January 8, 2026 • 55 mins
Heather Lother, VP of Talent & People Operations at Crossover for Work, talks about how focusing on skills and transparency can completely change the way teams hire. She shares what she’s learned from coaching managers through choosing candidates, making interviews more meaningful, and turning the process into a genuine two-way conversation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:46):
Thanks for tuning in, everyone.
We got Heather Lothar on theshow today.
Heather is currently the vicepresident of talent and people
operations at Crossover forWork.
Heather, I'm really excitedabout the conversation we're
going to have today.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Thanks, James.
I really appreciate it.
So happy to get to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Yes, we're really excited for you to be here as
well.
Just to kick us off, where didyou uh grow up?
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
A little bit of everywhere.
Um, military brat.
And then my dad got out of themilitary and went into aviation,
which I always say is worse thanbeing in the military, because
at least in the military, you'reonly going to move every two
years or so.
When you work private aviation,you kind of move every six to 18
months, depending on what'sgoing on with the economy.
(01:33):
So most of my childhood wasspent in the southeast, but by
the time I was 12, I had livedin eight different states and 10
different houses by 12.
Yeah.
So wow.
SPEAKER_00 (01:46):
Yeah, that is even more than military families.
That's quite a uniqueexperience.
I don't know if I've ever heardthat before.
That's a lot of moving around.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
It was.
I got really good at packing andunpacking, um, and also really
good at being the new kid inclass.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Yeah, I was gonna ask about that.
Like socially, I'm sure that hasa big impact in how you develop.
And I'm sure that there arebenefits and how you bring that
forward to being in such apeople-oriented business, right?
SPEAKER_01 (02:16):
You know, I actually attribute that to some of my
success in this role because oneof the things I had to learn
really early on was how to justmake friends with anyone.
And the easiest way to do thatis to find a point of
commonality.
And honestly, as diverse andvaried as the world is, there's
almost always something that Ican find to connect with on a
(02:39):
personal level with whoever I'mtalking to these days.
SPEAKER_00 (02:42):
Yeah.
Oh, for sure.
Sure.
So what uh what was the favoriteplace or favorite places that
you lived?
SPEAKER_01 (02:47):
Um, I would say best food, Memphis, Tennessee.
Hands down.
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
Really?
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
A barbecue, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:55):
I never knew that was a big food city.
Is it is it well known as a foodcity?
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (03:01):
Just dry rub, uh dry rub, Memphis ribs.
Uh head down the dark stairwellat rendezvous, um, and you'll be
in good company there.
But probably favorite place interms of where I put down roots
would be here in South Carolina.
This is where I chose to stayfor college and chose to raise
(03:22):
my family.
So this has been home for me forlong enough that I'm almost
considered a local.
And if you're from theSoutheast, you'll know it takes
a long time to get local status.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Yeah.
What what part of SouthCarolina?
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
Um, so I'm on the western side of the state in
Greenville.
SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
Greenville.
Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_01 (03:44):
What's the closest big city to Greenville or city
that I'm um so we're an hour anda half from Charlotte, North
Carolina.
We're an hour and a half fromColumbia, South Carolina.
We're two and a half hours fromAtlanta.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
Okay, got it.
Nice, nice.
So you went to school out there?
SPEAKER_01 (03:59):
I did, yeah.
I went to college um here inGreenville at Furman.
Just fell in love with the area.
We actually moved here in highschool, so I kind of stayed
around.
I had a much younger sister andfelt like I needed to be close
enough to watch her grow up.
She was only in third grade whenI went to college.
I didn't want to miss all ofthat.
I'm just stuck around eversince.
(04:21):
It's been a really awesome placeto grow up and raise a family
myself.
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
I love it.
And um, I'm curious to justlearn more.
Like what kind of interest didyou have around the time you're
going to college, or what weresome of those kind of like
formative experiences uh thatyou had or things that you were
into at the time?
SPEAKER_01 (04:40):
Um, do you remember the opening scene in Beauty and
the Beast where Belle's walkingthrough town with her nose in a
book?
That was me.
Growing up, if I didn't have abook with me, then something was
wrong.
In fact, my punishment as a kidwas to have my book taken away
instead of time out or beinggrounded because that was the
only thing I cared about.
Just absolutely an avid readerof anything and everything I
(05:02):
could get my hands on.
Um, and then really enjoyed alot of work that I did with
younger kids growing up.
So I did a lot of likebabysitting and tutoring and
working at different camps andthings.
And that really kind of shapedwhere I thought I was gonna do
with my life.
So I think like a lot of us, Igrew up and the career advice
(05:25):
was do the thing you love.
Because then what was the oldadage?
You know, if you do what youlove, you'll never work a day in
your life.
Well, okay, I loved reading, andmostly I left school because it
was it's a lot of reading.
Um, and when it's not reading,it's fairly competitive test
taking, which I also enjoyed.
And so I was like, well, I guessthat's it.
(05:46):
I guess I have to go be ateacher.
So that was when I went tocollege to study.
I went to college to be actuallyan English teacher, did a tour
of a high school and was likeabsolutely not.
It was easily 10 times the sizeof the high school I went to.
And the students were literallywalking on their desks across
(06:07):
the classroom, ignoring theirfirst year teacher.
And I was like, I look youngerthan that teacher does.
And I'm smaller and lessintimidating.
I don't take it a chance in highschool.
So I switched to elementaryeducation.
That's what my bachelor's is in.
SPEAKER_00 (06:23):
Oh, that's great.
That's really cool.
So when you graduated school,you actually, and you got your
master's too, I think.
SPEAKER_01 (06:31):
I did.
I went back and got my master'sum almost actually they're
almost exactly 10 years apart umgraduation dates.
Yeah.
Nice.
Wrapped up my master's 4th ofJuly 2020.
So in the middle of COVID, thatwas insanity.
SPEAKER_00 (06:47):
Yeah, I bet.
I bet.
Um okay, cool.
So coming out of college, uh,that's a pretty cool that you
had the foundation of havingpeople in your life that were
telling you to do what you love.
Um, because I I am a bigbeliever in following your
passion uh in education andthroughout life, because if
you're passionate, you'reultimately going to work really
(07:08):
hard, you're gonna beemotionally engaged, and it's
going to lead to opportunities,right?
Versus if you're trying to livesomebody else's vision that
isn't compatible, congruent withwho we are, then it's it's hard
to execute surely off of likewillpower and discipline long
term.
(07:28):
Like I don't care how motivatedyou are, it's draining if there
isn't some level of like passionand emotional engagement.
So I I came from the camp.
A lot of the folks that I heardfrom grow up around were, you
know, you got to get the financedegree or the engineering
degree, or my my favorite topicgrowing up was philosophy.
(07:49):
Like I loved, you know, that wasbut that was like, oh, there's
no, you know, that you don't getthe degree in philosophy.
You don't do those types ofthings.
And um I'm curious, so who werethose influences?
Was that did that come fromfamily or from teachers that you
had?
SPEAKER_01 (08:02):
I would say primarily my parents.
Um yeah.
So my parents just were really,really big on the importance of
education, which I completelyget now.
Looking back at things, youknow, my dad was the baby of the
family, and he and all of hisolder brothers got to go to
college purely because of the GIBill.
Um, so they all signed up formilitary service.
(08:24):
That was what paid for them togo to college.
Otherwise, that was not in thecards for them.
My mom opted to do thestay-at-home route, but when I
was probably my junior year ofcollege, she went back to school
and earned an associate and thena bachelor's and then a
master's, just tick, tick, tickright on through.
Um, she raised three kids andshe had put so much effort into
(08:48):
our education.
It was really inspiring to seeher go back and actually like go
chase her dreams to see thatthere's not a time frame for
that.
There's not like an expirationdate on going back to school and
getting the she needed degreesand she needed licensure to do
what she wants to do.
She's a um a therapist.
And so there's not a timeline onthat.
(09:09):
And I I really appreciatedhaving that influence in my
life.
And then I'd say, you know, likemy grandparents worked, my
grandfather was a pharmacist, mygrandmother was a nurse, and
they worked super, super hardtheir whole life and just really
instilled into us that that wassomething they enjoyed.
They did it because they likedit.
My grandfather retired and wentback to work.
(09:30):
He actually retired from DowJones chemical, then went and
became a pharmacist at Walmartbecause he was bored.
Uh he was like, I can't just sithome.
This is this is silly.
So I think to me, like workinghard and doing something that
you love enough to want to doit, even when you have other
options, was always somethingthat was instilled in me from a
very early age.
SPEAKER_00 (09:51):
Yeah.
And I'm sure that's impactedtoo.
It's maybe even how you thinkabout finding like the right
fit, like when you're evaluatingcandidates and like their
strengths and helping place themin the right roles.
Like I think at least that'ssomething that I I think a lot
about now, probably even morethan when I had less leadership
experience is really dialinginto understanding the team well
(10:13):
enough and working with peopleclosely enough to identify their
strengths, not just what youperceive as their strengths, but
maybe you see something andsomeone is a strength, but they
don't, or it's still notultimately a passion or an
interest for them to follow.
And sometimes you have a greatperson, but they're not
necessarily in the right seat.
And that kind of mindset, too, Ithink also translates into how
(10:33):
we build teams.
It doesn't just stop ateducation, it doesn't just stop
with our own careers, but wethink about other people growing
and getting the most out of ateam dynamic.
I feel like that's reallyrelevant as well.
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think especially myexperience watching my mom go
back to school really reframeshow I think about both career
gaps and transferable skills,because I know from where I sit
professionally that had she notbeen going into therapy, if
she'd been going into, I don'tknow, some business role, that a
(11:06):
lot of people would have lookedat her resume and been like, I
don't, this uh this doesn't tellthe story that I expect to hear.
But knowing her and seeing theperseverance that she put into
things and just the way that shecould adapt and learn new
things, I've always tried tokind of stop and assess what
(11:27):
story am I bringing to thisresume or to this candidate that
is rooted in an assumption andthat may not actually reflect
their capabilities or theirskills.
What is it they left off theresume that I should be asking
about?
Um, because a lot of people willget intimidated to put things on
there because they think, youknow, people in the corporate
(11:50):
world won't see the value inthat.
But I think we should be andoften are from the people I talk
to every day.
Like we're often the best peopleto say, oh my gosh, like yes,
that's a skill.
You should highlight that.
I know it it probably goesagainst the career advisor's
advice or the resume writer thatyou hired, but I see the value
(12:12):
in that.
And I think you should reallyhighlight that when you talk to
a hiring manager or you talk toa hiring team.
SPEAKER_00 (12:17):
Absolutely.
And how did you end up gettinginto recruiting?
SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
Like most people, accidentally.
I have yet to meet very manypeople who did this
intentionally and said that'swhat I want to do with my life.
I actually started my career inthe middle of the Great
Recession working fornonprofits.
And so I worked with kids whowere in foster care.
From there, I transitioned intodoing nonprofit volunteer
(12:45):
management.
And I am such like a nerd.
So I got a job at a children'smuseum.
They said, Hey, you seem likeyou're not intimidated by middle
schoolers.
Why don't you run our middleschool volunteer and leadership
development program?
And I was like, Cool, let's go.
Middle schoolers are awesome.
They laugh at all my jokes.
They're amazing.
So I threw myself in to researchand professional development.
(13:09):
I signed up for every webinar Icould get my hands on.
I signed up for everynewsletter, every book, like
anything I could to learn aboutthis thing called volunteer
management.
And what I discovered is thatit's recruiting, but for unpaid
roles.
And I was like, oh, that totallymakes sense.
