Why Your Next Career Breakthrough Won't Come From Google

In this episode Edan explores why access to information is no longer the competitive advantage it once was. In a world where AI can generate frameworks, answer questions and build strategies in seconds, the real value now lies in human experience, shared learning and professional community.

Using the upcoming Startup People Summit as a real-world example, Edan reflects on the growing importance of specialist events that bring practitioners together to solve the challenges that can't be Googled. From AI and role design to scaling People functions and navigating Workplace 5.0, this episode explores why the best career breakthroughs often come from conversations, not search engines.

If you're looking to stay ahead of the future of Talent, this is an episode not to miss.

Learn more about the Startup People Summit: Startup People Summit

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Eden Haddock Total Talent. I'm Eden Haddock, head of talent and people experience at November. And as always, this is the podcast with no guests, no sponsors, and no agenda. Just one practitioner who's still on the tools, sharing what I'm seeing, learning, and occasionally challenging about our profession. So today's episode starts with a question that I asked myself. When was the last time Google genuinely made me better at my job? Not faster, not more efficient, not helping me remember a formula in Excel or reminding me how a Boolean search string works. I mean genuinely better. When was the last time I finished reading an article online and thought, wow, that completely changed the way I think. And the answer, it's been a while. And you know something that's strange. Because we are living in the most information-rich period in human history. Google knows almost everything. ChatGPT and Claude, right? Whatever you use, knows almost everything. LinkedIn is overflowing with advice. Every second person has a framework. A carousel, yeah, a podcast, a newsletter, an opinion. Information has never been more available. Yet somehow, many of us still feel like we're trying to solve the hardest talent problems alone. So today I want to explore why I think that is. Because I don't actually believe your next career breakthrough is sitting on page one of a Google search anymore. I really feel that it's sitting inside a conversation. Twenty years ago, knowing something gave you an advantage. But today, knowing where to find something isn't even an advantage anymore. AI can explain job architecture, it can build competency frameworks, it can create interview guides, it can benchmark salaries, it can write policies, it can summarize legislation, it can even help you prepare a workforce strategy. The knowledge has become almost free.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

That's incredible. But it's also changed something.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

If everybody has access to the same information, information stops being the differentiator. Experience becomes the differentiator. Context becomes the differentiator. Judgment becomes the differentiator. Because Google can tell you what good looks like. But it can't tell you whether it'll work inside your organization. ChatGPT can help you design a workforce planning model. But it can't tell you why the last three failed because your executive team couldn't agree on a role ownership, right? That's a huge difference. And I think we've reached a fascinating point in Workplace 5.0. Technology has democratized knowledge. Humans now create value through interpretation. That's a profound shift. It means our greatest learning no longer comes from information, it comes from conversation. One thing I have noticed over the past few years, our profession has fragmented. When I started in recruitment, recruitment was recruitment. HR was HR. But today, people analytics, employee experience, organization design, skills architecture, AI enablement, internal mobility, talent intelligence, strategic workforce planning, people technology, total rewards, culture, leadership, performance, talent acquisition, they're almost becoming separate professions. And each one is evolving at an extraordinary pace, which creates a problem. Generic advice doesn't travel as well anymore. If you're leading a people function inside a 40-person technology startup, your challenges are fundamentally different to someone leading HR inside a government department with 15,000 employees. Neither is right, neither is wrong. They're just solving completely different problems. And yet, we still consume the same generic content, expecting it to solve highly specific challenges. So maybe that's why so many people leave conferences inspired, but then only to return to work on Monday, wondering how any of it applies. I was chatting recently with Matt McFarlane, who's behind the Startup People Summit, and one thing really stuck with me. He talked about spending years in global startup people roles and asking a simple question.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Where are my people? Where are my people?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Not where are the HR professionals? Where are the people dealing with exactly what I'm dealing with? Building people functions from scratch, rebuilding them twelve months later because the company has doubled in size. Working without massive centers of excellence. Trying things before there's a playbook. That really resonated with me. Because although Movember isn't a startup, I recognize so much of that thinking. The world changes so quickly now that we're all rebuilding. Job architecture, AI adoption, role design, operating models, leadership capability. We're all redesigning the plane while we're flying it. And that means the people who solved the problem yesterday are more valuable than the article written three years ago.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

The people who are on the tools, in the doing. Here's a thought.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Think about the biggest breakthrough you've had in your career. Was it because you Googled something? Or because someone challenged the way you were thinking? I know my answer. Some of my biggest shifts in my own career have happened over coffee. At conferences, in airport lounges, even, after presentations, in LinkedIn messages, on Zoom calls, one conversation, one sentence, one challenge. That's all it took. Because real practitioners don't just tell you what worked, they tell you what failed. Google rarely tells you about failure.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

But people do.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Someone says, we tried implementing AI screening. It was a disaster. Or we completely redesigned our capability framework, and here's what we would never do again. Those conversations are priceless. You simply can't search for lived experience. Our events are changing too. Maybe we've been thinking about conferences all wrong. Perhaps they were never meant to be all about content. Content is everywhere now. Maybe they're becoming communities. One thing that stood out to me when I looked at the Startup People Summit wasn't the actual speaker list. Sorry, guys. You are all very impressive, but no, it was the design, the breaks built into the agenda, the facilitated networking, the workbook, dedicated AI discussions, roundtables instead of endless presentations. All of those choices recognize something important. Learning isn't just consuming information. Learning is processing it, testing it, discussing it, connecting over it. That feels like a very different philosophy to simply filling a room with keynote speakers. I've spoken a lot this year about Workforce 5.0. Humans and technology working together. AI taking on more execution. Humans creating more value through judgment. If that's true, then something interesting happens. The value of information decreases. And the value of community increases. Because AI can answer questions. Only people can tell you whether the answer survives reality. And I honestly think that's where our profession is heading. Less downloading templates, more learning from each other. Less searching, more sharing. Less consuming, more collaborating. So maybe your next career breakthrough won't come from Google. Maybe it won't come from ChatGPT either. Maybe it'll come from the person sitting beside you. The practitioner who's already solved the problem you're about to face. The conversation that changes your perspective. The community that helps you realize you're not the only one wrestling with AI, workforce planning, job architecture, or the future of leadership. That's the real opportunity. Find your people. Find the rooms where people speak your language. Find communities that challenge your thinking. Because in Workplace 5.0, knowledge is everywhere. But wisdom is still wonderfully human. If you're working in the startup or scale up people space, I have spent some time exploring the Startup People Summit, and I genuinely like the thinking behind it. Not because it's another conference, but because it's trying to solve a problem I think many of us have. Finding the right community to learn from. So if you'd like to take a look, I've included the details in the episode description. Thank you, as always, for spending your time with me. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, I'd love it if you followed the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'd love it if you could share it with someone in your network. And you know, I'd love it if more people join the conversation in our talent total talent community. Until next week, keep challenging the way we think about talent and take care.