January 6, 2026 • 43 mins
Megan Batterbury, Senior Talent Operations Specialist at incident.io, joins us to talk about what it really means to scale hiring with heart by building efficient systems without losing the human touch. She shares how thoughtful planning, transparent employer branding, and playful team rituals shape recruiting experiences that truly connect.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:46):
We have Megan Batterbury here.
She is the Senior TalentOperations Specialist at
incident.io.
Megan, thanks for joining me onthe show today.
SPEAKER_01 (00:56):
Hi.
How are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
I'm doing great.
Yeah, so, anyways, the room thatyou're in is freaking awesome.
For everybody listening on thepodcast, you should actually
watch the video because she's inthis like little concrete cellar
thing, but it has like reallycool red lights and some
different cool stuff.
You said it's your your demoroom or what?
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Yeah, so we have two of these so that the sales team
like have somewhere they can gothat's like soundproof.
It's like fully set up for themto like be able to do very
polished demos for customers.
But a lot of the product teamwill come in here when they're
doing stuff with customers aswell.
We use it if we're filming likelooms or like demos or stuff to
go out to the business as well.
(01:35):
We'll often be in here.
Um, or if you really want tolike bouge up a hiring manager
interview for someone, you'llput them in here as well.
SPEAKER_00 (01:42):
Yeah, that sounds really nice.
We were just talking about youwhat what book were you
mentioning?
There's like some book thattalks about why tech companies
have all this like theunfinished.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Yeah, so it's called Careless People.
It's someone's opinion of likeearly days of working at
Facebook, basically.
It's very controversial in thefact of they tried to put a gag
order out on it so that shecouldn't promote it.
And the idea that she has andthat's said a lot, even like
from friends I know that haveworked at Meta now, their whole
(02:13):
narrative is they try and leavelike the office exposed so not
everything looks polished, neatand tidy because the product
isn't fully finished yet.
And that's the thing that peopletry and push out as a narrative
with things, and it's like, no,no, no, it's just because you
had enough at the final hurdlewhen it came to furnishing your
office.
Right now that's the narrativeyou want to spin to candidate,
(02:33):
so it looks a bit better foryou.
Um, but yeah, she talks aboutthat a lot of like how you know
when you go into some officesand they've got the exposed wire
over the top, and yeah, it'sspoken about in that, which is
quite funny as well.
Because when you read it, assomeone that's worked in
startups and had friends thatworked in startups, you know
that there's companies that usethat example as well, which is
(02:53):
quite technically.
SPEAKER_00 (02:54):
Yeah, for sure.
Like all the startup lingo.
Yeah, we have the same thing inour building, so it's like yeah,
it's everywhere now.
SPEAKER_01 (03:01):
Yeah, exactly.
It's just like I've I thinkeveryone goes, like one person
does it, and then everyone kindof like copies it's like you
know, meeting room names, theirniche to a business as well,
right?
Like you go to LinkedIn's, andLinkedIn offices are typically
each ones that called somethingdependent on that location
office, and then our meetingrooms are named after things of
(03:22):
the incident journey.
So we have Chrome Pineapplebecause when the business was
first started, our publiclytraded name is Pineapple
Technologies because we couldn'thave incident IO.
Um, so they bought a ChromePineapple, like little like
statue thing.
Uh, but they've smashed aboutthree of them since the business
(03:43):
has been going.
So we don't even have theoriginal one anymore.
So there's a meeting room calledChrome Pineapple, there's a
meeting room called Door toNowhere because we were in an
office that we were on the topfloor, and the door opened just
out to the street, so it waslike a sheer drop, and it was
just called the door to nowhereor the emergency exit interview,
(04:05):
like is the other one that waslike jokingly called.
And then one of our old officeswas in a dish used fire station,
which is quite ironic given thefact that our logo's aflame as
well, and we're an incidentmanagement company, so it was
like quite cool to have all ofthat there.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, that sounds like a really cool story.
I'm gonna have to go to theoffice one day.
unknown (04:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:24):
Yeah, the ones in San Francisco are called donut
because we have the rule here ifyou leave your laptop unlocked,
like in the office, someone willgo in the Slack channel and be
like, donuts on me, becauseobviously we're an incident
management company, it'ssecurity, you shouldn't be
leaving your laptop open.
And it gets pretty vicious attimes.
Like, there is no friends withif you leave your laptop open.
(04:46):
Um like people like one of thegirls I sit next to had to write
a message being like, Don'tdonut me.
I'm trying to upload something,I need the laptop open to be
able to do it.
That's the lengths people willgo to.
Like, people will watch someoneturn around and like lay wait.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:02):
They'll watch, yeah, they'll watch.
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
Yeah, yeah.
So Alyssa, who is the GTMrecruiter in the San Francisco
office, she was like, someonedid her message and it was like,
uh donuts and steaks on me.
And she genuinely turned up inthe office with donuts and
steaks to like prove a point.
Um, and it is like it becomeslike a thing of where people are
like, you know who owes donutsin the business as well.
(05:29):
So if someone gets donutted andsomeone hasn't paid up for their
donuts, someone will commentunderneath being like, so and so
still owes us their donuts.
And it's like you should havedonut tax on that as well.
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
Right.
Yeah.
Like you have to do now, youhave to do more, you have to
bring more or something.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
Yeah.
And this is the these are thebenefits that you really don't
get from working at home.
SPEAKER_00 (05:48):
Oh, yeah.
This is really that's actuallylike that's so much fun.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
Yeah, you never have to worry about when you're at
home locking your laptop and youknow, right, worrying about
maybe your cat or your dogdonuting you.
Like these are just things thatyou have to do.
Donating you, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (06:02):
You turn it into like a verb, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (06:03):
Yeah, in an office, it's like, oh, these are things
that we consistently have to beaware of, um, yeah, and like be
like mindful of.
Uh, but yeah, it is quite funny.
It's like the the two claim tofames that I have.
I got our IT operations teammember, whose literal job during
onboarding is to tell people totheir laptops.
SPEAKER_00 (06:25):
Oh, that's that's a right that's a tough one.
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
Yeah, and one of the founders who he was the one that
told us about it.
So when I got him, I've neverbeen so proud.
Like, I've I've not done anyoneelse since just because I feel
like I'm on a high.
Like I've done, like, other thangetting all of the leadership
team in one failed swoop, it'sjust not worth it anymore.
Like, I've nailed it.
SPEAKER_00 (06:46):
That would be awesome.
You gotta stage a fire alarm orsomething to get everybody to
run out.
SPEAKER_01 (06:51):
Yeah, that would they don't like a fire alarm
though.
The irony of the logo being fireand we don't like a fire alarm.
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
They get a little too far.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Yes, like I feel like someone would be like, no,
no, no, this is too far now ifwe're doing this.
Um, but yeah, that's one of theweirdest things that one of our
meeting rooms is named after.
But it's quite good forcandidates coming because we
want them to ask questions likewhy meeting rooms are called
those names, and like if acandidate's done their research,
they should know why some ofthem are called it.
(07:20):
There is a picture of Stephenwith the door to nowhere on our
candidate hub, and I've labelledit as the door to nowhere.
So, like some candidates willcome in an interview and they're
like, Oh, is this called Door toNowhere because of this picture?
And I'm like, Yes, and you'vedone your research, thank you.
Which is quite good as well.
SPEAKER_00 (07:38):
Yeah, that's that's pretty cool.
Yeah, it's uh I like that.
I like the the thought there.
Or it says like just having atypical conference room just
like conference room number two,like whatever.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
Yeah, we do have two rooms in London called A and B,
but yeah, we were supposed tovote on what they were called,
and then everyone was just like,we quite like the names room A
and B, just for some level ofrandomness, like of why they're
called that here.
So they're just called A and B,and everyone gets like, when
you're explaining it tocandidates, you're like, Yeah,
(08:11):
this room's called this, thisroom's called this.
But these two rooms are justcalled A and B, and they're
like, why?
And we're like we just got to astage where it was like, what do
we want to call this?
And then everyone would startarguing with people about what
names were, and it's just easierjust to leave it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:27):
A it's just a offering.
SPEAKER_01 (08:28):
Like, yeah, it's just A of B at this stage,
they're the fun ones.
This room's called the FlameHole, which was a very in-depth
discussion of uh when the designteam rounded the logo so it
wasn't as pointy, and it waslike very a lot of discussions
of the flame hole of theincident logo, so that became
like a joke because all youheard in the office for about
(08:51):
three weeks was flame hole, andthat's why this room is called
this, and then we have onethat's called the neon nook
because of all of the neon wehave as a business, so they all
flow together.
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
Yeah, it works.
That's uh that's fun, and that'sa nice icebreaker conversation
with candidates too, right?
SPEAKER_01 (09:09):
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Obviously, not encompassing your entire
culture, right?
But like just like the fun andplayful stuff, right?
Like where it's you know.
Um, I need to find somethinglike don't I need to donut my
team.
SPEAKER_01 (09:21):
Yeah, you introduce it and then you quickly work out
actually how savage people arewith it.
SPEAKER_00 (09:26):
Like, yes, oh I think I think my team would be
completely savage with it.
I think we would just it mightbe like we might get a little
too obsessive.
SPEAKER_01 (09:33):
Yeah, there's certain people that you won't do
it to.
So like the VP of the VP offinance is typically like he's
safe because he's in charge ofthe money, and like we don't
want to piss him off.
And then the other ones thatpeople won't do are like the
legal team because the salesteam need them to sign off the
contracts quickly.
So, like nine times out of ten,it's the sales team being like,
(09:56):
Oh, so and so's laptopsunlocked, and we're like, Do you
want to go and donut them?
And then they're gonna takelonger with your contract, or
and they're like, We'll leaveit.
So it's like you have somethere's some moral ground
somewhere, but a lot of time itis just oh, so and so's left
their laptop undone run, um, andthen it's free game, and then
(10:18):
you can't delete it eitherbecause as soon as someone sees
it in the channel, everyonecomments underneath it.