Because instead of a paycheck tooffer people, now I need to
(13:30):
offer them a meaningfulexperience, a sense that they
have added value to something,and a sense that they've learned
and grown as a result ofspending their time here without
compensation.
Done.
Let's do this.
And so I dove into it.
I was asked pretty quickly totake on adult volunteer
(13:50):
management.
And then I circuitously wound myway to a local United Way where
I oversaw the entire volunteerengagement team.
It was um a very kind ofroundabout loop.
But along the way, I reallytried to pull from all these
other areas of practice andbring those best practices into
(14:10):
my work managing volunteers.
And then I landed here atCrossover, which is a story all
of its own, one maybe about thepotential pitfalls and perils of
keyword matching, but also atrue testament to skills-based
hiring along the way, too.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
Nice, nice.
Yeah, that's a reallyinteresting start to recruiting
working on volunteer roles thatare unpaid because the focus on
value and experience comesfirst, which it should be for
paid positions as well, right?
I mean, if you think about it,we should for top talent, right?
For a lot of the candidates thatwe want to recruit to our
organizations, like you know,they're gonna have multiple
(14:47):
options.
And so being able to tell thatstory to really understand their
needs and what they're lookingfor and to translate that into
uh a good story highlighting themost relevant points for them
and being able to show thatcompelling future is something
that differentiates recruiters,right?
And recruiting organizations,right?
(15:08):
Um so that that sounds like apretty special foundation.
Like it's different.
It's different than the way thatmost of us start out.
It's not a traditional in-houseor agency recruiting job.
SPEAKER_01 (15:19):
No, it was really interesting.
But I think when you apply thatlens, I'm thinking about like
the talent wars, right?
And there was just this bigarticle that came out in the
last week about Microsoftpoaching open AI people, and
open AI is talking about likeour compensation packages are so
great and amazing.
But when you really stop andtalk to top performers and when
(15:40):
you talk to Gen Z, Gen Alphacandidates, they don't give a
crap about your compensationpackage.
If your culture is bad, if yourcandidate experience is bad, if
there's not a promise for growthand development and learning, if
there's not a clear path forthem, it really almost doesn't
matter what number you put onthe paper.
(16:01):
A lot of those folks are justnot as motivated by that as they
maybe once were.
But I also think it's becausewe're coming into an era where
people say 40 hours, often 50,depending on where you work and
when you add in commute, um, isa pretty significant chunk of my
life every week.
I don't want to spend itmiserable.
(16:22):
I'm not willing to be mygrandparents or my parents have
a heart attack at 40 because ofthe stress of a job that doesn't
care if I show up on Monday.
So I think that valueproposition has shifted a lot,
especially in American corporateculture.
Companies don't take care ofemployees the way maybe our
mythology says they used to.
(16:42):
I'm still not totally convincedthat's historically accurate,
but we definitely have builtthis myth around the corporate
family that takes care of theiremployees.
That just doesn't exist in mostplaces anymore.
So I think people are lookingfor more than just a great
compensation package.
And that starts with us on thetalent acquisition side.
That starts with the story wetell about the role and its
(17:07):
contribution and why it matters.
And it starts with candidateexperience from that very first
touch point, whether that's awebsite or an email or a you
know, cold call, it's thatstarts the ball rolling.
And if we're not deliveringexcellent candidate experience,
then we're probablyinadvertently setting ourselves
up for some preventable earlycandidate exits or offer
(17:32):
declines that we probably couldhave worked our way around had
we planned ahead a little bitbetter.
SPEAKER_00 (17:39):
Sure.
So you were working for a UnitedWay and you were there for
several years, and then in inaround May 2021, you went over
to Crossover for work.
How did that come about?
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
Crossover was expanding their team.
They were just sort of buildingthis repeatable hiring machine,
if you will, that focused onskills and was going to
completely reshape how theorganization hired.
And they were looking to addsome talent to the team.
They candidly were looking forengagement managers from
(18:15):
McKenzie or Bain, et cetera,right?
Well, they advertise the job asengagement manager on LinkedIn.
How does LinkedIn serve youjobs?
I don't know if everybody mostrecruiters know this, right?
It looks at your current title.
Well, my current title was VP ofengagement.
So it handed me this job out.
(18:36):
And I was like, well, that'scool.
The first line um I remember ofthe job description was
something like if you thinkhiring today is like a horse and
buggy and you're ready toactually build a Tesla, you
should apply.
And I was like, done.
Um hiring today sucks.
It was not as bad five years agoas it is now.
(18:58):
I think it's worse now from bothcandidate and recruiter
perspectives, just because ofvolume.
But I was super frustrated withhiring.
I had gotten my master's almostnine months earlier, had been
trying to get just anentry-level HR job.
I'll just, I'll do anything inHR.
I'll be an HR specialist, I'llbe a generalist, I'll run
payroll.
Like, I don't care.
I just want to put my master'sand HR to work.
(19:20):
I don't mind taking a bunch ofsteps down the ladder.
I reported to the CEO at thatpoint.
I was like, I seniority doesn'tmean anything to me.
Like, I'm not looking to be aleader.
I just want to use this degreethat I went out and got.
And I just could not even getlike the first callback.
I was so frustrated because, ofcourse, there's a ton of talent
(19:41):
in that field.
And you don't have to take theentry-level candidate because
you have people with five, six,seven years of experience
willing to take specialist rolesand entry-level positions
ostensibly.
So um I saw the crossover ad andI was like, okay, let's do this.
I hit apply and it completelythrew me because the first thing
it asked was, hey, here's somelike yes, no questions to make
(20:03):
sure you actually meet therequirement for the role.
And I was like, okay, that'sdifferent.
So I answered a couple ofquestions and they were like,
hey, here's a 15-minutecognitive aptitude test.
If you're smart enough to passthis, then we'll tell you more
about the job.
And I was like, all right,competitive level unlocked,
let's do this.
I remember I was actually at myparents' house with my son at
(20:27):
the time.
And I was like, I need to bequiet for 15 minutes.
Okay.
I have to like do some math.
And they were like, What is shetalking about?
But I passed it.
And so I was like, all right,let's go.
Game on.
What's next?
And the next piece was saying,Hey, look, nobody does exactly
what we do out there in theworld.
So right Rather than say, haveyou done this before?
(20:48):
Because you won't.
We're going to give you a pieceof a puzzle that's a puzzle we
solve all the time in a lot ofdifferent contexts.
We want you to solve it to thebest of your ability.
And it was like unraveling afunnel.
Like, what was wrong with thishiring funnel?
And what did it mean?
And what was the right way tofix it?
And they gave you some contextand they gave me some data.
(21:08):
And I spent way too long on itbecause I got lost in the fun of
it.
And that was like revolutionaryfor me.
I was like, I'm enjoying anapplication process.
When's the last time thathappened?
That I like applied to a job.
They asked me to do homework,which ew, and I liked it.
And I was like, all right, well,now I'm hooked.
Um, I want this job.
(21:30):
Um, and I told my husband textedmy husband, I said, I applied
for this job and I'm scaredbecause I actually want it way
more than I should at thispoint.
SPEAKER_00 (21:38):
Have you spoken to anybody yet?
Or was this all like no?
SPEAKER_01 (21:44):
Nope.
So at crossover, you don't talkto anybody until you get to the
interview.
The interview is the last stagein the process.
But we give you this littletimeline that tells you what you
have to do to earn theinterview.
But when you earn the interview,you've already proven you can do
the job.
And so we send out offers.
The data was a little bitdifferent back then because we
(22:05):
didn't hire at scale the way wedo now.
But today we send out offers toprobably over 50% of people who
land a first-round interview.
SPEAKER_00 (22:15):
Okay, this is cool.
Yeah.
All right.
This goes against a lot ofconventional wisdom, I think,
and the industry.
Um, there's a concern,particularly with AI, about the
overuse of automation and losinghuman touch and putting too much
testing top of funnel, notresonating with folks and
(22:38):
missing out on top talent, whichI I question that assumption.
I think it's well, first off, Ithink hiring is incredibly
situational to each business andthe type of talent, not only
roles but culture uh that you'relooking to build.
So, first off, no strategy needsto appeal to everyone, they have
to appeal to the right people.
(22:59):
So there's that, but still, thisis unusual.
Like, I and so I'm curious.
SPEAKER_01 (23:04):
And I'll be the first person to tell you like if
we were hiring truck drivers,this would not be what we did.
SPEAKER_00 (23:08):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:08):
So if I was hiring call service, you know, like
call center staff, we would dothis differently.
But we're hiring primarilywhite-collar tech workers, like
engineers, sleeper remote roles.
So engineer product, marketing,finance, sales, but we also do
ed tech.
So we have like curriculumdesigners, enrollment,
(23:29):
admissions, um, some other roleslike that.
But okay, mostly remote roles,mostly knowledge worker type
positions.
SPEAKER_00 (23:38):
And are these W-2s or contract, shorter-term
contracts or what we support alltypes of hiring.
SPEAKER_01 (23:47):
So most of our hiring um in the US is for W-2
employees.
We also hire remote contractorsaround the world, and we also
hire short-term contractors bothinside and outside the US as
well.
SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Okay, cool.
So clearly the way that you'reexecuting this strategy is
you're doing it in an effectiveway, right?
It's working at scale.
For I feel like this successstory, there's probably a
hundred where companies that usetoo much automation at toward
the top of the funnel, too muchtesting without engagement,
(24:22):
engaging that doesn't work.
What do you think makes how youdo things at crossover different
and effective?
SPEAKER_01 (24:29):
So I think number one is we have a big candidate
pool.
And we will tell you it takes alot of at bats for us to win.
So we need a lot of applicantsin order to have the kind of
funnels that we need to deliversuccessful candidates.
So if your candidate pool islike 37 people, this doesn't
(24:50):
work, right?
Because those 37 people knowthey're one of 37 people in the
world with this specificbackground.
That's not our case.
And so we're fortunate in thatregard.
But I think the other thing thatworks is we're super
transparent.
So the minute you hit apply, youget a dashboard.
(25:10):
And it shows you every singlestep you need to take and it
shows you where the interviewhappens in this process.
It is not a secret.
We don't hide it.
We tell you how much time eachstep is going to take.
Okay, so this thing's gonna takeyou 15 minutes.
This thing's probably 20.
This thing might be an hour anda half.
Um, so you decide when you startit, you decide what you're
willing to tolerate.
(25:31):
And if you bow out, you bow out.
No harm, no foul.
You're still eligible toreapply.
We don't like blacklist peoplewho quit things.
That's ridiculous.
Um, but we're very transparentabout that.
And I think that helps.
The second thing is I thinkthere's a lot of people like me
out out there in the world.
People who are competitive, wholike a challenge, and who relish
(25:55):
the idea of being able to provethat they can do the job because
maybe their resume is notperfect.
Maybe they don't have thepedigree that other candidates
do.
And they know that, and theyknow that's why they're missing
out on some jobs.
And so a process that verytransparently says, don't tell
(26:17):
us you can do the job, show usyou can do the job appeals to a
lot of people.
The other thing is we're supertransparent about pay.
That's obviously not the solemotivator, like we talked about
earlier.
But if you don't tell peoplewhat the job is going to deliver
to them, at least financially,it's really hard to justify any
(26:38):
investment on a candidate side.
Like if you had not told me thesalary, I guarantee you I would
not have completed thatapplication process.
SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
Sure.
So it sounds like thus far whatwe've covered, the primary ways
that you've been able to havehigh engagement with this uh
approach is one, as soon as theyapply, they're given a summary
of the entire process.
So there's a high level oftransparency.
