of extra support across various functions, from marketing to creative and beyond.

So, How Can Employers Adapt?

Review Your Budget:

Dive deep into your financial reservoirs and ensure you havethe resources to power your expansion with fresh talent this season, knowing competition will be fierce.

Streamline Recruitment:

Get ahead in the talent acquisition race by refining your recruitment processes. Collaborating with staffing experts can be an excellent way to easily tap into a vast pool of top-tier candidates during this busy hiring period.

Optimize Onboarding:

Craft a seamless onboarding experience that ushers all this new talent into your organization like VIPs. Elevate your employee retention game with a well-executed orientation process to help ensure a healthy return on investment.

And How Can Jobseekers Take Advantage?

Polish Your Resume:

Now is the time to give your resume a makeover that screams “hire me!” Showcase your skills and experiences to leave a lasting impression during a time when hiring managers are stretched thin.

Get Networking:

Embrace networking like a pro as the events season kicks off. Attend industry events, workshops, and virtual gatherings to connect with potential employers. It’s time to unlock doors through the power of connections.

Revamp Your Online Presence:

Elevate your online persona with relevant and compelling content. Ensure your LinkedIn and personal website radiate professionalism and are up to the minute. First impressions count, even in the digital realm — now more than ever.

Be Flexible:

Keep an open mind and embrace opportunities, even if they’re not exactly what you expected. They could be stepping stones to long-lasting success in your career journey.

This year, don’t just embrace the September Surge — own it! Whether you’re an employer or a jobseeker, it’s clear now is the perfect time to strike while the iron is hot. Let the September Surge propel your brand, career, or business to new heights.

It feels like over the last year, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning has exploded. AI and its impact has become the topic of so many discussions, from the role of AI in processing data and even diagnosing diseases in healthcare to playing a role in the historic writers strike still taking place. Our approaches to AI are often filled with apprehension—particularly when it comes to data, privacy, and creative ownership—but the fact of the matter is AI is here to stay and already plays a huge role in our day-to-day lives. AI is behind all those suggestions of videos you might like on social media. “Smart” products are constantly learning our behaviors to make our lives more comfortable. If you use face recognition to unlock your phone, that’s AI too.

AI will only continue to play a big role across industries, and the beauty industry is perfectly primed for an AI takeover. Before we nerd out over our new robot overlords, let’s note just how massive the beauty industry is. Beauty (which is broken down into makeup, skincare, hair care, and fragrance) is set to generate $580 billion by 2027 and AI within the beauty industry is already worth billions. Beauty’s hold on consumers is so bankable that, according to an anecdotal theory called the Lipstick Effect, in times of economic downturn, women and folks who typically purchase makeup will still spend money on small luxury cosmetics rather than other more expensive purchases.

E-commerce is now the fastest-growing channel in the beauty industry, making up over a fifth of the market and steadily rising. The market is more competitive than ever with the huge increase of smaller, direct-to-consumer business owners alike, but a lot of customers are satisfied with the makeup they have access to. According to a 2019 Ipsos survey, via Forbes, 80% of respondents agreed with the statement “My personal beauty and grooming needs are met by products I can buy today,” and 55% of respondents would rather stick to a brand they know over a new one they haven’t tried. But in light of the impact of social media and e-commerce’s rise, behaviors have shifted. A StyleSeat poll of 1000 respondents found that 89% of TikTok users surveyed, purchased a beauty product after seeing it on the app—despite the fact that 76% of all social media users surveyed don’t believe product recommendations from influencers are genuine.

So you have your giant legacy brands holding their ground. And you have a lot of up-and-coming small direct-to-consumer brands breaking in and finding their audiences to varying degrees of success. And AI is about to be a huge game changer for everyone across the board if they understand how to leverage it correctly.

Ease the process from heart to cart

AI at its best is all about overcoming consumer pain points in a thoughtful and engaging way. Shopping for beauty products can be complicated and overwhelming for customers; with a myriad of skin trends and endless information about ingredients used in the product, it can be a real art to engage a customer, understand their needs, inform them of a solution without overwhelming them, and make the sale. Other common pain points for beauty consumers include not having enough associates to help with in-person consulting and stock running low.

AI has the potential to convert these moments that might make a consumer give up into positive experiences. Behind the scenes, AI can help forecast demand and understand supply chain issues to ensure your product stock is stable and consistent. When it comes to direct interactions with customers online or even in person, having virtual assistants that can answer questions, make recommendations, and successfully troubleshoot with customers will make all the difference in maintaining customer engagement and loyalty.

Personalize personalize personalize

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been 6 years since Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty, successfully providing a wide and actually inclusive range of foundation shades to match every skin tone and proving once and for all that not only does everyone deserve to have makeup that works for them, but that you can make a couple of billion dollars off that reality.

At the heart of that spirit of inclusivity is personalization, ensuring that consumers can have a product that makes them feel like “This is for me.” In the same way that customers’ #1 goal with retail is finding the “right fit,” a top goal for beauty is helping consumers find exactly what works for them. Consumers know what they need and know what they like, and want to make those well-informed choices for themselves, and AI is an excellent tool in facilitating this. AI can be used to provide personalized and informative beauty suggestions, taking the customer’s skin type and tone, sustainability preferences, skincare and makeup regimen, and style into account. This can be done through diagnostic quizzes, or analyzing selfies to identify skin type and face shape.

For example, Shiseido’s groundbreaking products like the Skin Visualizer which measures “radiance, resilience and suppleness, and fine skin texture and smoothness of the skin” and Makeup Advisor allows customers to get an in-depth analysis of their skin and face, share what kind of beauty outcomes they’d like to have, and receive an extremely personalized menu of suggested beauty products.

Having personal and unique suggestions can result in a huge return on interest, upwards of 1500% according to ERM, a personalization software for retailers.

Try before you buy

Despite e-commerce being a huge part of the beauty industry, nothing can really replace going into a store to try on a product, whether it’s seeing how a certain moisturizer sits on the skin or trying to see which shade of plum actually works with your complexion. While AI may not (currently) be able to let you feel firsthand just how well a cream absorbs into your skin, it can definitely help you see what certain makeup products look like on your face. Companies like Sephora, Maybelline, L’Oreal and more are banking on virtual makeup try-on services. Having tech that allows customers to virtually “try on” products whether it’s makeup or different hair colors and styles engages customers in a fun and genuinely informative way, and can even help us overcome our own biases regarding beauty.

AI and equity

AI is fast becoming an essential tool in all aspects of our lives and is already playing a major role in the beauty industry. But it is far from perfect. AI does reflect biases embedded in the data it’s working with and this has unfortunate results, particularly when it comes to race. Facial recognition technology has been criticized for not accurately picking up on darker skin tones, and certain technologies have been found to perform better on men than women (a reflection of the lack of diversity in who is designing and creating these AI products). While these issues are being addressed, it’s important to be mindful of these realities and experiences and ensure that the AI being used is accessible to all consumers. Part of AI’s strengths is in providing nonjudgmental interactions and suggestions to customers based solely on data, so as to not perpetuate the limited beauty standards and judgmental exchanges that have kept customers from going into stores.

It’s of utmost importance that the technology being used can actually ensure that kind of equitable inclusivity, but once properly deployed and leveraged, AI will be essential to creating an experience that earns customer loyalty, and the possibilities will only expand from there.

About the author.
Sam Mani writes about work, creativity, wellness, and equity — when she’s not cooking, binging television, or annoying her cat.