So like you can't actuallyescape from it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:26):
You're just it's out there.
SPEAKER_01 (10:27):
Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:29):
You just can't take it back.
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
No, and rightly so.
It's like shame.
You should have locked yourlaptop.
Not my problem.
Um, but yeah, it's a randomthing that we do that's quite
entertaining.
You have to prep new startersthough, like you have to tell
them because if they've comefrom an environment where they
can leave their laptops open,you kind of need to make them
aware that that will happen andthey don't care if you're new,
(10:51):
they will do it.
You have to be like, you need tolock your laptop because they
don't care.
They'll wait for you to be a fewdays in and then they'll do it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:59):
They'll do it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
I love it.
I'm excited to learn more aboutyou and what you're up to now.
But like just to take a stepback first, how did you get into
recruiting?
SPEAKER_01 (11:10):
Like most people, I fell into it.
I was leaving university andstarted interviewing for jobs,
went through a rec to rec agencyand interviewed for a company.
And they were like, we arehiring recruiters at an agency,
but we're also hiring like aninternal person, which I don't
(11:31):
think is the normal route for alot of people.
I've worked internal more thanI've worked, like agency side.
And I got the job there, workedinternal, and then did agency
for a stint, and then went anddid like account management and
then came back to talent becauseI think it's like you get into a
world where you're like, ohyeah, I don't want to work in
(11:52):
talent anymore, and then youleave it and you're like,
actually, I'd rather go back tothis, like I'd rather go back to
what I know.
And I think talent does haveloads of different avenues that
you can do in it.
You don't have to, you know,just hire people, you don't have
to just source and stuff likethat.
You can do different thingswithin it, and I think that's
what I've been really fortunateto be able to do.
Like, I lived in Australia for ayear where I worked in talent
(12:14):
out there and I worked for likean amazing company that it was
just like, this is everythingthat's broken.
Please help us hire people andlike run assessment centres and
things like that as well.
And I was really fortunate to begiven that.
And I loved working with theteam out there as well.
It was a very different way ofworking, and then came back to
London and was like, ah, I cando this again now because like
(12:36):
I've done it, and just steppedback into it again.
And now I incident, I lead onlike all of the talent op side.
So I like am on everything fromlike a kickoff call right the
way through to like maybe acandidate being debriefed.
Um, and then I also kind of likelead on all of the employer
branding.
(12:56):
So from the talent perspective,from when we do like monthly
filming in the office and thingslike that as well, it's really
important for us that we have alot of content out there.
We're loud on the internet, butalso as well, like we have
enough content out there thatsomeone could, someone who is
interviewing can kind of get thestory of incident without
(13:17):
someone telling you the story,like the contents out there for
them to find.
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, I'm uh looking forward to learning more about
that.
So, where do you spend most ofyour time?
Like, what's your top priorityright now?
SPEAKER_01 (13:29):
Um, at the moment, it's like prepping everything
for 2026.
So we have our headcount likeready to go.
That's all preloaded into Ashby,having discussions with hiring
managers of like, do you want torefresh the job advert for next
year?
Making sure basicallyeverything, the train tracks are
ready and laid so that when 2026starts, nothing is gonna like
(13:53):
break along the way.
It's all just ready to go and wecan run at it full force.
Because I think this year westarted off the year with like
two, me and another talentpartner was all we had in
London, like in the company.
Sorry.
She was based in Maryland, I'min London, and that was it.
It was a lot of hiring for twopeople to do.
Like me and my VP of engineeringwere in the trenches at times
(14:14):
with hiring.
And there was so much that I waslike, if I do this this year, we
know what the hiring game planis.
We know when things areexpected, what things could be
pulled forward if they're goingto be pulled forward.
Let's get everything ready nowso that it's not firefighting in
the new year, it's like ready togo and we can just run at it.
(14:34):
So, yeah, that's what I'mworking on at the moment.
SPEAKER_00 (14:37):
Sounds like uh a lot of work.
So, when you're looking atplanning for next year, what are
the most important elements?
How do you go about doing thatto make sure you're ready to go?
SPEAKER_01 (14:48):
It's looking at like the jobs that we will have open
at that time.
So, how many like you know, yourgreen field roles you have open
at that time, and what's thesplit between the talent
partners as well?
But also additionally, what arethe more niche roles that you're
gonna have open at that time aswell?
Because you know, your greenfield roles are really easy to
fill, but your niche roles thatyou have to like typically go
(15:08):
and hunt for and source for aregonna take more time because the
talent partners are having tolearn the roles and stuff like
that as well and get ready withit.
Um, so it's like looking atthings like that.
And our hiring managers aregreat, they'll very much be
like, we know that this role isgonna take a little bit longer,
maybe.
Let's start this now so thatthey buy themselves time.
So we've got hiring managers atthe moment that are messaging
(15:29):
the team being like, Oh, can weopen this job?
Because we want to get it readyfor January so that it's ready
to go.
And we can come back in Jan,have a group of like candidates
ready to go for like hiringmanager interviews and just like
basically push people through.
Also, the difference betweenLondon and the US is the notice
periods.
So within engineering in the UK,you're typically working with a
(15:53):
three-month notice period, whichis wild.
Like when you tell US people,they're like, What?
Our hiring managers in the US,when they were hiring people,
they were like, Oh, that thisperson's on a I was like, Yeah,
you know, like notice periods inthe UK are like one month for
people.
And they were like, for sales.
And I was like, Yeah, everyone'son a month.
And they were like, What?
Like, for them they justcouldn't comprehend it.
(16:15):
They were like, Well, why are wetwo weeks?
Everything here is two weeks,and you have to like that fate
that kind of like builds into aplan as well of when do we open
the UK job versus when do weopen the SF roles for us?
Um, also things that we have todiscuss with hiring managers and
contend with.
And then you also have things oflike interviewer load.
So it's knowing how many peopleare at each stage, what else
(16:40):
they're working on, um, have wegot not enough people at this
stage, then we need to trainpeople up, or have we got too
many, that we need to like makesure we're spreading e
interviews better.
And then it's also looking atlike, you know, when these roles
are going to open as well.
So you want to open a lot ofroles at the beginning of a
quarter or the end of a quarter.
You kind of have to work withthe sales team on that.
(17:01):
I have like a gentleman'sagreement with the sales team
that I won't like book in a lotof interviews towards the end of
the quarter or end of a month.
Uh, because obviously they'requite trying to close deals and
they're trying to like pushthings over the line.
And I don't want a candidate toturn up for an interview and
feel like they're not gettingtheir role from an interview
(17:21):
because they know that they'retrying to work on a deal at the
same time.
So yeah, it's a lot to it's alot of moving plates at once
that people I feel like somepeople just you don't think
about until they're like in themix of it.
SPEAKER_00 (17:33):
Well, yeah, I think what stood out to me too is
getting ahead, potentially evenseveral quarters out on the
interview load for the team andensuring that they actually have
the capacity and giving thoughtto that like proactively during
the hiring plan, yeah, uhplanning for the next year.
Not even just on a quarterlybasis, right?
(17:53):
And particularly when you'reworking across multiple time
zones and multiple teams, youhave to be really organized.
SPEAKER_01 (17:59):
Yeah, and as well, like we've got, you know, we've
got team members that have toldus that they're expecting next
year.
So you have to like factorthings like that in.
You also factor things in likethe UK has a lot of bank
holidays, and what does thatlook like?
When's our off-site?
When's RKO?
When's like the product kickoffat the beginning of the year?
And it's things like that thatyou factor in into the whole
(18:20):
year of a plan to be like, doesthis make sense?
Because this year there was, Ithink it was in May, we didn't
get a full working week incidentbecause we had bank holidays,
then there was federal holidays,then it was like we also get
first Friday of the month off,and then it was like, oh, and
then we had our offsite.
So we had the whole of May withno full working week, and then
it was like, then everyone wasout for a week because we were
(18:42):
at our offsite in Greece, whichI'm never gonna complain about
as a free holiday.
Um, but it was also like you'retelling candidates, by the way,
this interview isn't reallygonna happen until like
mid-June, and then you've thengot people on annual leave,
candidates on annual leave.
So we try and really get aheadwith things like this.
The EA who works with thefounders is incredible.
She is consistently providing usupdates of founders' whereabouts
(19:05):
for like at least three monthsout because we know where
they're gonna be.
That's gonna only changefractionally and letting us know
where they're gonna be.
But also, it's like my job totell the talent team by the way,
you can expect this is gonnaslow down because they're all
gonna be here for this date.
So there's gonna be nointerviewing, and then it's
things of the offsite is in amonth.
(19:27):
We need to start tellingcandidates now just to prepare
them of like just a heads up.
We're we're going on ouroff-site on this date.
We're gonna try and move youthrough the process as quickly
as possible as we have youwrapped up before we go.
But please bear in mind like ifyou're not completed by this
date, there'll be a week lull.
And you want to give candidatesmore information than not
(19:48):
enough, and then they feel likethey're left in the dark while
we're all sitting on a beach inGreece type thing.
SPEAKER_00 (19:53):
I guess you could invite them if you really like
them, right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:56):
Yeah, so this year we had a plane to fill, and me
and the uh people obsolete werehad like we knew that like we
had X amount of seats on theLondon flight and the San
Francisco flight, and anycandidates that were coming into
office like at least three weeksbefore the office.
I was like, what's your noticeperiod?
And they were like, Oh, youknow, it's like this amount.
(20:17):
I was like, Oh, that's a realshame because we're all going to
Greece on this place.
If you could finish earlier,like you can come with us, and
it's like a week, a weekholiday, like everyone you'll
get, and uh like you really sellit to them, you're like, this is
the one opportunity whereeveryone in the business is
together.
We do one work in session, likethese are the activities we've
got.
You would be shocked the amountof people we got like signed
(20:41):
over the line.
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
I'm not that shocked, actually.
SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
Yeah, we had like two or We had new starters.
Like we had someone that startedon the Monday when we flew to
Greece.