And of course, it's highlyresponsive since it's automated.
So as soon as they click apply,they're getting access to what's
(27:09):
going to be expected of them.
It sounds like to some extentit's how you position the job
description, being transparentwith the compensation.
There we go.
Like what what else is it?
If you had to like pick the thetop ways that you get people
excited to stick in there.
You also mentioned thecompetitive nature.
So we we hit on a few things,but is there anything else, or
(27:29):
like what do you think are thetop reasons people really go
through with this?
SPEAKER_01 (27:33):
So the candidates I talk to by and large tell me
that they found it to be a funchallenge.
So we do whenever we can.
We can't always gamify it in thesense of like play digital
monopoly and see if you win thejob.
But like when we can makesomething a simulation, when we
can say, here's an example of anemail you might get, how would
(27:56):
you respond?
It shifts things from what's myportfolio of work to, huh, okay,
this is kind of like a game.
How would I handle this in reallife?
So that's one thing that I heara lot from candidates is they
found it interesting and fun andchallenging.
And that challenge in and ofitself was motivational for
them.
The other thing that we do is weinvest a lot of effort into our
(28:21):
email and automated pop-upreminders.
So we have videos that show upon the platform that are like,
hey, this is what you're aboutto do.
Here's why.
We do a lot of, you know, SimonCetic, start with why.
We do a lot of tying things backto the purpose.
We are also very transparentabout how we evaluate different
(28:45):
assessments or simulations.
So we'll say, like, here's thethings we're evaluating.
Here's what we don't care about.
You know, don't care about this,this, and this.
And so we kind of take somethings out of being a gray zone
for candidates who feel likehiring is a black box already
and try to put it back in theirhands where we say, like, look,
we're giving you the rubrichere.
(29:06):
Like before you hit submit, gothrough a rubric.
Check and see if you think youmeet the standard.
If you don't, go re-record it orresubmit it or make an edit,
whatever it is.
And then we do a lot of emailcampaigns as well for candidates
who are in the funnel.
You know, very informational,educational, tying it back to
(29:27):
the mission, helping themunderstand that, you know, these
roles are competitive and theassessments help us make their
interview more effective andhelp us increase the likelihood
that anyone who interviews getsa job.
Because that's really the endgoal for us is to make the
(29:47):
pipeline so effective that bythe time you get to the
interview, we're just sellingyou on the position.
We're convincing you to take thejob by the time we interview
you.
That's our gold star goal.
We're not there across theboard.
That requires a lot of hiringmanager education, but it
definitely is part of where weaim every single role.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
I think we're listening to you talk through
this, it's really fascinatingbecause I think where companies
probably fail when they've triedthis approach, or why a lot of
people may think, oh, thisdoesn't work, or recruiters
would say it's not feasiblebecause people aren't going to
stay engaged, or we're not gonnaget top people.
This approach isn't about doingless work.
(30:34):
It's not like a shortcut.
You're doing the work in adifferent way.
You're putting a lot more effortinto how you position the
company and the role and puttingtogether resources and guides
and the transparency aspects ofit, probably the job
description, your website, yourexplaining the why, the email
(30:55):
follow-ups.
So it's it's not like you'redoing you're just automating and
it's you're doing a lot toinvest in the candidate
experience.
And so if somebody were to tryto implement this strategy
without making a huge investmentin the candidate experience,
then it wouldn't work.
As you start to explain it moreand more, and I start to see
like everything that goes intomaking this happen, it's really
(31:18):
just a shift in an approach.
But it's sure as heck, it's notlike a shortcut.
There's a lot of work that needsto go into making it a great
experience so that peopleactually maintain their interest
in the interview process.
SPEAKER_01 (31:33):
Yeah.
The other thing we try to do,and we can't do it with every
assessment, but the ones wherewe can, we absolutely do.
We try to think in terms of howdoes this assessment add value
for the candidate?
So, yes, we're getting to seesomething the candidate is
capable of doing, but are wegiving them information that is
behind the scenes?
Are we giving them stuff thatyou wouldn't normally get until
(31:56):
your post-offer team call withyour colleagues, things like
FAQs, documents about how we dothings, playbooks, even.
We'll embed those in theassessments and say this is part
of the DNA of the team thatyou're joining.
If you don't like this kind ofwork, you probably should stop
your application now becausethis is very literally the
(32:19):
playbook from the team you'retrying to be part of.
If you love it, if you read itand go, finally, about time,
great, here's what theassignment is.
Take the playbook, apply it tothe scenario, show us what
happens when you do that.
So we're trying to also takesome of those really late stage
conversations and artifacts,documents, knowledge that often
(32:41):
doesn't get shared until afterthe company has made a
commitment to a candidate andmove them way earlier in the
process as a way of helpingcandidates self-select in or out
as appropriate to the team andthe role that they're applying
for.
SPEAKER_00 (32:56):
And I think regardless of how a company
structures the interviewprocess, when there is a lot of
transparency and experience istop of mind, they can tell and
it builds trust quickly.
So maybe another thing that thisconversation is making me think
about is experience, regardlessof how you decide to do it,
whether it's like first roundyou're doing manual setup of
(33:17):
screens and interviewingeveryone at the top of the
funnel, or you're using more ofthis, the path that your team
is.
Either way, it's investingheavily in experience because
experience is gonna be whatbuilds trust.
And when you have trust, thenyou can go into a conversation
and have a different dynamicwith that individual.
(33:39):
Again, I could see anotherrebuttal, right?
Be well, wait, if you only talkthem at the end of the process,
then are they gonna know youwell enough to try to accept an
offer?
And it's like, well, yeah, Imean, if you've invested in the
experience and providing a lotof transparency and they feel
like it's a predictable andyou're following through on what
you're saying, and they're notleft wondering or anxious about
next steps or anything likethat, then you have built trust
(34:03):
in maybe a slightly lesstraditional way.
You build trust.
So I I think it's reallyinteresting.
Kudos to you guys for figuringthis out because I again I feel
like I've I've seen this flop somany times for companies and
they weren't doing all thethings you guys are doing.
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
Yeah, it's tricky to get right, and we don't always
get it right.
There's plenty of times when wefall flat on our face, or we get
a role and we tell a hiringmanager, like, you don't know
enough about what you want forus to design a funnel.
And so best we can do is put ajob description out there and do
a little light filtering, andthen you're just gonna have to
(34:42):
interview a ton of people.
I will say that pretty quicklygets hiring managers on board
when in week one they're like,why do I have 15 interviews?
And I'm like, well, rememberthat conversation about like you
don't really know a lot aboutwhat you want or what they're
supposed to be doing day to day,and you kind of have this
nebulous idea that they're gonnamake the business better.
This is what happens when that'syour entire hiring criteria.
(35:05):
Um, have fun.
Call me when you have somethoughts about who's a good fit
or not and why.
And we'll build that into theprocess.
But we're also super iterativetoo.
So when we flop, we generallyhave a plan for fixing things
within five to seven days.
SPEAKER_00 (35:20):
Yeah, that's I think the difference between a good
team and a great team is a greatteam when something doesn't go
to plan, they fix it quickly.
That's like particularly ourline of work on my company RPO
solution side, that's what Ialways say.
It's like, you know, we weusually get it right the first
time.
But if we don't, we fix it andwe'll know about the problem
before you do, and we'll alreadybe implementing a solution
(35:44):
before you even are aware ofanything, and you're not gonna
feel any impact to performance.
And I think that's what allowsus to stand out with our
customers.
To me, that's the differencebetween a great team and a good
team.
Like I I think you also so nowyou're in a role where you do
(36:05):
have a lot of exposure todifferent hiring managers.
You see the challenges they havewith hiring, and you see some of
the blockers, like things thatare getting in the way of them
being successful.
And I'm wondering, we could talkabout process improvements and
these types of things, but thisis a people business, and
sometimes there arepsychological blockers, right?
unknown (36:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:24):
And I'm just wondering like, what do you see
the hiring leaders that you workwith struggle with what they can
be working on to get betterresults?
SPEAKER_01 (36:36):
So a couple of things.
The first is we ask hiringmanagers to adopt a completely
different mental mindset forhiring, right?
And so if you've been a hiringmanager elsewhere and you come
into our company and now youneed to hire, we're basically
telling you kind of forgeteverything you've ever done
about hiring, and now you haveto do it our way.
So we do a lot of education andtraining, and I almost call it
(36:59):
like evangelism about thisinternally.
Like, here's why it's better, Ipromise.
Trying to just help themovercome some things that don't
fit our model.
You know, saying, oh, they usedto work at XYZ as a proxy for
XYZ runs a really rigorousrecruitment process so I can
trust them to have vettedcandidates for me.
(37:20):
I we talk all the time aboutlike how that's kind of lazy.
It's a mental heuristic thatisn't really rooted in any
actual data.
It's just how you feel about thecompany.
We do a lot of talk about, andthis is maybe something that I
didn't fully understand until Istarted hiring personally.
We talk a lot about sort of theinsecurities that hiring
(37:45):
managers are sometimes reallyhesitant to fess up to.
So I think back to the firsttime I was making a hiring
decision at United Way.
I was supposed to be hiring forthe retired and senior volunteer
program.
It's a federal volunteer uhgrant.
And the part of the grantstipulated that the person that
(38:05):
was hired to run the programcould be anybody, but they had
to know how to go out andrecruit people ages 55 and up to
be volunteers.
So when you post a job likethat, naturally your candidate
pool kind of skews toward peoplewho have a lot of experience
with that particulardemographic.
And I had a super diversecandidate pool.
(38:26):
I was down to two finalists.
I had one person who was justsuper experienced, had run
multiple government grantsbefore, had run her own company,
had a lot of experience, but hadnever recruited volunteers.
And then I had somebody else whohad recruited volunteers but had
(38:47):
never recruited this demographicand had never worked on a
government grant.
And I went to my CEO and I said,help me make this decision.
And she said, What are you stuckon?
I said, Well, for starters, I'mlike 26, 27 at this point.
One of them is like easily mygrandmother's age.
(39:08):
And she's like, no nonsense, goget them.
She's gonna be hard driving,type A.
I said, she can do the job, butshe's gonna be really hard for
me to manage.
I said, this other person, I'llhave no problem managing.
They're like my age, they'rekind of inexperienced, they're
gonna lean on me for expertise,they're gonna come to me for
advice, but also they have noidea how to do the job.
(39:29):
She was like, What do you think?
I was like, I feel like Iprobably need to lean into being
really uncomfortable managingsomeone who's my grandmother's
age.
She was like, that's probablythe right choice there.
But I think about thatconversation a lot because when
I work with hiring managers sooften, when the choice comes
down to two candidates, it'ssometimes less about who can do
(39:52):
do the job, and a lot of thetime more about who do I feel
like I can manage, who's goingto be easier to get along with,
who do I like more as if we'regoing to barbecues at each
other's house every week?
We're definitely not as aprimarily remote company.
That's not happening.
So a lot of times I say, okay,let's take all of that out of
(40:16):
it.
If you disappeared for threeweeks, which of these candidates
can do the job without you here?
Because that's the person youshould hire.
The person who's capable anddoesn't need you to hold their
hand every day is probably goingto be harder to manage because
they don't need you.
They don't feel that I get to beexpert.
(40:37):
They want my opinion kind ofneed that sometimes managers
have.
And so we talk about that.
I think there's also likepsychological things about, you
know, can I have Hire someonewho's dramatically different
from the rest of the team andthey contribute and add strength
to the team as opposed to makethe team harder to work with.
And so, especially as a globalcompany, we don't talk as much
(41:00):
about value or culture fit as wedo about like culture ad or even
sometimes like cultureadaptability.
