For today’s episode, we are thrilled to welcome Cyril George, who currently serves as the Global Talent Acquisition Lead at General Motors, and started his career doing talent acquisition at Ford Motor Company. We kick off our conversation by discussing how to choose your meetings, why too many people are often included, and how to ensure you only attend what you need to. Next Cyril expands on the effort he’s made to hire from diverse backgrounds by focusing on a combination of outside perspectives and domain experience in his effort to build a balanced team. Tuning in you’ll also hear a deep dive on tech stacks, the webinar that inspired Cyril’s vision, and a breakdown of how they have built and integrated theirs. Cyril also shares how he approaches vendors, including which questions to ask to ascertain whether their product is a good fit for your company. Today’s episode is jam-packed with excellent tips and useful insights, so make sure you tune in to hear it all!

 

Key Points From This Episode:

 

• Introducing today’s guest, Cyril George, Global Talent Acquisition lead at General Motors (GM).
• Why Cyril is extremely selective about the number of meetings he has to attend in a day.
• What Cyril’s typical day looks like and how he supports his teams.
• A breakdown of Cyril’s teams and their functions.
• Cyril’s background in talent acquisition and his previous position at Ford.
• The big campaigns and goals that Cyril is currently focusing on.
• Insights into GM’s investment in electric and autonomous driving vehicles.
• The huge increase in hiring at GM and the forces behind it.
• How Cyril has scaled up recruitment to meet the demand of the business.
• Cyril’s refreshing perspective on outside pitches on technological innovations.
• Cyril’s teams’ tech stack and how they determine theirs.
• The role of integration between different platforms when you are building your tech stack.
• Why the integration needs to be seamless to best accommodate candidates and hiring managers.
• Which questions to ask vendors to ensure they can supply what your organization needs.
• The one message Cyril wants to share about recruiting: stop sharing unsolicited advice and let recruiters do their job.

 

Tweetables:

 

“One of the things I do is I really focus on clearing my calendar as much as possible. One of the things that I practice is to rigorously reject the amount of meetings that I have to attend in a day.” — Cyril George [0:01:27]

 

“50% of my leadership team was hired in the last two years. We made it a point to ensure that we hire people from very diverse backgrounds.” — Cyril George [0:10:17]

 

“I personally think that those are some of the most important meetings where you need to be involved. You need to understand what the technology can do, and you need to show your full commitment in terms of how important that piece of technology is going to be towards your future goals.” — Cyril George [0:24:52]

 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Cyril George on LinkedIn

Talk Talent to Me

Hired