Trusted by more than 100,000 businesses to protect their data, 1Password is an integral layer of the Identity and Access Management (IAM) stack, protecting all employee accounts and giving employees secure access to any app or service.

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Amber White discusses how she blends her unique knowledge of and experience in psychology and data, and a human-first mindset to build hiring systems that scale. Further, Amber discusses how to design a transparent and “psychologically safe” hiring process that encourages candidate feedback, equips hiring managers with the tools and training they need to have a positive impact, and adapts with the growth of AI in hiring.

Notes

Over the past decade, Amber has helped startups grow by building high-impact, inclusive teams across engineering, GTM, and leadership roles. She has worked at every stage, from scrappy, bootstrapped companies to private equity-backed scaleups, often juggling the roles of recruiter, strategist, analyst, marketer, and process optimizer.

In her current role at 1Password, Amber leads technical hiring and supports organization-wide hiring initiatives across both systems and strategy, partnering closely with hiring teams to define success and align on how to find it.

Key Takeaways

[15:18] How to Design a Hiring Process that Provides Upfront Clarity to Candidates

[23:25] Psychological Safety in Interviewing: Candidate Transparency and Hiring Manager Training

[30:26] Key Insights Employers Can Gain By Providing Candidate Feedback During Interviewing

[36:07] How to Adapt Your Hiring Process with the Growth of AI in Hiring

[42:10] AI Hiring Tools: Use Cases, Best Practices, and Business Outcomes

Additional Resources:

• The Complete Guide to Collaborative Hiring

• AI in Hiring: The New Rules for Candidates and Companies

• The Impact of Candidate Experience on the Hiring Process

Supabase is an open-source Firebase alternative, making it easier for developers to build and scale with Postgres. With tools for databases, authentication, backend functions, and storage, Supabase takes the infrastructure headaches out of building so developers can focus on shipping great products.

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Michaela Burpoe discusses the unique challenges of hiring for a remote-first, async team that values autonomy, speed, and efficiency. She also delves into best practices and strategies for this hiring environment, including transparency, structure, and highly collaborative hiring (but not necessarily in the traditional sense).

Notes

Over the past decade, Michaela has helped teams scale intentionally, designing hiring strategies and people programs that foster real growth, not just headcount. Michaela strongly believes that in hiring, transparency, trust, and impact matter.

In her current role at Supabase, Michaela is focused on fast, intentional hiring that aligns with their async culture, developer-first mission, and product-led motion as well as developing a thoughtful candidate experience and structured processes, and hiring people who move fast, think deeply, and work like owners.

Key Takeaways

[9:30] Why Building a Solid Foundation Needs to Be Step One of Your Hiring Process

[13:30] Collaborative Hiring Tips: How to Engage Stakeholders Beyond Your Hiring Managers

[17:50] How Do You Determine What "Good" Looks Like at Various Hiring Stages?

[31:00] Assessing Non-Traditional Professional Paths Against Role Requirements

[35:40] AI in Hiring: How Candidates Can Use AI in an Ethical and Authentic Way

Additional Resources

• The Complete Guide to Collaborative Hiring

• Hire Education: Chapter 1 (Role Development and Approval)

• AI in Hiring: The New Rules for Candidates and Companies

Melissa Grabiner is a highly experienced HR and Talent Acquisition professional with over two decades in the field. Today, she is a prominent LinkedIn thought leader and is currently ranked as a top female and HR creator. Her expertise includes building talent acquisition functions, managing teams, overseeing large-scale hiring, and leading HR activities through organizational changes.

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Melissa discusses how to develop a more effective and efficient screening process to manage and reduce high volumes of unqualified candidates, and the impact of proactive candidate sourcing and outreach on your talent pipeline, employer brand, and candidate experience.

Notes

As a Job Search Coach and a Global Director of Talent Acquisition with over 20 years of experience, Melissa has interviewed hundreds of candidates, edited thousands of resumes and LinkedIn profiles, and helped hundreds of job seekers land multiple offers.

Melissa is dedicated to utilizing her unique skills and knowledge of hiring and recruitment to help organizations elevate their hiring process through more methodical planning and alignment with hiring managers earlier in the process, and proactive sourcing and relationship-building to develop a stronger talent pipeline.

Key Takeaways

[11:58] Best Practices to Reduce High Volumes of Unqualified Applications

[23:20] Getting Aligned With Hiring Managers: The Power of a Strong Job Description

[36:42] Proactive Sourcing: How to Build a Quality Candidate Pipeline

[53:56] Evaluating for Culture Fit: Targeted Questions for Candidates and Companies

Additional Resources

How to Write an Effective Job Description that Works For You, Not Against You

7 Ways to Better Assess Candidates for Cultural Fit With Your Organization

The Complete Guide to Effective Candidate Screening and Selection

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Shaun Rohrich, the Founder of Build More Leaders and a leader in the talent acquisition space for more than a decade, delves into what led him to create Build More Leaders and The Leadership Accelerator program, beginning with a deep desire to help organizations and enterprise businesses better equip and grow their leaders.

