Tom Larter On Merging Data And Stories To Create Aptitude Based Employment Opportunities

Tom Larter is a seasoned business leader with a passion for driving technological innovation and social impact across global markets.

A former Captain in the Australian Army, Tom had a distinguished 13-year military career, including serving in Afghanistan. In 2017, he transitioned to the private sector and became one of the early leaders at WithYouWithMe, one of the Asia Pacific’s fastest growing tech companies.

Today Tom is WithYouWithMe’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), where he works closely with government, business and industry to solve workforce challenges and make a positive social impact through creating career pathways for diverse communities, including veterans, military families, neurodivergent individuals and indigenous groups.

As CEO, Tom is responsible for overseeing WithYouWithMe’s day-to-day operations and driving its growth strategy. He works closely with leadership, employees and investors to embed innovation and deliver value to WithYouWithMe’s global customer base and 100,000 platform users.

Tom discusses how combining the power of technology with aptitude based testing has the potential to help organisations tap into deeper talent pools, and why data and storytelling are crucial tools for communicating your mission driven enterprises’ values.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your background and what led to your work in technology, leadership and social impact?

[Tom Larter] - I spent much of my career to date in the military as an army officer, and I loved that time. I think it was school in the military that put me onto the path of leadership. When it comes to the military, it’s probably more of a leadership environment than most people think it is, certainly people who aren't connected to the military.

You've got to collaborate on problems and build plans, but people must be bought into those plans because typically they're dangerous. People want to have lots of trust and involvement, but then you must go and execute on those plans by being decisive and confident.

People need to have a lot of trust in leaders. The military solidified my desire to want to stay in leadership type roles as I progressed through my career. In the corporate sector, I would argue it's even more difficult to be a leader, maybe not more dangerous than the military, but I would say it’s more difficult.

As a corporate leader, you have a much more diverse workforce with various motivations, skills and interests. You must corral people around a vision and strategy to keep them focused and excited.

I love that about leadership; it's why I've stayed in leadership roles and it’s why I'll continue to stay in leadership roles in the corporate sector. Now, how I ended up in technology was a bit of an accident!

I originally just wanted to just be in business; I loved being able to have an impact in the military. That's how I view my military career in the military, my underlying motivation was to help people. I wanted to get into business to find new ways to help people and create impact. In today's generation, you can do that through being a tech company, because technology provides a great vehicle for reach and scale.

I wouldn't describe myself as a technologist, I would describe myself as wanting to have impact and drive social good. Technology is a great way to do that in today's day and age.

As the CEO of WithYouWithMe, can you share more about this company's purpose and its activities in impact?

This company was founded in 2016. I joined the business early in 2017 as the third or fourth employee, and I've been with the company ever since. I had the pleasure of taking over from the founders 18 months ago as the CEO. I’m excited to be taking the business on its next journey.

WithYouWithMe's big 10+ year vision is to reshape the employment sector into a skills-based talent management ecosystem that values a person on their traits and ability to learn before looking at their experience. We believe if we can do this it will unlock broader talent pools and overcome massive global issues around access to work, social mobility, productivity and the skills deficit.

We cannot keep thinking recruiting talent will work at the rate at which jobs and skills are changing. We must start thinking about building talent, and that needs to be done across early, mid, and late careers. We've got to open broader talent pools, that's our big vision, and we're achieving that in two ways.

The first way is we proved you can use cognitive aptitude testing matched to a skills framework to help a person achieve things they had never thought possible.

We apply that model and then rapidly put people through digital upskilling, deploying them as job ready in months, not years. Arguably in some cases, we can even do this in weeks, we've seen military veterans, return to work mums, and refugees rapidly deployed as data analyst and software developers.

We operate a free program globally that allows people from disadvantaged groups or overlooked talent pools to access our testing, training, and employment marketplace to seek different career paths. Off the back of that, we operate what you would call a hire-train-deploy business.

For our customers who have jobs to fill, we hire out people from our program at WithYouWithMe on a 12-month program. At the end of that, we encourage the customer to give them a full-time job, and we have an almost 90% conversion rate off the back of those programs. That's the first thing our company does, the thing we've pretty much done from day one.

Unfortunately, that model doesn't have huge impact. It has great impact, but it's not huge. So, we commercialised the software product we use to deliver that program, and we sell it as a HR product in the market. It's about solving critical skill vacancies. It improves staff retention while lifting employee feedback around career progression and growth.

These are big topics for industry, and this product is about aligning the skills you have today with the skills you need in the future, by driving tailored development plans for employees inside your company so you can get the most out of your internal talent pool. It's basically a talent marketplace solving this talent mobility retention problem for customers.

