Hiring teams often focus on filling roles fast—but what if your employer brand could do the sourcing for you?

Jeff Moore, VP of Talent Acquisition, Operations and Workspaces at Toast, joins Shannon to share how his team scaled employer brand into a strategic lever for talent. Jeff explains why recruiters need to act more like researchers, how he has built flexibility into TA organizations, and why hyper-local pipelines are the future of field hiring.

He also breaks down how Toast personalizes candidate experiences at scale, what makes a good recruiter today, and how to stay authentic in a noisy hiring market.

Key takeaways:

1. Employer brand scales your story: It’s not just marketing, it’s how you reach the right candidates and help the wrong ones self-select out.
2. Flexibility beats structure: Building a TA org that adapts to business needs matters more than perfecting an org chart.
3. Go hyper-local: Creating shallow talent pools at the zip code level helps fill field roles more quickly and effectively.
4. Candidate experience is your moat: Personal touches, such as virtual office tours, make a lasting impression and are harder to replicate.

Timestamps: 

(00:00) Introduction

(00:43) Meet Jeff Moore

(01:40) Why is employer brand your biggest lever

(03:37) Letting the product story do the heavy lifting

(05:02) How Toast turns interviews into mutual experiences

(06:52) Keeping your org flexible through shifting priorities

(09:32) The surge team experiment that worked, until it didn’t

(12:24) Helping recruiters adapt to different roles fast

(13:06) Why local hiring needs micro-pipelines

(15:13) How to actually source at the zip code level

(17:05) Why recruiters need deep market knowledge

(18:28) The interview insight that made Jeff join Toast

(20:20) Employer brand only works when it’s honest

(23:06) How does a brand also boost employee pride

(25:04) Where to find Jeff online