She'd never met any of the teambefore in person.
Everything was done remotely.
She came for her interview.
She just turned up at theairport, and there was like 60
of us getting ready to go onthis plane.
She'd never met anyone, and wewere like, hey.
(21:05):
And that's like possibly themost terrifying way to meet
everyone in a business at once.
It's like be like trapped on aplane, on a holiday with
everyone when you really don'tknow, like you've got nothing
around you that's like normalfor you.
Um, and then we had a someonewho came along who hadn't even
started yet.
He was like on break in betweenjobs.
(21:26):
And we were like, Do you want tocome?
And he was like, Yeah, I'llcome.
So he came for like three daysum before his kids finished
school for the summer to spendtime with us.
Then he started on his firstday, and his cohort of new
starters that he started withwere like, How do you know
everyone already?
Did you work with people before?
And he was like, No, I went tothe office site.
And it's like things like thatthat I think are just so niche
(21:48):
that a lot of companies woulddo, but as well, like a lot of
candidates would like my myanxiety and nerves could never,
I could never go somewhere whereI wasn't aware of who everyone
was, what it was gonna be like.
And it's basically like jumpinginto the frying pan,
effectively, day one on and offsite with like everyone
together.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
It feels pretty natural though, in a way, right?
Like, meaning it's focusing onjust a normal human interaction.
You get to know someone, you'relike, oh hey, we're gonna go do
this thing, like come along.
Versus more like it's it's yes,we're in business, and yes,
there's process and structure,but we can't optimize
(22:29):
relationships, nor should wetry.
And it just feels a lot morenatural, like, hey, let's just
have a human-to-humaninteraction.
We like you, obviously, we'rehiring you, or we want to hire
you.
Like, just come along versusyeah, it's gotta be like step by
step by step.
You have to be here for X amountof time, that kind of thing,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (22:45):
Yeah, and as well, like our um CEO Stephen is very
big for the off-site of beinglike, you know, this is this was
the fourth year we've done itthis year.
Next year will be the fifth yearthat we go for one.
We're going to Washington, butnot like Washington, DC, the one
near Seattle, which I'm probablygonna get absolutely butchered
when everyone listens to this.
(23:05):
We're going there.
The founders are very big onbeing the fact of like we ask
you for one working session atthe off site, the rest of the
time we want you to spend, like,not with people that you're in
the London office, not withpeople that you're in the San
Francisco office with like goand spend time with each other.
So you'll often find like agroup of people around the pool
just chatting to each other.
Like, we were really lucky thisyear, we were really close to
(23:27):
like the beach and the pool.
So like people were splitacross.
You don't feel awkward walkingup to someone and being like,
hey, can I sit here?
Like, and people also just startlike chatting away with you.
And I think that's really niceand niche.
Our VP of Finance also organizesa company football game every
year where he gets like everyonein teams, they all play each
(23:49):
other.
Normally, this has happened likeoff site, so like where we've
had the off-site, but this yearthey did it where the hotel was,
which was quite enjoyablebecause like everyone got to sit
and watch and basically just belike a sideline coach and offer
tips of being like, Do you thinklike this is working?
Um, which was quite fun.
And then it's just like reallynice to like be with people,
(24:11):
like especially for me.
Like, I'm based in London, Ihaven't been out to the SF
office.
There's team members out therethat I haven't met yet that I've
only ever spoken to on likeemail or Slack.
So to get to spend time withthem is really, really nice.
Um, and I think that just makesit a lot nicer.
Like the feedback weconsistently get from like we
took our um employer brandingvideographers out with us this
(24:33):
year, and they were like, if youtold us that you all weren't in
the same office, we don't thinkwe would believe you.
You would think that we allworked together by how well
everyone got on.
No one was left out, everyonewas mingling together.
It wasn't obvious that this wasthe London office and this was
the New York office, and thiswas the San Francisco office.
Everyone very much was like sattogether, chatting, playing
(24:55):
games, being mental type ofthing as well.
SPEAKER_00 (25:00):
Yeah.
I love that.
That's awesome.
And and this is uh I so you'reyou're doing a lot of the
employer branding, which in asense it's like really it's just
an amplification of what we'retalking about now, like from the
culture and how your teaminteracts.
When you think about employerbranding, what do you feel like
is most important for a companyto get across to candidates to
(25:24):
help them feel confident in thedecision they're making?
SPEAKER_01 (25:28):
It's kind of like when you watch an episode of The
Office and like one of themlooks directly into the camera,
you kind of need to break thefourth wall of like what life is
like here, what the culture'slike here, what the people are
like, and I think that's reallyimportant as well.
So for us, it's always been likebe loud on the internet.
Like you can post pictures, youcan talk about an incident and
(25:51):
stuff that you've worked on, andlike that type of thing as well.
I think it's really, reallynice.
Um, our C he's now called thefield CTO Chris.
He relocated from London to ourSan Francisco office.
He documented his entire likerelocation process, not because
he was trying to, you know, belike, Woo, look at me, I'm even
(26:12):
to San Francisco.
In a way, yes, but also the factof just being like, listen to
how hard it was, you know, toget my driver's licence or like
get this set up and things likethat as well, that other people
who have done the same move canrelate to, but also just show
that the founders are like realpeople and it's normal the
leadership team will sit on mostinterviews anywhere, you're
(26:33):
gonna get a chance to speak withthem.
You can ask them questions aboutwhat made them join here, what
makes them stay, and that typeof thing as well, and they'll
answer it for you.
Um, and just showing like you'reasking people to work in an
office and you want people toenjoy what they do.
We spend the most amount of timeat work than we do at home with
like friends and family, so it'simportant that what you're
(26:55):
putting out there is true andgives people an insight on what
they're signing up to.
The thing that I say to people alot is is like we're now getting
into a an age where the peoplethat are going to start coming
through for interviews have beenonline since they were born, and
you're gonna get a generationthat comes through.
We all spend hours researchingthe newest phone to buy and like
(27:16):
what model to buy and whatcolour and what you know size of
like space we want on a phone.
If you think candidates aren'tmaking the same judgment call
when they're interviewing anddoing deep dives using Chat GPT
to find out information about acompany, using Reddit, looking
at TikTok, Instagram, everythinglike that, you're gravely
mistaken.
They're making a lot moreinformed decisions about where
(27:38):
they're going to work becausethe information's out there.
And if they can access it,they'll access it.
And you want to make sure thatyour information that's out
there is better than the othercompany they're interviewing at.
SPEAKER_00 (27:50):
How do you through content really ensure you're
connecting with people, right?
I mean, you have yourinterviews, right?
Like the direct human-to-humanlike interaction, which is
probably the most important.
But then also it's like you'reyou're trying to not just share
facts, right, about a culture,like, hey, this is this is where
(28:12):
our office is, this is ouroff-site, but how do you try to
create that kind of connectionand relatability with people
through?
SPEAKER_01 (28:21):
I I get very I'll take like an unhinged idea and
throw it through and be like,here is something that I've seen
on Instagram reel that issomeone doing something weird,
and I'm like, here's how we canspin this V here.
So the one that I've just donein the last week, it's like
people do it at weddings wherethey write on the sunglasses,
(28:42):
and then you take the samepicture of everyone with the
same pair of sunglasses on andyou add it into a reel.
I did that for our Christmasparty for London and San
Francisco, and I've made a reel,and it will go out being like,
here's the Christmas holiday,here's the incident holiday
party for this year.
And it's not something that anormal company would do where
they're like, here is the lovelypicture of the table setup we
(29:03):
had, and here's like a reallycute group picture of everyone
looking really happy.
This is like authentic, it'ssomething that's unusual, and
people will look at it and belike, oh, I'll remember that
because it's not someone doing athing of here's my day in the
life of me going to work, andlike here's my nine to five type
thing.
Um, and that's really importantfor me.
The other thing, as well, isjust like using things that we
(29:26):
say in conversation here and thecultural things that we do.
So, like, we have a unhingedSlack channel called Cold Case
Mysteries, which is um everyonesent in a picture of their
fridge to one of the engineers,and she will randomly post a
picture of someone's fridge withlike a clue, and chaos descends
(29:48):
into the offices for about 45minutes while everyone
investigates whose fridge it is.
So, like you'll walk through theoffice and you'll see someone's
got their second screen likereally zoomed in on an item on
the fridge, trying to work outlike where it's from, is it from
London or the US?
Where would you buy it?
Who's most likely to buy it aswell?
(30:09):
Everyone will look into likedeep things and then everyone
basically like votes on it, andthen we get told whose fridge it
is, and then everyone's like, noway that's so and so's fridge.
That's insane.
And it's things like that thathappen that you can just use for
content and reshare.
It doesn't have to be like youcan filter it in with things
about jobs and like hiring andstuff like that as well, but you
have to break it up and keep theformula like fresh all the time.
SPEAKER_00 (30:32):
I think so.
I'm I'm in tech too, right?
Like I've been in tech for overa decade, and I've worked with a
ton of startups and growth stagecompanies as well as built my
own company.
And one thing that I'm sure wecan relate on is just how
competitive and challenging itcan be to work in tech.
(30:52):
Like we're in the mostcompetitive industry in the
world.
There's the most opportunity,and it's hard, right?
And you have to be on your gamealmost completely year-round in
order to compete and win andbuild category leading companies
and grow at the pace that wehave to grow to win, right?
And I think maybe that's whydoing things like this is so
(31:15):
important, like having ways toengage in a lighthearted, fun
way as a team to kind ofcounterbalance, like, hey, like
we're all here working reallyhard towards this like awesome
goal, but we need balance.
Like, there has to be a balancebetween the hard work and
everything that goes intobuilding an incredible company.
(31:36):
But we're humans, like we need,we need like there needs to be
fun in that culture too.
And I wonder if like that's likepart of why you think this is so
important to do things like thisas a company.
SPEAKER_01 (31:49):
Yeah, I don't think I've worked at a company where
I've laughed as much as I havedone.