Because a lot of times whenyou're hiring globally, what
matters more is if people canadapt and thrive in your team's
environment rather than if theybring with them certain
(41:21):
experiences or cultures thatthat you've never seen before,
because that actually might beexactly what you need.
SPEAKER_00 (41:27):
It might be, right?
It's like hiring for the gap,right?
What skill set do we not have?
Sometimes it's not adown-the-pipe skill set,
sometimes it's a a mindset,right?
SPEAKER_01 (41:36):
And sometimes it's just super simple stuff.
Like, are they gonna recognizethat they can't email that
candidate on that day becausethat's a holiday?
Because they're smart enough andwork in a multicultural enough
environment or have encounteredthis before, and they're gonna
go, yeah, no, you're not gettingan answer from them until
Tuesday.
It's fine, just sit tight.
(41:57):
Sometimes it's really simplestuff like that, but sometimes
it's way more nuanced wherethey're like, okay, look, I'm
telling you, like this client isbased in this country, and this
is the norm there about likedoing a skip level email and
copying their boss.
Here's why you should or shouldnot do that.
And I understand the differenceand can help the team grow with
(42:19):
some of those nuancedperspectives that come from
bringing global experience tothe team.
SPEAKER_00 (42:25):
So I gotta ask you though, there are certainly a
lot of times in which people doneed to be open to this concept
of a culture ad, working withfolks that operate and think
differently, maybe working withpeople that, again, not looking
at it through the who would I befriends with lens, but who's
gonna be an effective teammember lens, which I 100% agree
(42:45):
with.
Do you ever see legitimateconcerns in terms of a team
thinking from a behavioralperspective that somebody isn't
the right fit?
And if so, how do youdifferentiate that from other
times when they shouldappreciate and accept different
behavioral fits or culture fits,right?
SPEAKER_01 (43:02):
Yeah.
So for me, this comes back toradical transparency, right?
You have to be really honestwith yourself about your
culture.
And that means I have to be partof that conversation, right?
It's not just enough for myhiring manager to be honest with
herself about it.
Like she has to convey that backto me.
And I've got to know her wellenough to point out the blind
(43:23):
spots there.
So we're big on there's noculture bait and switch.
You don't promise high supportif it's actually we shoved you
off the diving board into thedeep end with no flowies, right?
Like that's not cool.
You don't promise slowonboarding if actually what you
mean by that is you started onMonday and by Thursday you're
presenting to the CEO.
That's not slow.
(43:44):
We don't promise, you know, workfamily if really we're after
this relentless pursuit ofexcellence.
So we have to be radicallytransparent about our culture.
But I think there are some timeswhen there are some legitimate
things, right?
And what I view as my role is tohelp hiring teams tease those
out.
(44:04):
So for instance, I have a teamthat is heavy travel right now.
And they're also the emergencycontact for the like the entire
organization when something goeswrong.
You can't promise those people alot of work-life balance, right?
Like that's just not if you'rethe on-call contact every single
(44:27):
weekend and every singleholiday, there's not actually a
lot of work-life balance.
And we can't make that differentfunctionally.
You know, like you talk throughthe function of it, like, can
you make that better?
But if you can't, then what itcomes down to is you need to
tell people that.
You need to be upfront aboutthat, and you need to be
realistic about why youpersonally are willing to
(44:48):
tolerate something that maybe isa subpar, you know, work
experience, some piece of itthat doesn't actually light you
up, but why you do it, what'sbigger, what matters more to
you.
And I think for some teams, theyhave said things like, This
person really wants the job, butwhen I listen to them talk,
they're saying something in likeevery single sentence that is
(45:11):
absolutely opposite to how weoperate.
They have all the rightexperience, they say all the
right things, and thenimmediately after they say the
exact wrong thing.
And I'm like, I think that's alegitimate red flag.
Like, you should listen to that.
Um, if they're like, Yes, I lovedoing that, but also I hate it.
You're like, maybe I think maybeyou don't like it.
(45:31):
You know, that's I love that,but that's also why I left my
last job.
That should give you pause.
Uh so you know, trying to helppeople.
Yeah, the consistency, but thenalso if you're talking about the
culture on your team and theirresponse, if you're saying, say,
for instance, I talked to a teamthe other day and they were
(45:54):
like, we are just like lowbureaucracy, high ownership.
Like, we don't care who gets thecredit as long as it gets done.
And new people have to be okaywith that.
They have to know like theirname's not gonna go on the
banner when the project getsshipped.
So, like, okay, so I'm talkingto a candidate and I mentioned
that.
And one candidate that I talkedto that day was like, oh my
(46:14):
gosh, I love that.
I've always been a proponent ofthat on my teams, and somebody
always wants credit and italways falls apart, and we've
never been able to implement it.
I talked to somebody else whogoes, huh, okay, I like that.
And I was like, Have you everdone that?
And they're like, No.
Would you be comfortable withyour name not being on it?
Probably.
I'm like, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (46:35):
You can just get a sense there that there might be
some friction.
SPEAKER_01 (46:38):
There's there's enthusiastic consent to your
culture, and then there's sortof like a I would tolerate your
culture.
And I think it's okay when ateam is, you know, narrowing
down a decision to two people tochoose the one who
enthusiastically leans intosomething that you don't have
the power to change.
If you've got the power tochange it and they're mildly
(46:58):
skeptical about it, I don'tthink that should disqualify
them either.
SPEAKER_00 (47:01):
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
So we've covered a lot of groundhere.
This is a really interestingconversation.
I'm really grateful that wecovered the topics we did thus
far.
I would love to shift the focusto the future and thinking about
your goals over the next year orseveral years as a talent
acquisition leader, right?
(47:22):
And as somebody leading thecharge, helping a lot of hiring
managers hire, what breakthroughare you looking to achieve?
Like based on, okay, now you'rein this position, you're helping
a lot of companies hire, youhave a lot of experience.
What does the next level looklike for you?
SPEAKER_01 (47:35):
That's a great question.
So I my mind goes about sevendifferent directions.
So I think professionally, forme, right now at Crossover, a
big thing that I want to focuson this year in 2026 is how do I
help interviewers be betterinterviewers, right?
Because most people will tellyou that being an interviewer is
(47:59):
actually really hard too, eventhough all you have to do is ask
the questions.
They have to be good questions,they have to be the right
questions.
You have to be listening wellenough to ask the follow-up.
And I find that the sort of deeplistening and active listening
is sort of a skill that hasn'tbeen equally developed amongst
all of our teams.
(48:20):
So helping our interviewers bebetter interviewers and then
helping them process that sortof gut feel data after an
interview and say, what doesthat mean?
Like, why do you feel that way?
Because if we can get that outof their gut and onto paper,
then we can help them make moreobjective decisions.
I think personally I am in areally like discombobulating
(48:43):
space of finding out that Iactually really enjoy vibe
coding and I don't know what todo with that information.
Because I spent my entire lifesaying I'm not like I'm not your
STEM girl, like I'm not math,science, engineering.
That's not me.
But actually, I love it.
And I think that might be a realparadigm shift for like how I
define myself moving forward andliterally playing around with
(49:05):
like lovable and glide andGoogle Sheets and App Scripts,
trying to make a better ledgerfor our personal family finances
because I'm so irritated withall the things that I could buy
for tracking your money.
And it just like it dawned on meover the holidays.
I was like, I could probablybuild something better.
And then I was like, who am I tosay that?
(49:27):
Like, I've never built anythingin my life.
Then I was like, but I could.
SPEAKER_02 (49:31):
You could.
SPEAKER_01 (49:32):
So now I have to deal with this whole paradigm
shift.
And also remember that's not whoI am at work.
And I can't just walk over tothe engineering team and be
like, this is what I need you todo, because I don't have no idea
what their code looks like.
And I should probably avoidpretending to be an expert when
really all I do is sit overthere and type out instructions
to AI and it turns somethingpretty on the screen for me.
SPEAKER_00 (49:54):
Nice.
Well, I mean, I I guess uh too,as you get more experience doing
that, that could lead tobuilding different AI agents for
TA purposes and your tech stackthere, which would be pretty
cool.
That seems like it would becongruent with your approach to
the inbound approach tooptimizing.
SPEAKER_01 (50:11):
It is.
I mean, we've built a lot ofthat stuff internally over the
last, gosh, what year is it?
So almost the last four years.
And we've been doing a lot ofthat work internally, which is
probably why I feel like it'snot a stretch for me to do that
personally, but also feels veryweird to suddenly be taking that
step outside of my professionallife.
(50:31):
But now we've built all sorts ofAI tools and automations and
workflows, and we're dipping ourtoe into some agency stuff.
The issue for us with agenticstuff is that there's zero room
for error.
And with a lot of these tools,there's a certain margin of
error that just has to beacceptable for it to go into
(50:54):
production.
We're kind of just playingaround with stuff for our
internal team use because thenthere's always a safety net if
something fails and not anythingthat's like publicly deployed.
SPEAKER_00 (51:04):
Oh, yeah, definitely.
And there's also stages, I'dsuppose, right, where it's
testing it internally versus ifyou do want to publicly deploy
it at some point, work out allthe issues in-house, right?
SPEAKER_01 (51:17):
We prefer we much prefer to be the guinea pigs.
SPEAKER_00 (51:20):
Right.
Yeah.
It's kind of a a uniqueadvantage that agencies and
solutions companies have in thespace is they can actually test
technology in-house beforemaking recommendations to
customers, right?
Um we definitely do some of thatas well, which has been really
helpful.
We're gonna be doing a lot ofthat actually in 2026.
(51:41):
And so you mentioned too,related to your own growth,
right?
Helping folks being that leaderin your company that's helping,
like essentially traininginterviewers and training people
to be as productive as possibleand as good as possible at
interviewing.
How do you go about doing that,right?
Because you're it's a pretty bigorganization, right?
(52:03):
Like you how many recruitersdoes your team have?
SPEAKER_01 (52:08):
We have four folks in we kind of call it people
ops.
And then we've got a team ofthree who sit on the back end
doing our sourcing and candidatesupport.
And then we've got a team offour on the marketing.
So our marketing is the samesize as our people ops, which
(52:29):
tells you a lot about the valuewe place on candidate experience
and messaging.
And then we've got five now onproduct.
So it's expanding.
SPEAKER_00 (52:39):
Yeah, it's very lean for the size of your
organization.
That's impressive.
And I I guess that's one of theif you can get it right and the
strategy that you'reimplementing, like it's a very
lean and efficient motion.
SPEAKER_01 (52:50):
Yeah, it is.
And it really means that on thePeopleOps, our core, the pieces
that we do every single day thatadds value is actually our
stakeholder communication.
That's the place where we addtremendous value.
Yes, we do deep dives and topipelines, and yes, we build
(53:11):
assessments, and yes, wetroubleshoot things and we
educate and train.
But the number one thing we dois communicate with hiring teams
and candidates and connect thedots.
And so all that other stuff wedo is the bits and bobs that are
not automatable.
And eventually some of that willshift, but it's also the
(53:35):
value-based judgments, is reallylike the heart of what our team
does.
So it means that we actually getto spend our time focusing on
like the most important workthat we could be doing and
playing around with andexperimenting with new tools and
technologies and testing things,which is pretty fun.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Well, this is awesome.
I I really appreciate you comingon the show today and sharing so
much of your insight.
Thank you.
This was a unique conversation.
We covered some ground here thatI haven't covered before on the
show, which is always exciting.
SPEAKER_01 (54:06):
Well, I'm so glad that I was able to do it.
