»»» Matt Woodard is a mainstay of the Australian Talent Acquisition community. With close to 2 decades of experience hiring for leading technology companies and now running his own business, Scalr, we thought he might be the best person to ask, What The F&@k is a Talent Strategy?It's a catchphrase we hear used a lot but like a lot of them, there's some ambiguity around what it actually is. Luckily Matt was able to help decipher it all for us..Matt business Scalr - https://www.scalr.com.au/Matt's linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwooda...This episode comes complete with a soundscape exclusively delivered by our bathroom renovation happening two rooms away. Enjoy 🔨 🪚 🗜️The big-ticket items 👇🏻 03:08 - What actually is a Talent Strategy? The talent strategy should support the business strategy & what the business is trying to achieve. The talent strategy provides the headcount required to deliver this business strategy. 11:05 - Where does a business start with a TS? - The talent strategy identifies the key hires, the competition & the market forces affecting the talent team's ability to deliver the strategy?14:29 - This stuff’s easy! Why can’t all businesses do this? - They can, but it takes someone to actually lead it. 16: 40 - The Recruitment Codex (not Helix Matt 👍🏻) - A visual representation of all the things that recruiters do and need to consider.24:38 - You just need to start somewhere - It’s easy to get overwhelmed but like all things, you just need to start and not worry about perfection straight away.30:45 - What other things tie into an effective talent strategy? - Communication back into the business about the market. Leaders need to understand the market nuance, don’t leave it till the last minute, keep ongoing dialogue with the business. Continue to look at your own strategy, is it still fit for purpose, have things changed internally or externally. 32:23 - It’s not a static plan - It shouldn’t be, things change, your plan may need to aswell.

------ Social ------💡 Crew Blog » https://wearecrew.io/blog/🏆 Carrer Page Awards » https://wearecrew.io/the-alfies/Regardless of where you are on your journey, we can help. https://wearecrew.io/contact/👍 Facebook » @CrewTalentAdvisory🦜 Twitter » @WeAreCrewTalent👩‍💼 LinkedIn » Crew Talent Advisory------ Crew Talent Advisory ------We have a range of recruitment services to suit any stage of your business’s evolution because humans aren’t a one-size-fits-all kind of deal (if they were there’d be no need for adjustable baseball caps)------ Customer Testimonials ------🎬 MessageMedia: https://youtu.be/JlRl9yuTaCg🎬 Xplor: https://youtu.be/vObszKdYsDQ🎬 Ippon: https://youtu.be/-Wp4fgxHaRE#hiring #talentacquisition #talentstrategy

With over a decade of software engineering exp Adam has been through interview processes with several big-name tech companies. He’s got some great thoughts and opinions on what things stand out as really positive and what could be done better. If you’re an engineer who’s thinking of the next role or someone who hires software engineers, you’ll find something useful in this discussion. The big ticket items:02.00 Why do you think everyone has an opinion about recruiting?- The recruitment process is often an extension of the personality of the people who are actually hiring.- We ask people to be themselves, but they’ve also been taught to sell themselves - there’s a conflict there somewhere.06:00 What things stand out to you positively or natively in an interview you’ve been involved with?- One of the interviews I did with Zendesk, the hiring manager was friendly and gracious. - He clearly approached the interview looking for positive signifiers, reasons to hire not reasons not to hire.- We could do with more space in interviews for vulnerability. We want perfect alignment with arbitrary company values. I’ve never read them on a webs site and said yes that sounds like me.- Front-load interviews with an acknowledgement that this is an awkward conversation - have empathy for the situation. - The ROI for making candidates comfortable in an interview is immeasurable15:25 What could engineers do better in interviews?- Don’t focus on purely the tech being used.- You owe it to yourself to do more digging into the team, the company, and how they make decisions under pressure, other than just the pure tech stack. - Focus on being problem solvers, not just chasing the next thing,- Focus on developing skills outside of pure coding.23:30 What can we do about coding tests?- Making the technical part of the process as inclusive as possible. - Provide options - take-home test, online test, in-person test? Some people really struggle in person and others vice versa, providing options allows you to see the best of people because they can be comfortable. 29:55 What’s the ideal hiring process do you think?- More shorter sessions or fewer longer sessions?- 2 -3 steps seem to work really well for most people and companies.- Team debriefs are so important.- Does the “pub test” theory just help you build a homogenous team?