A cultural video, when we gotthe first view back of it, one
of the pieces of feedback we gotwas like, do you think there's
just too much like B-roll ofpeople like laughing in this?
Because genuinely, we all spendso much time together that you
(32:10):
know everything about eachother.
You can just laugh about things.
We laugh at the most insanethings as well.
It's probably one of the mostunhinged companies I work for as
well.
There's things here that if Ilike when I say it to people
outside of who work here,they're like, What?
Like, why do you like what?
If you explain to someone, like,oh yeah, by the way, we have a
channel where we post someone'sfridge, like the inside of their
(32:32):
fridge, and we all try and guesswhose fridge it is.
Out of context, that soundswild, but like internally, it's
hilarious because at first itwas just like we were just doing
it in the London office, andthen I was like, this is too
easy, we need other fridges into spice it up a bit.
Um, and I think things like thatis just like really weird.
It's also things of like whenSpotify Rapp comes out, everyone
(32:54):
is in a thread posting what theygot, their age, who their top
artist was, how many hours welistened to.
And it's things like that.
We can laugh a lot about things,but we all work exceptionally
hard.
And I've never worked somewherewhere I laugh as much as I do,
but I've never heard anyoneincident go, that's not my job.
Like, I can't do that, that'snot my job.
(33:16):
I can't help you with this.
And I think that's also theother balance of it as well,
that makes it so much nicer tobe here.
And I think it's what makes thelike content authentic.
Like, I don't prep anyone to belike, you're gonna say this on
camera, and it's gonna be reallyfunny.
Sometimes I just throw a cameraat someone and just hope for the
best some days of like thethings that come out, and
sometimes it works well, andother times it's it stays in a
(33:39):
gag rail, basically.
SPEAKER_00 (33:41):
Well, what's really cool about your role, the more
that I'm talking to you, is itit sounds like yes, you're doing
employer branding, but alsoyou're setting the culture for
the organization because you'renot only capturing these
moments, but you're creatingthem, right?
You're putting in placeopportunities for people to have
these experiences too.
SPEAKER_01 (34:00):
And it's also as well, like making sure new
starters and people coming inare part of the inside joke, and
they don't feel like you know,when you start a new job and
everyone, someone says somethingand a group of people laugh at
it and they're like, oh, wecan't explain it to you because
you know this happened then.
That's not what we want here.
We're very big.
So, like when you start here,you have an onboarding buddy
(34:21):
that's a part of your team, butyou also get a culture buddy.
And the idea of the culturebuddy is that can explain to you
things of like, by the way, hereare some niche things that are
very like incidental, likethey're things that we do that
other companies don't, that youkind of want to be aware of so
you don't feel left out.
And it's like that personbecomes your kind of like guide
(34:42):
and guru when you're new to belike, if you see something in a
Slack channel, you're like, whatis that?
Why is that there?
This makes sense of like, youknow, we all everyone's got
emojis of themselves, andthey're like sometimes they're
not flattering a lot of them.
Some of them are unhinged, whichis a theme here.
Um, there's things that arereally niche for incident as
(35:02):
well, like in emojis, and it'slike you want to be able to
explain to someone about it.
We use gaveled a lot, like ajudge's gavel type thing.
Um, and you'll see things oflike you'll ask a question about
something and want to getsomeone's opinion, and someone
will just be like gaveled emoji,and that's someone being like,
yep, fine, do it.
When you first get it, you'relike, what the hell does that
(35:22):
mean?
Why has someone like I areyou're not gonna reply yes or
no?
And you have to kind of explainthat to people.
Um, we are very much a Slackfirst company, obviously.
Like our product is first andforemost Slack, but everything
also as well lives on Notion.
So a lot of time you have totell people coming in, like, if
you can't find something, lookin Notion as well, because it
might be there.
(35:43):
And just making sure thatsomeone doesn't feel left out
when they join.
Like they're not part of theinside joke as well.
SPEAKER_00 (35:49):
So you clearly have a strong aptitude for this and
just a strong level of awarenessand how to build culture and
amplify it.
Where do you think you got thatfrom?
SPEAKER_01 (36:01):
I think it's working in jobs when you turn up and you
feel like the new kid on dayone.
And it's a bit awkward going tolunch because you don't really
know who to go with.
You don't know if you shouldbring your own lunch with you,
or like, you know, you're gonnabe taken out for lunch, or what
the deal is with lunch.
And I think it's just makingsure no one has that experience.
(36:21):
Even when someone'sinterviewing, right?
Like I want to make sure theyhave the best experience.
I make interview prep guides forevery single role that we have
here at Incident that walkssomeone through from an
introduction call with arecruiter right the way through
to a final interview, and evengives them the address of the
office, a picture of the outsideof the office to make sure that
(36:41):
people like know the building togo to as well.
It's just things like that thatI just think are the additional
nice touches that candidateswill remember, people will
remember when they'reinterviewing.
And a lot of the people thatwe're interviewing would buy our
product, and we want to makesure that those people also have
a great experience so that ifthey're not right for us or it's
not the right opportunity forthem, they enjoy the process
(37:02):
enough that they feel like theycould go and kind of like sell
the product into where they goto next, and your candidates
become your customers as well,is a really big thing that I'm
very passionate about.
Um, but yeah, it is just makingsure that no one feels like that
new kid on day one.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
Yeah, I I get that.
And I wonder where that comesfrom.
Like the ability to anticipatelittle anxieties and ability to
anticipate opportunities to helpsomebody feel comfortable or
confident.
I think it's we see it in indifferent parts of an
organization as well.
Like I see it on when you'reonboarding new customers as
(37:38):
well, right?
Like it's about building trust,anticipating needs.
Even if it's you quote unquoteknow the way that it should
work, or if things are on track,it's well the customer may not
know.
There isn't trust yet.
There isn't whatever.
So it's like we have toproactively build a process and
a system around ensuring thatwe're sharing what we need to,
(38:00):
giving the transparency, givingguidance, overcommunicating.
And it's something that I don'tthink everybody has maybe the
same level of aptitude.
I think everybody understandsthe importance of it, but there
are certain people that just arereally good at anticipating
those types of needs and andcreating those types of
experiences.
I'm always curious, I wonderwhat makes somebody able to do
(38:22):
that, right?
I I have some folks here that atsecure vision of my company that
are like really good at it, butit's special, like it's not
something that you you alwayssee.
SPEAKER_01 (38:31):
Yeah, I think it's like many years of working in
retail and hospitality that willdo it to you sometimes as well.
Like it's just ingrained in youto be like, oh, this is like
you, you know, you can be likethat type of way as well.
Um, but yeah, I think I think aswell it's like, you know, when
you've interviewed somewherebad, the process has been awful,
or you've worked at a companyand you've been like, my God,
(38:54):
I've been duped into this job.
It's things like that that Ilook at and I'm like, I don't
want I don't want someone elseto feel this way.
What can I learn from that thatI can implement in this job so
that someone doesn't like feellike they've made that decision
in a way?
Um it's as well.
I think it is just like it'shaving that like you know, EQ
(39:16):
balance in you to be like, whydon't we have this for other
people coming in?
A lot of times when I did thingswhen I first started, I would
speak to my boss at the time,Danny, who was the head of
talent here, and I would belike, here's what I've made.
I want these to go out as partof the interview process.
And she was like, Yep, great,like we'll get found to sign off
just to make sure that they'reaware that we are giving out
(39:37):
this information.
And I remember them saying tous, but why do we want to do
this?
No one else does this.
And I was like, Exactly, no oneelse does it.
That's why we should be doingit.
Just because someone doesn't doit doesn't mean we shouldn't be
doing it.
It's the reason why weshouldn't.
If you're not going to have thatmentality, why have you started
a business in a way?
It's why there's so manystartups, it's why people get
these ideas because they'vedone, they've had like a product
(39:59):
or something that's not worked,and they've been like, I can
build that better.
And that's where it comes fromas well.
It's like you think ofcandidates like the on the
experience from like whensomeone applies right the way
through to when they leave thebusiness.
If you look at it in that timeframe of it away, that helps as
well.
SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
Yeah, I love that.
Really finding ways to stand outfrom other companies in the
interview process.
It's like you can never be liketoo helpful, right?
Like when it comes to helpingcandidates navigate a massive
life decision.
I think that that's somethingthat maybe it can be easy to
forget, even for those of us intalent acquisition sometimes,
(40:34):
really understanding how huge ofa decision it is for somebody to
come to an organization, right?
To leave a current job to go toa new one, to take a bet,
particularly on maybe a startupor gross stage.
SPEAKER_01 (40:47):
Yeah, and I think I've heard of it.
Yeah, and as well, it's otherfactors as well.
Like I remember after COVID,people being like, I'm not
moving because I've just gotthis job, like it's taken me so
long to get it.
And because of so many peoplebeing laid off, people were a
bit more apprehensive of jumpingship in a job because they felt
such like gratitude to a companywhen they got a job after being
(41:10):
made redundant and things likethat as well.
And then I think there was ashift in like everyone was
trying to move because they werelike, oh, I've been here for X
amount of time, nothing'schanged.
And now it's the shift of we'vegot it in London where so many
companies are doing like returnto work.
So like they're mandating howmany days you have to be in the
office, what days you have to bein, and things like that as
well.
(41:30):
And I think that's gonnamassively change the talent
market as well for where peopleare looking for and the types of
roles people are looking for,and what they're looking for and
valuing within companies aswell.
And they're not gonna move offthose type of opinions and
things.
Like if you've had someonethat's worked from home for six,
seven years plus now, it's gonnabe hard to try and get them back
(41:51):
into an office like four days aweek.
They've built a routine, youcan't try and break that and
change it is a lot, like you'vekind of got to go in with a very
good sale to get them in.
SPEAKER_00 (42:00):
Agreed.
Yeah, I I totally agree.
Well, Megan, look, this has beenan amazing conversation.
I wanted to say thank you somuch for joining us today.
Thank you.
And sharing your experiences.
I've had a lot of fun speakingwith you.
