Paul Phillips
Global Head of Talent Acquisition, Onboarding, and Business HR
Avanade
Episode 80
Unlocking Talent: How Proactive HR & AI Drive Impact in a Fast Market
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleAugust 4, 2025 · 19:06
Thesis
“Proactive talent creation, strategic leveraging of AI in HR, and a deep focus on candidate experience are essential for navigating a fast-paced talent market, achieving diversity goals, and driving measurable business impact.”
Show notes
Summary
In this conversation, Paul Phillips discusses his extensive experience in talent acquisition and HR transformation, particularly at Avanade. He emphasizes the importance of building a talent pipeline, focusing on diversity, and leveraging AI to enhance recruitment processes.
Paul shares insights on the challenges of hiring in Japan, the significance of innovative learning approaches, and the impact of effective communication on candidate engagement. He concludes with reflections on productivity gains and the journey towards winning multiple awards for their recruitment strategies.
Takeaways
- The market is fast-paced, requiring innovative talent strategies.
- Reskilling is essential, with 50% of employees needing it by 2030.
- Creating a talent pipeline can enhance diversity and inclusion.
- AI can significantly improve recruitment efficiency and candidate engagement.
- Effective communication is crucial for candidate satisfaction.
- Diversity hiring in Japan requires unique strategies and approaches.
- Innovative learning methods can shift internal mindsets positively.
- Productivity gains can be reinvested into enhancing the candidate experience.
- Winning awards reflects the success of strategic HR initiatives.
- Staying true to organizational goals is vital amidst changing trends.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Talent Acquisition and HR Transformation
01:58 Building a Talent Pipeline and Diversity Goals
04:25 Leveraging AI in Talent Acquisition
07:23 Challenges in Hiring and Gender Parity in Japan
09:53 Innovative Learning Approaches and Internal Mindset Shifts
11:44 Improving Candidate Engagement and Communication
15:09 Productivity Gains and Award-Winning Strategies
What you'll take away
- 1In a fast-paced market with skill shortages, proactively creating your own talent pipeline through initiatives like an academy can both meet talent needs and boost diversity.
- 2AI tools can decouple productivity from people, reducing time-to-hire (e.g., by 7 days for a $35M revenue impact) and simultaneously enhancing candidate communication and matching for a better experience.
- 3Reinvest productivity gains from AI tools into the human experience by allowing teams to spend more time on high-value interactions with candidates and hiring managers.
- 4Utilize independent candidate experience surveys (like Candi Awards) to identify pain points and leverage AI for improved communication and matching to significantly uplift engagement scores.
- 5Proactive talent creation, especially for non-traditional profiles, helps shift internal mindsets about who is qualified for specific roles, fostering a more inclusive organizational culture.
What most organizations get wrong
- •AI was a way in which I could decouple productivity and people for the first time at Avanade, indicating a fundamental shift in work structure rather than just automation.
- •How do you take that productivity gain [from AI] and invest it into the human experience? - pushing back against the common assumption that productivity gains solely lead to cost cutting or headcount reduction.
In Paul's words
“we needed to do something different. We couldn't just go out and hire the types of talent that we always needed and wanted on a global basis. And so we decided to actually start creating our own talent pipeline. And we did this through introducing the Avanade Academy.”
Highlights the necessity of internal talent development in a competitive market with skill shortages.
“that means that I was able to generate $35 million of additional revenue through reducing our time to hire by 7 days. It was the easiest business case to get signed off by the CFO for sure.”
Provides a powerful, quantifiable business case for HR tech investment, directly linking HR metrics to revenue.
“But in addition to just numbers, it really kind of helped shift some of the internal mindsets around who is qualified for tech roles. And it's really encouraged leaders to think more broad about more inclusive profiles on an ongoing basis.”
Emphasizes the cultural and mindset shift benefits of diversity initiatives beyond just meeting numerical targets.
“But what does that create? It creates an opportunity for our recruiting team to spend more time with our candidates. It's more time with our hiring managers, more time with our interviewers in terms of prepping them for the interviews. And so it's about how you sometimes utilize that that productivity gain, not just from a reduction in headcount, but how do you take that productivity gain and invest it into the human experience?”
Offers a strategic perspective on leveraging AI's efficiency to enhance human interaction and overall experience.
“I would say don't chase your pets. Chase your passions. I feel sometimes we get dazzled by the new shiny ball that comes into, into view, and we kind of sometimes lose sight of what's really important to our organizations on a more medium to long-term basis. And so my guidance or advice would be, you know, stick to what you truly believe in.”
Provides high-level strategic advice about maintaining focus on core organizational goals amidst distractions.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Difficulty hiring niche tech talent in fast-paced markets, especially in regions with low attrition and strong brand loyalty (e.g., Japan for Microsoft stack skills).
- •Challenges in demonstrating clear ROI for learning and development investments to business stakeholders and CFOs.
- •Resistance to AI adoption in HR due to employee fears of job displacement or discomfort with change.
- •Poor candidate experience, particularly slow or no communication to unsuccessful candidates, leading to negative employer brand perception.
- •Time-consuming, inconsistent, and potentially biased manual processes for HR tasks like creating job postings.
- •Struggling to achieve diversity hiring goals in underrepresented demographics within the tech sector (e.g., female talent in Japan).
- •The need for HR to clearly correlate its initiatives (e.g., L&D, candidate experience) with direct business needs and revenue generation.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
Paul Phillips is the Global Head of Talent Acquisition, Onboarding and Business HR
Interviewing Paul Phillips, Head of Talent Acquisition, Onboarding,
Avanade created the Create pillar to help attract, develop and retain talent
Creating a Talent Pipeline with the Avanade Academy
Avanade leveraged AI to improve productivity and time to stream metrics
How Did We Integrate AI into Our HR Processes?
Avanade Academy helps bring in non-traditional tech talent to Microsoft
The Avanade Academy's Impact in Japan
Avanade uses AI to improve candidate experience rather than just focusing on cost cuts
Avanade's Candidate Engagement Strategy
A second AI tool that we've also introduced, was a job posting tool
AI Boosts Recruitment
Paul, what parting advice would you like to share with our community
Paul Walsh on the Built by People Podcast
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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