Scaling Talent at Hypergrowth: Leadership, AI, and Hiring Excellence with Cindy Nicola

Hey everybody, you are live on Shally's Alley. It is Friday, April 3rd. Uh, too bad we didn't land on an April 1st or I would have done an April 1st joke. I did actually have that, of course, a couple years ago with Brian Fink as my guest on April Fools', believe it or not. And, and we played a prank on, uh, on Ryan from at the time, Recruiting Blogs. Um, we, we told everybody that we had a top secret announcement, that Ryan had left Recruiting Blogs to go work for ERE. And he got flooded with all these, you know, emails like, oh my God, I can't believe you! It was so funny. Um, but you know, of course then we told everybody it was a prank, yeah, a few minutes later. So happy April Fool's Day, happy Easter Friday, or Good Friday for those of you that celebrate that. My guest today is none other than Cindy Nicola. Uh, sorry, yes, Cindy Nicola, right? You're formerly—

that was a long time ago.

And Cindy and I met a very long time ago at, um, at an uncon— it was an unconference unlike any conference that has— honestly, I don't think it's even been done since then. It was very, very much one of a kind. It was an event for TA leadership to essentially pick the topics for discussion, put them on the board, people would vote on the topics that they wanted and assemble into roundtables. Am I getting this right? And then, you know, somebody would be selected to, or elected or voted, I guess, to be the facilitator. So they call it an unconference. And it was something that you organized, I believe, right?

Yeah, we did. I think I was working with Jeff Hunter at the time.

You and Jeff Hunter? Yeah, exactly. That's how I met you. I knew Jeff and he invited me to the conference, and then— and I was there. So it's been a long time. But folks, um, what can I say? Cindy has quite the trajectory. She's operated at the very top across multiple iconic companies. So we're not going to waste any time on basics. We're going to go after the big picture, scale, decision-making, trade-offs, those, those kinds of things. Um, currently, I think I can mention that you've been at Databricks for a couple of years now, which is essentially an AI company, right?

Correct.

What's, what's it like to lead a function, uh, lead a TA function in particular, but just any function at a company that is essentially inventing this, this, this revolution? You know, they're, they're at the leading edge of all this massive amounts of data? What's it like, a day in the life? Is it really exciting? Is it really scary? What's that like?

Um, I would say it's a little bit of both. Um, I think it's exciting and scary. I also think it's a privilege. I am pretty lucky in my career that I've worked at companies consistently that were founder-led, and all of them at the time were trying to do things that have never been done before. Which is pretty exciting. So I've gotten some good muscle around being comfortable being uncomfortable, I suppose.

Wow. Okay. Comfortable about being uncomfortable. Interesting. So, I mean, like we're talking like PTSD level of like discomfort here.

It depends. If you know some of the companies I've worked at, I suppose you could say I had a little bit of that, but yeah, it's a, you know, it's, It's, you're at the cusp of innovation, right? And you sort of have a, I think most of the companies I've worked with, you have a goal or a target, but you get to that and the target just gets moved, you know, founders are in business and they just keep pushing those boundaries. And so you're never really able to, you know, have time to get comfortable because things are shifting so fast.

That's really, I can totally relate to that. I mean, just to put some historical perspective on it, when you were at Avery Dennison, It was— I'm probably not representing the organization all that well, but it's a paper— it was at the time a paper company at the beginning of like the revolution of paperless. So, you know, you were there when they probably just were shifting from, you know, we do paper to we do electronic stuff, right? The turn of the millennium. Like when I was at Cisco, right, at the turn of the millennium. And it was like, hey, the internet's gonna be this big thing that it became. So you were there during that transition. And then, um, you were at Electronic Arts, which a lot of folks probably know as video games, and they do more than that. But you were there for a while, again, during the growth of that. You know, everybody, everybody knows esports nowadays, but back then Yeah, that wasn't a thing. So you were then there at the growth of that, then you were at the, at the, um, peak of like the iPhone generation, you were at Apple, um, and then at the peak of like the, the advent of electronic vehicles, you were at Tesla. Um, so yeah, it's almost like, you know, like you saw the future or something. Electronic vehicles might be a thing. I'll go over here. Hey, I think iPhones are going to be a thing. I'll go over here. So great.

Really interesting about Electronic Arts is when I first started at Electronic Arts, it was 2001. And we were making obviously video games and there was a separate part of the company that was called EA.com. And it was actually for, you know, it's just like 2001 starting in that sort of online gaming. And it ended up not doing well at that time. And we sort of shut that part of the business down. But the idea, and I think it was just the readiness of the world, was the online gaming that we know today. But people, I think, at that time weren't comfortable paying money for something that was online. Like, they wanted a physical product. And look at where it is now. And so in a way, they were really, really innovative, and they had the right thinking. It was just a little too soon for its time. And during my time at EA, we actually did end up going very aggressively into online gaming and digital marketing and things like that. So it's really interesting when you stay at a company for a really long time on how things can go full cycle.

A big shift. Yeah. I mean, I, I've only, I think it's been, it was 5 years, 6 years was the longest that I stayed with a company. Um, just because a lot of, you know, and, and honestly, when I was at Fiserv, the reason I left is the company went through a huge transition and, um, acquisition and it became a completely different so different that I barely recognized it. So that's, you know, that's the longest I've ever been. Never been anywhere for 10 years, not in one organization, but I've been in the industry 30 years.

So you and me both. Let's not date ourselves.

Seeing all that, all those changes, which have been, to say, dramatic in some ways and in other ways not. I mean, this industry has changed a lot, but it's also there's also things that have remained constant. Um, so one of the things I want to talk about and ask about is, is hypergrowth. Hypergrowth is something that is— I think folks that haven't been in it have a hard time kind of, um, wrapping their head around what it, what it really means, and especially in TA. For example, when I was at Cisco, we went from 35,000 to 75,000 people during the time that I was there. So, I mean, doubled in size. Now that's hypergrowth, and the changes are just constant and dramatic. Same thing when I was at Google, I started and it was like, it was pre-IPO and then it quickly grew, you know, so it was a few thousand, like, 2,000, 3,000 people and then it just ballooned. But the hypergrowth that you've experienced is even bigger than that. So tell us a little bit about, you know, Apple, Tesla, Rivian, if I'm saying that right.