This has been a really funconversation for me too.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (54:11):
All right, thank you.
Thanks for tuning in, everyone.
We got Heather Lothar on theshow today.
Heather is currently the vicepresident of talent and people
operations at Crossover forWork.
Heather, I'm really excitedabout the conversation we're
going to have today.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02):
Thanks, James.
I really appreciate it.
So happy to get to be here.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Yes, we're really excited for you to be here as
well.
Just to kick us off, where didyou uh grow up?
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
A little bit of everywhere.
Um, military brat.
And then my dad got out of themilitary and went into aviation,
which I always say is worse thanbeing in the military, because
at least in the military, you'reonly going to move every two
years or so.
When you work private aviation,you kind of move every six to 18
months, depending on what'sgoing on with the economy.
(01:33):
So most of my childhood wasspent in the southeast, but by
the time I was 12, I had livedin eight different states and 10
different houses by 12.
Yeah.
So wow.
SPEAKER_00 (01:46):
Yeah, that is even more than military families.
That's quite a uniqueexperience.
I don't know if I've ever heardthat before.
That's a lot of moving around.
SPEAKER_01 (01:56):
It was.
I got really good at packing andunpacking, um, and also really
good at being the new kid inclass.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
Yeah, I was gonna ask about that.
Like socially, I'm sure that hasa big impact in how you develop.
And I'm sure that there arebenefits and how you bring that
forward to being in such apeople-oriented business, right?
SPEAKER_01 (02:16):
You know, I actually attribute that to some of my
success in this role because oneof the things I had to learn
really early on was how to justmake friends with anyone.
And the easiest way to do thatis to find a point of
commonality.
And honestly, as diverse andvaried as the world is, there's
almost always something that Ican find to connect with on a
(02:39):
personal level with whoever I'mtalking to these days.
SPEAKER_00 (02:42):
Yeah.
Oh, for sure.
Sure.
So what uh what was the favoriteplace or favorite places that
you lived?
SPEAKER_01 (02:47):
Um, I would say best food, Memphis, Tennessee.
Hands down.
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
Really?
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
A barbecue, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:55):
I never knew that was a big food city.
Is it is it well known as a foodcity?
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (03:01):
Just dry rub, uh dry rub, Memphis ribs.
Uh head down the dark stairwellat rendezvous, um, and you'll be
in good company there.
But probably favorite place interms of where I put down roots
would be here in South Carolina.
This is where I chose to stayfor college and chose to raise
(03:22):
my family.
So this has been home for me forlong enough that I'm almost
considered a local.
And if you're from theSoutheast, you'll know it takes
a long time to get local status.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Yeah.
What what part of SouthCarolina?
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
Um, so I'm on the western side of the state in
Greenville.
SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
Greenville.
Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_01 (03:44):
What's the closest big city to Greenville or city
that I'm um so we're an hour anda half from Charlotte, North
Carolina.
We're an hour and a half fromColumbia, South Carolina.
We're two and a half hours fromAtlanta.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
Okay, got it.
Nice, nice.
So you went to school out there?
SPEAKER_01 (03:59):
I did, yeah.
I went to college um here inGreenville at Furman.
Just fell in love with the area.
We actually moved here in highschool, so I kind of stayed
around.
I had a much younger sister andfelt like I needed to be close
enough to watch her grow up.
She was only in third grade whenI went to college.
I didn't want to miss all ofthat.
I'm just stuck around eversince.
(04:21):
It's been a really awesome placeto grow up and raise a family
myself.
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
I love it.
And um, I'm curious to justlearn more.
Like what kind of interest didyou have around the time you're
going to college, or what weresome of those kind of like
formative experiences uh thatyou had or things that you were
into at the time?
SPEAKER_01 (04:40):
Um, do you remember the opening scene in Beauty and
the Beast where Belle's walkingthrough town with her nose in a
book?
That was me.
Growing up, if I didn't have abook with me, then something was
wrong.
In fact, my punishment as a kidwas to have my book taken away
instead of time out or beinggrounded because that was the
only thing I cared about.
Just absolutely an avid readerof anything and everything I
(05:02):
could get my hands on.
Um, and then really enjoyed alot of work that I did with
younger kids growing up.
So I did a lot of likebabysitting and tutoring and
working at different camps andthings.
And that really kind of shapedwhere I thought I was gonna do
with my life.
So I think like a lot of us, Igrew up and the career advice
(05:25):
was do the thing you love.
Because then what was the oldadage?
You know, if you do what youlove, you'll never work a day in
your life.
Well, okay, I loved reading, andmostly I left school because it
was it's a lot of reading.
Um, and when it's not reading,it's fairly competitive test
taking, which I also enjoyed.
And so I was like, well, I guessthat's it.
(05:46):
I guess I have to go be ateacher.
So that was when I went tocollege to study.
I went to college to be actuallyan English teacher, did a tour
of a high school and was likeabsolutely not.
It was easily 10 times the sizeof the high school I went to.
And the students were literallywalking on their desks across
(06:07):
the classroom, ignoring theirfirst year teacher.
And I was like, I look youngerthan that teacher does.
And I'm smaller and lessintimidating.
I don't take it a chance in highschool.
So I switched to elementaryeducation.
That's what my bachelor's is in.
SPEAKER_00 (06:23):
Oh, that's great.
That's really cool.
So when you graduated school,you actually, and you got your
master's too, I think.
SPEAKER_01 (06:31):
I did.
I went back and got my master'sum almost actually they're
almost exactly 10 years apart umgraduation dates.
Yeah.
Nice.
Wrapped up my master's 4th ofJuly 2020.
So in the middle of COVID, thatwas insanity.
SPEAKER_00 (06:47):
Yeah, I bet.
I bet.
Um okay, cool.
So coming out of college, uh,that's a pretty cool that you
had the foundation of havingpeople in your life that were
telling you to do what you love.
Um, because I I am a bigbeliever in following your
passion uh in education andthroughout life, because if
you're passionate, you'reultimately going to work really
(07:08):
hard, you're gonna beemotionally engaged, and it's
going to lead to opportunities,right?
Versus if you're trying to livesomebody else's vision that
isn't compatible, congruent withwho we are, then it's it's hard
to execute surely off of likewillpower and discipline long
term.
(07:28):
Like I don't care how motivatedyou are, it's draining if there
isn't some level of like passionand emotional engagement.
So I I came from the camp.
A lot of the folks that I heardfrom grow up around were, you
know, you got to get the financedegree or the engineering
degree, or my my favorite topicgrowing up was philosophy.
(07:49):
Like I loved, you know, that wasbut that was like, oh, there's
no, you know, that you don't getthe degree in philosophy.
You don't do those types ofthings.
And um I'm curious, so who werethose influences?
Was that did that come fromfamily or from teachers that you
had?
SPEAKER_01 (08:02):
I would say primarily my parents.
Um yeah.
So my parents just were really,really big on the importance of
education, which I completelyget now.
Looking back at things, youknow, my dad was the baby of the
family, and he and all of hisolder brothers got to go to
college purely because of the GIBill.
Um, so they all signed up formilitary service.
(08:24):
That was what paid for them togo to college.
Otherwise, that was not in thecards for them.
My mom opted to do thestay-at-home route, but when I
was probably my junior year ofcollege, she went back to school
and earned an associate and thena bachelor's and then a
master's, just tick, tick, tickright on through.
Um, she raised three kids andshe had put so much effort into
(08:48):
our education.
It was really inspiring to seeher go back and actually like go
chase her dreams to see thatthere's not a time frame for
that.
There's not like an expirationdate on going back to school and
getting the she needed degreesand she needed licensure to do
what she wants to do.
She's a um a therapist.
And so there's not a timeline onthat.
(09:09):
And I I really appreciatedhaving that influence in my
life.
And then I'd say, you know, likemy grandparents worked, my
grandfather was a pharmacist, mygrandmother was a nurse, and
they worked super, super hardtheir whole life and just really
instilled into us that that wassomething they enjoyed.
They did it because they likedit.
My grandfather retired and wentback to work.
(09:30):
He actually retired from DowJones chemical, then went and
became a pharmacist at Walmartbecause he was bored.
Uh he was like, I can't just sithome.
This is this is silly.
So I think to me, like workinghard and doing something that
you love enough to want to doit, even when you have other
options, was always somethingthat was instilled in me from a
very early age.
SPEAKER_00 (09:51):
Yeah.
And I'm sure that's impactedtoo.
It's maybe even how you thinkabout finding like the right
fit, like when you're evaluatingcandidates and like their
strengths and helping place themin the right roles.
Like I think at least that'ssomething that I I think a lot
about now, probably even morethan when I had less leadership
experience is really dialinginto understanding the team well
(10:13):
enough and working with peopleclosely enough to identify their
strengths, not just what youperceive as their strengths, but
maybe you see something andsomeone is a strength, but they
don't, or it's still notultimately a passion or an
interest for them to follow.
And sometimes you have a greatperson, but they're not
necessarily in the right seat.
And that kind of mindset, too, Ithink also translates into how
(10:33):
we build teams.
It doesn't just stop ateducation, it doesn't just stop
with our own careers, but wethink about other people growing
and getting the most out of ateam dynamic.
I feel like that's reallyrelevant as well.
SPEAKER_01 (10:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think especially myexperience watching my mom go
back to school really reframeshow I think about both career
gaps and transferable skills,because I know from where I sit
professionally that had she notbeen going into therapy, if
she'd been going into, I don'tknow, some business role, that a
(11:06):
lot of people would have lookedat her resume and been like, I
don't, this uh this doesn't tellthe story that I expect to hear.
But knowing her and seeing theperseverance that she put into
things and just the way that shecould adapt and learn new
things, I've always tried tokind of stop and assess what
(11:27):
story am I bringing to thisresume or to this candidate that
is rooted in an assumption andthat may not actually reflect
their capabilities or theirskills.
What is it they left off theresume that I should be asking
about?
Um, because a lot of people willget intimidated to put things on
there because they think, youknow, people in the corporate
(11:50):
world won't see the value inthat.
But I think we should be andoften are from the people I talk
to every day.
Like we're often the best peopleto say, oh my gosh, like yes,
that's a skill.
You should highlight that.
I know it it probably goesagainst the career advisor's
advice or the resume writer thatyou hired, but I see the value
(12:12):
in that.
And I think you should reallyhighlight that when you talk to
a hiring manager or you talk toa hiring team.
SPEAKER_00 (12:17):
Absolutely.
And how did you end up gettinginto recruiting?
SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
Like most people, accidentally.
I have yet to meet very manypeople who did this
intentionally and said that'swhat I want to do with my life.
I actually started my career inthe middle of the Great
Recession working fornonprofits.
And so I worked with kids whowere in foster care.
From there, I transitioned intodoing nonprofit volunteer
(12:45):
management.
And I am such like a nerd.
So I got a job at a children'smuseum.
They said, Hey, you seem likeyou're not intimidated by middle
schoolers.
Why don't you run our middleschool volunteer and leadership
development program?
And I was like, Cool, let's go.
Middle schoolers are awesome.
They laugh at all my jokes.
They're amazing.
So I threw myself in to researchand professional development.
(13:09):
I signed up for every webinar Icould get my hands on.
I signed up for everynewsletter, every book, like
anything I could to learn aboutthis thing called volunteer
management.
And what I discovered is thatit's recruiting, but for unpaid
roles.
And I was like, oh, that totallymakes sense.
Because instead of a paycheck tooffer people, now I need to
(13:30):
offer them a meaningfulexperience, a sense that they
have added value to something,and a sense that they've learned
and grown as a result ofspending their time here without
compensation.