As this relates to hiring, Shaun believes that managers play a pivotal role in successful recruitment, which ultimately impacts greater business outcomes. Listen as he walks through how to better engage stakeholders in hiring, how to build a team together with intention, and the impact of a consistent culture for growth to improve manager engagement and reduce the costs associated with bad hires.

Notes

Shaun Rohrich is a leadership coach and HR executive who has helped everyone from family-run businesses to Fortune 500s build stronger, more self-sufficient managers.

As the Founder of Build More Leaders and creator of The Leadership Accelerator, a program that helps HR teams scale leadership across their organization and cut down on employee turnover, manager escalations, and performance gaps, Rohrich is committed to helping organizations build stronger teams, which begins with highly collaborative hiring.

Key Takeaways

[19:20] How to Make Collaboration Effortless for Hiring Managers

[22:26] The Positive Impact of Building Your Team with Intention

[26:58] Expert Advice to Get Hiring Managers Bought Into a New Process

[30:10] Tying Hiring Outcomes to Each Hiring Manager's Unique Motivations

Additional Resources

• The Complete Guide to Collaborative Hiring
• Hire Education: Training Guide to Better Hiring (Chapter 3: Building a structured hiring process alongside your hiring managers)
• The Importance of Hiring Managers in the Screening Process
• Empowering Hiring Managers as an Extension of Talent Acquisition

Merit America is a nonprofit organization that is closing the opportunity gap at scale by preparing talented workers in low-wage roles for well-paying careers. Further, its mission is to break the cycle of poverty and build a new pathway to the middle class for tens of millions of Americans.

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Katie Rakusin, the Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Merit America, sits down with Spark Hire CEO, Josh Tolan, to delve into the challenges and strategies of recruiting for a fully remote, nonprofit organization, including assessing candidates' ability to thrive in a remote setting and ensuring their genuine interest in the organization's mission.

Notes

As the Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Merit America, Katie Rakusin leads all recruiting strategies and efforts including the development of its competency hiring framework and heavy focus on the candidate experience, highlighting Merit America’s commitment to treating all candidates with respect and providing a fair opportunity.

Katie is dedicated to designing efficient processes to support the organization’s continued growth and ensuring Merit America’s hiring process is equitable, inclusive, and accessible. This includes implementing more intentional job descriptions, accessible information formats, skills-based hiring, anonymized applications, and competency-based assessment.

Key Takeaways

[12:39] - Using AI in the Hiring Process: Unspoken Rules and Guidance for Candidates

[17:10] - Turning Hiring Managers into Active Participants and Partners in the Hiring Process

[23:42] - Building a More Equitable, Inclusive, and Accessible Candidate Experience

[28:17] - Understanding and Developing the Framework for Competency-Based Hiring

Additional Resources

• Navigating DEI Hiring in 2024: Insights from Spark Hire and Checkr

• Hiring for Remote Teams: 4 Best Practices for Business Owners

  7 Ways to Better Assess Candidates for Cultural Fit With Your Organization
  

Operating internationally, with its research and development team distributed throughout the United States, Canada, and Israel, Semperis stands at the forefront of cybersecruity as a premier identity-driven cyber resilience and threat mitigation platform, catering to both cross-cloud and hybrid environments.

As a distributed people-driven organization with a learner talent acquisition team, Semperis places a significant emphasis on transparency and engagement between hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates, and maintaining a positive culture across its distributed teams.

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Anna Taylor, the Director of Global Talent Acquisition and Recruiting at Semperis, delves into the nuances of building an effective hiring framework including involving stakeholders early and often, developing a more complete Ideal Candidate Profile before you begin the recruitment process, and focusing on authentic asynchronous connections.

Notes

As the Director of Global Talent Acquisition and Recruiting at Semperis, Anna Taylor leads Semperis’ efforts to attract top-tier talent in cybersecurity and Identity Access Management globally. Her approach is people-centric, which influences both her recruitment strategies and leadership philosophy.

Semperis and Taylor are committed to ensuring a seamless and positive experience for candidates throughout the hiring process, continuously adapting and improving as Semperis expands.

Key Takeaways

[7:11] - Building an Effective Hiring Framework From the Ground Up

[11:37] - How to Develop a More Complete Ideal Candidate Profile

[22:07] - Why Recruiters Should Focus on Authentic Asynchronous Connections

[28:56] - Stakeholder Involvement in Interviewing and Evaluations

[37:54] - Communicating with Hiring Managers Every Step of the Process

[42:02] - Why a Positive Candidate Experience Leads to Better Hires

Additional Resources

• The Comprehensive Guide to Candidate Screening and Selection
• The Importance of Hiring Managers in the Screening Process
• 7 Ways to Better Assess Candidates During Screening for Culture Fit Within Your Organization

An operationally focused professional services firm, MERU is a values-driven, impact-oriented team dedicated to helping companies. MERU is united by a culture that values excellence, collaboration, and success in all its forms for our clients and our people, which translates into its hiring process.

