INBOX INSIGHTS, July 10, 2024: Developing a Sustainable AI Integration Strategy, Ghost Jobs - Trust Insights Marketing Analytics Consulting

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Developing a Sustainable AI Integration Strategy

Well, hey there!

Let’s chat about a topic that’s been buzzing around boardrooms and strategy meetings: integrating AI into your business. AI has transformative potential, but the real challenge lies in shifting from short-term wins to a sustainable, long-term strategy.

Many businesses fall into the trap of short-term thinking when integrating AI; they want instant gratification. It’s tempting to chase quick wins without considering the long-term implications. “That’s a problem for another day,” and then, lo and behold, that day is here.

Let’s use the Trust Insights 5P Framework to walk through this in a more pragmatic way: Purpose, People, Process, Platform, and Performance. This framework offers a structured approach to ensure that your AI strategy is not only robust, but also sustainable and adaptable.

Purpose

Start with why—always. This is the key to your success with any initiative. You will need your teams to get on board, and they will want to know why you’re asking. “Purpose” in AI integration means having a clear, aligned goal that supports your business objectives. Think of it as the foundation of your strategy—without a solid purpose, efforts can become scattered and ineffective.

To solve the right problems with AI, you need to dig deep: clearly define the problem you’re aiming to solve to avoid addressing symptoms rather than root causes. Don’t start with AI as the solution. Clearly state your business problems and why they’re problems. Are you trying to increase revenue? Are you wanting to find efficiencies? Do you need to cut costs?

People

People are at the heart of any initiative. Once you know your purpose, you want to identify key stakeholders and team members. If this is a top-down business strategy where you’re wanting to integrate AI throughout, every single person in your company is involved. You’re talking about a culture shift. You’re undergoing essentially a digital transformation. Yes, it pained me to use that term, but it’s not incorrect. AI integration isn’t just a tech project; it’s an initiative requiring cross-departmental collaboration. You need everyone on board for AI integration to be successful.

How do you get people to understand their role?

This is where I like to bust out user stories. A user story is a simple, three-part sentence:

“As a [persona], I [want to], so [that].”

Your goal is to get a user story from each and every person in your company, anchored to your purpose. Your purpose is the “so that”. So that, “we can increase our revenue”. What these user stories tell you is more about the needs of each person. It is also a chance for everyone to have a voice and be heard. You can then compile all the user stories you have collected and move on to how you’re going to approach AI integration.

Process

Process is your “how”. And sadly, this step (aside from people) is most often skipped. Why? Because it takes patience to walk through each step and document what you’re doing. Sure, you can use tools that help with this, but it still needs to be done. Too often, we’re moving quickly, we get excited, and then we do something. When we’re showing the outcome, people will naturally ask, “how did you do it?” If your response is, “I don’t know” or “I can’t remember,” your chances of scalability and sustainability are zero. Document your process. You can start with a small proof of concept to demonstrate how valuable documentation can be. Use this step to build out training materials. When people see a clear direction, they are more likely to participate. Set them up for success by developing your processes. Develop a repeatable and scalable process for AI integration. Start with a pilot project to test and refine your approach before full-scale implementation.

Platform

I’ve talked about people and process being the most skipped steps. Platform is the step that too many people immediately jump to. “I found this great tool, let’s use it!” I’m asking, nay, begging you to not lead with the platform. Why? When you choose the tool first, you get locked into only what the tool can do, not the problems you’re trying to solve. When building a business strategy around AI integration, tool selection should be the last thing you consider. After talking to your people and mapping out a process, then evaluate tools.

Obviously, you want to pick tools that fit your business needs. But, also consider scalability, security, and interoperability when evaluating options. This is where we hark back to cross-functional collaboration. Make sure your IT, Dev, and other technical teams have done user stories so that their needs are represented in the tools. You might also want to extend the selection committee to include members across all teams in your organization.

Some questions to consider when selecting a new tool for your stack:

Do we have the existing infrastructure to support this tool, or do we have to build it?
Do we have the people to set up and maintain these tools?
Do we know how secure our data will be? Performance

And now, for the grand finale! Any effort you undertake should be measurable, and that measurement should tie back to your purpose. If your purpose was “to increase revenue,” that is your measure of success.

To make your performance more actionable, set milestones that you want to hit. Make sure you’re tracking and reviewing your progress regularly. The metrics to track should come from your KPI (Key Performance Indicator) map. These metrics should all tie back to your overall business goal, your purpose.

