Episode 001: Real Talk on Talent | Five Pillars of Talent Acquisition

Oh. Welcome to Real Talk on Talent, a human resources podcast where we talk about talent acquisition, recruiting, all things hiring. Welcome to Real Talk on Talent. Oh, so excited to be here today. Hi, Hilary. This is our first podcast. It is our first. How are you feeling about it? You know, I'm feeling so great. Are you so great about it? I'm feeling a little uncertain. Oh, slightly. We're just going to get into the swing of things. But. All right, well, let's get into it. Can you please tell me from your perspective, what is the purpose of this podcast? It's a great question. So we're going to talk real about talent acquisition. Nailed it. And we're going to talk about our experiences, what we see out there, what's happening with our partners, with people we know and we're going to break down to and kind of look at the main areas, hire out of people, get better, what they're doing wrong, what they like. And for me, I think one of the most important things is giving both some very tactical insights. Yes. So, like if you're a recruiter or if you're a hiring manager, if you're a manager of a recruitment team, we're going to talk about some of those best practices that we see in general. But we're also because you and I can help ourselves dive into the larger strategic air. One of my favorite things is sitting down with leaders and thinking long term thinking, big picture. So the goal is to hit on both sides of that, I think. I think you nailed it. Yeah. Yeah. But we know that talent acquisition is both is very expansive. So what we're doing on this podcast is we are going to break down talent acquisition into five main topics like Pillar topic. And then each episode we're going to take one of those pillar topics and pick a subsection and go through it. So our five pillars are people processes, technology, marketing, data or reporting. We should just make it data. I like data way better than perfect. So data so people process technology, marketing and data. And then each episode will pick a topic about people, and then we'll spend that entire episode just diving into it, ripping it apart. It'll be great. It will be great. Now, this'll will be a lot of fun. You know, it's going to be informative and entertaining. That's our goal. That is the core. We are going to have some fun. I mean, it's going to be a two part only. At least you and I will have fun, whether anyone else does. Time will tell. But. And then what? We will. What I do want to do on this first episode is let's just quickly talk about some of the main pieces of those five pillars so that we can kind of give some context of what we mean or some of the hot topics that we're seeing right now. Perfect. And so let's jump into that. Okay, that sounds great. But first, Dina, tell us about you. Yeah. Why are you qualified to talk about people process technology? That's a great question. That's a great question. So I have been working in the talent acquisition space for about 15 years now. I actually started off as a recruiter, so I was somebody out there, you know, finding silly, heartfelt jobs. I was you were focused on hard to fill roles. Yes, I was hired to find our nurses for a hospital. So I think you see, it's a great place to start with recruiting. I will tell you, it's like a needle in a haystack. And I was good at it. Like I'm just now what you do. So before that, my background was in sales and marketing. So I think I think sales background is really important in the recruitment world. So that. Can you give us a sneak peek of why that is? Yes. Yes. So sales is persuading somebody's recruitment is persuading somebody. It's a crazy you know, it really is. To me, the most successful and the best recruiters are people who are committed to driving outcomes. Yes. And a lot of times where I see recruiters falling flat or not making it to where they could be is when they're not willing to kind of push through barriers. And so I think if you've got that sales background, you understand pushing through barriers, overcoming objections, flare ups, they love that. So so that made you a successful recruiter. And then where did you go after that? Yeah, So I actually kind of grew up through the ranks. I was a recruitment manager then, I was director of T.A. and ultimately I got most of my recruitment experience overseeing the talent acquisition functions of large health care organizations. And I did that for probably about ten years. And about three years ago, I transitioned my role. So I got to take all of the kind of expertise and knowledge and experience I got from working with big organization and to get to apply that to small and midsize companies, specifically those that are owned by private equity firms who are kind of on this fast acceleration growth path. And so it's been a lot of fun. So it's really important to make sure that you've got it right function if you're in a high growth, 100%, 100%. And it's really interesting, we get to the small and midsize companies because they don't know what they don't know. So the value that you can provide there, it's just it's a game. You bring in the big business expertise from your background and you're able to translate that down to any size company. Exactly. Sounds like you're qualified. You know, I thank you. I do appreciate that. I have a certificate to approve or not. Do you really know? Oh, yeah. I wish that were there other are out there. So I'm Hilary. So I'm a marketer by trade. So my background is I fell into staffing. I started out my career in the digital space. So in the tech startup world, doing search engine marketing and SEO, all of the very technical building out websites, I did all of that for same thing, high growth, mid-level companies. And then when I moved to Florida, I was looking for a new job. This is pretty remote work. So when I moved out here, I fell in, I fell into staffing and I was with a global Fortune 500 company and I was running marketing for them for about five years, specifically doing their brand marketing and all of those different very corporate traditional marketing roles. But