Um, so yeah, thanks.
SPEAKER_01 (42:15):
Perfect, thank you.
We have Megan Batterbury here.
She is the Senior TalentOperations Specialist at
incident.io.
Megan, thanks for joining me onthe show today.
SPEAKER_01 (00:56):
Hi.
How are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
I'm doing great.
Yeah, so, anyways, the room thatyou're in is freaking awesome.
For everybody listening on thepodcast, you should actually
watch the video because she's inthis like little concrete cellar
thing, but it has like reallycool red lights and some
different cool stuff.
You said it's your your demoroom or what?
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Yeah, so we have two of these so that the sales team
like have somewhere they can gothat's like soundproof.
It's like fully set up for themto like be able to do very
polished demos for customers.
But a lot of the product teamwill come in here when they're
doing stuff with customers aswell.
We use it if we're filming likelooms or like demos or stuff to
go out to the business as well.
(01:35):
We'll often be in here.
Um, or if you really want tolike bouge up a hiring manager
interview for someone, you'llput them in here as well.
SPEAKER_00 (01:42):
Yeah, that sounds really nice.
We were just talking about youwhat what book were you
mentioning?
There's like some book thattalks about why tech companies
have all this like theunfinished.
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Yeah, so it's called Careless People.
It's someone's opinion of likeearly days of working at
Facebook, basically.
It's very controversial in thefact of they tried to put a gag
order out on it so that shecouldn't promote it.
And the idea that she has andthat's said a lot, even like
from friends I know that haveworked at Meta now, their whole
(02:13):
narrative is they try and leavelike the office exposed so not
everything looks polished, neatand tidy because the product
isn't fully finished yet.
And that's the thing that peopletry and push out as a narrative
with things, and it's like, no,no, no, it's just because you
had enough at the final hurdlewhen it came to furnishing your
office.
Right now that's the narrativeyou want to spin to candidate,
(02:33):
so it looks a bit better foryou.
Um, but yeah, she talks aboutthat a lot of like how you know
when you go into some officesand they've got the exposed wire
over the top, and yeah, it'sspoken about in that, which is
quite funny as well.
Because when you read it, assomeone that's worked in
startups and had friends thatworked in startups, you know
that there's companies that usethat example as well, which is
(02:53):
quite technically.
SPEAKER_00 (02:54):
Yeah, for sure.
Like all the startup lingo.
Yeah, we have the same thing inour building, so it's like yeah,
it's everywhere now.
SPEAKER_01 (03:01):
Yeah, exactly.
It's just like I've I thinkeveryone goes, like one person
does it, and then everyone kindof like copies it's like you
know, meeting room names, theirniche to a business as well,
right?
Like you go to LinkedIn's, andLinkedIn offices are typically
each ones that called somethingdependent on that location
office, and then our meetingrooms are named after things of
(03:22):
the incident journey.
So we have Chrome Pineapplebecause when the business was
first started, our publiclytraded name is Pineapple
Technologies because we couldn'thave incident IO.
Um, so they bought a ChromePineapple, like little like
statue thing.
Uh, but they've smashed aboutthree of them since the business
(03:43):
has been going.
So we don't even have theoriginal one anymore.
So there's a meeting room calledChrome Pineapple, there's a
meeting room called Door toNowhere because we were in an
office that we were on the topfloor, and the door opened just
out to the street, so it waslike a sheer drop, and it was
just called the door to nowhereor the emergency exit interview,
(04:05):
like is the other one that waslike jokingly called.
And then one of our old officeswas in a dish used fire station,
which is quite ironic given thefact that our logo's aflame as
well, and we're an incidentmanagement company, so it was
like quite cool to have all ofthat there.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, that sounds like a really cool story.
I'm gonna have to go to theoffice one day.
unknown (04:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (04:24):
Yeah, the ones in San Francisco are called donut
because we have the rule here ifyou leave your laptop unlocked,
like in the office, someone willgo in the Slack channel and be
like, donuts on me, becauseobviously we're an incident
management company, it'ssecurity, you shouldn't be
leaving your laptop open.
And it gets pretty vicious attimes.
Like, there is no friends withif you leave your laptop open.
(04:46):
Um like people like one of thegirls I sit next to had to write
a message being like, Don'tdonut me.
I'm trying to upload something,I need the laptop open to be
able to do it.
That's the lengths people willgo to.
Like, people will watch someoneturn around and like lay wait.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (05:02):
They'll watch, yeah, they'll watch.
SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
Yeah, yeah.
So Alyssa, who is the GTMrecruiter in the San Francisco
office, she was like, someonedid her message and it was like,
uh donuts and steaks on me.
And she genuinely turned up inthe office with donuts and
steaks to like prove a point.
Um, and it is like it becomeslike a thing of where people are
like, you know who owes donutsin the business as well.
(05:29):
So if someone gets donutted andsomeone hasn't paid up for their
donuts, someone will commentunderneath being like, so and so
still owes us their donuts.
And it's like you should havedonut tax on that as well.
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
Right.
Yeah.
Like you have to do now, youhave to do more, you have to
bring more or something.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
Yeah.
And this is the these are thebenefits that you really don't
get from working at home.
SPEAKER_00 (05:48):
Oh, yeah.
This is really that's actuallylike that's so much fun.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
Yeah, you never have to worry about when you're at
home locking your laptop and youknow, right, worrying about
maybe your cat or your dogdonuting you.
Like these are just things thatyou have to do.
Donating you, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (06:02):
You turn it into like a verb, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (06:03):
Yeah, in an office, it's like, oh, these are things
that we consistently have to beaware of, um, yeah, and like be
like mindful of.
Uh, but yeah, it is quite funny.
It's like the the two claim tofames that I have.
I got our IT operations teammember, whose literal job during
onboarding is to tell people totheir laptops.
SPEAKER_00 (06:25):
Oh, that's that's a right that's a tough one.
SPEAKER_01 (06:27):
Yeah, and one of the founders who he was the one that
told us about it.
So when I got him, I've neverbeen so proud.
Like, I've I've not done anyoneelse since just because I feel
like I'm on a high.
Like I've done, like, other thangetting all of the leadership
team in one failed swoop, it'sjust not worth it anymore.
Like, I've nailed it.
SPEAKER_00 (06:46):
That would be awesome.
You gotta stage a fire alarm orsomething to get everybody to
run out.
SPEAKER_01 (06:51):
Yeah, that would they don't like a fire alarm
though.
The irony of the logo being fireand we don't like a fire alarm.
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
They get a little too far.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Yes, like I feel like someone would be like, no,
no, no, this is too far now ifwe're doing this.
Um, but yeah, that's one of theweirdest things that one of our
meeting rooms is named after.
But it's quite good forcandidates coming because we
want them to ask questions likewhy meeting rooms are called
those names, and like if acandidate's done their research,
they should know why some ofthem are called it.
(07:20):
There is a picture of Stephenwith the door to nowhere on our
candidate hub, and I've labelledit as the door to nowhere.
So, like some candidates willcome in an interview and they're
like, Oh, is this called Door toNowhere because of this picture?
And I'm like, Yes, and you'vedone your research, thank you.
Which is quite good as well.
SPEAKER_00 (07:38):
Yeah, that's that's pretty cool.
Yeah, it's uh I like that.
I like the the thought there.
Or it says like just having atypical conference room just
like conference room number two,like whatever.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:50):
Yeah, we do have two rooms in London called A and B,
but yeah, we were supposed tovote on what they were called,
and then everyone was just like,we quite like the names room A
and B, just for some level ofrandomness, like of why they're
called that here.
So they're just called A and B,and everyone gets like, when
you're explaining it tocandidates, you're like, Yeah,
(08:11):
this room's called this, thisroom's called this.
But these two rooms are justcalled A and B, and they're
like, why?
And we're like we just got to astage where it was like, what do
we want to call this?
And then everyone would startarguing with people about what
names were, and it's just easierjust to leave it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:27):
A it's just a offering.
SPEAKER_01 (08:28):
Like, yeah, it's just A of B at this stage,
they're the fun ones.
This room's called the FlameHole, which was a very in-depth
discussion of uh when the designteam rounded the logo so it
wasn't as pointy, and it waslike very a lot of discussions
of the flame hole of theincident logo, so that became
like a joke because all youheard in the office for about
(08:51):
three weeks was flame hole, andthat's why this room is called
this, and then we have onethat's called the neon nook
because of all of the neon wehave as a business, so they all
flow together.
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
Yeah, it works.
That's uh that's fun, and that'sa nice icebreaker conversation
with candidates too, right?
SPEAKER_01 (09:09):
Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Obviously, not encompassing your entire
culture, right?
But like just like the fun andplayful stuff, right?
Like where it's you know.
Um, I need to find somethinglike don't I need to donut my
team.
SPEAKER_01 (09:21):
Yeah, you introduce it and then you quickly work out
actually how savage people arewith it.
SPEAKER_00 (09:26):
Like, yes, oh I think I think my team would be
completely savage with it.
I think we would just it mightbe like we might get a little
too obsessive.
SPEAKER_01 (09:33):
Yeah, there's certain people that you won't do
it to.
So like the VP of the VP offinance is typically like he's
safe because he's in charge ofthe money, and like we don't
want to piss him off.
And then the other ones thatpeople won't do are like the
legal team because the salesteam need them to sign off the
contracts quickly.
So, like nine times out of ten,it's the sales team being like,
(09:56):
Oh, so and so's laptopsunlocked, and we're like, Do you
want to go and donut them?
And then they're gonna takelonger with your contract, or
and they're like, We'll leaveit.
So it's like you have somethere's some moral ground
somewhere, but a lot of time itis just oh, so and so's left
their laptop undone run, um, andthen it's free game, and then
(10:18):
you can't delete it eitherbecause as soon as someone sees
it in the channel, everyonecomments underneath it.
So like you can't actuallyescape from it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:26):
You're just it's out there.
SPEAKER_01 (10:27):
Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:29):
You just can't take it back.