Yep, that's right.

And now Databricks. What fundamentally changes in how you build TA when literally speed is, a requirement, it's a priority. You don't have the time to just stop and really— you've got it, you've got to go full speed and still you cannot drop quality. So what is that? What fundamentally changes in the way that you build TA in that kind of a setting?

Yeah, it's a really good question, Shelly. And I think, you know, I've been lucky to do it almost at every company because if every company I've been at— I, you know, I think EA, it was like 1,200 to 12,000. Apple, you know, it was sort of I don't know, double-digit thousands, but 100 and something thousand when I left. Tesla was probably my biggest challenge because I joined when we were 8 and in 2 years we were 50, as in 5-0. And then Rivian, I joined much, much, much earlier, which was really exciting. I was maybe around the 1,000 mark. And then in the middle of the pandemic, we became 12,000.

Wow.

And so it's been— and then I'm sort of at a hypergrowth stage with Databricks. And so Probably my philosophy a little bit is only knowing how to build a function that can scale. Oh, I see.

Right.

You know, which is really, it's been fun for me. And I think the things that I've learned is that there's always going to be the tension, you know, between speed and quality. And the way that you navigate that is making sure, A, you build a really, really, really strong team. Like, I always start with team and I start with standards over sort of tech and process. And I, the way I think about my leadership team is I want to build a leadership team that is so strong that you almost can't point to the leader. Hiring people that are smarter than me, making sure we have all the right capabilities matched. And then it's really making sure that you have that rigor. You know, I think sometimes people think that rigor and speed are at conflict. And I actually think that's not the case. I actually think that if you have the rigor, you can move faster. And when you work at companies like the ones I've worked at, and hopefully everybody in talent feels this way, you should never, ever compromise on quality and never lower the bar. And I think when hypergrowth is, you know, in the mix, it's really easy for people to unintentionally lower that bar. But I think if you've got the good operating discipline and execution, that you can really keep that bar extremely high.

A couple of shows ago, I had Dave Polling, and he's been with Tech Systems his entire career. Talk about, you know, uh, long term. It was like, you know, over 30 years with the same organization. And he talked a lot about, um, building high-performance teams and mentioned something similar that he starts— similar in the sense that he starts with leadership. He starts with selecting people even for his you know, frontline individual contributors that have the trademarks that he believes are necessary to become a leader. And so he's hiring them with the potential of them going into a leadership role. It sounds like, you know, that's a constant with you as well. And you're also adding to that, build the rigor first before you, well, early, right? Start with that rigor because What I've experienced is if you start going too fast without those, without those, I don't know, frameworks, for lack of a better way to explain it, then that's when people start going in different directions and you end up fragmenting and you have these schisms that happen and people buy software and put in processes that are not necessarily in alignment with the other parts of the organization because everybody's moving so quickly. What I'm hearing you say is, so select the leaders for the future, right? Hiring for the future, but also start with that map from the very, very beginning. Don't build it as you go is what you're saying.

Exactly. Yeah. And for me, like, you know, rigor does not mean complex and long and lots of process.

Right.

You know, I think it's like, you know, the goal for me is how do you get the highest quality signals in the fewest amount of steps.

Focus, discipline.

So get really crystal clear on like what great looks like at the macro level, at the micro level, whatever it is, and then build towards that. And if you invest that time, I always use this sort of the analogy of an upside-down triangle versus a regular triangle. A lot of people operate like a triangle. They spend very little time at the top planning. And then as you go along, things get longer and longer and more convoluted. Whereas if you actually start investing in the top and then going this way, spend a little more time up front and you'll move faster here and you'll get, I think, much higher quality outcomes than the other way.

Yeah, the standard MBA, you know, McKinsey Consulting pyramid of strategy, tactics, and operations, right? Strategy, tactics, and operations. And there's other ways that they've used that for scorecards and things like that. But where The reverse of that is if you have, let's say, at the very ground level customer service, you have really good customer service, really good people here, then that feeds better customers, more customers, more profitability, et cetera, and it goes that way. But the upside-down pyramid that you're describing is spending time and energy and focus on building that correctly, and I almost equate that with setting a good foundation. You know, like having a good basis to build on because then you can build and rebuild and you don't have— the earth doesn't move around you. But if you just build a shell, you never know what's gonna happen in that ground floor. So yeah, good preparation. So Jeremy actually said he might pop in for a little bit, but before he does that, it looks like he dropped a question for you.

Oh, he did? Sorry, I didn't see it.

It almost got cut off here on the screen, so I'm just gonna read it. He was asking, can you share how different it is to work in TA at a lesser-known brand for consumers? So for example, EA and Apple and Tesla and Rivian were consumer brands that are recognizable. People that don't even have anything to do with those industries, like you don't have to be a techie to know Apple. You don't have to be a gamer to know EA. What's changed for you working for Databricks, which is not a household name unless you're in the industry, What has changed for you there? How different is it?

It's really interesting. One of the reasons that I was really drawn to going to Databricks is that something that I've never done before. I've only ever worked for the brands and sort of someone that makes something physical. And so, for me, part of my decision-making and how I've orchestrated my career is making sure that I can have impact, but that I'm also learning myself. When I went into electric vehicles, you can imagine my first couple years, even a year and a half or so, I didn't even know what half the words were. You know, it's like I had to learn a completely new industry. And, you know, I think in recruiting, both whether it's leadership or recruiting, learning agility is probably one of your strongest assets. But believe it or not, I mean, Databricks is incredibly compelling. And our CEO, I think, is— I mean, there's 7 founders. So I've always been drawn to founder-led companies. And we are, I think, you know, actually a fair— now that I'm in the industry, it feels like we actually have a lot stronger brand recognition than I think people might think. And so for the types of people I need to attract, they know who Databricks is. And I mean, most of the companies I've worked in, you use some sort of analogy of it's harder to get hired by this company than it is to get into Harvard. And I would say that the bar at Databricks is probably one of the highest I've ever seen. And the talent density at this company is off the charts. Like, it's actually a privilege, um, to work here because I, like, interact with so many smart people every day. And I think that makes it, you know, easier for us to attract, um, the best, because the best want to be, you know, surrounded by the best.