because it was a staffing firm, we also were over all of the recruitment marketing. So I was able to cut my teeth while growing in the ranks and expanding my responsibilities there. I loved that the staff traditional staffing is very much a trial by fire, fast paced. I'd loved that, but was looking for something a little bit different, and that's how I ended up working in the recruitment process, outsourcing space. And so today what I do is so I run I'm the head of our talent brand and consulting arms. And there are three things that really tie into that. So as part of our operational function, as you know, Deena, we have recruitment marketing built into it. So I have a team dedicated to building recruitment marketing strategy in partnership with our ops leaders so we can provide any sort of recruitment efforts, all for that, the enablement of the team so the recruiters can sell, build relationships and we can help drive candidates and convert them. Give us some examples of specific recruitment marketing. Oh, absolutely. So email campaigns. So the kind of that audience engagement to build relationships. We also do job advertising across different job boards or augmenting larger brand advertising campaigns with geofencing, that kind of stuff. Okay. So anything you could think of, market intel research, literally, you name it, we get in there and help figure out how to know who candidates are, where they are and how to bring them in. So that's one big thing. The other piece we do is our employer branding side of the house. And so think about messaging, thinking about market differentiation, how you really sell your employer story. So the team that does that kind of does it in an almost an agency way, but agency to me is a bit of a four letter word. I prefer to not be viewed as someone leading an agency, but it's the easiest way to think about it. And then the consulting piece is and you and I actually do this together, the consulting side is we look at pretty much any expertise that can augment outside of a standard recruitment or marketing relationship and bring that to the table, assessing technology, helping integrate it, all that kind of stuff. So very busy world for me, but that's what I do. Awesome. Dina, you want to talk a little bit about human. Just do a quick update on that before we get into. Yeah, let's let's talk about who our employer is. Okay, We can do that. So Human is a recruitment company and we really have kind of two different divisions. We have recruitment process outsourcing, and then we have our direct hire division recruitment process. Outsourcing is kind of the white glove premium relationship. Exactly. You know, think of organization and who are hiring thousands of people a year. They need a really strategic and progressive recruitment partner. And so that's what HUMINT is. So we have a lot of well-known organizations who the human team looks and feels just like their employees. We go out and we recruit top talent every day. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. We're headquartered here in Jacksonville Beach. We were established in 2016. We are a great place to work. We are I predated human's 2016 establishment date. I was kind of with the original team for I was 15 years now. But yeah, she was a great, great place to work. I think one thing that makes us unique is our focus on employee engagement and who we bring into the organization. I do want to talk about that for a quick second. Actually, let's pivot that for people pivoting, let's pivot into the first piece of this. So let's talk about the people Pillar of the Human way. Okay? So to kick that off, because you talk about I want to talk about culture, okay? Because that definitely plays into why we think the people pillar is so critical when it comes to function. But I want to first kick that off to explain human as a name. So 32nd version Human is spelled h eui m a n specifically to play on to that hue element and the various colors. So thinking the way that we look at it is people, every individual has their own story, experience, skill set, ability, and they bring that into a workforce. And when you have all of these varieties of experiences of different hues that people bring from their lives, it adds into the culture and makes your unique company culture from that. And our name is literally based on it. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit more about culture and how that ties into the importance of people in talent acquisition, in recruiting? Yeah. So when you think your job is to bring people into an organization, you need to be somebody who people want to work with. Yeah. And so first and foremost, just having great customer service is is essential. Yes. So, you know, I think when we look for somebody who's going to be a great recruiter or somebody who we want to work with, it really is somebody who can provide great experiences not only for candidates, but also for hiring managers, somebody who is highly communicative on time with their communications. They're able to kind of cut through, cut through noise in really understanding the most important parts of situations and communicate those effectively. And then they do it with grace and type. So I love that. It seems so obvious, though. Where do people fall flat? Because when when we talk about this podcast, we're going to have entire episodes based on people topics. And I feel like you just covered people thoroughly right there. So can you give a little context from your experience about where people maybe miss the mark when it comes to people or undervalue the impact of the actual people in their talent acquisition and recruitment functions? Yeah. Yeah. So, so first, I think that recruitment is a lot harder than people real. Yes. And not just for hard to fill positions just across the board, just in general, recruitment is a grind. When you think of the work that you are doing, often you are doing kind of the same task over and over and over again, and then you're thrown a curveball. You're thrown kind of this wild position out of nowhere. Nobody's applying for the or the market changes or the