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
No, and rightly so.
It's like shame.
You should have locked yourlaptop.
Not my problem.
Um, but yeah, it's a randomthing that we do that's quite
entertaining.
You have to prep new startersthough, like you have to tell
them because if they've comefrom an environment where they
can leave their laptops open,you kind of need to make them
aware that that will happen andthey don't care if you're new,
(10:51):
they will do it.
You have to be like, you need tolock your laptop because they
don't care.
They'll wait for you to be a fewdays in and then they'll do it.
SPEAKER_00 (10:59):
They'll do it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
I love it.
I'm excited to learn more aboutyou and what you're up to now.
But like just to take a stepback first, how did you get into
recruiting?
SPEAKER_01 (11:10):
Like most people, I fell into it.
I was leaving university andstarted interviewing for jobs,
went through a rec to rec agencyand interviewed for a company.
And they were like, we arehiring recruiters at an agency,
but we're also hiring like aninternal person, which I don't
(11:31):
think is the normal route for alot of people.
I've worked internal more thanI've worked, like agency side.
And I got the job there, workedinternal, and then did agency
for a stint, and then went anddid like account management and
then came back to talent becauseI think it's like you get into a
world where you're like, ohyeah, I don't want to work in
(11:52):
talent anymore, and then youleave it and you're like,
actually, I'd rather go back tothis, like I'd rather go back to
what I know.
And I think talent does haveloads of different avenues that
you can do in it.
You don't have to, you know,just hire people, you don't have
to just source and stuff likethat.
You can do different thingswithin it, and I think that's
what I've been really fortunateto be able to do.
Like, I lived in Australia for ayear where I worked in talent
(12:14):
out there and I worked for likean amazing company that it was
just like, this is everythingthat's broken.
Please help us hire people andlike run assessment centres and
things like that as well.
And I was really fortunate to begiven that.
And I loved working with theteam out there as well.
It was a very different way ofworking, and then came back to
London and was like, ah, I cando this again now because like
(12:36):
I've done it, and just steppedback into it again.
And now I incident, I lead onlike all of the talent op side.
So I like am on everything fromlike a kickoff call right the
way through to like maybe acandidate being debriefed.
Um, and then I also kind of likelead on all of the employer
branding.
(12:56):
So from the talent perspective,from when we do like monthly
filming in the office and thingslike that as well, it's really
important for us that we have alot of content out there.
We're loud on the internet, butalso as well, like we have
enough content out there thatsomeone could, someone who is
interviewing can kind of get thestory of incident without
(13:17):
someone telling you the story,like the contents out there for
them to find.
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, I'm uh looking forward to learning more about
that.
So, where do you spend most ofyour time?
Like, what's your top priorityright now?
SPEAKER_01 (13:29):
Um, at the moment, it's like prepping everything
for 2026.
So we have our headcount likeready to go.
That's all preloaded into Ashby,having discussions with hiring
managers of like, do you want torefresh the job advert for next
year?
Making sure basicallyeverything, the train tracks are
ready and laid so that when 2026starts, nothing is gonna like
(13:53):
break along the way.
It's all just ready to go and wecan run at it full force.
Because I think this year westarted off the year with like
two, me and another talentpartner was all we had in
London, like in the company.
Sorry.
She was based in Maryland, I'min London, and that was it.
It was a lot of hiring for twopeople to do.
Like me and my VP of engineeringwere in the trenches at times
(14:14):
with hiring.
And there was so much that I waslike, if I do this this year, we
know what the hiring game planis.
We know when things areexpected, what things could be
pulled forward if they're goingto be pulled forward.
Let's get everything ready nowso that it's not firefighting in
the new year, it's like ready togo and we can just run at it.
(14:34):
So, yeah, that's what I'mworking on at the moment.
SPEAKER_00 (14:37):
Sounds like uh a lot of work.
So, when you're looking atplanning for next year, what are
the most important elements?
How do you go about doing thatto make sure you're ready to go?
SPEAKER_01 (14:48):
It's looking at like the jobs that we will have open
at that time.
So, how many like you know, yourgreen field roles you have open
at that time, and what's thesplit between the talent
partners as well?
But also additionally, what arethe more niche roles that you're
gonna have open at that time aswell?
Because you know, your greenfield roles are really easy to
fill, but your niche roles thatyou have to like typically go
(15:08):
and hunt for and source for aregonna take more time because the
talent partners are having tolearn the roles and stuff like
that as well and get ready withit.
Um, so it's like looking atthings like that.
And our hiring managers aregreat, they'll very much be
like, we know that this role isgonna take a little bit longer,
maybe.
Let's start this now so thatthey buy themselves time.
So we've got hiring managers atthe moment that are messaging
(15:29):
the team being like, Oh, can weopen this job?
Because we want to get it readyfor January so that it's ready
to go.
And we can come back in Jan,have a group of like candidates
ready to go for like hiringmanager interviews and just like
basically push people through.
Also, the difference betweenLondon and the US is the notice
periods.
So within engineering in the UK,you're typically working with a
(15:53):
three-month notice period, whichis wild.
Like when you tell US people,they're like, What?
Our hiring managers in the US,when they were hiring people,
they were like, Oh, that thisperson's on a I was like, Yeah,
you know, like notice periods inthe UK are like one month for
people.
And they were like, for sales.
And I was like, Yeah, everyone'son a month.
And they were like, What?
Like, for them they justcouldn't comprehend it.
(16:15):
They were like, Well, why are wetwo weeks?
Everything here is two weeks,and you have to like that fate
that kind of like builds into aplan as well of when do we open
the UK job versus when do weopen the SF roles for us?
Um, also things that we have todiscuss with hiring managers and
contend with.
And then you also have things oflike interviewer load.
So it's knowing how many peopleare at each stage, what else
(16:40):
they're working on, um, have wegot not enough people at this
stage, then we need to trainpeople up, or have we got too
many, that we need to like makesure we're spreading e
interviews better.
And then it's also looking atlike, you know, when these roles
are going to open as well.
So you want to open a lot ofroles at the beginning of a
quarter or the end of a quarter.
You kind of have to work withthe sales team on that.
(17:01):
I have like a gentleman'sagreement with the sales team
that I won't like book in a lotof interviews towards the end of
the quarter or end of a month.
Uh, because obviously they'requite trying to close deals and
they're trying to like pushthings over the line.
And I don't want a candidate toturn up for an interview and
feel like they're not gettingtheir role from an interview
(17:21):
because they know that they'retrying to work on a deal at the
same time.
So yeah, it's a lot to it's alot of moving plates at once
that people I feel like somepeople just you don't think
about until they're like in themix of it.
SPEAKER_00 (17:33):
Well, yeah, I think what stood out to me too is
getting ahead, potentially evenseveral quarters out on the
interview load for the team andensuring that they actually have
the capacity and giving thoughtto that like proactively during
the hiring plan, yeah, uhplanning for the next year.
Not even just on a quarterlybasis, right?
(17:53):
And particularly when you'reworking across multiple time
zones and multiple teams, youhave to be really organized.
SPEAKER_01 (17:59):
Yeah, and as well, like we've got, you know, we've
got team members that have toldus that they're expecting next
year.
So you have to like factorthings like that in.
You also factor things in likethe UK has a lot of bank
holidays, and what does thatlook like?
When's our off-site?
When's RKO?
When's like the product kickoffat the beginning of the year?
And it's things like that thatyou factor in into the whole
(18:20):
year of a plan to be like, doesthis make sense?
Because this year there was, Ithink it was in May, we didn't
get a full working week incidentbecause we had bank holidays,
then there was federal holidays,then it was like we also get
first Friday of the month off,and then it was like, oh, and
then we had our offsite.
So we had the whole of May withno full working week, and then
it was like, then everyone wasout for a week because we were
(18:42):
at our offsite in Greece, whichI'm never gonna complain about
as a free holiday.
Um, but it was also like you'retelling candidates, by the way,
this interview isn't reallygonna happen until like
mid-June, and then you've thengot people on annual leave,
candidates on annual leave.
So we try and really get aheadwith things like this.
The EA who works with thefounders is incredible.
She is consistently providing usupdates of founders' whereabouts
(19:05):
for like at least three monthsout because we know where
they're gonna be.
That's gonna only changefractionally and letting us know
where they're gonna be.
But also, it's like my job totell the talent team by the way,
you can expect this is gonnaslow down because they're all
gonna be here for this date.
So there's gonna be nointerviewing, and then it's
things of the offsite is in amonth.
(19:27):
We need to start tellingcandidates now just to prepare
them of like just a heads up.
We're we're going on ouroff-site on this date.
We're gonna try and move youthrough the process as quickly
as possible as we have youwrapped up before we go.
But please bear in mind like ifyou're not completed by this
date, there'll be a week lull.
And you want to give candidatesmore information than not
(19:48):
enough, and then they feel likethey're left in the dark while
we're all sitting on a beach inGreece type thing.
SPEAKER_00 (19:53):
I guess you could invite them if you really like
them, right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:56):
Yeah, so this year we had a plane to fill, and me
and the uh people obsolete werehad like we knew that like we
had X amount of seats on theLondon flight and the San
Francisco flight, and anycandidates that were coming into
office like at least three weeksbefore the office.
I was like, what's your noticeperiod?
And they were like, Oh, youknow, it's like this amount.
(20:17):
I was like, Oh, that's a realshame because we're all going to
Greece on this place.
If you could finish earlier,like you can come with us, and
it's like a week, a weekholiday, like everyone you'll
get, and uh like you really sellit to them, you're like, this is
the one opportunity whereeveryone in the business is
together.
We do one work in session, likethese are the activities we've
got.
You would be shocked the amountof people we got like signed
(20:41):
over the line.
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
I'm not that shocked, actually.
SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
Yeah, we had like two or We had new starters.
Like we had someone that startedon the Monday when we flew to
Greece.
She'd never met any of the teambefore in person.
Everything was done remotely.
She came for her interview.