If you have the culture, for sure. Yeah. Um, some companies, you know, they, they don't have that, and, and they, and they have the best, um, at something. Like, you know, not to point any fingers, but when I, when I was at Google, we had some pretty big industry thought leaders in like search, for example, but their culture was a little different than what people expected. So when they would show up for interviews, they were expecting this, but they were getting that, you know? And it made it, it became like just for a period of time there, they had a pretty high offer decline rate. So people would go through the entire process and the very complex interview, workflows and then, and then not accept the offers. So that's, that's a lot of friction there. So, you know, you have that, you have the advantage when you have the geniuses at the company, but then you can also burn that advantage by, by making things awkward for applicants and not having good process. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, looks like Jeremy just came in. Do you mind if I bring him in for a minute?

No, I would love to see him. I would love to see him.

Hello, Jeremy. Hey, how's it going?

So much for joining Shelly today. I had— I just had a follow-up question for you, Cindy, about that.

Yeah.

Clearly, these big brands that you've worked for have given you the opportunity to sort of leverage that knowledge of, you know, the candidate pools and things like that. What advice would you give somebody who leads talent acquisition in a less known brand? What kind of experiences experiences have you had in the past perhaps that might help somebody to be able to recruit talent at scale if they don't have a brand name like Apple or Rivian or Tesla or things like that?

Yeah, I mean, I think my experience— I think the same rules apply. It just might be a little bit easier when you have that brand. But I think it's really getting plugged into what's unique about the company that you work for. And being able to really express what's really special about the culture, what's exciting about the product, what opportunity will someone have that's joining to have impact or to learn or to grow. And if you can get really clear on those things, then it's how do you put those messages out into the world where the right people will apply and will attract? Because there are lots of places that you could go that may not have those brands today or that recognition. Where you're going to do the work of your career, um, and you're going to be able to either, you know, maybe turn that company into something that is known, or get skills that you wouldn't get somewhere else that you're going to be able to bring. Because in my early career, I definitely worked at companies like that. I mean, a small family. But what I learned in those experiences is probably what set me up to be ready for things that I took on after, or the impact that I made. Sort of gave me a reputation to go somewhere else. So I think there's got to be something special about any place that you work and how can you put that out into the world in a way that the right people apply.

I love that. So find what is the special of the place. Yeah. And there's always something, I mean, some compelling reason why that company has, or that organization, doesn't have to be a company, right?

Because there's a lot of leaders that are going to be drawn to somebody that comes from a certain school or comes from a certain company, and, you know, that can be fine. But I like to think about it as, um, what is the evidence of exceptional ability that somebody has? And we all know that there are people that have done some incredible things that maybe didn't graduate from school, um, or didn't work at a, you know, sexy company. But if you can build a career based on having, you know, sort of evidence of excellence, then you should be able to market that for future opportunities.

Cool. Thank you so much for that feedback.

Yeah, thanks for the question. It's so great to see you in person.

Jeremy, you need to pop in like this more often. Yeah, well, I'm gonna—

I'll get off unless I have another question, so I'll let you keep talking.

I just knock on the door if you want. I'm gonna turn you off and then you can stay there. And if you want, just send me a chat if you want to pop in and you can get back on camera. You don't have to bail out. I actually wanted to follow up on that and ask about at Electronic Arts.

I know it's kind of winding it way back, but yeah, you're making me dig deep, Shelly.

But I think this is really related to, I think, probably your whole career trajectory. You talk about this. Getting the right people in the right place just before needed, right? Like the right talent, right time is something that I, you know, I've heard you talk about. Um, that's insanely hard though. It's like before getting them in before, just before they're needed, how is, how do you operationalize that? What's, if you can tell me the secret.

Well, I think, um, any talent acquisition leader that would tell you that they get it right all the time would not be telling the truth, right? Because when there's humans involved, then there's lots of twists and turns that can happen.

Of course, it's insanely hard to do, but you've done it, right? So not necessarily always— it's not like, you know, you're not batting 100 or 300 or whatever, but there's got to be— what, what's, what's the, the spark that makes it possible to kind of get people in just before they're needed, as opposed to, you know, what happens very frequently is, uh, too late, after they've been needed for a while and the pain's been felt and, and things are starting to deteriorate, and then we get the right people Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's having a mindset around running a recruiting function as a business function and getting really locked in with, you know, your finance partners and with your business to try to get, you know, early indicators of what we're going to need and really stay ahead of that curve.

And then as a, as a function, really understanding what your capacity is, right? What's my capacity as a recruiting organization to deliver? And that's impacted by a lot of things. Right? Your offer-to-accept ratio, your attrition ratio. It's like really being dialed in to know, like, on average in this business or this function, a recruiter could, you know, deliver X number of hires, um, a month or a quarter or whatever. And making sure that you really— I mean, the nice thing about recruiting is it is very measurable. And if you lean into that, you should be able to staff, you know. And of course, in the years that we've already all seen with volatility, I always try to staff like I need this many for full-time And then I need some sort of a flex. And I think if you've got the right capacity in place and the right insights from the business that you can build a model. And most of the companies I've worked for, it's like running a sales team. Like I'm on weekly calls updating them on how we're doing to plan for hiring and what's my contingency plan if if we're off track. And so when you do that for almost 30 years, you learn how to get good at it, right? And I know you have a lot of passion for sourcing and pipelining and things like that. And so it's also just trying to get the— this always on. We're always on. We're always building pipeline in the areas that we think we need. It can be a little trickier with the niche talent or the executive hires because there's often times that that's not as planful. But there's some parts of your organization where I think you can try to always be building that pipeline, always have people, you know, in process so that you can do it. But it's, it's, you know, it's a little bit of art, a little bit of science, I think.