Why is data such a powerful tool for communicating the stories and potential of the job seekers you're working with?

The last thing you said there is very important, stories matter.

People connect with stories, so we share stories from out work. We show customers evidence that we helped a person who was perhaps injured in the workforce as a federal police agent, but they are then rapidly re-skilled and now have meaningful work. Stories show people something is possible for the everyday person.

Story is important, and data is crucial for communicating that. If I look at data analytics or science as a trade, it is about taking complex information and presenting it in a simple way, usually to help inform a decision outcome.

In our world, we're big believers in actionable insights and making strategic workforce planning actionable at the team and employee level. Providing data to our customers on the ability of the workforce to learn future skills better informs them about the risk they have around skilling. It informs them about where they might want to spend their learning and development budget and the likelihood of that budget being successful in achieving a good return.

That type of data just strikes right at the heart of big problems companies are facing. If they have access to utilise it and we're not charging them for it, it drives a better working ecosystem where more people can have access to better long-term jobs and learning outcomes.

How can organisations most effectively align with the values of employees to bring them employees on board and increase their engagement with a company’s mission, purposes and goals?

It’s a smart way to word this question; you’re talking about companies aligning with the values of an employee to increase their engagement. In the past, that question would be more like how do you get the workforce to align to an organisation’s values?

I like the way this question is about the employee, because we're very employee centric in our work. I believe, and as a company we believe, there's a direct connection between engagement of values and the value created for an employee.

We often hear customers saying that getting any new program, process or product to be adopted is one of the hardest things to do. Getting new skills adopted is also one of the hardest things to do, because people are so time poor. What I find interesting about this is if you take an employee's value lens and apply it to that problem, the results are interesting.

If you ask yourself, “what are employees needs right now,” you will find they're very diverse. Maybe it's job security, future professional growth, or the sustainability, policy and vision of their company. There are diverse things employees want, and so being able to understand that is important.

Typically, companies do that through surveys (for better or worse). They also do it through strong management practices, and as a manager or leader, if you spend time with an employee you will begin to understand their values.

Now, if you can align those values to programs you want to run, you'll have even better engagement. When we talk about trying to get people to do aptitude testing, customers ask, “how are you going to convince them to do that? They don't have any time!” There's immediate value for them, they're getting clarity over what they could be great at in the future.

They're going to be matched to skills you care about as a company, and now they have clarity about the things they would like to align to. They have choice and agency over their career, which is something the new generation is interested in.

It's not that they want multiple careers in lots of different locations, Gen X is about having agency over the decisions they make in the workplace. If you can provide that effectively then you'll have good engagement.

Where are you seeing opportunities for technology to help you match underrepresented or disadvantaged workforces with stable employment opportunities?

I'm going to drag out the soapbox for a little bit!

If you're an organisation and you have something in your strategy about wanting to hire diverse talent, catering for a multi-generational workforce, opening talent pools, or building the skills of workers, but you're still asking people to provide a resume during the job application process, you're just working against yourself.

The resume in the context of today's modern world for most roles (let's exclude senior executive roles) is just a farce. We know AI can just produce a resume, and we know that there is an entire industry around making your resume look great against a particular job description.

I can't think of a worse way to be advised on a prospective employee. If you expect an accurate and diverse outcome, resumes don't make sense. I understand we're all in a time constrained environment. Hiring is about risk-based decisions, and the resume is one way to help de-risk a decision.

We're used to using resumes from the past, so it's really ingrained in our corporate processes. There are KPI’s based on them, and people even earn money off the back of things that happen around resumes.

It's one thing to hate resumes, and I hate them, but it's not without understanding the reality of change. But you can leverage dynamic testing, like cognitive aptitude testing to navigate around them.

Cognitive aptitude is not about how smart you are. It's about how agile your mind is, how well you can solve problems and if you achieve things, you haven't done before. There are seven traits which underlie cognitive aptitude, and we test and match these to a skills framework.

We use a synthetic validity algorithm, and it provides way more useful data about a person when making decisions, particularly for any talent group where they literally can't write a resume for a job. It doesn't mean they're not going to do well in that job, and I can quote hundreds maybe thousands of examples where the perfect fit for a job never made it anywhere near a short list.

Testing can solve this; it can replace resumes for shortlisting and add valuable data to drive behavioural interviews and skill assessments. It would unlock talent pools, and the flip side of it is it empowers the individual.

It allows an individual from a disadvantaged group to realise they can do a job or learn some skills they never thought they could acquire. Then they could apply for jobs, because they're not applying into a process where they think it's futile.

They're applying into a process that's going to value something they have, and it will be the measure of how they progress through that application process. There's a lot to be done in this space, and we'll keep driving this narrative.