She just turned up at theairport, and there was like 60
of us getting ready to go onthis plane.
She'd never met anyone, and wewere like, hey.
(21:05):
And that's like possibly themost terrifying way to meet
everyone in a business at once.
It's like be like trapped on aplane, on a holiday with
everyone when you really don'tknow, like you've got nothing
around you that's like normalfor you.
Um, and then we had a someonewho came along who hadn't even
started yet.
He was like on break in betweenjobs.
(21:26):
And we were like, Do you want tocome?
And he was like, Yeah, I'llcome.
So he came for like three daysum before his kids finished
school for the summer to spendtime with us.
Then he started on his firstday, and his cohort of new
starters that he started withwere like, How do you know
everyone already?
Did you work with people before?
And he was like, No, I went tothe office site.
And it's like things like thatthat I think are just so niche
(21:48):
that a lot of companies woulddo, but as well, like a lot of
candidates would like my myanxiety and nerves could never,
I could never go somewhere whereI wasn't aware of who everyone
was, what it was gonna be like.
And it's basically like jumpinginto the frying pan,
effectively, day one on and offsite with like everyone
together.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
It feels pretty natural though, in a way, right?
Like, meaning it's focusing onjust a normal human interaction.
You get to know someone, you'relike, oh hey, we're gonna go do
this thing, like come along.
Versus more like it's it's yes,we're in business, and yes,
there's process and structure,but we can't optimize
(22:29):
relationships, nor should wetry.
And it just feels a lot morenatural, like, hey, let's just
have a human-to-humaninteraction.
We like you, obviously, we'rehiring you, or we want to hire
you.
Like, just come along versusyeah, it's gotta be like step by
step by step.
You have to be here for X amountof time, that kind of thing,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (22:45):
Yeah, and as well, like our um CEO Stephen is very
big for the off-site of beinglike, you know, this is this was
the fourth year we've done itthis year.
Next year will be the fifth yearthat we go for one.
We're going to Washington, butnot like Washington, DC, the one
near Seattle, which I'm probablygonna get absolutely butchered
when everyone listens to this.
(23:05):
We're going there.
The founders are very big onbeing the fact of like we ask
you for one working session atthe off site, the rest of the
time we want you to spend, like,not with people that you're in
the London office, not withpeople that you're in the San
Francisco office with like goand spend time with each other.
So you'll often find like agroup of people around the pool
just chatting to each other.
Like, we were really lucky thisyear, we were really close to
(23:27):
like the beach and the pool.
So like people were splitacross.
You don't feel awkward walkingup to someone and being like,
hey, can I sit here?
Like, and people also just startlike chatting away with you.
And I think that's really niceand niche.
Our VP of Finance also organizesa company football game every
year where he gets like everyonein teams, they all play each
(23:49):
other.
Normally, this has happened likeoff site, so like where we've
had the off-site, but this yearthey did it where the hotel was,
which was quite enjoyablebecause like everyone got to sit
and watch and basically just belike a sideline coach and offer
tips of being like, Do you thinklike this is working?
Um, which was quite fun.
And then it's just like reallynice to like be with people,
(24:11):
like especially for me.
Like, I'm based in London, Ihaven't been out to the SF
office.
There's team members out therethat I haven't met yet that I've
only ever spoken to on likeemail or Slack.
So to get to spend time withthem is really, really nice.
Um, and I think that just makesit a lot nicer.
Like the feedback weconsistently get from like we
took our um employer brandingvideographers out with us this
(24:33):
year, and they were like, if youtold us that you all weren't in
the same office, we don't thinkwe would believe you.
You would think that we allworked together by how well
everyone got on.
No one was left out, everyonewas mingling together.
It wasn't obvious that this wasthe London office and this was
the New York office, and thiswas the San Francisco office.
Everyone very much was like sattogether, chatting, playing
(24:55):
games, being mental type ofthing as well.
SPEAKER_00 (25:00):
Yeah.
I love that.
That's awesome.
And and this is uh I so you'reyou're doing a lot of the
employer branding, which in asense it's like really it's just
an amplification of what we'retalking about now, like from the
culture and how your teaminteracts.
When you think about employerbranding, what do you feel like
is most important for a companyto get across to candidates to
(25:24):
help them feel confident in thedecision they're making?
SPEAKER_01 (25:28):
It's kind of like when you watch an episode of The
Office and like one of themlooks directly into the camera,
you kind of need to break thefourth wall of like what life is
like here, what the culture'slike here, what the people are
like, and I think that's reallyimportant as well.
So for us, it's always been likebe loud on the internet.
Like you can post pictures, youcan talk about an incident and
(25:51):
stuff that you've worked on, andlike that type of thing as well.
I think it's really, reallynice.
Um, our C he's now called thefield CTO Chris.
He relocated from London to ourSan Francisco office.
He documented his entire likerelocation process, not because
he was trying to, you know, belike, Woo, look at me, I'm even
(26:12):
to San Francisco.
In a way, yes, but also the factof just being like, listen to
how hard it was, you know, toget my driver's licence or like
get this set up and things likethat as well, that other people
who have done the same move canrelate to, but also just show
that the founders are like realpeople and it's normal the
leadership team will sit on mostinterviews anywhere, you're
(26:33):
gonna get a chance to speak withthem.
You can ask them questions aboutwhat made them join here, what
makes them stay, and that typeof thing as well, and they'll
answer it for you.
Um, and just showing like you'reasking people to work in an
office and you want people toenjoy what they do.
We spend the most amount of timeat work than we do at home with
like friends and family, so it'simportant that what you're
(26:55):
putting out there is true andgives people an insight on what
they're signing up to.
The thing that I say to people alot is is like we're now getting
into a an age where the peoplethat are going to start coming
through for interviews have beenonline since they were born, and
you're gonna get a generationthat comes through.
We all spend hours researchingthe newest phone to buy and like
(27:16):
what model to buy and whatcolour and what you know size of
like space we want on a phone.
If you think candidates aren'tmaking the same judgment call
when they're interviewing anddoing deep dives using Chat GPT
to find out information about acompany, using Reddit, looking
at TikTok, Instagram, everythinglike that, you're gravely
mistaken.
They're making a lot moreinformed decisions about where
(27:38):
they're going to work becausethe information's out there.
And if they can access it,they'll access it.
And you want to make sure thatyour information that's out
there is better than the othercompany they're interviewing at.
SPEAKER_00 (27:50):
How do you through content really ensure you're
connecting with people, right?
I mean, you have yourinterviews, right?
Like the direct human-to-humanlike interaction, which is
probably the most important.
But then also it's like you'reyou're trying to not just share
facts, right, about a culture,like, hey, this is this is where
(28:12):
our office is, this is ouroff-site, but how do you try to
create that kind of connectionand relatability with people
through?
SPEAKER_01 (28:21):
I I get very I'll take like an unhinged idea and
throw it through and be like,here is something that I've seen
on Instagram reel that issomeone doing something weird,
and I'm like, here's how we canspin this V here.
So the one that I've just donein the last week, it's like
people do it at weddings wherethey write on the sunglasses,
(28:42):
and then you take the samepicture of everyone with the
same pair of sunglasses on andyou add it into a reel.
I did that for our Christmasparty for London and San
Francisco, and I've made a reel,and it will go out being like,
here's the Christmas holiday,here's the incident holiday
party for this year.
And it's not something that anormal company would do where
they're like, here is the lovelypicture of the table setup we
(29:03):
had, and here's like a reallycute group picture of everyone
looking really happy.
This is like authentic, it'ssomething that's unusual, and
people will look at it and belike, oh, I'll remember that
because it's not someone doing athing of here's my day in the
life of me going to work, andlike here's my nine to five type
thing.
Um, and that's really importantfor me.
The other thing, as well, isjust like using things that we
(29:26):
say in conversation here and thecultural things that we do.
So, like, we have a unhingedSlack channel called Cold Case
Mysteries, which is um everyonesent in a picture of their
fridge to one of the engineers,and she will randomly post a
picture of someone's fridge withlike a clue, and chaos descends
(29:48):
into the offices for about 45minutes while everyone
investigates whose fridge it is.
So, like you'll walk through theoffice and you'll see someone's
got their second screen likereally zoomed in on an item on
the fridge, trying to work outlike where it's from, is it from
London or the US?
Where would you buy it?
Who's most likely to buy it aswell?
(30:09):
Everyone will look into likedeep things and then everyone
basically like votes on it, andthen we get told whose fridge it
is, and then everyone's like, noway that's so and so's fridge.
That's insane.
And it's things like that thathappen that you can just use for
content and reshare.
It doesn't have to be like youcan filter it in with things
about jobs and like hiring andstuff like that as well, but you
have to break it up and keep theformula like fresh all the time.
SPEAKER_00 (30:32):
I think so.
I'm I'm in tech too, right?
Like I've been in tech for overa decade, and I've worked with a
ton of startups and growth stagecompanies as well as built my
own company.
And one thing that I'm sure wecan relate on is just how
competitive and challenging itcan be to work in tech.
(30:52):
Like we're in the mostcompetitive industry in the
world.
There's the most opportunity,and it's hard, right?
And you have to be on your gamealmost completely year-round in
order to compete and win andbuild category leading companies
and grow at the pace that wehave to grow to win, right?
And I think maybe that's whydoing things like this is so
(31:15):
important, like having ways toengage in a lighthearted, fun
way as a team to kind ofcounterbalance, like, hey, like
we're all here working reallyhard towards this like awesome
goal, but we need balance.
Like, there has to be a balancebetween the hard work and
everything that goes intobuilding an incredible company.
(31:36):
But we're humans, like we need,we need like there needs to be
fun in that culture too.
And I wonder if like that's likepart of why you think this is so
important to do things like thisas a company.
SPEAKER_01 (31:49):
Yeah, I don't think I've worked at a company where
I've laughed as much as I havedone.
A cultural video, when we gotthe first view back of it, one
of the pieces of feedback we gotwas like, do you think there's
just too much like B-roll ofpeople like laughing in this?