market's like 2020, 20, 22 wild years in recruiting. Oh my gosh, It was crazy. Yeah, I remember, you know, 20, 20 or 2022, It was just insane, you know? Rocket For a while I mean, through the roof. But, you know, I think I think recruitment is often an afterthought in a lot of organizations. And so those are the people who are really the face of your organization. Whatever somebody is looking for employment, the first person they are likely going to interact with Asia or are. And so this really needs to be somebody who is a match for your organization. Yes. And so it's super important as an organization. You know what you stand for and that your recruiters have the ability to reflect that. Correct. And so I think it's important, you know, for everybody to understand their values and what those values mean and how they want those portrayed out there and the resentment of new employees and then making sure that they have recruiters who match those or who are able to articulate that. Yeah, I think what you said about how core values come to life is such an important aspect, because when you talk about culture, match is like, are you a culture match for this company? It can be a really coded version for Do you match me? Yes, but what but when you say it's really this is the foundation of our organization and what is important in how you show up every day, Anyone can match that no matter who you are. But that is really what you mean when we talk about culture match. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I kind of even move away from Culture Match and say it's a values match. I love that. I really do. Is it's do we have the same values? Are we all working towards the same? Yes, absolutely. And I think once you understand what your values are and you understand which ones match it, it doesn't mean our values have to be exactly the same. Right. But can they be complementary? Yes. Can we work together? And then also, can we learn from the differences in our values as well? So, you know, to me, understanding what it is that you need to put your best foot forward and how that's going to reflect the organization that you are recruiting for, that's how you know, if it's going to be a match. Yeah, that's how you bring the best people to the table. I completely agree. And one thing too, that I know we'll definitely get into is that the people also extends up to like people leadership, like recruit strategic recruiting leaders and even when you think about like see grow levels, recruiting in talent acquisition is not a our only problem, but it's so often not framed up appropriately when thinking about how do you talk to a CFO about your people problems or your growth needs. And so I think that'll be an interesting thing for us to dig into as we're thinking about the people side. Yeah, yeah. In really when you know, in the simplest terms, when I think of people in the talent acquisition function, I am thinking of everybody who is impacted with or intersects with their recruitment. So this is candidates, this is the recruiters, this is hiring managers. This is the H.R. team. This is the organization as a whole. It's the C-suite, it's the CFO, it's the community where this organization lives. And so people is not just the recruiters who are executing on it. It's kind of the whole people ecosystem around the organization. I love that. Yeah. Okay. I think we cover people. Okay. It is the most important pillar. It is. Where do you wanna go next? Let's talk process and process. I love process. And one thing we say all the time here at Human is when you have a really good recruiter, really good person, and then you back them up with the appropriate process and technology, that's when you go from a really good recruiter to a great recruit 100%. Jim Collins Shout out, Good, great. There we go. Love it, Love it. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think having a a well-defined recruitment process is I mean, it's essential. It's it's completely undervalued. It absolutely is. And the thing is, it doesn't take a long time to come up with a recruitment process. It really is. It's just being thoughtful. It is. But what's hard as well as to think about can you have your process? What are all the downstream impacts of that? What does that mean for your recruiters day to day work? What does that mean for where marketing comes in to support them? Yeah, where does that mean when you think about your investments into technology? Because your technology needs are going to be impacted by your process. And I think that's something it is very easy to come up with that. But then how do you how do you think beyond that, that piece and then also think about how you hold people accountable to it? Because that's one thing you see all the time is it's like, yeah, we've got this great process. We wrote it down a year ago and then put it in a drawer and walked away from it. It was like it was just a project to do wasn't actually a benefit. Yeah. So, you know, traditionally when we start a new partnership or we're helping a client to develop their own recruitment process, we will develop a multi-page workflow. And the first thing we say is, okay, when you have a new job order, what happens? And so we're documenting a process all the way from job order origination until the day a candidate. And when you say origination, oftentimes it's the approval process. Like how do you even identify what that need is? Yes, because nobody likes the willy nilly manager that just decides to add five years without getting approval. So we want to make sure that that's been approved before going ahead and posting those one one thing, too. So I know that we that you specifically, but human across the board, we work a lot with health within the health care space. And one of the one of the things we work a lot on with larger health care organizations is around that the approval process because there are so many people involved. And when you think about shift management and all of that in health care with internal transfers, it's just a whole other layer of complex, right? So process, there's so much that ties into that. Yeah. And