Done.
Let's do this.
And so I dove into it.
I was asked pretty quickly totake on adult volunteer
(13:50):
management.
And then I circuitously wound myway to a local United Way where
I oversaw the entire volunteerengagement team.
It was um a very kind ofroundabout loop.
But along the way, I reallytried to pull from all these
other areas of practice andbring those best practices into
(14:10):
my work managing volunteers.
And then I landed here atCrossover, which is a story all
of its own, one maybe about thepotential pitfalls and perils of
keyword matching, but also atrue testament to skills-based
hiring along the way, too.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
Nice, nice.
Yeah, that's a reallyinteresting start to recruiting
working on volunteer roles thatare unpaid because the focus on
value and experience comesfirst, which it should be for
paid positions as well, right?
I mean, if you think about it,we should for top talent, right?
For a lot of the candidates thatwe want to recruit to our
organizations, like you know,they're gonna have multiple
(14:47):
options.
And so being able to tell thatstory to really understand their
needs and what they're lookingfor and to translate that into
uh a good story highlighting themost relevant points for them
and being able to show thatcompelling future is something
that differentiates recruiters,right?
And recruiting organizations,right?
(15:08):
Um so that that sounds like apretty special foundation.
Like it's different.
It's different than the way thatmost of us start out.
It's not a traditional in-houseor agency recruiting job.
SPEAKER_01 (15:19):
No, it was really interesting.
But I think when you apply thatlens, I'm thinking about like
the talent wars, right?
And there was just this bigarticle that came out in the
last week about Microsoftpoaching open AI people, and
open AI is talking about likeour compensation packages are so
great and amazing.
But when you really stop andtalk to top performers and when
(15:40):
you talk to Gen Z, Gen Alphacandidates, they don't give a
crap about your compensationpackage.
If your culture is bad, if yourcandidate experience is bad, if
there's not a promise for growthand development and learning, if
there's not a clear path forthem, it really almost doesn't
matter what number you put onthe paper.
(16:01):
A lot of those folks are justnot as motivated by that as they
maybe once were.
But I also think it's becausewe're coming into an era where
people say 40 hours, often 50,depending on where you work and
when you add in commute, um, isa pretty significant chunk of my
life every week.
I don't want to spend itmiserable.
(16:22):
I'm not willing to be mygrandparents or my parents have
a heart attack at 40 because ofthe stress of a job that doesn't
care if I show up on Monday.
So I think that valueproposition has shifted a lot,
especially in American corporateculture.
Companies don't take care ofemployees the way maybe our
mythology says they used to.
(16:42):
I'm still not totally convincedthat's historically accurate,
but we definitely have builtthis myth around the corporate
family that takes care of theiremployees.
That just doesn't exist in mostplaces anymore.
So I think people are lookingfor more than just a great
compensation package.
And that starts with us on thetalent acquisition side.
That starts with the story wetell about the role and its
(17:07):
contribution and why it matters.
And it starts with candidateexperience from that very first
touch point, whether that's awebsite or an email or a you
know, cold call, it's thatstarts the ball rolling.
And if we're not deliveringexcellent candidate experience,
then we're probablyinadvertently setting ourselves
up for some preventable earlycandidate exits or offer
(17:32):
declines that we probably couldhave worked our way around had
we planned ahead a little bitbetter.
SPEAKER_00 (17:39):
Sure.
So you were working for a UnitedWay and you were there for
several years, and then in inaround May 2021, you went over
to Crossover for work.
How did that come about?
SPEAKER_01 (17:52):
Crossover was expanding their team.
They were just sort of buildingthis repeatable hiring machine,
if you will, that focused onskills and was going to
completely reshape how theorganization hired.
And they were looking to addsome talent to the team.
They candidly were looking forengagement managers from
(18:15):
McKenzie or Bain, et cetera,right?
Well, they advertise the job asengagement manager on LinkedIn.
How does LinkedIn serve youjobs?
I don't know if everybody mostrecruiters know this, right?
It looks at your current title.
Well, my current title was VP ofengagement.
So it handed me this job out.
(18:36):
And I was like, well, that'scool.
The first line um I remember ofthe job description was
something like if you thinkhiring today is like a horse and
buggy and you're ready toactually build a Tesla, you
should apply.
And I was like, done.
Um hiring today sucks.
It was not as bad five years agoas it is now.
(18:58):
I think it's worse now from bothcandidate and recruiter
perspectives, just because ofvolume.
But I was super frustrated withhiring.
I had gotten my master's almostnine months earlier, had been
trying to get just anentry-level HR job.
I'll just, I'll do anything inHR.
I'll be an HR specialist, I'llbe a generalist, I'll run
payroll.
Like, I don't care.
I just want to put my master'sand HR to work.
(19:20):
I don't mind taking a bunch ofsteps down the ladder.
I reported to the CEO at thatpoint.
I was like, I seniority doesn'tmean anything to me.
Like, I'm not looking to be aleader.
I just want to use this degreethat I went out and got.
And I just could not even getlike the first callback.
I was so frustrated because, ofcourse, there's a ton of talent
(19:41):
in that field.
And you don't have to take theentry-level candidate because
you have people with five, six,seven years of experience
willing to take specialist rolesand entry-level positions
ostensibly.
So um I saw the crossover ad andI was like, okay, let's do this.
I hit apply and it completelythrew me because the first thing
it asked was, hey, here's somelike yes, no questions to make
(20:03):
sure you actually meet therequirement for the role.
And I was like, okay, that'sdifferent.
So I answered a couple ofquestions and they were like,
hey, here's a 15-minutecognitive aptitude test.
If you're smart enough to passthis, then we'll tell you more
about the job.
And I was like, all right,competitive level unlocked,
let's do this.
I remember I was actually at myparents' house with my son at
(20:27):
the time.
And I was like, I need to bequiet for 15 minutes.
Okay.
I have to like do some math.
And they were like, What is shetalking about?
But I passed it.
And so I was like, all right,let's go.
Game on.
What's next?
And the next piece was saying,Hey, look, nobody does exactly
what we do out there in theworld.
So right Rather than say, haveyou done this before?
(20:48):
Because you won't.
We're going to give you a pieceof a puzzle that's a puzzle we
solve all the time in a lot ofdifferent contexts.
We want you to solve it to thebest of your ability.
And it was like unraveling afunnel.
Like, what was wrong with thishiring funnel?
And what did it mean?
And what was the right way tofix it?
And they gave you some contextand they gave me some data.
(21:08):
And I spent way too long on itbecause I got lost in the fun of
it.
And that was like revolutionaryfor me.
I was like, I'm enjoying anapplication process.
When's the last time thathappened?
That I like applied to a job.
They asked me to do homework,which ew, and I liked it.
And I was like, all right, well,now I'm hooked.
Um, I want this job.
(21:30):
Um, and I told my husband textedmy husband, I said, I applied
for this job and I'm scaredbecause I actually want it way
more than I should at thispoint.
SPEAKER_00 (21:38):
Have you spoken to anybody yet?
Or was this all like no?
SPEAKER_01 (21:44):
Nope.
So at crossover, you don't talkto anybody until you get to the
interview.
The interview is the last stagein the process.
But we give you this littletimeline that tells you what you
have to do to earn theinterview.
But when you earn the interview,you've already proven you can do
the job.
And so we send out offers.
The data was a little bitdifferent back then because we
(22:05):
didn't hire at scale the way wedo now.
But today we send out offers toprobably over 50% of people who
land a first-round interview.
SPEAKER_00 (22:15):
Okay, this is cool.
Yeah.
All right.
This goes against a lot ofconventional wisdom, I think,
and the industry.
Um, there's a concern,particularly with AI, about the
overuse of automation and losinghuman touch and putting too much
testing top of funnel, notresonating with folks and
(22:38):
missing out on top talent, whichI I question that assumption.
I think it's well, first off, Ithink hiring is incredibly
situational to each business andthe type of talent, not only
roles but culture uh that you'relooking to build.
So, first off, no strategy needsto appeal to everyone, they have
to appeal to the right people.
(22:59):
So there's that, but still, thisis unusual.
Like, I and so I'm curious.
SPEAKER_01 (23:04):
And I'll be the first person to tell you like if
we were hiring truck drivers,this would not be what we did.
SPEAKER_00 (23:08):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:08):
So if I was hiring call service, you know, like
call center staff, we would dothis differently.
But we're hiring primarilywhite-collar tech workers, like
engineers, sleeper remote roles.
So engineer product, marketing,finance, sales, but we also do
ed tech.
So we have like curriculumdesigners, enrollment,
(23:29):
admissions, um, some other roleslike that.
But okay, mostly remote roles,mostly knowledge worker type
positions.
SPEAKER_00 (23:38):
And are these W-2s or contract, shorter-term
contracts or what we support alltypes of hiring.
SPEAKER_01 (23:47):
So most of our hiring um in the US is for W-2
employees.
We also hire remote contractorsaround the world, and we also
hire short-term contractors bothinside and outside the US as
well.
SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
Okay, cool.
So clearly the way that you'reexecuting this strategy is
you're doing it in an effectiveway, right?
It's working at scale.
For I feel like this successstory, there's probably a
hundred where companies that usetoo much automation at toward
the top of the funnel, too muchtesting without engagement,
(24:22):
engaging that doesn't work.
What do you think makes how youdo things at crossover different
and effective?
SPEAKER_01 (24:29):
So I think number one is we have a big candidate
pool.
And we will tell you it takes alot of at bats for us to win.
So we need a lot of applicantsin order to have the kind of
funnels that we need to deliversuccessful candidates.
So if your candidate pool islike 37 people, this doesn't
(24:50):
work, right?
Because those 37 people knowthey're one of 37 people in the
world with this specificbackground.
That's not our case.
And so we're fortunate in thatregard.
But I think the other thing thatworks is we're super
transparent.
So the minute you hit apply, youget a dashboard.
(25:10):
And it shows you every singlestep you need to take and it
shows you where the interviewhappens in this process.
It is not a secret.
We don't hide it.
We tell you how much time eachstep is going to take.
Okay, so this thing's gonna takeyou 15 minutes.
This thing's probably 20.
This thing might be an hour anda half.
Um, so you decide when you startit, you decide what you're
willing to tolerate.
(25:31):
And if you bow out, you bow out.
No harm, no foul.
You're still eligible toreapply.
We don't like blacklist peoplewho quit things.
That's ridiculous.
Um, but we're very transparentabout that.
And I think that helps.
The second thing is I thinkthere's a lot of people like me
out out there in the world.
People who are competitive, wholike a challenge, and who relish
(25:55):
the idea of being able to provethat they can do the job because
maybe their resume is notperfect.
Maybe they don't have thepedigree that other candidates
do.
And they know that, and theyknow that's why they're missing
out on some jobs.
And so a process that verytransparently says, don't tell
(26:17):
us you can do the job, show usyou can do the job appeals to a
lot of people.
The other thing is we're supertransparent about pay.
That's obviously not the solemotivator, like we talked about
earlier.
But if you don't tell peoplewhat the job is going to deliver
to them, at least financially,it's really hard to justify any
(26:38):
investment on a candidate side.
Like if you had not told me thesalary, I guarantee you I would
not have completed thatapplication process.
SPEAKER_00 (26:46):
Sure.
So it sounds like thus far whatwe've covered, the primary ways
that you've been able to havehigh engagement with this uh
approach is one, as soon as theyapply, they're given a summary
of the entire process.
So there's a high level oftransparency.
And of course, it's highlyresponsive since it's automated.
So as soon as they click apply,they're getting access to what's
(27:09):
going to be expected of them.