Because genuinely, we all spendso much time together that you
(32:10):
know everything about eachother.
You can just laugh about things.
We laugh at the most insanethings as well.
It's probably one of the mostunhinged companies I work for as
well.
There's things here that if Ilike when I say it to people
outside of who work here,they're like, What?
Like, why do you like what?
If you explain to someone, like,oh yeah, by the way, we have a
channel where we post someone'sfridge, like the inside of their
(32:32):
fridge, and we all try and guesswhose fridge it is.
Out of context, that soundswild, but like internally, it's
hilarious because at first itwas just like we were just doing
it in the London office, andthen I was like, this is too
easy, we need other fridges into spice it up a bit.
Um, and I think things like thatis just like really weird.
It's also things of like whenSpotify Rapp comes out, everyone
(32:54):
is in a thread posting what theygot, their age, who their top
artist was, how many hours welistened to.
And it's things like that.
We can laugh a lot about things,but we all work exceptionally
hard.
And I've never worked somewherewhere I laugh as much as I do,
but I've never heard anyoneincident go, that's not my job.
Like, I can't do that, that'snot my job.
(33:16):
I can't help you with this.
And I think that's also theother balance of it as well,
that makes it so much nicer tobe here.
And I think it's what makes thelike content authentic.
Like, I don't prep anyone to belike, you're gonna say this on
camera, and it's gonna be reallyfunny.
Sometimes I just throw a cameraat someone and just hope for the
best some days of like thethings that come out, and
sometimes it works well, andother times it's it stays in a
(33:39):
gag rail, basically.
SPEAKER_00 (33:41):
Well, what's really cool about your role, the more
that I'm talking to you, is itit sounds like yes, you're doing
employer branding, but alsoyou're setting the culture for
the organization because you'renot only capturing these
moments, but you're creatingthem, right?
You're putting in placeopportunities for people to have
these experiences too.
SPEAKER_01 (34:00):
And it's also as well, like making sure new
starters and people coming inare part of the inside joke, and
they don't feel like you know,when you start a new job and
everyone, someone says somethingand a group of people laugh at
it and they're like, oh, wecan't explain it to you because
you know this happened then.
That's not what we want here.
We're very big.
So, like when you start here,you have an onboarding buddy
(34:21):
that's a part of your team, butyou also get a culture buddy.
And the idea of the culturebuddy is that can explain to you
things of like, by the way, hereare some niche things that are
very like incidental, likethey're things that we do that
other companies don't, that youkind of want to be aware of so
you don't feel left out.
And it's like that personbecomes your kind of like guide
(34:42):
and guru when you're new to belike, if you see something in a
Slack channel, you're like, whatis that?
Why is that there?
This makes sense of like, youknow, we all everyone's got
emojis of themselves, andthey're like sometimes they're
not flattering a lot of them.
Some of them are unhinged, whichis a theme here.
Um, there's things that arereally niche for incident as
(35:02):
well, like in emojis, and it'slike you want to be able to
explain to someone about it.
We use gaveled a lot, like ajudge's gavel type thing.
Um, and you'll see things oflike you'll ask a question about
something and want to getsomeone's opinion, and someone
will just be like gaveled emoji,and that's someone being like,
yep, fine, do it.
When you first get it, you'relike, what the hell does that
(35:22):
mean?
Why has someone like I areyou're not gonna reply yes or
no?
And you have to kind of explainthat to people.
Um, we are very much a Slackfirst company, obviously.
Like our product is first andforemost Slack, but everything
also as well lives on Notion.
So a lot of time you have totell people coming in, like, if
you can't find something, lookin Notion as well, because it
might be there.
(35:43):
And just making sure thatsomeone doesn't feel left out
when they join.
Like they're not part of theinside joke as well.
SPEAKER_00 (35:49):
So you clearly have a strong aptitude for this and
just a strong level of awarenessand how to build culture and
amplify it.
Where do you think you got thatfrom?
SPEAKER_01 (36:01):
I think it's working in jobs when you turn up and you
feel like the new kid on dayone.
And it's a bit awkward going tolunch because you don't really
know who to go with.
You don't know if you shouldbring your own lunch with you,
or like, you know, you're gonnabe taken out for lunch, or what
the deal is with lunch.
And I think it's just makingsure no one has that experience.
(36:21):
Even when someone'sinterviewing, right?
Like I want to make sure theyhave the best experience.
I make interview prep guides forevery single role that we have
here at Incident that walkssomeone through from an
introduction call with arecruiter right the way through
to a final interview, and evengives them the address of the
office, a picture of the outsideof the office to make sure that
(36:41):
people like know the building togo to as well.
It's just things like that thatI just think are the additional
nice touches that candidateswill remember, people will
remember when they'reinterviewing.
And a lot of the people thatwe're interviewing would buy our
product, and we want to makesure that those people also have
a great experience so that ifthey're not right for us or it's
not the right opportunity forthem, they enjoy the process
(37:02):
enough that they feel like theycould go and kind of like sell
the product into where they goto next, and your candidates
become your customers as well,is a really big thing that I'm
very passionate about.
Um, but yeah, it is just makingsure that no one feels like that
new kid on day one.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
Yeah, I I get that.
And I wonder where that comesfrom.
Like the ability to anticipatelittle anxieties and ability to
anticipate opportunities to helpsomebody feel comfortable or
confident.
I think it's we see it in indifferent parts of an
organization as well.
Like I see it on when you'reonboarding new customers as
(37:38):
well, right?
Like it's about building trust,anticipating needs.
Even if it's you quote unquoteknow the way that it should
work, or if things are on track,it's well the customer may not
know.
There isn't trust yet.
There isn't whatever.
So it's like we have toproactively build a process and
a system around ensuring thatwe're sharing what we need to,
(38:00):
giving the transparency, givingguidance, overcommunicating.
And it's something that I don'tthink everybody has maybe the
same level of aptitude.
I think everybody understandsthe importance of it, but there
are certain people that just arereally good at anticipating
those types of needs and andcreating those types of
experiences.
I'm always curious, I wonderwhat makes somebody able to do
(38:22):
that, right?
I I have some folks here that atsecure vision of my company that
are like really good at it, butit's special, like it's not
something that you you alwayssee.
SPEAKER_01 (38:31):
Yeah, I think it's like many years of working in
retail and hospitality that willdo it to you sometimes as well.
Like it's just ingrained in youto be like, oh, this is like
you, you know, you can be likethat type of way as well.
Um, but yeah, I think I think aswell it's like, you know, when
you've interviewed somewherebad, the process has been awful,
or you've worked at a companyand you've been like, my God,
(38:54):
I've been duped into this job.
It's things like that that Ilook at and I'm like, I don't
want I don't want someone elseto feel this way.
What can I learn from that thatI can implement in this job so
that someone doesn't like feellike they've made that decision
in a way?
Um it's as well.
I think it is just like it'shaving that like you know, EQ
(39:16):
balance in you to be like, whydon't we have this for other
people coming in?
A lot of times when I did thingswhen I first started, I would
speak to my boss at the time,Danny, who was the head of
talent here, and I would belike, here's what I've made.
I want these to go out as partof the interview process.
And she was like, Yep, great,like we'll get found to sign off
just to make sure that they'reaware that we are giving out
(39:37):
this information.
And I remember them saying tous, but why do we want to do
this?
No one else does this.
And I was like, Exactly, no oneelse does it.
That's why we should be doingit.
Just because someone doesn't doit doesn't mean we shouldn't be
doing it.
It's the reason why weshouldn't.
If you're not going to have thatmentality, why have you started
a business in a way?
It's why there's so manystartups, it's why people get
these ideas because they'vedone, they've had like a product
(39:59):
or something that's not worked,and they've been like, I can
build that better.
And that's where it comes fromas well.
It's like you think ofcandidates like the on the
experience from like whensomeone applies right the way
through to when they leave thebusiness.
If you look at it in that timeframe of it away, that helps as
well.
SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
Yeah, I love that.
Really finding ways to stand outfrom other companies in the
interview process.
It's like you can never be liketoo helpful, right?
Like when it comes to helpingcandidates navigate a massive
life decision.
I think that that's somethingthat maybe it can be easy to
forget, even for those of us intalent acquisition sometimes,
(40:34):
really understanding how huge ofa decision it is for somebody to
come to an organization, right?
To leave a current job to go toa new one, to take a bet,
particularly on maybe a startupor gross stage.
SPEAKER_01 (40:47):
Yeah, and I think I've heard of it.
Yeah, and as well, it's otherfactors as well.
Like I remember after COVID,people being like, I'm not
moving because I've just gotthis job, like it's taken me so
long to get it.
And because of so many peoplebeing laid off, people were a
bit more apprehensive of jumpingship in a job because they felt
such like gratitude to a companywhen they got a job after being
(41:10):
made redundant and things likethat as well.
And then I think there was ashift in like everyone was
trying to move because they werelike, oh, I've been here for X
amount of time, nothing'schanged.
And now it's the shift of we'vegot it in London where so many
companies are doing like returnto work.
So like they're mandating howmany days you have to be in the
office, what days you have to bein, and things like that as
well.
(41:30):
And I think that's gonnamassively change the talent
market as well for where peopleare looking for and the types of
roles people are looking for,and what they're looking for and
valuing within companies aswell.
And they're not gonna move offthose type of opinions and
things.
Like if you've had someonethat's worked from home for six,
seven years plus now, it's gonnabe hard to try and get them back
(41:51):
into an office like four days aweek.
They've built a routine, youcan't try and break that and
change it is a lot, like you'vekind of got to go in with a very
good sale to get them in.
SPEAKER_00 (42:00):
Agreed.
Yeah, I I totally agree.
Well, Megan, look, this has beenan amazing conversation.
I wanted to say thank you somuch for joining us today.
Thank you.
And sharing your experiences.
I've had a lot of fun speakingwith you.
Um, so yeah, thanks.
SPEAKER_01 (42:15):
Perfect, thank you.
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