you know, a great process is it's going to be really efficient. It's going to allow candidates to move through quickly. It's going to provide hiring managers with a great experience. And I would say that this is kind of a controversial opinion here. Controversial yet here we go. Yeah. So I think that when it comes to our recruitment process, the recruiters are the ones who should take on inefficiencies and the process. It shouldn't be the hiring manager. Yes. And it shouldn't be the candidates. As a recruiter, our job is to make it as easy for other people to get through the process. So if a process needs to be burdensome or inefficient, I as a recruiter want to own that part because I know I can drive through it, I can work through those. I agree with that. And I think that it is also the responsibility of the talent acquisition leadership to understand what those inefficiencies are and advocate for the correct investments or changes to remove that from the recruiter 100%. So it's definitely tied into that. Yeah, I love that. I have some. I had a thought that popped up, but you are so fascinating on that. I forgot it may come back later. So yeah, I love a good recruitment process. Yeah, well, there's so much to unpack on that process is huge. All right, so we have people in process. Let's do technology. We have to do technology, let's do it. So like I said, we say all the time that the purpose of an outlined process and the right technology is to make a recruiter more effective and to make the entire process more effective. I'm going to start with an opinion on this one. Okay, let's go. Technology is the number one thing people do wrong. Yeah, they it's and as a marketer, it is so difficult for me to step into a situation where you have this great concept. It's like, Oh, here's this technology that does a to Z like everything. And everybody hates it because they purchased an idea without an understanding of what actually was needed and what people were capable of even adopting. So you have this really expensive technology that does not tie in to your process, makes it harder for your people. It costs you a ton of money and it is not bringing any value to anybody. So the adoption I'm so glad that you hit on that because that is the piece that people don't realize that is the hardest. So our is so hard. It's the adoption. So what you really have to do is you have to make people see a clear cut benefit. And, you know, to your point, it is so important that you pick the right size technology. Yes. Your organization and for what you're trying to solve for and not just help people understand what it can do but solve a pain point. Yes, I think that's a big problem, is saying, oh, this will make everyone's life better because it does X was if your recruitment team or your hiring managers have never once considered X, but they're constantly having issues with Y, then you completely missed the mark. That's what you should be focusing on first, because that's where people are actually going to make a change and it is tied into process. That's why we started there. Yeah, Yeah, for sure. I mean, how many times have we done an assessment with an organization? And there are the most foundational technology has not even been considered or integrated, but there's this weird, complex, like bright, shiny new toy that's there and no one uses yet all the time. Yeah. And you know, so one thing that we always like to do when we're starting a consulting engagement or, you know, somebody, somebody will come to us and say our recruitment is broken. So first thing we do is we say, okay, pick up your phone and try to apply for a job at your own company. Oh, my gosh. And it is amazing how many people can't do or can't even find their job. If you can find they're going to handle that with marketing. Yeah, I'm like, What do you mean? So I mean, and this is this is to me, like technology is just essential. You know, salespeople use CRM system, recruit recruiters or recruitment companies use Etsy's. Etsy's are not a one size fits all solution. There are different atlases with different resources based on what your organization needs so well. And to be fair, there are CRMs. Okay, you're right. Same acronym, different word. Yes, but you are correct. Correct. Not client relationship to confuse us a little bit more. Listen, technology is a world of acronyms. Alphabet soup. Yeah, it's just wild. All that's crazy. I don't know about that anymore. That is one that we're going to have so many topics. And that's a little bit of a hot button issue for me that I'm going to have to keep myself very focused on the topic because I could ramble about technology. Okay, I am totally with you. And I mean, there is just I will tell you, there are people pushing some technology out there right now. And I'm like, oh, and let's talk about oh, I was about I was like, I was about to say, let's not talk about AI, okay? We're going to need a we're going to have to take 30 seconds because we're going to have to do a whole episode on. Okay, so here's mine. Here's my spiel on AI and recruitment. So yes, there is absolutely a place for AI. And I looked at some super sweet technology. You love chat. I love it. But if you're having to program the answers in to a system, actually write the verbiage that is not AI technology. Oh, you're talking about like if it's an if, then like, oh, yeah, I've been I have been on that soapbox for years. I'm like, This is not true. AI It is out now, which is great. But listen again, hot button issue for me. I only say that because it drives me crazy and I know so many people who are like, Oh, we're going to get this technology, say AI. And I'm like, Is it now? Or are you programing in all the answers? Correct. Which is out. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. That one from the theater. Who knew? Apparently that's going to be one of our first topics if we're jumping into that. So anyway, technology is critical to recruiting. Last thing I'll say on this, okay, we talked about technology, how it's critical for efficiency, which impacts recruiting, but how those efficiencies can also open up a recruiter to manage those relationships better or automate some of those relationships. A misunderstood landing of technology you think we'll spend a lot of time talking about just has its technology does not replace the recruiter does not know it only makes them stronger. That one song stuck in my head. I want to save everyone from attempting to sing. I was literally I was just going to do what but not moving on. Okay, here you go. I feel like I should talk about marketing since I'm the marketing. And you didn't kick us off, my friend. So the next pillars are done. People process technology. We'll do marketing. Would you like us to start start us off on marketing? You know? I know, right? I'll let you handle this one. And I often say I shouldn't say often. The number one thing I say when it comes to recruitment marketing is historically talent acquisition was completely owned within an h.r. Function. And in a world of classified ads and paper resumes and all of that, it made sense. And even today, recruitment, talent acquisition, all of that hiring knowledge still is housed under H.R. or talent acquisition. But today recruiters are not working in the classified. They're not submitting newspaper ads, giant asterisk on that, because I know that some places that does still work. We'll get into that. But we're there now. Working recruiters are now working in a digital space, and talent acquisition leaders are now having to talk about their function in a very data driven way, and that technology and digital knowledge is historically housed in marketing. So there's been this giant knowledge gap between those two functions and where where my entire career has been built is in that intersection of knowledge and helping say, okay, I understand the digital space, I understand how marketing metrics can be pulled back to a strategic business, discussion or planning, etc. I also understand recruiting. I've never been a recruiter, but one another hot button issue for me is I run into some people who are recruitment marketers, but they they only think from a marketing lens. They don't understand the talent acquisition side. They don't understand operationally how it works because they don't sit at the table and here in H.R. leader talk about their needs. What is important and I've been lucky enough to have that exposure and to work very closely with traditional operators like yourself. And so what my team's job is their whole job is to be that bridge of knowledge and to bring the digital knowledge and into marketing campaigns, or I should say they bring that marketing knowledge to their recruitment partners and then they bring that recruitment knowledge into their marketing campaigns. I have nothing to add because you just you've said that beautifully. You really have just said that beautifully. But I want you to talk actually, when because some things will probably get into is my speech. Sounds great. Wonderful. A marketer and a recruiter may buy into that, but a talent acquisition leader may not care as much, not because they don't care, but because they're they are being held accountable to recruitment metrics, not to recruitment marketing metrics. So can you talk a little bit as an operator where you see marketing playing in and maybe some things we might want to talk about down the road from a marketing standpoint? Yeah. So, you know, two things come to mind right away. Just managing in Deeds Brand advertising spend. Okay, So Recruiter should not be managing advertising spend with no parameters, no guidelines, No. No. How agreed. I think people are over spending. They need a price so people overspend like crazy. They are so right becomes a crutch. It does it because you cry. Yes. Yes. I'll just, you know, PPC, I love what we do here is we actually have a recruitment matrix and it's basically saying before you're going to sponsor a job on a job boards, whatever it is, you've got to look at all these other criteria. Have you done this, this and this? It does. There's a set comes in strategically at the right place. Exactly. Exactly. So so as a as a leader, if you're thinking about your budgets and all of that, that's a really easy lever to manage. We want to be more efficient. Yeah. You know, if I were to say I mean, I talk to people who, you know, you can reduce their indeed spend by 50% by just managing it correctly and so easily as an operator. That's a compelling, compelling area. You know, that that helps me want to buy into what you're doing and your cost per hire immediately goes down. Exactly. Yeah. Huge. Yep. And then employer brand. So employer brand is so, so, so important today. Like this is people don't just want jobs anymore. People want to work at an organization where they can relate to. Yes. And that is more critical in industries where the talent is scarce. Yeah. So to me, having a strong employer brand and really being able to articulate who you are as an employer is so important to win over great talent. I completely agree. And one giant competitor for talent that I think some to our business leaders aren't considering is you don't need to work for someone to have a career like especially. And that's always been true. But when you have millennials or Gen Zers who literally grew up in a world where not just being an influencer like that's, that's the most popular thing people will point to, but they're, you know, you can be a reseller of your skills on something like Fiverr. You could be a reseller of items on Etsy or even reseller on Amazon, Amazon, but eBay. And that's just to say just easy side hustles. But there are so many areas where people can decide what's important to them, what do they like doing and go monetize it. And so that differentiate being able to know this is who we are, that you it's so important, like almost sometimes beyond the job description. Well, and especially now because what we're seeing a lot of employers do is it's not so much about the job requirements. We're looking for people with skills, correct, transferable skills. And so, you know, that means candidates have a lot of options. Yes. And not only are we competing against other 