Let me— there's a— Jeremy asked the follow-up question, which I want to get to in just a second. But I, I want to dig a little bit deeper in this. So it's always— well, I shouldn't say always. It's very frequently brought up especially in the realm of sourcing and identification of talent, that if we find the right people, we'll make the roles for them, we'll bring them in. We'll, you know, being proactive and ideally as a function, sourcing is in the right place to do that because we don't have as much of the rigor and systems necessities that recruiting has with, you know, open jobs that have to be filled and workflows that have to be done. Fairly and consistently and things like that. So we do have the liberty to do that, but it becomes a challenge when we find someone that is a very strong, compelling candidate and we go to the business and then the business says, "Sorry, we don't have any funding. We can't do that." So they come and they say, "We wanna hire people ahead of demand. We wanna hire people that could be game changers, 10xers or whatever." And then you bring them in and then they say, "Oh, sorry, No open rec, no funding. Um, is there, is there a compelling— is there something I can, you know, talk about that makes, that makes it a little easier to convince the leadership team that asked for this to allow it to happen? In other words, you know, we're acting on their request. It's not like we went and did that on our own, and then when we bring it in, now they're like, oh, sorry, yeah, never mind, change their mind. So is there anything that you can give me to, as a tool, to help with that?

I don't know that there's a tool because I think different leaders in different companies and different, you know, finance organizations think about that differently. And some of it comes down to the ability for the recruiter or the recruiting leader to influence. Some of it comes down, you have certain leaders that are talent magnets that are, they are always on, they're thinking. I mean, I've worked with leaders where we've built this like 10 for 10 program or for every 10 top 10 jobs in their organization, they wanted a pipeline 10 deep. And they were, you know, they would really be willing to make time to go to dinners, to do whatever it was to kind of keep people warm and engaged. And they would find a way to do it. As you know, I think, you know, recruiting, it's a partnership, it's a team sport. And so it's really building that relationship with the business, sometimes the HR business partner in recruiting. And I think you can do magic. But not all leaders or all companies are in the readiness to sort of see around corners. I've been lucky with founders. Founders are talent magnets. They will do anything to get the best and brightest. And so I've had a lot of success, I think, in being able to set up systematic sort of opportunistic hiring. Electronic Arts is actually a great example because finding creative talent is very tricky, especially at those senior levels. So we did some really innovative ways, including partnering with like 3 different agencies to keep an always-on approach looking for people that could grow into executive producer roles. And we literally called it the 10 for 10. And one of my colleagues, his name was Brad, and he was in HR, and he really helped me come up with this sort of like branding idea. And we went big on it. And I was lucky, as you know, to work at EA for 10 years where people that I had reached out out to. And we had implemented— you might remember, we implemented salesforce.com. It was like the first time to use Salesforce as a CRM for recruiting. We actually got recognized at a Dreamforce many years ago, but we were able to track all that pipeline. And some of the work that we did, you know, maybe 3 years later, the person was hired. Do you know what I mean? And so you can actually sort of— I always say build that pipeline in advance of need. And if you have the right tools and process to stay in touch and keep people warm and leave your notes there, then it can actually pay off in a longer tail. And so I think sometimes you need to be comfortable with delayed gratification in recruiting, and you need to really think about it in the long term. You know, an event that you host today behind the red, red rope may not produce hires next week, but they could produce hires in 2 or 3 years.

So it is a long-term mindset.

It is a long term. Yeah, for some of that, it really is a long term. And That's why I really like to build tools that are part of the company framework versus say even like a LinkedIn recruiter for where you store, because it's kind of like intellectual property. And if I leave the company and my stuff was all in LinkedIn, the company loses that, right? Whereas if I leave the company and it's within something that the company owns, you could go find that candidate and my notes would be there and you could re-engage the conversation with someone saying, hey, I know you spoke with Cindy a couple of years ago. It sounds like this might be an opportunity that would be really interesting. And you can keep that continuity going.

That's part of that rigor. That's ideal. But I see so many organizations that forget to do that.

Yeah, we're really making a big push to do that now. And I think it's going to be game-changing.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, because if you think about it, you know, we are all replaceable in this function, even though we might have those relationships. But if you document that, you're able to continue leveraging that later. You know, hey, Sally's moved on, but I see here that you got, you know, had a good conversation. And, and so that's super important. Um, I, I want to highlight this, you know, some of my favorite wins and some of my most exciting wins in, in the industry have been with these hires that were, that came from nowhere. You know, they were either long-term relationships that, that matured into a hire, or there were people that were they weren't looking and the hiring manager wasn't looking for them, but it was the right mix. And we made, we made the job for them because it was the right person for the organization, even though a rec wasn't open. But I ran into an organization where they brought me in as a consultant to help them build a succession— I call it succession sourcing— succession plan, right, for sourcing. And Then they brought these leaders in as warm leads and were ready to— that they were ready to move forward and, you know, meet with folks on campus. And the hiring managers, the senior leaders refused to meet with them, even though this came from the C-suite. In other words, the C-suite, the CEO, the CHRO, the plan was there. We executed it. Well, I designed it, they executed it. And then they brought people in. And, you know, wanted them to come on campus. And, and the, the to-be hiring manager said, I don't have time to interview them. So they refused to interview them. It was like, well then, what was the point of all this? Yeah, we have all these people now that are ready to come and meet us. Even if the position is not open today, it will be open, you know, we know it's going to be open soon. But because it wasn't budgeted for, the hiring managers thought it was a waste of time. And so that was kind of why I was asking is, is there, is there something that I could have done differently to help this organization with that? I don't know if there was. I don't think there was. It just was the leadership wanted to do something that the first line of management didn't want to do.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's tricky. I think you have to meet organizations where they are, um, or people where they are. And I mean, I've run into the same things. It's tricky even with new grad hires, right? Like you go out and invest and interns, and, you know, there's a tail to make those offers. And sometimes I'm like, guys, when in the world have we ever not had an entry-level job open? Like, we'll make up for it, you know? And so I find, you know, part of the reason I think I probably stay at most of my companies for a while is like, it takes time to build the credibility to really be able to have the influence. And if you do it and then you have a few wins, you can actually change it at a, like, a systematic level. And so there's a little bit of like You know, I, I think I have resilience and determination and perseverance as some of my strong, some strong suits. So if it's not today, then I'm going to go back at it and we'll try to keep building.

