Talent All-Stars

By ZipRecruiterBusiness Careers Management

Talent All-Stars episodes

October 13Inside Power's Recruiting Machine: How a Roofing Company Out-Hires Silicon Valley
Hollie Delaney didn't set out to work in HR. She wanted to train dolphins. When that didn't pan out, she landed in a casino job that turned into an accidental HR career, one she almost walked away from entirely before Zappos changed her mind about what the job could be.
Hollie is the Chief People Officer at Power Home Remodeling, the nation's largest exterior home remodeler, where she leads people strategy for more than 5,000 employees. In this episode, she talks about the lesson from Tony Hsieh that changed how she thinks about failure, why she tracks turnover instead of retention, and why listening might be the most underrated skill in talent acquisition.
You'll also hear:
Why "the language of the business is its people"
How to know when it's safe to let someone learn by doing, and when it's not
The one skill she thinks every recruiter needs more of, and why AI can't replace it
Connect with Hollie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollie-delaney-573b89a/
Learn more about Power Home Remodeling: https://powerhrg.com
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
36 min
September 29Psychological Safety and the Career Web: Rethinking HR at Jackson Health System
Michelle Kligman didn't set out to run the “people strategy” for a nearly 16,000-person health system. She set out to be a clinical psychologist. Somewhere between a postdoc at Columbia and a stint profiling executives during mergers, HR found her instead.
Michelle is the Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resource Officer at Jackson Health System, the nonprofit academic medical system that treats anyone who walks through its doors, regardless of ability to pay. In this episode, she explains why she thinks about careers as a web instead of a hierarchy, how she gets CFOs to say yes to people strategy, and why the one skill she wants more of on her team has nothing to do with a resume.
You'll also hear:
Why liking people is the only real prerequisite for a career in HR
How Jackson turned four values into badges, awards, and hiring criteria employees actually believe in
And the two numbers she'd put in front of any CEO to prove the people team is working
Connect with Michelle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellekligmanpsyd/
Learn more about Jackson Health System: https://www.jacksonhealth.org
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
27 min
September 15If Not St. Jude, Then Who? Recruiting for a Mission That Sells Itself
Every employee at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, from the clinicians to the people cleaning patient rooms, is expected to give the same answer when asked what they do: "I find cures and save children."
Dana is the Senior Vice President of Human Resources at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where she's spent nearly three decades helping the organization recruit and retain talent against biotech giants and coastal salaries it simply can't match on paper. In this episode, she talks about how St. Jude leans on mission instead, why a campus visit can change a candidate's mind in an instant, and how her team is thinking through AI without losing sight of the people doing the work.
You'll also hear:
Why she believes anyone can learn HR, but not everyone can learn resilience and relationship building
How St. Jude's CEO uses the line "If not St. Jude, then who?" to recruit against for-profit competitors
How St. Jude's AI council decides what gets piloted and what gets shelved
Connect with Dana: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-bottenfield-5b38541/
Learn more about St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: www.stjude.org
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
31 min
September 01Selling a Role Like a Car: Inside Hendrick Automotive's Hiring Playbook
Mario Pennycooke never planned to end up in recruiting. He built a career in graphic design, sold cars at a Toyota dealership, then trained as an automotive technician before any of that pointed toward talent acquisition.
Mario is the Director of Talent Strategy at Hendrick Automotive Group, the largest privately owned dealership group in the country, with over 100 locations coast to coast. In this episode, he talks about why he treats every open role like something he's selling, how he coaches a team that all communicates differently toward the same results, and why AI still can't replace the judgment call of matching a candidate to the right dealership.
You'll also hear:
Why he thinks every recruiter is secretly a marketer, whether they admit it or not

How he decides when to enforce a company-wide standard and when to let a location do things its own way

Where he thinks AI genuinely helps his team, and where it falls short

What he tells young recruiters who are great with candidates but avoid the hiring manager relationship
Connect with Mario: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariopennycooke/
Learn more about Hendrick Automotive Group: www.hendrickcars.com
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
28 min
August 18Powering Talent: How Entergy's Jason Munoz Turned Operations Experience into a Recruiting Philosophy
Jason Munoz didn't choose a career in recruiting. He was “voluntold” into it after years running operations in the field, and it ended up shaping the next 26 years of his career.
Jason is the Director of Talent Acquisition at Entergy, a Fortune 500 energy company that generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to more than three million customers. In this episode, he talks about how his operational background taught him to run recruiting like a business, why he ties every investment to a measurable outcome, and how the childhood habit of taking things apart to see how they work still shapes the way he approaches people and problems today.
You'll also hear:
Why he measures time to fill instead of time to start, and what that one distinction reveals about accountability

How he turns recruiting asks into business cases finance and leadership actually respond to

Why he believes the biggest shift for new leaders is learning to let go of perfectionism

How he thinks AI will change the skills recruiters need in the next five years
Connect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmunoz/
Learn more about Entergy: www.entergy.com
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
28 min
August 04Inside James Hardie's Playbook for Hiring Through a Major Acquisition
James Hardie is the company behind Hardie, TimberTech, and AZEK Exteriors, a global leader in exterior home and building solutions. Running talent acquisition for a company that size, especially one growing through acquisition, takes someone who has learned to lead through other people instead of fixing everything herself.
Doris Smart is the Head of Global Talent Acquisition at James Hardie. Her path started in contract recruiting for healthcare, taken almost by accident after college, and grew into a career built on listening, developing others, and bringing new companies into the fold without losing what makes them work.
In this episode, she talks about what changed when she stopped being the person who solved every problem and started developing the people around her, why integrating people is the hardest part of any acquisition, and how AI is reshaping the administrative side of recruiting without touching the part of the job that requires a real conversation.
You'll also hear:
What "leading the witness" means in an interview, and why most recruiters do it without realizing