95 jobs, we're competing against those side hustles where people can make a good living over that. Yeah, they can now. Oh, my goodness. I already have like so many things we want to talk about with that. Right? This is about okay, good. So that's marketing. Okay. So we get people, people process technology. Yeah. Marketing. I would like for you to kick us off of getting more data. Why? Knowing why. Please tell us why. Well, I wasn't mu Alpha Theta when I was in high school, so that was about Alana. Oh, okay. I did not know that about the theta, you know, like a smooth operator. Okay, so I was with you on that. Okay, So I was in the mouth of. So no, I mean, to me, just like, I'm sorry. How old were you when you were in the math club? It was. It was. I was going to that. No, I'm not saying you weren't. I just did high school. Okay. Yeah, I didn't know it. Keep going. Yeah. Okay. We'll talk about this later. Yeah. I'll never mouth off more than you want. When? That one. I love Excel. No, I like Excel too. So here's this. Here's thing. Not data like it. It tells the story. It doesn't lie. Data doesn't lie. But you have to know how to read it. You have to know that data doesn't mean anything if you don't know the story that it's trying to tell. I can keep going because that's my hot button issue. Yes. So so what I love about recruitment data is first benchmarking. You can benchmark performance. I think probably well, there's benchmarking, there's financial metrics, and then there's looking at like recruitment performance ratios, which I love. I want to get into that so much. Yeah. Like this is where I can start to move out. So recruitment performance ratios to me are so great at diagnosing issues and identifying bottlenecks. So that's one of the places where we'll always start with clients when they're saying, you know, recruitment is broken and it's as simple as looking. You know, you've got a 17 to 1 submit to higher ratio. Let's figure out what the gap or they think the issue is in like candidate flow, for example. But the numbers are saying that it's actually an issue with hiring manager handoffs. Yep. And they're just barking up the complete wrong tree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think that I love data for benchmarking to monitor progress, but to me it is in the diagnostic, like it's the diagnostic tool that data is. That's what I love about you love the diagnostics. Well then how do you when you talk to a partner and you've diagnosed the issue, you've got you've dived in, dived in, you dove in Dover, you dove in. Not a very good swimmer. I was not in the swim club. I was a swimmer. I was I am a fabulous swimmer. I could see I could see that. So you dive in. Ironically, I didn't know if we're going to have to look that up because that's going to bother me now. We just had a heavy launch window. Thank you. Thank you for the excuse. Well, so you've you've jumped into all the numbers and you've diagnosed the issue. What do you recommend people do with that beyond, you know, So I was like, okay, here are the issues. Okay. We need to fix the issues, obviously. But then so what? Yeah, So so Dana tells a story. Yeah. And that story changes. Oh, yeah, Yeah. And so there's this, there's this thing called the Maximizer. I think it's like a personality trait where, you know, you fix something, but then it's never good enough. There's always an opportunity to make things better and make things better. And that's what data shows you. Yeah. So you have a problem, you fix it. What you're going to see. There are other opportunities from that data to make enhancements to your to get a deeper understanding of your story and how you clean it up and all that. I love that you tied it back to process because it also having the process and having those metrics tied to those key points in the process is a great way to understand and hold people accountable. Yes. Oh, 100%. So in data, I will tell you. So if you're a recruiter, you're listening. I know you've had the hiring manager who doesn't get back to you for two weeks. You lose all the candidates and then all of a sudden they need the candidates right away and it's your fault. Yeah. So what data is your friend to your guides? But, you know, if you really want to use data appropriately and you want to drive towards business outcomes with it, what you have to do is identify the KPIs that are most relevant for your organization related to talent acquisition and your process and your process and. Then you need to establish a cadence to review those. Yes, One thing I really like as well is, to your point, the evolution of data, and not just in problem solving, but we've had some really interesting conversations where we take talent acquisition data and tie it directly into a chief financial officers like his or her world, where they literally sit down and say, okay, here's what I'm doing for the business strategically to understand what's happening today, where we need to go. And when you have and understand your data, you're able to speak to people in their own language. And someone like a CFO or chief technical officer, whatever it may be, if you're very metrics driven, which most C-suite are, then that's you're now going to be speaking to them at a completely different level. 