Yeah. So over time, you prove the case enough and they will— those people that maybe were, you know, it's, it's not— it wasn't their decision to do this, but it was their decision to, to not support it— will eventually come around because they'll see the outcomes.

Yeah.

Yeah. OK. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

I see a question from— another question from Jeremy.

I was going to highlight that. Yep.

Yeah, I don't want to sound critical to any of the companies that I've ever worked at because they've all been fabulous. However, I've never seen workforce planning like done in a way that I think I would like to see it done. And maybe it's because I've worked at such fast-paced, dynamic companies where things are changing so fast. I mean, you always start out with a plan, but the plan is sort of never— what is the plan? And so I kind of have given up on wasting a lot of time on workforce planning, but instead building an organization that can pivot really quickly and sort of trying to plan for everything, you know, sort of knowing that anything can happen and you're going to have wrecks fall from the sky and then you might have slowdowns and things like that. And so I hope we— I mean, maybe with AI, we have some opportunities to see some things that will get a little bit more effective. But there's ways to work around not having a strong workforce plan, and that is to build a TA organization that is deeply embedded with the business so that they're getting the information at the earliest possible moment. And so I've always made sure that I have a very functional organization. My teams feel like they're part of my team, hopefully, but they feel like they're part of the team that they serve. Support. And I expect them to have deep business acumen. I expect them to be really close to the finance partner, the HR business partner, and just really show up in a way that we can pivot as needed to support the business.

That's a good way to look at it because you might not— so, you know, the plan may be there, even if you do get it right, and things still change. So even if you have the plan, you still need that as a backup. I had the privilege of working with a couple of really sharp minds in workforce planning. One of them arguably one of the world's leading experts in workforce planning. I mean, like, wrote, literally wrote the book or multiple books about it. Um, and I ran into them when I was teaching at Temple University in the Fox School of Business, uh, the MBA program, and they were one of the other adjunct instructors. Um, the reason I'm bringing it up is I remember very clearly having this conversation over coffee with them about the reality of the, the, the, the stark reality of workforce planning. And, um, I'll never, I'll never forget what they said. They, they said, really, if it comes down to it, the best you could ever do is maybe 6 months out. Anything on 6 months, if you have a 2-year plan, if you have a 1-year plan, they're just contingency plans. So you might as well have version 1, version 2, like A, B, and C plan, because those 2-year-out plans, they don't— they hardly ever come out the way that you expect them. So the most you really could plan is maybe 6 months out. And this was from the person that, you know, had tracked all the formulas and built all the calculations for it. It just has to do with the fact that, you know, economic indicators be what they may, it's impossible to predict an economy a year from now. It's impossible to predict the advent of AI. Even the people that were writing the AI that became ChatGPT didn't realize how big it was going to get in, in the speed that it got. So even if you were the people that were, you know, even if you're Apple and you know you have the world's number one, you know, personal electronic device, when the iPhone got invented, you still had no idea what that was going to look like. It's just impossible. So what you're saying is It's good to have the workforce plan so you have a guide, but you also need to have an A and a B and a C, and then have a team that can flex. Otherwise the plan is not going to be worth it.

And we all need to learn how to see around corners, you know. I mean, in regardless of whether you have a plan or not, you know.

Yep, yep. So that actually brings me to, um, oh, Jeremy was saying even if company doesn't have through workforce planning, can you cobble together data, get closely aligned to sales, business development, to see what the revenue plans are in more detail, and then translate into hiring strategies? Yeah, I think that's kind of what I was saying, but go ahead.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's exactly what my team does. Like, we're so deeply embedded with the business, and, you know, especially in some of our, you know, our sales organization, our go-to-market hiring, where we have so much volume, and we I definitely feel like my team has a plan that we operate towards, but we're ready to pivot when it changes, because it does change. And so I always think that, you know, finance is my best friend. I will stay deeply embedded with finance, deeply embedded with my business leaders. And, you know, we meet on a regular basis. We look at my capacity. We look at the world around us. We're tracking, you know, our sort of offer-to-accept rate. We're tracking attrition. We're tracking all those things. And we're watching what's happening in the world too. Because, you know, all companies exist in a world and we operate in, you know, 37 different countries. So, you know, I have to also keep my eye on, you know, looking at it by region because some of those things can vary depending on where in the world we operate. So the nice thing with some of the tools that I have at my disposal, given the company that I work for, is that data is getting easier and easier easier for us. We're starting to be able to move into, you know, looking at even like predictive analytics a little bit more robust way than I've ever seen before. We're early days, but yeah, it's a really exciting time to be in this, you know, AI, I don't know, revolution, transformation, whatever we want to call it, and work at a data and AI company because I think I actually have tools that will be available to me and my team that I might not have at another company.

Yeah, the fascinating thing about predictive analytics is that people have this sense that when you're able to do predictive analytics that it's going to show you the trajectory. But what it actually does is it shows you the probability of the trajectory. It doesn't really show you— it's not going to draw the map for you. It's going to give you the probability of going in this path, and then it— you also need to have the other paths as well. So you don't want to take the prediction and say that's where we're going. You want to prepare for that and have that be your main plan, but you also want to have the B and the C as well. Because, you know, and you bring up a really good example going into other countries, something that I've experienced a lot with in my, in my career. Um, you know that you want to go into that country. It's not something that's already happened. So that is part of your workforce plan is to develop a presence in a hiring presence in this new region, new country, etc. So there's a lot of planning goes into that. And I've seen it where you get there and you hit a brick wall. China was a really good example of this. A couple of companies I worked with when we, when we got to China, realizing that the way things get done there are so completely different that we just really weren't prepared for that. And we had a plan to go and do this, and it was set back 2 or 3 years by essentially business policies in the region that people didn't understand. So you might have this plan and, you know, but at least we were working towards that. And we had, if things had gone the way that we wanted them, we would have had, you know, a contingency for that. So something like that, or entering a new space, going from brick and mortar to electronic, going into a new, you know, adding a new service line. That you've never done before. I've seen that a lot. So you could have a plan for that and you need to have a plan for that. And that's what Jeremy's saying is, you know, you can put together what are we expecting to be able to make or project, you know, you have that, that's the business plan essentially. So if you have that, you can then map what that might look like from recruiting and not necessarily put all your eggs in that basket, but you can actually, you know, acquire the talent or build the talent or build the tools or you know, and the predictive AI can help you plan for that by giving you the probabilities that A, B, or C are going to happen. Um, so, you know, I don't want to make folks feel like, oh well, you know, there's no point workforce planning. I mean, you know, exactly.