It sounds like to some extentit's how you position the job
description, being transparentwith the compensation.
There we go.
Like what what else is it?
If you had to like pick the thetop ways that you get people
excited to stick in there.
You also mentioned thecompetitive nature.
So we we hit on a few things,but is there anything else, or
(27:29):
like what do you think are thetop reasons people really go
through with this?
SPEAKER_01 (27:33):
So the candidates I talk to by and large tell me
that they found it to be a funchallenge.
So we do whenever we can.
We can't always gamify it in thesense of like play digital
monopoly and see if you win thejob.
But like when we can makesomething a simulation, when we
can say, here's an example of anemail you might get, how would
(27:56):
you respond?
It shifts things from what's myportfolio of work to, huh, okay,
this is kind of like a game.
How would I handle this in reallife?
So that's one thing that I heara lot from candidates is they
found it interesting and fun andchallenging.
And that challenge in and ofitself was motivational for
them.
The other thing that we do is weinvest a lot of effort into our
(28:21):
email and automated pop-upreminders.
So we have videos that show upon the platform that are like,
hey, this is what you're aboutto do.
Here's why.
We do a lot of, you know, SimonCetic, start with why.
We do a lot of tying things backto the purpose.
We are also very transparentabout how we evaluate different
(28:45):
assessments or simulations.
So we'll say, like, here's thethings we're evaluating.
Here's what we don't care about.
You know, don't care about this,this, and this.
And so we kind of take somethings out of being a gray zone
for candidates who feel likehiring is a black box already
and try to put it back in theirhands where we say, like, look,
we're giving you the rubrichere.
(29:06):
Like before you hit submit, gothrough a rubric.
Check and see if you think youmeet the standard.
If you don't, go re-record it orresubmit it or make an edit,
whatever it is.
And then we do a lot of emailcampaigns as well for candidates
who are in the funnel.
You know, very informational,educational, tying it back to
(29:27):
the mission, helping themunderstand that, you know, these
roles are competitive and theassessments help us make their
interview more effective andhelp us increase the likelihood
that anyone who interviews getsa job.
Because that's really the endgoal for us is to make the
(29:47):
pipeline so effective that bythe time you get to the
interview, we're just sellingyou on the position.
We're convincing you to take thejob by the time we interview
you.
That's our gold star goal.
We're not there across theboard.
That requires a lot of hiringmanager education, but it
definitely is part of where weaim every single role.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
I think we're listening to you talk through
this, it's really fascinatingbecause I think where companies
probably fail when they've triedthis approach, or why a lot of
people may think, oh, thisdoesn't work, or recruiters
would say it's not feasiblebecause people aren't going to
stay engaged, or we're not gonnaget top people.
This approach isn't about doingless work.
(30:34):
It's not like a shortcut.
You're doing the work in adifferent way.
You're putting a lot more effortinto how you position the
company and the role and puttingtogether resources and guides
and the transparency aspects ofit, probably the job
description, your website, yourexplaining the why, the email
(30:55):
follow-ups.
So it's it's not like you'redoing you're just automating and
it's you're doing a lot toinvest in the candidate
experience.
And so if somebody were to tryto implement this strategy
without making a huge investmentin the candidate experience,
then it wouldn't work.
As you start to explain it moreand more, and I start to see
like everything that goes intomaking this happen, it's really
(31:18):
just a shift in an approach.
But it's sure as heck, it's notlike a shortcut.
There's a lot of work that needsto go into making it a great
experience so that peopleactually maintain their interest
in the interview process.
SPEAKER_01 (31:33):
Yeah.
The other thing we try to do,and we can't do it with every
assessment, but the ones wherewe can, we absolutely do.
We try to think in terms of howdoes this assessment add value
for the candidate?
So, yes, we're getting to seesomething the candidate is
capable of doing, but are wegiving them information that is
behind the scenes?
Are we giving them stuff thatyou wouldn't normally get until
(31:56):
your post-offer team call withyour colleagues, things like
FAQs, documents about how we dothings, playbooks, even.
We'll embed those in theassessments and say this is part
of the DNA of the team thatyou're joining.
If you don't like this kind ofwork, you probably should stop
your application now becausethis is very literally the
(32:19):
playbook from the team you'retrying to be part of.
If you love it, if you read itand go, finally, about time,
great, here's what theassignment is.
Take the playbook, apply it tothe scenario, show us what
happens when you do that.
So we're trying to also takesome of those really late stage
conversations and artifacts,documents, knowledge that often
(32:41):
doesn't get shared until afterthe company has made a
commitment to a candidate andmove them way earlier in the
process as a way of helpingcandidates self-select in or out
as appropriate to the team andthe role that they're applying
for.
SPEAKER_00 (32:56):
And I think regardless of how a company
structures the interviewprocess, when there is a lot of
transparency and experience istop of mind, they can tell and
it builds trust quickly.
So maybe another thing that thisconversation is making me think
about is experience, regardlessof how you decide to do it,
whether it's like first roundyou're doing manual setup of
(33:17):
screens and interviewingeveryone at the top of the
funnel, or you're using more ofthis, the path that your team
is.
Either way, it's investingheavily in experience because
experience is gonna be whatbuilds trust.
And when you have trust, thenyou can go into a conversation
and have a different dynamicwith that individual.
(33:39):
Again, I could see anotherrebuttal, right?
Be well, wait, if you only talkthem at the end of the process,
then are they gonna know youwell enough to try to accept an
offer?
And it's like, well, yeah, Imean, if you've invested in the
experience and providing a lotof transparency and they feel
like it's a predictable andyou're following through on what
you're saying, and they're notleft wondering or anxious about
next steps or anything likethat, then you have built trust
(34:03):
in maybe a slightly lesstraditional way.
You build trust.
So I I think it's reallyinteresting.
Kudos to you guys for figuringthis out because I again I feel
like I've I've seen this flop somany times for companies and
they weren't doing all thethings you guys are doing.
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
Yeah, it's tricky to get right, and we don't always
get it right.
There's plenty of times when wefall flat on our face, or we get
a role and we tell a hiringmanager, like, you don't know
enough about what you want forus to design a funnel.
And so best we can do is put ajob description out there and do
a little light filtering, andthen you're just gonna have to
(34:42):
interview a ton of people.
I will say that pretty quicklygets hiring managers on board
when in week one they're like,why do I have 15 interviews?
And I'm like, well, rememberthat conversation about like you
don't really know a lot aboutwhat you want or what they're
supposed to be doing day to day,and you kind of have this
nebulous idea that they're gonnamake the business better.
This is what happens when that'syour entire hiring criteria.
(35:05):
Um, have fun.
Call me when you have somethoughts about who's a good fit
or not and why.
And we'll build that into theprocess.
But we're also super iterativetoo.
So when we flop, we generallyhave a plan for fixing things
within five to seven days.
SPEAKER_00 (35:20):
Yeah, that's I think the difference between a good
team and a great team is a greatteam when something doesn't go
to plan, they fix it quickly.
That's like particularly ourline of work on my company RPO
solution side, that's what Ialways say.
It's like, you know, we weusually get it right the first
time.
But if we don't, we fix it andwe'll know about the problem
before you do, and we'll alreadybe implementing a solution
(35:44):
before you even are aware ofanything, and you're not gonna
feel any impact to performance.
And I think that's what allowsus to stand out with our
customers.
To me, that's the differencebetween a great team and a good
team.
Like I I think you also so nowyou're in a role where you do
(36:05):
have a lot of exposure todifferent hiring managers.
You see the challenges they havewith hiring, and you see some of
the blockers, like things thatare getting in the way of them
being successful.
And I'm wondering, we could talkabout process improvements and
these types of things, but thisis a people business, and
sometimes there arepsychological blockers, right?
unknown (36:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:24):
And I'm just wondering like, what do you see
the hiring leaders that you workwith struggle with what they can
be working on to get betterresults?
SPEAKER_01 (36:36):
So a couple of things.
The first is we ask hiringmanagers to adopt a completely
different mental mindset forhiring, right?
And so if you've been a hiringmanager elsewhere and you come
into our company and now youneed to hire, we're basically
telling you kind of forgeteverything you've ever done
about hiring, and now you haveto do it our way.
So we do a lot of education andtraining, and I almost call it
(36:59):
like evangelism about thisinternally.
Like, here's why it's better, Ipromise.
Trying to just help themovercome some things that don't
fit our model.
You know, saying, oh, they usedto work at XYZ as a proxy for
XYZ runs a really rigorousrecruitment process so I can
trust them to have vettedcandidates for me.
(37:20):
I we talk all the time aboutlike how that's kind of lazy.
It's a mental heuristic thatisn't really rooted in any
actual data.
It's just how you feel about thecompany.
We do a lot of talk about, andthis is maybe something that I
didn't fully understand until Istarted hiring personally.
We talk a lot about sort of theinsecurities that hiring
(37:45):
managers are sometimes reallyhesitant to fess up to.
So I think back to the firsttime I was making a hiring
decision at United Way.
I was supposed to be hiring forthe retired and senior volunteer
program.
It's a federal volunteer uhgrant.
And the part of the grantstipulated that the person that
(38:05):
was hired to run the programcould be anybody, but they had
to know how to go out andrecruit people ages 55 and up to
be volunteers.
So when you post a job likethat, naturally your candidate
pool kind of skews toward peoplewho have a lot of experience
with that particulardemographic.
And I had a super diversecandidate pool.
(38:26):
I was down to two finalists.
I had one person who was justsuper experienced, had run
multiple government grantsbefore, had run her own company,
had a lot of experience, but hadnever recruited volunteers.
And then I had somebody else whohad recruited volunteers but had
(38:47):
never recruited this demographicand had never worked on a
government grant.
And I went to my CEO and I said,help me make this decision.
And she said, What are you stuckon?
I said, Well, for starters, I'mlike 26, 27 at this point.
One of them is like easily mygrandmother's age.
(39:08):
And she's like, no nonsense, goget them.
She's gonna be hard driving,type A.
I said, she can do the job, butshe's gonna be really hard for
me to manage.
I said, this other person, I'llhave no problem managing.
They're like my age, they'rekind of inexperienced, they're
gonna lean on me for expertise,they're gonna come to me for
advice, but also they have noidea how to do the job.
(39:29):
She was like, What do you think?
I was like, I feel like Iprobably need to lean into being
really uncomfortable managingsomeone who's my grandmother's
age.
She was like, that's probablythe right choice there.
But I think about thatconversation a lot because when
I work with hiring managers sooften, when the choice comes
down to two candidates, it'ssometimes less about who can do
(39:52):
do the job, and a lot of thetime more about who do I feel
like I can manage, who's goingto be easier to get along with,
who do I like more as if we'regoing to barbecues at each
other's house every week?
We're definitely not as aprimarily remote company.
That's not happening.
So a lot of times I say, okay,let's take all of that out of
(40:16):
it.
If you disappeared for threeweeks, which of these candidates
can do the job without you here?
Because that's the person youshould hire.
The person who's capable anddoesn't need you to hold their
hand every day is probably goingto be harder to manage because
they don't need you.
They don't feel that I get to beexpert.
(40:37):
They want my opinion kind ofneed that sometimes managers
have.
And so we talk about that.
I think there's also likepsychological things about, you
know, can I have Hire someonewho's dramatically different
from the rest of the team andthey contribute and add strength
to the team as opposed to makethe team harder to work with.
And so, especially as a globalcompany, we don't talk as much
(41:00):
about value or culture fit as wedo about like culture ad or even
sometimes like cultureadaptability.