100%. Yeah, yeah. There's, there's power and numbers are a universal language. Yes. And so understanding your numbers, that's going to help you communicate. So I am one thing I like to say a lot is it should be the goal of every to leader to have recruitment be a a recurring discussion point at the board level regardless of your business model. If you are a if you're a a business where your revenue is completely driven by headcount, it may already be at that level and be discussed. But going back to the hospital system, recruitment may not be discussed at board meetings or at that level a regular cadence. And I think the only reason it's not is because we have not appropriately helped educate those individuals on the the how critical, critical how critical it is. And that has to be founded in metrics because that was one of the biggest mistakes I made as a young marketer, is I was so story focused because that's really what marketers are taught and where you start. And that's a huge love of mine. But if you are now talking to a business president, if you are selling a story, then they're not going to care in the same way that I'm going to care as a marketer because they are focused on metrics. And when I was able to make that transition to go from storytelling with words to storytelling with numbers completely different. And I think that's something that I've seen a lot of to leaders make their own adjustment in that because we live in such a digital data driven world, you know, Big data was the whole thing couple of years ago, and we're still kind of figuring out that transition. Yeah, Yeah. So I love that you say that. So I think, you know, as I said before, recruitment is often an afterthought. And to me, the best way to make yourself seen is to talk loud and to talk proud about your numbers and I mean, really, recruitment is essential to any organization. If you're an organization that is expanding or growing, you need to understand how long it's going to take you to hire talent. You need to know what resources you need to know your cost per hire. Yep. If you're losing people in turnovers through the roof, you need to be able to articulate why you are lose losing people. At what point in their tenure what your players. And you know, I don't know if I'd want to be in every board meeting because if I am, maybe something's going wrong. But what Not you. But it should be that important, you know? Yeah, right. Yeah. But what I will say is that, you know, I think it is. It's hard for h.r. In general. Yes. To get a seat at the table on those board 100%. It is hard. A lot of times h.r. Has a perception. It's kind of being the touchy feely part of exactly very similar marketing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Marketing. And i think this i think it's a similar journey. Marketing about ten years ago was in a big point of transformation where they were going marketing departments had to transition from being a cost center to being viewed as a revenue generating group. And it was a very difficult transition and it took a lot of fighting and allyship and numbers to prove that. And I guess that's what I'm saying is once marketing as an industry, as a profession, whatever was able to prove that, it completely changed the way you view marketing, you know, go from Mad Men to you would now have a seat in the boardroom, maybe not every day. And I see a similar transition with talent acquisition saying, okay, you're the touchy feely the h.r. People, whatever. And now it's like, no, we are your strategic people, partner. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And, you know, the more relevant are or the closer people are to profits, probably the easier it is to have over size. And that goes back to what we talked about is understanding your business model and then how your numbers speak into that. I also think it's important to know which numbers to not look at that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You will see people racking their brain over, I don't know, involuntary turnover or volunteer, whatever it is. You know, like figure out what's important. Yeah, figure out what's important. And so this is this goes back to the whole data thing. There are hundreds and hundreds of different data points that you as a tout leader can track. You need to figure out which ones are most related to your organization and drive the business forward. And those are the ones you focus on. Absolutely. I don't know how we're going to unpack all of this now either. So we talk, we talk about all people process technology, marketing and data slash reporting. Yes. So we're going to hit on all those topics. Each episode. We'll pick one and we'll pick one of those pillars and then pick I don't know how we'll pick a topic. We'll probably hit 17 rock scissors. I think it's a good way to pull out of that. Yup. Good. Awesome. I'm excited. How is this going to be fun? It's going to be fun. Yeah. Before we go, I do want to do hot takes on hot topics. Okay, So I just want to say that I didn't know what that phrase meant. Like, I'm not hip to this world. I didn't know what that phrase. Right? So I had to go home and do this, I'm pretty sure is not a new thing. Well, like a hot take. Yeah. So I'm living in the nineties here, but I think that stems from the nineties. Okay, Well, they were like okay we need to Google that. I might so all that to be said you now know what hot takes on hot topics means. I'm going to turn to Whitney I'm going to have her just tee up our first hot topic. So the idea behind this is there is a topic that's either gained popularity recently or is new in the news, and we're just going to give our opinion on it. Okay. I want to say on a personal note, okay, I'm going to work on avoiding my hard. No, that's what what did you give in this podcast? For those who don't know what Dina's referring to is the tendency to say no first. But you haven't done that. You've sanded every point of this conversation. Okay, good. Great, great. Yes. And Whitney. Yes. And topic one. All right. So hot topic today comes from Business Insider. And this this may be a controversial one, but an employee at the cloud security firm Cloudflare shared a TikTok appearing to show her being fired. Oh, and this is a trend that's been going on. And my question to you is what advice do you have for h.r. Leaders to help combat this trend or help better prepare them for this trend? Great question. So someone assuming a younger employee filmed themselves being fired remotely, i'm assuming it was via zoom. And what does that mean for the for our leaders? Do you want to start? Oh, my god. Okay, i do. Okay. I do. So i'm going to talk out both sides of my mouth on this one. Okay. We'll allow it. But I don't take hot takes. Sorry. I'm just going to say, am I supposed to be I there's no rule. There are no rules. So first off, I watch the video. Okay, So I saw the girl. Which one, though, was There are so. Oh, the cloud. I've seen so many of these. The