Historically, talent acquisition and recruiting have relied heavily on networking, but how has the influence of technology, AI tools, and systems changed the role? Today I sit down and talk to the Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Moderna, April Venables. Her career has focused exclusively on talent acquisition and recruiting, which includes building and leading global recruiting teams, employer brand work, executive search and process, and program excellence. We talk about the recruiter of today and how both the role and required skillset have changed over the course of her career. April also tells us about different AI tools they implement to help the recruiting process and we chat about hiring; values-based versus skillset-based, and what makes for a bad (or good) hire. 

Key Points From This Episode:

 

• How she gets away with not being reachable by email.

• An introduction to our guest April and how she ended up at Moderna.

• What piqued her interest and belief that Moderna was a huge opportunity. 

• The Recruiter of Today and how the role and skillset have changed throughout her career.

• April tells listeners about her journey at Moderna during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic; developing the vaccine.

• We talk more about the process of developing the vaccine.

• How the vision to produce the vaccine translated into a massive hiring/ recruiting process.

• April shares the AI tools they implemented to help with the recruiting process.

• What makes for a bad hire; values-based versus skillset-based.

• Common reasons for what makes someone a good hire.

• Where they “lose” people at Moderna.

• More on how the AI tool was able to make an assessment around dynamic range.

• She defines (the misnomer) multi-tasking as it relates to the assessment.

• What an I-O psychologist is and does.

• Being able to chase what the day is giving you; a strength for a Moderna employee.

• What April is working on right now and what’s top of mind at Moderna.

• The actress that she would choose to play her part in the inevitable Hollywood movie about the COVID-19 Vaccine.

 

Tweetables:

 

“For me, the value proposition of coming into an organization at the time that didn’t have a formal TA organization, and actually starting from scratch, to build something that didn’t exist, was so cool to me!” — April Venables [0:06:52]

 

“I can’t remember the last time I was in my comfort zone.” — April Venables [0:07:34]

 

“Working through COVID was a bit of a blur at Moderna because we were all so laser-focused on delivering a vaccine, it was a really interesting challenge.” — April Venables [0:13:27]

 

“It is psychologically safe to fail at Moderna, we fail all the time.” — April Venables [0:25:38]

 

“If someone is looking for a really predictable, linear way to do their work, Moderna would probably drive them crazy.” — April Venables [0:32:48]

 

“The traditional TA model, or strategy, that has worked historically, and what has worked for us here at Moderna to grow so quickly in a short period of time, is not the same strategy that is going to make us successful, long-term.” — April Venables [0:33:54]

 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

 

April Venables on LinkedIn

Moderna

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