Anyway, yeah, no, we definitely— you have to do it. You just have to do it.

It's a good idea.

If anything, it's do it all the time. Do you know what I mean? It's like you, you could do it at the beginning of the year, but you've got gotta keep looking at it. And I think that's how we approach it is we always start with a plan, but we know it's going to change.

Yeah, this once-a-year workforce planning thing is definitely— that's old school. Yeah, that's not going to work. As a business function, TA as a business function, not a service. And this is something that very, very early on, I actually learned this from you 20 years ago, from you and from your colleague that introduced me to you. So the concept is in talent acquisition, we are not a customer service operation. And I took that to heart back then and I've driven that home everywhere that I go. I get some friction on that because people do feel like sometimes TA is in a customer service position. But what I think gets lost in translation is We do serve the business, but we serve as a business function. We serve as a business partnership, like other business functions and partnerships. We don't serve the business from a customer service, the customer's always right point of view. So I wanted to bring this back to literally the origin, right? At least in my, in my book, you sat at that executive table. You've, you've seen the mistakes. What are the biggest mistakes that TA leaders make when trying to position themselves as a business partner, not a subservient customer service function? What are the—

um, think about that. I mean, I think I might want to think about it in a more like, what, what, what do you do to position versus it being a mistake? I mean, I think the, the mistake happens when it, it's— you pride yourself on sort of the transactional work, um, and you sort of I don't know, do what's asked of you versus having maybe the courage and the judgment, you know, and resilience to, you know, be able to challenge, you know. And so, you know, I, I try to make sure that my recruiters, you know, are strategic operators that really know the business, that, you know, can, can influence, um, and can partner because I do think it is a team sport with the business to give them a roadmap that says if we follow this roadmap, we are going to get you high-quality hires, you know, in the fastest way possible, right? So it's how do we get those signals? And I think if you can influence and partner with your business, you know, I, I do think that service matters. But the way that I measure it is I think about our job as recruiting teams is to deliver like exceptional stakeholder experiences. And so if you're a leader, I think that you would consider a strong stakeholder experience as someone that, you know, helps you get high-quality hires in a fast way, that drives that process for you and with you, that influences you and your interview panel to do the right thing, right? Because the outcomes are going to be strong. So if you get strong outcomes, then— but I want the experience to be good. So there's a little bit of— there is some customer there, obviously. Candidate experiences, we want to make sure that our candidate experiences are exceptional because there's such a strong link to the brand. But you can do that by acting like a business leader, you know? Yeah, that's a good point, Jeremy. I want to be in service of the business and I want people to have great experiences when they work with my team. And I start with great outcomes.

And that is partnership. That is part of being a partner.

And that means I'm going to hold you accountable, Shelly, if you're my hiring manager for the things in the, in the process that you own and drive. And that's why it's like If you don't get the feedback you need from the business, chase them, walk them out of the building, go stand by their car, email them incessantly, like, get what you need. And I'm never— no one's ever going to get mad at you for chasing, you know. And so we have to push maybe sometimes more than we'd like to, but you have to drive the process, right?

It's— and I think that's, that's actually the point where it gets kind of lost is, um, it's not just doing what you're told, it's not just being customer service. It's the service. And that may mean that you have to push back because that is the service that you're providing, is the partnership, that is the insight and the value that you add, as opposed to just "go fetch," right? I mean, derogatory, but that kind of gets— that's what sometimes happens. And it gets in the way. People are afraid of being perceived as, you know, not being collaborative when they're not just doing what they're told.

Exactly.

Which is not real partnership.

Exactly.

So this is a good question. How do you get honest and truthful feedback about candidate experience? Interesting. From, I'm assuming, from the candidates?

Yes, I find it's a really good question. And it's something that we are just changing our approach to now. We were using a candidate experience survey for people that were hired and not hired. Um, but the response rate was so low that, um, I was getting, you know, sort of frustrated because, you know, you'd have these things, but it wasn't enough information to know. And so we've recently switched as a pilot to, um, little pulse surveys. So instead of coming from a company, it's actually coming from— it's through our GoodTime app, and it's coming— the email goes to the candidate from the coordinator who they would have met along the way. And I can't remember the number, but our response rate has gone up. Like, it's almost 75% better than it was. And so now we're actually getting better quality data to react to. It's like, this is in flux right now. And honestly, like, I am seeing a good blend of like, here's what went really well and here's where there was an opportunity for improvement. And so You know, it's only been about 2 months, but I'm really looking forward to digging into it at the end of the quarter to see if we're getting higher fidelity information that we can really react to. But it is tough because, you know, you just don't know. It's just like exit interviews, you know, are people willing to burn a bridge and really tell you, or are they just saying, oh, it's a career opportunity or something like that? And so I do think the world is becoming a bit more transparent than it was, you know, when, when I was maybe earlier in my career. But I still worry, are we really getting the details that we need to make, you know, good systemic change? But we're going to try. I never give up.