Why quality of hire is the metric she always comes back to, and why it's so hard to measure

How James Hardie is investing in AI training and tools across the organization
Connect with Doris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doriszavala/
Learn more about James Hardie: www.jameshardie.com
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
33 min
July 21Hasbro's Secret Sauce to Aging Up Brands, Leaning Into AI, and Hiring Like It Matters
Hasbro is the toy, gaming, and entertainment company behind Monopoly, Nerf, Transformers, and Magic: The Gathering, and running people strategy for a brand that big takes someone who has done a little bit of everything.

Holly Barbacovi is the EVP & Chief People Officer at Hasbro. Her path started in the Peace Corps in China, wound through Microsoft's early recruiting days, and eventually landed her at the helm of talent for one of the most recognized brands on earth.

In this episode, she talks about using AI to make sense of thousands of employee survey comments, why hiring the biggest fans of a brand can backfire, and how Hasbro is aging up its products for the generation that grew up with them.

You'll also hear:
Why she believes creativity looks forward while AI mostly looks backward

What "aging up" a brand actually requires from a talent strategy

Why fans of a brand aren't always the best hires for it

How Hasbro protects a 97% retention rate among its top performers
Connect with Holly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollybarbacovi/
Learn more about Hasbro: https://corporate.hasbro.com/en-us
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
25 min
July 07Before You Automate, Cybersecurity Firm F5 Says You Need THIS Foundation First
F5 helps the world's largest organizations keep their apps and websites fast, reliable, and secure. Doing that takes a global workforce, a TA function built for a company in transformation, and someone who knows how to build recruiting infrastructure from the ground up.
Valerie Weingarten is the VP of Global Talent Acquisition at F5. She spent 16 years at Salesforce scaling recruiting through some of the fastest growth the tech industry has ever seen, then made the deliberate decision to start over somewhere smaller, harder, and more interesting.
In this episode, she talks about how F5 is using AI to eliminate low-value work so recruiters can spend more time in conversations that actually move candidates. She also gets into why revenue impact is the only TA metric worth bringing to a CEO, and what most interviewers get wrong in the first 15 minutes.
You'll also hear:
Why she walked away from a career in medicine and never looked back

What she learned at Salesforce about process standardization, before you can automate anything

How she thinks about the line between what AI should own and what humans should never give up

Why the best candidate experiences are built on conversations, not campaigns
Connect with Valerie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyutterback
Learn more about F5: https://www.f5.com/
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
19 min
June 23How the USPS Recruits and Develops a Workforce of 640,000
The USPS delivers to 167 million addresses almost every day. That takes 640,000 employees, 30,000 post offices, 250 processing facilities, and one of the largest HR operations in the country. Jenny Utterback, VP of Organization Development at the United States Postal Service, is the person responsible for the people side of all of it.
She came in through recruiting nearly 20 years ago and never left, because the problems kept getting harder and more interesting. Today, she leads workforce development, succession planning, and a full modernization of HR infrastructure for an organization that competes with FedEx and UPS while also guaranteeing delivery to every address in America, every week, no exceptions.
In this episode, she gets into how you upskill a workforce where 35 to 40-year tenures are still common, how she thinks about internal versus external hiring decisions, and what it actually takes to lead people through change when the change isn't stopping.
You'll also hear:
How USPS rebuilt its recruiting and HR systems from the ground up

Why connecting with employees on a human level is the only way change management actually works

How she develops internal candidates for leadership roles before the seat is ever vacant

The framework she uses to cut through competing priorities when everything feels urgent
Connect with Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyutterback
Learn more about USPS: www.usps.com
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
27 min
June 09The Cannabis Company With Nearly 5,000 Employees and 12 Recruiters
Most companies with nearly 5,000 employees have a recruiting army. Green Thumb Industries has 12 people, a network of cannabis dispensaries spanning the country, and Joey Niemczyk, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition, figuring out how to make it work.
Joey started her career watching her immigrant parents build something from nothing, and that shaped everything about how she thinks about people and opportunity. She learned to recruit at staffing agencies, sharpened her instincts at a boutique firm serving high-growth tech companies, and eventually landed at one of the most unusual talent challenges in the industry: building a TA function for a cannabis company that's growing faster than most teams can hire.
Today, she shares how she leads a lean team without losing the human element, why she thinks the best hires rarely come through the traditional funnel, and what she told her team to do differently once AI started rewriting every resume in the pile.
You'll also hear:
Why she intentionally built a tough interview process

How saying "I don't know" out loud became the fastest way to solve hard problems

What she measures beyond time-to-fill and why the qualitative side matters just as much

The skill she says every TA partner needs more of as a business scales
Connect with Joey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-niemczyk
Learn more about Green Thumb Industries: www.gtigrows.com
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter

Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
24 min

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How exactly do high-performing talent, HR, and recruiting teams operate on a day-to-day basis? We find out through conversations with talent leaders at some of the world's most influential businesses.

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Talent All-Stars

Talent All-Stars episodes

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