A Conversation with Krystal Hicks, Founder & Career Strategist at JOBTALK
Since 2008, Krystal worked in various areas of the employment sector, including staffing, career counseling, and corporate recruiting. She likes to say “Jobs are my job.” She remembers working at UNH in Career Services, and she would have parents calling her saying, “You helped my kid find a job in their field recently, and I was wondering… could you take a look at my resume?” She hated not being able to help people due to a lack of time/bandwidth on her part, or sometimes a conflict of interest dictated by her employer. After years of having to say “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she knew she would eventually open her own practice in order to assist more people. Years later, in the summer of 2018, her practice, JOBTALK was born. A few months later, she left the corporate recruiting world and took on JOBTALK full-time.
She does this work because she loves it, and because she has seen time and time again how even the tiniest course corrections in someone’s process can make all the difference in their search. Launching JOBTALK was about finally stepping into the driver’s seat and being able to leverage her skills and experience to benefit her community and clients in a more direct and meaningful way… and on her own terms.
In her spare time, she loves staying close to her UNH-roots, and still teaches a class there titled “College to Career: How to stand out in today’s job market.” She also loves helping with different professional development events in the community, social justice and racial equity initiatives, and inclusive workplace training programs that help her community and businesses thrive.
So now, here we are, 4 years and 400 clients last year. She has clients all over the world but the majority sit in the U.S. She explained that she conducts mostly virtual sessions and most of her clients are job seekers in transition. Krystal explained that she helps college students up to C Suite Executives.
I asked her about some hot trends in staffing in our current marketplace and she shared, “I think cover letters are going away.” She has even seen this request in job postings. She went on to say, “Every candidate is getting sent the same questions. Hiring managers are starting to provide more equity and this is also helping to not delay the hiring process.”
She also explained, “Another hiring trend I am seeing is that companies are compensating people for presentations and assessments.”
When I asked her about some of the challenges in this talent market, she explained, “low unemployment and confidential job searchers….and I also think learning how to be that great fit AND know how to stand apart from competition.”
Krystal really helps job seekers to design their hiring processes- resumes, how to approach search, sustainable processes/practices, etc.
Lastly, I had to ask about AI. Krystal then shared, “It is so fascinating. We are all trying to learn it. ChatGPT has been used to put together cover letters. Candidates have taken job descriptions and put them into AI and used the questions to formulate their answers. Bad interviewing and uneducated interviewers are going to be in trouble. Moving forward, it will need to be about behavioral interviewing styles. Employers will have to get more savvy on the back end. Employers are using AI to draft better job descriptions and create better internet sites. It has a place in the process and it will be about navigating how to craft better prompts for AI. I wrote it the other day to draft a press release for a non-profit. I am here for it! We need to learn how to navigate it for sure.”
Thank you for sharing your expertise with us Krystal!
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