Matthew Clements is a "responsible steward of capital" ™️ AKA VP of Growth at Budgetly. Ker-ching 💰With 12 years of sales and 6 years of leadership experience, Matthew brings a wealth of experience in the tech space. He's grown sales teams in the B2B & B2C space and in this episode, he shares thoughts on early-stage hiring and sales in general.Matthew mentions the book Drive by Daniel PinkBig Ticket items:4:30 When growing the first sales team, you can’t just hire 10 salespeople and 10x your target.6:18 - You’d rather have your team drowning in leads as opposed not having enough & sales tech stacks.9:15 - Sales metrics & dashboards14:15 - Understanding clients problems 15:30 - Finding the budget to solve problems.17:30 - Hiring for attitude?19:03 - A lower probability of underperformance.20:30 - Managing a remote sales team.24:40 - Andrew not Chris.27:10 - Cold call terror.33:35 - Sales Targets and results on resumes?🔔 Subscribe for more Talent Acquisition & HR insights like this: http://bit.ly/3sKF2rC------ Social ------💡 Crew Blog » https://wearecrew.io/blog/🏆 Carrer Page Awards » https://wearecrew.io/the-alfies/Regardless of where you are on your journey, we can help. https://wearecrew.io/contact/👍 Facebook » @CrewTalentAdvisory🦜 Twitter » @WeAreCrewTalent👩‍💼 LinkedIn » Crew Talent Advisory------ Crew Talent Advisory ------We have a range of recruitment services to suit any stage of your business’s evolution because humans aren’t a one-size-fits-all kind of deal (if they were there’d be no need for adjustable baseball caps)------ Customer Testimonials ------🎬 MessageMedia: https://youtu.be/JlRl9yuTaCg🎬 Xplor: https://youtu.be/vObszKdYsDQ🎬 Ippon: https://youtu.be/-Wp4fgxHaRE#hiring #talentacquisition #talentstrategy

Catherine Toms is one half (some would say the best half) of The Toms, a digital marketing consultancy that helps marketing teams to cut through all the noise in an evolving and shifting market.As an ex-recruiter she brings a unique insight into both worlds and actually works with agencies to think like marketers. “When a business takes a product or service to market, they are trying to clarify who their target market is and how they can best communicate why their product or service is the best. Recruitment is like this in the fact that the “customer” is a potential employee. Essentially there’s a huge synergy between the two”We’ve seen a big shift in the broader marketing world that the recruitment sector could benefit from following. Marketing talks about the customer, but most recruitment marketing talks about the business. 4:58 - Does a strong consumer brand benefit your employer brand? Or is it potentially a curse?There may be recognition of the brand but also perceptions that may not be true.The things we want from an employer are different to what we want in a service or product. 7:50 - How does a brand protect itself if it’s been through a round of layoffs? Across all sectors there seems to be uncertainty at the moment. People get a general sense of nervousness, what we find is that people who are looking to move are looking for genuine growth. Think about the questions that potential candidates may have. “If I’m last in, am I first out?” Etc. Brands need to be able to address these authentically and purposefully.11:58 - How would a company actually do this in real life? Think about FAQ’s on a careers page or Linkedin company page. Sharing what you can in public is a great thing to do. Have your hiring managers well prepared on how to answer these things in an interview.16:34 - The winning formula is when the impression a job seeker gets when they read an advert is then reinforced at interview, at onboarding and then through the tenure of employment. 17:35 - Recruitment needs to get more like marketing in the sense of getting more conversational. Particularly with things like job ads and the language we use. 19:20 - We’ve seen a big shift in the broader marketing world that the recruitment sector could benefit from following. Marketing talks about the customer, but most recruitment marketing talks about the business. 22:54 Conference bashing! Most corporate merch is Tat? “Bright minds and bushy attitudes” rule. 25:09 Write like you talk. You’re only ever talking to one person when you write job ad copy26:31 Data driven research on B2B marketing. 5% of any market is in buying mode at any time. Most companies only ever target them, not the other 95% Recruiting teams should be focusing on the 95% to build familiarity and trust for when they move into buying (moving jobs) mode.27:12 If we only ever appear on people's radars when we have a vacant job, we become very transactional. Because most people aren’t looking for jobs right now. We need to talk to people out of the market. Familiarity breeds confidence, we’re more likely to create this through consistent content. 29:26 Know, like, trust. How do you get your target audience to feel this? Via content that is valuable, interesting and informative. 32:15 Employee Advocacy can be massive for a brand and also quick and easy to create.33:56 Supporting social issues. Don’t bring cupcakes for IWD, talk about what you’re actually doing. Trust and credibility are everything.Links:https://www.thetoms.co/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine...