Lots of companies are leveraging technology to align occupational skill sets to available jobs. They’re looking at the job you're in today and comparing it to jobs you may apply for in the future. Then, they’re using that as a basis to infer job matches for you.

This is quite useful at an organisational level, but it does not take into consideration a person's underlying ability, because it's only looking at the job, they're in today. The job I'm in today does not characterise or capture all my ability gained from my life experiences. It doesn’t identify the skills from my life’s work let alone my life journey.

What would be your advice for a founder who is looking to start their first social enterprise start-up?

I will characterise my advice by saying I wouldn't describe myself as a founder. I maybe wouldn’t even describe myself as an entrepreneur, I would describe myself as open minded, willing to take risks and a business leader.

I don't think people would describe me as having a founder persona, so my advice might be slightly different. What I've learned over the last few years from working in social impact is that the best social impact programs need to be funded.

You either need to have line of sight of long-term funding through a not for profit, government, or grant type model, or you need to have a functional business model. People need to get their head around the fact that you can be for profit and good, so you need to have a functional business to fund your social impact programs over the long-term.

Otherwise, you'll never get there, because it takes time to achieve impact globally and to create change. My advice would be that you need to manage your cash. Early-stage businesses need to focus on cash probably more than they do.

Even today, I have weekly cash flow meetings with my finance team, and I think it’s important because that is the underlying foundation for any small business. Even if you've got great capital injection after you've done a big capital raise, you need to stay close to your cash flow.

The next thing I would say (and I still struggle with this today) is tasks need to be repeatable. Tasks need to be repeatable and simple before you can expect somebody else to be able to do the thing you were doing.

Founders or early-stage leaders are quite comfortable working in ambiguity. You're probably running a business because you flourish in ambiguity, but that's not the case for all people. Before you pass on a task or job to someone else, whether that’s in sales, customer success, or product development, make sure the role has a strong description and clarity.

It needs to be repeatable, otherwise you're going to be disappointed. If you think other people are going to act like you, then you are destined for disappointment. It’s not the reality. You can't hire a team of entrepreneurs, and we still struggle with that.

Someone else described this to me as, “you might need two or three people to do the thing that you've been doing,” and that's what I think is the best way to think of scale.

The final thing I would say is people matter. Sometimes it's hard in early-stage businesses to have all the perks, to be able to spend money on incentives. That's a reality of the current economic climate, so I think compassion, honesty, strong communication, and helping people feel safe is important.

Even when it's a bad time for business and you might be struggling, people matter. There’s that saying: if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. I think there are ways we can care about people in start-up world, even when we can’t necessarily offer all of these perks.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across creating a positive change?

I'll shout out one project that’s close to home. We're involved in its activities, but we're not the flagship act. The GED Tech Apprenticeship Program (GED stands for General Education) is based in the USA. It's a program we're involved in that’s led by GED testing services, which is a portfolio company of Pearson.

Every year more than 700,000 people sit the general education assessment, which is the high school equivalency diploma for the U.S. It represents some of the most marginalised individuals in the U.S, people who want to achieve their high school diploma.

They didn't follow the traditional K-12 education path. Many of these individuals are locked out of employment, there's a stigma around their capabilities.

What most people don't realise is that a GED learner like our military veteran cohort have a bunch of the underlying traits you care about as a company. They make great employees, they have grit, determination, and a commitment to building a better life.

The fact they're even going through the GED in the first place is proof of this. Over the last nine months, we've had 3,500 people graduate from the GED program, which is only a portion of those who received their GED certificate.

They have jumped into a digital technology apprenticeship program with us off the back of Pearson's great work, and then they will seek their first role in tech. Now we're giving this talent pool access to long term meaningful digital roles across a bunch of big logo customers, clients, and employers in the U.S that were originally inaccessible.

I love this program; it’s 100% about the GED learner. If you don't know what it is, I would watch this space. It's very exciting.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend for our audience?

One book that has had a recent impact on me is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. That book has come up in the last two weeks while I was talking to my employees about certain aspects of our business. It’s a fantastic book about how the mind works, and I think it has lot of applicability in business.

The Good Ancestor is a great book about seven generation thinking and how you can plan. It’s exciting and good for everything, including how you view your family, business, or country in the long-term. The Coming Wave is a popular book about AI technology and how that's disrupting not just the world of work, but our world in general.

One last book I would recommend for founders is Exponential Organisations. I think there's now a second or even third version of that book now, and that's a phenomenal read. This book collates all the lessons learned by massive companies which have gone from being great to being exponential. It analyses the underlying traits of these companies, and spoiler alert, it comes back to people and leadership, that’s what sits in the essence of becoming exponential.