Because a lot of times whenyou're hiring globally, what
matters more is if people canadapt and thrive in your team's
environment rather than if theybring with them certain
(41:21):
experiences or cultures thatthat you've never seen before,
because that actually might beexactly what you need.
SPEAKER_00 (41:27):
It might be, right?
It's like hiring for the gap,right?
What skill set do we not have?
Sometimes it's not adown-the-pipe skill set,
sometimes it's a a mindset,right?
SPEAKER_01 (41:36):
And sometimes it's just super simple stuff.
Like, are they gonna recognizethat they can't email that
candidate on that day becausethat's a holiday?
Because they're smart enough andwork in a multicultural enough
environment or have encounteredthis before, and they're gonna
go, yeah, no, you're not gettingan answer from them until
Tuesday.
It's fine, just sit tight.
(41:57):
Sometimes it's really simplestuff like that, but sometimes
it's way more nuanced wherethey're like, okay, look, I'm
telling you, like this client isbased in this country, and this
is the norm there about likedoing a skip level email and
copying their boss.
Here's why you should or shouldnot do that.
And I understand the differenceand can help the team grow with
(42:19):
some of those nuancedperspectives that come from
bringing global experience tothe team.
SPEAKER_00 (42:25):
So I gotta ask you though, there are certainly a
lot of times in which people doneed to be open to this concept
of a culture ad, working withfolks that operate and think
differently, maybe working withpeople that, again, not looking
at it through the who would I befriends with lens, but who's
gonna be an effective teammember lens, which I 100% agree
(42:45):
with.
Do you ever see legitimateconcerns in terms of a team
thinking from a behavioralperspective that somebody isn't
the right fit?
And if so, how do youdifferentiate that from other
times when they shouldappreciate and accept different
behavioral fits or culture fits,right?
SPEAKER_01 (43:02):
Yeah.
So for me, this comes back toradical transparency, right?
You have to be really honestwith yourself about your
culture.
And that means I have to be partof that conversation, right?
It's not just enough for myhiring manager to be honest with
herself about it.
Like she has to convey that backto me.
And I've got to know her wellenough to point out the blind
(43:23):
spots there.
So we're big on there's noculture bait and switch.
You don't promise high supportif it's actually we shoved you
off the diving board into thedeep end with no flowies, right?
Like that's not cool.
You don't promise slowonboarding if actually what you
mean by that is you started onMonday and by Thursday you're
presenting to the CEO.
That's not slow.
(43:44):
We don't promise, you know, workfamily if really we're after
this relentless pursuit ofexcellence.
So we have to be radicallytransparent about our culture.
But I think there are some timeswhen there are some legitimate
things, right?
And what I view as my role is tohelp hiring teams tease those
out.
(44:04):
So for instance, I have a teamthat is heavy travel right now.
And they're also the emergencycontact for the like the entire
organization when something goeswrong.
You can't promise those people alot of work-life balance, right?
Like that's just not if you'rethe on-call contact every single
(44:27):
weekend and every singleholiday, there's not actually a
lot of work-life balance.
And we can't make that differentfunctionally.
You know, like you talk throughthe function of it, like, can
you make that better?
But if you can't, then what itcomes down to is you need to
tell people that.
You need to be upfront aboutthat, and you need to be
realistic about why youpersonally are willing to
(44:48):
tolerate something that maybe isa subpar, you know, work
experience, some piece of itthat doesn't actually light you
up, but why you do it, what'sbigger, what matters more to
you.
And I think for some teams, theyhave said things like, This
person really wants the job, butwhen I listen to them talk,
they're saying something in likeevery single sentence that is
(45:11):
absolutely opposite to how weoperate.
They have all the rightexperience, they say all the
right things, and thenimmediately after they say the
exact wrong thing.
And I'm like, I think that's alegitimate red flag.
Like, you should listen to that.
Um, if they're like, Yes, I lovedoing that, but also I hate it.
You're like, maybe I think maybeyou don't like it.
(45:31):
You know, that's I love that,but that's also why I left my
last job.
That should give you pause.
Uh so you know, trying to helppeople.
Yeah, the consistency, but thenalso if you're talking about the
culture on your team and theirresponse, if you're saying, say,
for instance, I talked to a teamthe other day and they were
(45:54):
like, we are just like lowbureaucracy, high ownership.
Like, we don't care who gets thecredit as long as it gets done.
And new people have to be okaywith that.
They have to know like theirname's not gonna go on the
banner when the project getsshipped.
So, like, okay, so I'm talkingto a candidate and I mentioned
that.
And one candidate that I talkedto that day was like, oh my
(46:14):
gosh, I love that.
I've always been a proponent ofthat on my teams, and somebody
always wants credit and italways falls apart, and we've
never been able to implement it.
I talked to somebody else whogoes, huh, okay, I like that.
And I was like, Have you everdone that?
And they're like, No.
Would you be comfortable withyour name not being on it?
Probably.
I'm like, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (46:35):
You can just get a sense there that there might be
some friction.
SPEAKER_01 (46:38):
There's there's enthusiastic consent to your
culture, and then there's sortof like a I would tolerate your
culture.
And I think it's okay when ateam is, you know, narrowing
down a decision to two people tochoose the one who
enthusiastically leans intosomething that you don't have
the power to change.
If you've got the power tochange it and they're mildly
(46:58):
skeptical about it, I don'tthink that should disqualify
them either.
SPEAKER_00 (47:01):
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
So we've covered a lot of groundhere.
This is a really interestingconversation.
I'm really grateful that wecovered the topics we did thus
far.
I would love to shift the focusto the future and thinking about
your goals over the next year orseveral years as a talent
acquisition leader, right?
(47:22):
And as somebody leading thecharge, helping a lot of hiring
managers hire, what breakthroughare you looking to achieve?
Like based on, okay, now you'rein this position, you're helping
a lot of companies hire, youhave a lot of experience.
What does the next level looklike for you?
SPEAKER_01 (47:35):
That's a great question.
So I my mind goes about sevendifferent directions.
So I think professionally, forme, right now at Crossover, a
big thing that I want to focuson this year in 2026 is how do I
help interviewers be betterinterviewers, right?
Because most people will tellyou that being an interviewer is
(47:59):
actually really hard too, eventhough all you have to do is ask
the questions.
They have to be good questions,they have to be the right
questions.
You have to be listening wellenough to ask the follow-up.
And I find that the sort of deeplistening and active listening
is sort of a skill that hasn'tbeen equally developed amongst
all of our teams.
(48:20):
So helping our interviewers bebetter interviewers and then
helping them process that sortof gut feel data after an
interview and say, what doesthat mean?
Like, why do you feel that way?
Because if we can get that outof their gut and onto paper,
then we can help them make moreobjective decisions.
I think personally I am in areally like discombobulating
(48:43):
space of finding out that Iactually really enjoy vibe
coding and I don't know what todo with that information.
Because I spent my entire lifesaying I'm not like I'm not your
STEM girl, like I'm not math,science, engineering.
That's not me.
But actually, I love it.
And I think that might be a realparadigm shift for like how I
define myself moving forward andliterally playing around with
(49:05):
like lovable and glide andGoogle Sheets and App Scripts,
trying to make a better ledgerfor our personal family finances
because I'm so irritated withall the things that I could buy
for tracking your money.
And it just like it dawned on meover the holidays.
I was like, I could probablybuild something better.
And then I was like, who am I tosay that?
(49:27):
Like, I've never built anythingin my life.
Then I was like, but I could.
SPEAKER_02 (49:31):
You could.
SPEAKER_01 (49:32):
So now I have to deal with this whole paradigm
shift.
And also remember that's not whoI am at work.
And I can't just walk over tothe engineering team and be
like, this is what I need you todo, because I don't have no idea
what their code looks like.
And I should probably avoidpretending to be an expert when
really all I do is sit overthere and type out instructions
to AI and it turns somethingpretty on the screen for me.
SPEAKER_00 (49:54):
Nice.
Well, I mean, I I guess uh too,as you get more experience doing
that, that could lead tobuilding different AI agents for
TA purposes and your tech stackthere, which would be pretty
cool.
That seems like it would becongruent with your approach to
the inbound approach tooptimizing.
SPEAKER_01 (50:11):
It is.
I mean, we've built a lot ofthat stuff internally over the
last, gosh, what year is it?
So almost the last four years.
And we've been doing a lot ofthat work internally, which is
probably why I feel like it'snot a stretch for me to do that
personally, but also feels veryweird to suddenly be taking that
step outside of my professionallife.
(50:31):
But now we've built all sorts ofAI tools and automations and
workflows, and we're dipping ourtoe into some agency stuff.
The issue for us with agenticstuff is that there's zero room
for error.
And with a lot of these tools,there's a certain margin of
error that just has to beacceptable for it to go into
(50:54):
production.
We're kind of just playingaround with stuff for our
internal team use because thenthere's always a safety net if
something fails and not anythingthat's like publicly deployed.
SPEAKER_00 (51:04):
Oh, yeah, definitely.
And there's also stages, I'dsuppose, right, where it's
testing it internally versus ifyou do want to publicly deploy
it at some point, work out allthe issues in-house, right?
SPEAKER_01 (51:17):
We prefer we much prefer to be the guinea pigs.
SPEAKER_00 (51:20):
Right.
Yeah.
It's kind of a a uniqueadvantage that agencies and
solutions companies have in thespace is they can actually test
technology in-house beforemaking recommendations to
customers, right?
Um we definitely do some of thatas well, which has been really
helpful.
We're gonna be doing a lot ofthat actually in 2026.
(51:41):
And so you mentioned too,related to your own growth,
right?
Helping folks being that leaderin your company that's helping,
like essentially traininginterviewers and training people
to be as productive as possibleand as good as possible at
interviewing.
How do you go about doing that,right?
Because you're it's a pretty bigorganization, right?
(52:03):
Like you how many recruitersdoes your team have?
SPEAKER_01 (52:08):
We have four folks in we kind of call it people
ops.
And then we've got a team ofthree who sit on the back end
doing our sourcing and candidatesupport.
And then we've got a team offour on the marketing.
So our marketing is the samesize as our people ops, which
(52:29):
tells you a lot about the valuewe place on candidate experience
and messaging.
And then we've got five now onproduct.
So it's expanding.
SPEAKER_00 (52:39):
Yeah, it's very lean for the size of your
organization.
That's impressive.
And I I guess that's one of theif you can get it right and the
strategy that you'reimplementing, like it's a very
lean and efficient motion.
SPEAKER_01 (52:50):
Yeah, it is.
And it really means that on thePeopleOps, our core, the pieces
that we do every single day thatadds value is actually our
stakeholder communication.
That's the place where we addtremendous value.
Yes, we do deep dives and topipelines, and yes, we build
(53:11):
assessments, and yes, wetroubleshoot things and we
educate and train.
But the number one thing we dois communicate with hiring teams
and candidates and connect thedots.
And so all that other stuff wedo is the bits and bobs that are
not automatable.
And eventually some of that willshift, but it's also the
(53:35):
value-based judgments, is reallylike the heart of what our team
does.
So it means that we actually getto spend our time focusing on
like the most important workthat we could be doing and
playing around with andexperimenting with new tools and
technologies and testing things,which is pretty fun.
SPEAKER_00 (53:54):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Well, this is awesome.
I I really appreciate you comingon the show today and sharing so
much of your insight.
Thank you.
This was a unique conversation.
We covered some ground here thatI haven't covered before on the
show, which is always exciting.
SPEAKER_01 (54:06):
Well, I'm so glad that I was able to do it.
This has been a really funconversation for me too.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (54:11):
All right, thank you.
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