No, I don't think you should. On that specifically, I ran into a pretty difficult situation where I was leading the function and responsible for the people analytics and the top of the funnel as well as both people analytics and recruiting side of it. And one of the programs that I was in charge of was the candidate experience feedback through the automated ATS surveys that went out. Um, and, um, they had just kind of set it and forget it before I got there. When I started looking into it, what we, what we noticed, what I noticed was that a lot of the feedback was specifically from people who didn't get the job. So like, those who didn't get the job would essentially bitch about it and go back and like go back and like say negative things about their interviewer. And we weren't getting very much feedback from people who did get the job or had good experiences or whatever. And that's pretty common with survey types of things. But it was, it was about the timing and it was about asking the questions. So, um, we made some tweaks to, to the timing and the wording and the framing to not make it as much about How was your interview? It wasn't specifically about, but that was what was coming up. And people were like, well, I felt like the hiring manager didn't really know what they were talking about, or the recruiter didn't. And it was just, it was like a, you know, an opportunity to, to excuse why you didn't get the job or whatever, or feel better about it. When we changed the timing and the questions, we got better answers. Yeah, a few more answers, but you also got more answers from actual, you know, people who almost got the job or not offers, or as opposed to people that got Unfortunately, what was happening was they would go to one interview, get ghosted, and then they would, you know, complain. Yeah, that's, that was as bad— talk about bad candidate experience. So we figured that one out, but we didn't do that with everybody. Only a few people had that experience. They were eager to complain though. So Jeremy is asking, do business leaders actually care about candidate experience? If you share candidate experience data to non-PA, non-HR people, how do they react and support any possible changes?

It's actually a good question. And, and, you know, I actually feel, um, at least in my current situation, that, that they— I must— I don't know that they cared until I started sharing data and they saw that there was opportunity for improvement. And I had the privilege of being part— we do something really cool every year at Databricks, we call it Leader Shift. And we literally do a training on leadership for all leaders in the company. And we go traveling to the major hubs around the world to deliver this content. And it's one day out to focus on, you know, the importance of leadership and what's expected of leaders. And one of the things that's expected of leaders here is to build elite teams. And there's an expectation that leaders are very, very involved in recruiting, and that is set from the founders. So we did— I did— I taught a module on hiring excellence for over 1,000 people, managers at Databricks. I think I was 180 hours in the air in Q3, Q4 of last year. Um, but it was so impactful, A, to get to know them and to hear what's top of mind, but also to try to give some, you know, some guidance on how they can continue to recruit and get those high-quality signals in the fewest amount of steps. I use that as an opportunity to talk about candidate experience at several places within the content because I don't think it's where it needed to be at Databricks. And the nodding and the eye contact and the ask for help from these leaders was like really awesome. And so we've done a lot to help people understand how to make a better candidate experience, how to pitch Databricks, how to give realistic previews of what to really expect when you get here. And they've been really leaning in. So I was really encouraged. And so now that we have this new sort of pulse methodology, and I feel like we're getting data that has better fidelity than what we were, we are going to be sharing it on a regular basis. With the business leaders, both where they're doing well and not in a report card punitive way, but just a way for them to be exposed to the things that might need to get improved that they might not have otherwise known. So I'm actually really excited, at least in the company that I'm working in, that people really do care. And I think they realize that there is a direct linkage now to our brand. And what I've said is regardless of whether someone gets hired, what I want is that the word on the street is like, oh my God, I just had the most incredible interview at Databricks. I didn't get the job, but I really wish I did. You know, and that's what I want people to be saying. And I don't know that, you know, that that was always the case here, but we're going to make it so.

Interesting that it's a— well, to sort of piggyback to what Jeremy was asking, it's not the data. It's actually the— it's sharing. You have to have the data, first of all. But it's not sharing the data with the leaders that I'm talking about. It's sharing the, what do you want to see changed and why? So the data informs that, obviously. But I don't think they necessarily need to see that or want to see that data per se as much as what does it really mean and what do you want to do about it, right?

And that's why we did what it sounds like you did, which was get a little bit more specific around the questions, because obviously there's the scheduling aspect in your interaction with your recruiter or your, you know, coordinator, whatever. And then there's the interview and then it's, you know, there's a lot of different things and we all share that. That's why I always say recruiting is a team sport because a lot of people will touch that candidate journey. And so if you don't have the fidelity of information, you don't actually know where to go and try to pull different levers. And so I think by getting the specific feedback, we'll know when is it feedback from my team and something we can do better. And when is it feedback for the business and where do we need them to lean in?

Right. And, and does it really matter? Is because sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Exactly.

Sometimes it's not gonna make a difference. Right. And there are like, what one case that we had ended up going all the way to the CEO and the CEO got in a bit of a tizzy about it and wanted to do something about it because the person had written in Glassdoor and it was almost like, well, reacting to the wrong thing. It's just one comment. Well, yeah, but people are going to read that. Yeah, but you also look at restaurant reviews and, you know, 87 5-star reviews and 1 1-star review, and that one person had a bad experience. I think people are smart enough to tell the difference. Like, you can tell that, that one person either A, had a bad day, or maybe they had a bad meal or whatever. It doesn't necessarily mean the company's broken. And I think that we overreact to that one Glassdoor review. Whatever it is, Indeed or whatever, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Because of that. And it's not— doesn't really— that doesn't really reflect the candidate experience as per—

Exactly. And that is definitely how I felt with the data that we were getting prior to this new methodology. Because, you know, if we're doing 5,000 hires, you can imagine how many candidates we're talking to globally. And I just need to know that it's statistically significant enough to react to. It's like, I need to know if this is really a theme.

Uh, Jeremy wanted to know if the consumer brands care more about candidate experience than the— and again, I know Databricks is a well-known brand in the industry, but he's specifically asking around, you know, the right-to-consumer brands. And this is something that I encountered, like for example, with Yum Brands and Pizza Hut. Um, so he's asking, is there a difference in how they react to that when they're a brand company as opposed to a technology company? That's not necessarily a household brand? Does leadership react differently to candidates?

I don't know if I noticed that. And maybe it's just because it's always been a passion of mine. I mean, it's always one of the strategic pillars under what I do. So I don't, you know, and I think it sometimes can actually come down to the individual. I think you're going to have some people that really lean into it. And then you're going to have some people that maybe just don't, right? So I don't know if I could differentiate by company or by consumer, non-consumer. Because if it wasn't important before I got to the company, it was when I got there.