way she was being terminated was. Was not great. It was not great. It wasn't her next level leader. It wasn't anybody who she ever knew. They couldn't tell her why she was being terminated. And I got to say, have we confirmed this was real? Because, you know what? It's become a trend where I assume this one is burning. Keep going and then I keep going. So wasn't it they couldn't give her any answers. They basically said it was her performance and she had her numbers to contradict that. Yeah, but nobody was close enough to the scenario. So what I will say, I was impressed with her ability to stand her ground and for her to say I don't understand and keep asking, which by the way, she should be doing. And I am a firm believer that to your point, it wasn't her next level leader, which means that the next level leader was probably too afraid to have an honest conversation. So what I understand is scenario I've not seen this one. I've seen other videos like this. So if I'm correct, she was like a mass camp, mass like all situation. And so but then that's the story. It's not your numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think the biggest thing to take I think there are two things to take away from this. One is from an employee side and one is from the employer side. Correct. From an employer side. I think that this leads to a lot of potential exposure and it is something that we do live in a world where phones and documentation are everywhere. Everyone, employers or employees should assume that everything they do is being saved. Like if you're sending an email, if you're chat, all that's documented and this is just an extension of that. And I think there are a couple of things that are be interesting to play in is like privacy laws. Like in California, there are laws around. I say California because that's where I grew up. But there are every state has different laws around what you can and cannot record with some without someone's consent. So that is a potential impact for an employee, something to consider. But as an employer, I think it's a great opportunity to sit down and say, Are we buttoned up on our management processes? Are we buttoned up on our documentation? Do we understand what the expectation is, especially with remote individuals when it comes to these kinds of discussions? So it'll be interesting to see and I think it will be for the better because it will force employers to be more thoughtful in how they manage this and have the correct transparency. And I think that it's I think for employers it's a good thing. Yeah, even those may be very painful, but change is good. Yeah, it will be painful. That may be a really hot take. Yeah. No, listen, that's okay. That's why we're doing this. Like. Like you. Pancakes. Heidi. Better talk about that. We'll talk about Page. Oh, but then from the employee. Oh, I want to go employer, and then I'll talk about the employee side. Okay. So what I will say is, from an employer perspective, ideally, if somebody is going to get terminated, this isn't laid off. Somebody is getting terminated for their enforcement. Yes. They should know that they are getting terminated before they get out. There should be no contract and lots and lots of conversation. The only surprise should be if it's not based on performance and it's a business decision. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. That didn't sound like the planning on that. Sounds like it was not great from an employee side. Again, I think the privacy thing, it sounds really great, like pull up your phone and you know, record yourself in these scenarios. It is very different. Like if you're in a group, like if I'm talking to you, I pull up my phone and hit record and you're sitting in the room with me. You can see the phone is out. If you have your if you have your phone behind your computer screen. So they don't know, does that potentially up that individual for like liability? I would imagine. And I think that's something that individuals need to think about. It's a very real thing. Like some employers will not take kindly to that kind of exposure. Yeah, that is, you know, you probably wouldn't want to have that as the person who's videotaped all their terminations. Like, that's probably not something that you want. But I will say and here's my other hot take on the employee side. Good for them. Like good for them for saying, look, you're you're selling me. What's the thing? You're not great with saying you're selling me a ball of wax. Like it's like I better get Jonah. I don't know, like snake oil. You're selling me snake oil because. You're telling me this, but that doesn't match up to any of the facts or the stories or the expectations you set with me. And to be able to have something to back that up, I think good for them for saying I have like I'm going to stand my ground on this question. I do. I do think that, of course, trends can sometimes lead to more extreme perspectives on on this. And I want to be very clear that just because you're recording it doesn't mean it's always the right idea to share it with everybody. Yes. And I also think that don't use it as a gotcha on either side. I think that nobody likes a gotcha. No one likes a gotcha. And my hot take is trends on TikTok are not forever. There we go. Yeah, so love that. That was hot. Air is filtered. The bank is getting to you. All right, Dina, thanks for hanging out with me on Real Talk Italia Italia. This real talk talent is just delightful. I think it's going to be great. I'm super excited about this. I am, too. So next episode, we're going to do people okay. I like that. Yes. We don't have you have to come back to find out what the Oh yeah is. It will be under the people color. Or if you're one of our many dedicated fans, you can go ahead and email us for some suggestions. We'd love to hear what you have to say. We love that many dedicated fans. This is our first podcast. First podcast. Thanks for being here, everybody. Dina I'm so excited to do this and always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Bye, everybody. Oh, now I'm week. We started on more. I don't want to have.