https://www.marketingscience.info/

Engineering Leader Lauren Grimes talk to us about the challenges and fun of early-stage hiring The Melbourne success story that is Xplor was the first role where she was responsible for hiring and not just a participant. Now she’s in a new start-up, and she’s applying the lessons she’s learnt from early stage, fast growth hiring and sharing them with us.4:54 Outside of tech skills, we looked for people who could go on a journey. People who were flexible, hungry to learn, growth mindset, could jump in and take ownership. The skills were secondary. As your business grows and evolves, so can they. Challenge opinions but no huge ego’s.08:10 situational questioning. Not just screening for the good things but checking on less desirable traits.11:00 When I discovered why I disliked the standard technical interviews. Real world examples of what the team is focusing on. The importance of posing scenarios and asking the candidates opinions14:00 You don’t really know until they start. My experience of the impact of mis-hires on an early-stage team. Mishiring can come at a cost of time, effort and obviously money. It doesn’t have to be a 100% negative thing but it will have impacts.17:00 Collaborative decision making is empowering. The importance of having your team involved in interviews. They bring their own experiences and viewpoints to share with the candidate. They also grow their own interviewing skills. 22:50 Do I like this candidate as a person? A good way to think about people.30:00 The joy of watching a new hire blossom and grow in a role. 30:55 Advice for people hiring in an early stage now or soon. Hard tech skills are just not enough. In 6 months' time they may not be the right person for you anymore. Get the right types of people not a list of skills. Self-motivation & resilience are so important.35:43 The insecurity that comes with a lot of startups is still better than having a “normal” job. 37:20 Big takeaways = Think through the human and tech skills you need, the importance of collaborative decision-making, embrace diversity (don’t hire more people like you), and find someone who can step up and replace you.

When we say that Sam Robb is a StartUp hiring veteran we don't mean that he's 65, we mean that he's been through several fast-growth StartUp journeys. His experience with organisations such as A Cloud Guru, My Yum and now EQL mean that he's got solid operational knowledge to share and some real-world lessons we can learn from.In this discussion, he shares his thoughts on blending pragmatism and the desire to move quickly with the need to stay true to best practice hiring. How do you coach new hiring managers?Do all new hires really need to buy into the mission?Do candidates from other StartUps make the best hires?We talk through these and other questions.

In this episode, Talent Acquisition leader Mitch King shares his insights into StartUp hiring. When he joined a scrappy startup called Linktree that had a simple yet big idea, he couldn't have imagined growing the business from a handful of people to over 300. And that along the way, Linktree would raise ~$165m and go on to unicorn status. We talked to Mitch and got his opinion on several topics, including;

• On transparency in hiring. “My standpoint on this and it will always be my attitude I think is, the more transparent you are, the more likely you're going to get the right fit but and that goes both ways”  
• On changing market perceptions. “Around series B I think from memory that round was about $45m and it just shifted the perception in the market of what the product was, who we were & how serious to take us”  
• On the reality of startup life. “Some people are really unsuited (to the startup world) and you could tell sometimes by questions. I remember a few people would go through the interview and they say something like “Okay,  what's a 5 year career development plan for this role” and I’d be thinking that we don’t even know what the next 5 weeks holds for us all”  
• On hiring in competitive markets. “You know product designers, engineers & product managers were getting multiple offers a week (so) you had to adjust your process. There wasn't time to schedule a calibration meeting for you & your hiring managers. So there's a lot of Slack chasing and politely asking, many times, for people to move quickly.”

Welcome to today's episode (the first!) of Start, Scale. Grow, where we delve into the crucial aspect of hiring for startups and businesses of all sizes. Interviewing is a vital aspect of building a strong team, but it can be challenging, especially when starting out. How do you know what to look for in a candidate? How do you determine a good fit quickly? 

In this episode, we sit down with Caitlin Fairchild, who has extensive experience in exactly this when she helped to grow Xplor from 30 to 2000 employees. Together, we discuss the important elements of interviewing, including what to look for, how to define a good fit, and how to do it efficiently. So join us as we explore the art and science of interviewing and how it can shape the success of your business. Let's get started!