Because, right, because you brought it with you. I will say this. I will say, so BP, Philip Morris, and Lockheed Martin. BP had a disaster. And they, one of the things that they brought me in to do was to help figure out how to reengage with passive talent after that disaster because they were getting a lot of responses like, "You killed the planet. We don't want to work there." which obviously ended up not being true. But the point is that it was a disaster. So there it was like they cared about the candidate experience because it was really impacting their top of the funnel, but it wasn't the experience of the candidate as an applicant. It was the experience that people were having with a brand. And it's not really a consumer brand necessarily. I mean, they do have gas stations, but right. And then you have Philip Morris. I don't want to work there because you kill people. You know, and that's legitimate. And then you have Lockheed Martin. I don't want to work there because you kill people. Well, actually, we also save people. We, you know, national security and all that. So there's these like tensions that there's an opinion that a candidate can have, a consumer opinion they can have about the brand that may be different than the employer. Brand. And the reason I brought up Yum Brands is because as a consumer, people were flocking to their TA experience and asking for pizza coupons. And the recruiters are trying to recruit, like, I'm trying to recruit you, not give you a pizza coupon. But that's— everybody just wanted pizza coupons, even the candidates.

Yeah.

So it's, it's a huge— I think it makes a big difference how the company is perceived as a brand by consumers in how you react to that, but it doesn't necessarily change the fact that you need to provide a good experience. It just changes what they decided was, you know what, we're just going to have a standard Pizza Hut coupon. Like, we're just— anybody asks, we're just— instead of fighting it, we're just going to be like, yeah, sure, no problem here. And they just handed out coupons, and they even made it a referral program. If you refer 10 people, you get a, you know, free pizza, stuff like that. Like, they made it fun and they made it work. And sometimes you just can't. You can't be Lockheed and say, "Let's fix our employment brand because people think that we kill—" No, we're national security. We're defense. Yeah.

I mean, I think most of the time in talent acquisition, that's a different battle that we face is the fact that the company brand and the employment brand are different. You know, and I remember having this sort of like, you know, debate at different companies that no, We don't want pictures of product in our employment brand necessarily. We would like to have pictures of people. And we need to have more information on our website around what it's like to work at this company. Yes, we make great products, but what's it like to work here, right? And so teasing that out and getting that level of investment, I think, is always tricky.

We're at the end here, and I wanted to give you kind of like a closing, an opportunity to sort of wrap things up for us today. It's something that you talked about early on and we didn't really get back into it regarding how fast AI moves. So my, my sort of wrap-up question is, with everything happening in AI and data and even recruiting tech, which you're, you're in touch with as well, um, can you share with, with us what actually matters in the TA stack that isn't just noise and looks impressive? Because there's a lot of that. There's a lot of looks impressive. Wow, wish we could do that. But it doesn't really move the needle. So what, what is it in AI that's really going to move the needle or is already moving the needle for you?

Yeah, I mean, maybe I'll answer the question in a different way and to see if it works for you. Because I, for me, it's early days yet to know exactly. And I think I mentioned before we were on video, I think my opinion even of what AI could do for us, you know, down the road has changed in the last 3 weeks as I've dug into it. And so I'm actually really bullish on AI. I'm approaching it with urgency, but I'm also approaching it with discipline. I, I, I think that there are people that are sort of dabbling around the edges and maybe looking for productivity things. And I think that's important. But I actually want to zoom out and do something that also that's really transformative. I think it's going to be interesting because hiring is deeply human, in my opinion. And I think things like quality, fairness, judgment, trust is always going to matter in a people function. And so my goal isn't to necessarily starting from I want to remove people. People. It's more I want to remove sort of friction and consistency, the low-value work, so that people can focus on that work where they add value. So I'm actually doing a deep, like, analysis right now of just zooming out and thinking about the whole recruiting lifestyle— or sorry, life cycle— and then almost looking at personas, like the persona of the different roles in TA today and what they could be if enabled by AI, and then looking at from the time you have a need all the way through to sourcing, scheduling, you know, assessment, you know, the offer process. Where are there— where is there an opportunity to build something? Because if you take AI and just go for productivity and speed, it could just get really messy because you almost have to think about a different operating model. And so we are definitely doing the, um, encourage our experimentation, and I'm super lucky to work at the company that I do. We're making an investment. We're going to put the entire people team through 3 hours of training, and we have access to tools obviously here that other people may not. And so we're going big, but I'm right now really digging into what is the one or two big rocks that could really transform recruiting. Um, and that's what I wanted to know. I don't know what that is yet, but maybe we can do a future episode. Let's do that.

I, I have some thoughts and I have some things that I've done, you know, in the space that I'm in right now. So, but it's still, I think it's too soon to tell what's really transformative versus what's just noise. I can tell you a lot of things are noise and I can tell you which ones those are, but I can't tell you which ones are much more likely to be real game changers. The one thing I do think is definitely happening is we are, we are finding ways to be more efficient. Yeah, if you're cautious about it, just like we were when the— in the early days of the internet, you know. Yeah, in the early days of social media, if you're cautious about it, you can gain efficiencies. But the downside is if you're not cautious about it, it can really be a, um— it can really be like, it causes a lot of friction and issues. Yeah.

And I feel like in a human, you know, function, which we are— we're in the people business. And even though I, I am a business person, I am also a people person. And I just want to make sure that we're strengthening things and not sterilizing it, you know? Yeah.

Yep. So, well, thank you so much for having me, Shelley.

It was so lovely to see you after all these years. And yeah, I don't know if Jeremy's still with us, but also to see Jeremy, he was very instrumental early in my career. So yeah, really nice to see him as well.

Thanks. He had, he had to run, but yeah, he was very happy that you were on today. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. We'll be back in touch to see if we can get a part 2 to that, what's going to be transformative. All right, everybody, that concludes our show. Thank you, Cindy.

Thank you. Bye, everybody.

We'll see you here next