As a people-driven organization with a learner talent acquisition team, MERU places a significant emphasis on assessing for cultural fit, collaboration with hiring managers, and engagement with candidates and stakeholders throughout the entire process.

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Erin Beasley, Head of Talent at MERU, shares insights into how she keeps hiring managers and candidates engaged to ensure better job fit and overcomes the primary screening challenges brought on by the rise of “Easy Apply”.

Notes

Erin Beasley is the Head of Talent at MERU, where she leads a lean talent acquisition team driven by a mission to make hiring more collaborative. With more than a decade as a talent acquisition professional across both small, growing organizations and larger, more complex global firms, Erin is an expert in developing impactful, inclusive strategies for recruiting and broader people-related initiatives.

Key Takeaways

[17:55] The difference in your hiring manager’s involvement in evergreen vs. niche roles, and how to uniquely engage hiring managers based on your hiring needs.

[27:03] How to instill a core value of hiring collaboration across your organization, especially within organizations with leaner talent acquisition teams but large hiring goals.

[29:35] How to successfully and seamlessly integrate an Applicant Tracking System into your hiring process to enhance speed and collaboration without needing more personnel.

[33:35] Hear actionable advice for navigating several of the most common modern hiring challenges.

[39:32] How to define and assess candidates for cultural fit with and without HR tools.

[45:44] Don’t overcomplicate hiring. Learn small foundational steps you can take to begin making an immediate hiring impact.

Additional Resources:

• The Comprehensive Guide to Candidate Screening and Selection
• The Importance of Hiring Managers in the Screening Process
• Skill Set vs. Cultural Fit: Which One Wins When Screening Candidates?
  

Concurrency, a leading technology consulting firm with over thirty years of experience, sets a benchmark for people-first talent acquisition by emphasizing cultural fit and authenticity. Its hiring process includes value-focused interview questions and requires comprehensive feedback before making offers, ensuring candidates align with core values and excel in a client-driven environment.

On this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Meghan Focht, Human Capital Director at Concurrency, shares how this approach not only improves hire quality, but also strengthens Concurrency’s supportive and collaborative work culture.

Key Takeaways

• 13:35 - Hiring sales roles in professional services in today’s environment - Evaluate sales candidates based on how they approach the hiring process, as it serves as a strong indicator of their ability to prepare, research, and build rapport in real sales scenarios—key qualities for success in a remote and competitive environment.

• 15:33 - Non-negotiable characteristics in professional services candidates - Ensure every candidate aligns with core company values—authenticity, assuming positive intent, making a difference, having a growth mindset, and being bold—since these non-negotiables are key indicators of long-term success and cultural fit.

• 17:36 - How to evaluate candidates based on core values - Evaluate candidates by combining behavioral interview questions with an assessment of their authenticity and humility, ensuring they embody the company's core values such as ownership, transparency, and being true to themselves during the interview process.

• 18:35 - Embrace vulnerability during the interview process - Emphasize the value of vulnerability and honesty during the interview process, encouraging candidates to admit when they don't know something. This approach aligns with a culture that prioritizes collaboration, problem-solving, and continuous learning, reflecting the real-world challenges they will face on the job.

• 22:35 - How to approach burnout internally - Ensure transparency during the interview process by clearly communicating the job's challenges and current company conditions, allowing candidates to make informed decisions about their fit. This approach fosters honesty and alignment with company values from the start.

• 31:54 - Multi-step interview processes in professional services - In professional services, the multi-step interview process is crucial due to the need for candidates to possess both deep technical skills and strong interpersonal abilities, as they must excel in both their specific roles and client interactions. This thorough approach ensures that hires are well-rounded and capable of meeting diverse project demands.

• 33:56 - Evaluate candidates for culture fit - To ensure candidates align with Concurrency's well-defined culture, integrate value-focused questions into the interview process and provide renewed training for all interviewers, emphasizing the importance of cultural fit and authenticity. This approach helps in identifying candidates who can effectively manage client chaos and embody the company's values.

• 36:20 - Hold hiring managers accountable in professional services - To ensure timely feedback from hiring managers and stakeholders, implement a policy where offers are only extended after all feedback for candidates is complete. This approach creates accountability and urgency, encouraging prompt and thorough input from everyone involved in the hiring process.

• 39:00 - Advice for lean talent acquisition teams - For lean HR teams, build rigor in the hiring process by clearly defining and communicating the process with your leadership team. Leverage hiring managers' networks for candidate sourcing, streamline interviews, and balance risk by adapting the process to your available resources and strategic goals.