For example, if your purpose is to increase revenue, you’ll want to track activities that generate revenue. As you drill down, you’ll want to tie those activities to ones that you executed using AI. While you’re integrating AI, the best way to see if AI is effective is to conduct an A/B test. This means running a test side by side with efforts that do not use AI and efforts that do. Your goal is to understand whether using AI is resulting in more revenue or not.

So. Use the 5P Framework. Slow down. Be clear on your purpose. Talk to your people. Develop your processes. THEN, choose an AI tool (or set of tools) to integrate into your business. Measure your progress.

Quick plug: Trust Insights can help you do this audit. Give us a shout if you want to talk!

How are you integrating AI as a sustainable strategy? Reach out and tell me, or come join the conversation in our Free Slack Group, Analytics for Marketers.

– Katie Robbert, CEO

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In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss the crisis of trust in institutions and what it means for your marketing. Learn why Gen Z gravitates toward individual influencers and away from brands. Discover how to adapt your marketing to include influencers, even if you’re not a Fortune 100 company. You’ll also learn how to mitigate the risks associated with building a marketing platform around an individual, such as using joint ventures with clear ownership and performance metrics.

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In this week’s Data Diaries, it’s the start of a new quarter, and that always means changes in the hiring market. However, this week let’s tackle a specific phenomenon that’s really unpleasant: ghost jobs.

What is a ghost job? It’s any job opening that an employer has no intention of filling. In a survey of 101 articles on the topic, I had Google Gemini surface the highlights:

Prevalence Estimates:

40% of Companies: A 2024 Resume Builder survey of 650 hiring managers found that 40% of companies admitted to posting a fake job listing. (Source: CBS News)
43% of Managers: A Clarify Capital survey of over 1,000 hiring managers revealed that 43% admitted to posting ghost jobs. (Source: The Epoch Times)
68% of Listings Active Over 30 Days: A Forbes article cites a study (without specific sourcing) indicating 68% of hiring managers keep job postings active for over 30 days, with 1 in 10 extending them for over 6 months. (Source: Forbes)
1 in 2 Job Postings Don’t Result in a Hire: Analysis from Revelio Labs, a workforce intelligence firm, suggests that currently 1 in 2 job postings don’t lead to a hire, a significant increase from 1 in 5 in 2018. (Source: NPR)
Over Half of US Jobs Unfilled in 2023: A recruitment expert quoted in a 9Now article states that over half of jobs advertised in the US in 2023 were not filled. (Source: 9Now)

Additional Data Points:

1.8 Million LinkedIn Jobs Over a Month Old: NBC News reported that over 1.8 million jobs on LinkedIn had been posted for at least a month, indicating many were likely inactive. (Source: NBC News)
73% of Job Seekers Encountered Ghost Jobs: A Business Standard survey found that 73% of over 1,000 respondents had experienced a ghost job at least once. (Source: Money Digest)

Prompting Gemini to explore the data more, I asked why this is occurring:

Reasons for Ghost Jobs:

Talent Pooling: Companies use these postings to collect resumes and build a database of potential candidates for future openings. (Source: Forbes)
Employer Branding: Some firms use ghost jobs to project an image of growth and attract investors or potential employees, even if they aren’t actively expanding. (Source: TechAcute, Source: Forbes)
Employee Motivation: Some employers post fake job ads to make existing employees feel pressured and work harder, believing they could be easily replaced. (Source: CBS News)
Tax Write-Offs: Some companies might use ghost job postings to take advantage of tax deductions for recruitment expenses. (Source: Money Digest)

Thanks, AI. Okay, let’s put our human hats back on. What does all this mean? What should we do about it?

For job seekers in particular, it means an uphill slog. When 1 out of 2 jobs posted isn’t real, it effectively means doubling the number of job applications you submit because half of them aren’t going to pan out.

A couple of things stood out from all the data and analysis. First, freshness counts. Treat job listings like fruit – go for the freshest first, and apply in descending order of freshness.

Second, job listings logically should scale with company size. It’s perfectly sensible for a company like Novartis to have 1,700 open positions, with a global workforce of 76,000 people. It’s not sensible at all for a company like Trust Insights to have 1,700 job positions with a global workforce of 4. That should set off a red flag.

Last but certainly not least, this reinforces the vital importance of personal connections. People on the inside in a company can connect you with jobs and hiring managers, or at the very least tell you if a job isn’t real, saving you time. Leverage the power of your network – and no matter your employment status, your network is always a wise investment of time and effort.

Disclosure: Not that I didn’t make it obvious, but the bullet lists in this section were generated by Google Gemini, an AI language model.

Here’s a roundup of who’s hiring, based on positions shared in the Analytics for Marketers Slack group and other communities.

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