The Hiring Enablement Podcast

In this episode of The Hiring Enablement Podcast join us as we talk to Conor Sweeney, Global Head of People Strategy / Interim Head of Global Corporate Real Estate at Weightwatchers, to dig into all things people and business strategy – and alignment.  

With a background working in corporate real estate, talent development, and HR, Conor has seen it all in the business world. So, just weeks after we launched Hiring Enablement to help companies align their hiring strategies and improve their talent development, who better to have as a guest?  

According to Conor, business goals and transformations don’t exist in a vacuum. Transformation of any facet of businss, from digital to HR, must align to the wider business goals.  

Listen as Conor sits down with Solutions Head of Business Growth, Nicki Paterson, to discuss:  

• The importance of building a people roadmap to execute hiring and development goals  
• How a people strategy is a business strategy and vice versa 
• Why, sometimes, the key to getting stakeholders on the same page is just sitting down and having a candid conversation  
• What “quality of hire” *actually* means  
• And much much more  

More on our site: https://solutionsdriven.com/people-strategy-business-strategy/
More about Weightwatchers: https://www.weightwatchers.com/

It’s the first episode of the newly named Hiring Enablement podcast, and in this bonus episode, we have an exciting announcement to make!  

We’re joined by Solutions Driven CEO Gavin Speirs to speak about Solutions Driven’s new concept: Hiring Enablement.  

In this podcast, Gavin talks to host Claire Murray about the advent of sales enablement and the parallels between that and the recruitment industry’s need for hiring enablement. Like sales 20 years ago, hiring managers are doing more with less time every day and are struggling to keep on top of the rapidly changing hiring market.  

Gavin explains how hiring teams no longer just need transactional relationships with their recruitment partners: they need a true partnership that guarantees the right hire, first time, every time, backed by indepth processes, resources, and intelligence.  

We also look at Recruitment Process Intelligence – the processes that Solutions Driven use to make hires and how this works in synergy with Hiring Enablement to get the results companies need in this tough business world.  

And most of all how this isn’t a hiring revolution – it's a hiring evolution that responds to current business needs and will continue to grow and evolve as hiring continues to change.  

Hands up if you work remotely or spend at least some of the week working from home?  

As increasing numbers of us look for more flexible working arrangements, it’s clear how we hire, train, and develop people is changing – and will keep shifting.  

So, who better to discuss this changing world than someone whose skills span talent and development, training, headhunting, and much more?  

In episode 32 of The Talent Intelligence Podcast, we welcome Marina Blanco, a globetrotting talent guru with opinions on the workforce of the future.  

Listen as host Claire Murray discusses the topic with Marina, and looks at:  

• How you cope when someone turns up to an interview having partaken in some “liquid courage”  
• Why companies need to be offering something different and special to attract new candidates  
• The importance of being a self-starter  
• How HR is evolving to invest more in candidates  
• What Marina would tell her younger self getting into the talent space  

And much more  

Picture the scene... You’re at final stage interviews for a Talent Manager role. During the interview, the CEO, your potential new boss, says “I don’t really believe in Talent Management”... 

What do you do? Run away? Take the job? Try and bring him round to your way of thinking?  

In the latest episode of The Talent Intelligence Podcast, Current Lighting’s Courtney Abraham tells us how she dealt with the situation when it happened to her in real life. (Spoiler alert: she took the job and won over the CEO).  

Listen as Courtney sits down with host Dave Sweeney to discuss awkward interviews and:  

• Why it’s vital to invest in your own people who know your business and culture  
• Why it’s easier to step up in an organisation than step in  
• How to succession plan for an ageing workforce  
• The importance of transparency throughout transitions  
• And much much more.  

Hear about Courtney’s inspiring career including time spent at Adecco, roles in change management and L&D, and what advice she’d give her younger self if she were starting out in HR.  

In episode 31 of The Talent Intelligence Podcast, Alan McFadden sits down with Brian Aquart, Host of the "Why I Left" podcast and VP of Workforce & Community Education at Northwell Health to discuss: 

• Employee engagement 
• Why people leave their roles 
• The importance of flexible working 

And much more 

We’re 30!! Over the last couple of years, we’ve somehow managed to get 30 incredible guests to take part in The Talent Intelligence Podcast. Everyone from tech CEOs to Diversity Officers have graced our ears and every single guest has imparted insights to help us and our listeners navigate the world of HR, Talent, and employee development.  

So, for the 30th episode, we’re delighted to welcome Elena Agaragimova, someone who comes with a wealth of knowledge and insights on all our key topics. With a background in education, Elena is naturally curious about employee development, something that comes across in this conversation.  

Now  Head of Talent Acquisition and Development - Appian Practice, Elena has also been named as one of Nova’s 40 under 40 and works as a self employed development coach too.  

Listen as Elena joins host Alan McFadden to talk about her own career in leadership and:  

• How to handle employees who want to move up the chain quickly (when they’re perhaps not quite ready...)  
• How graduates are beginning to think differently about the workplace  
• Taking accountability for your own career  
• The importance of management development  
• And much more  

Coaching. It’s a topic that has come up a lot across both our podcasts and in many talent conversations lately.  

As many businesses scale back their hiring plans, they’re doubling down on ensuring they retain their best talent, and fail fast when it comes to hiring.  

And one company that excels at coaching their team is Cognism – a data and intelligence provider that helps sales and marketing teams drive predictable pipeline. 

So when Cognism’s VP of UK & Ireland Johanthon Ilett agreed to be a guest on The Talent Intelligence Podcast, we knew coaching would be a big topic.  

Listen as Jonathon sits down with host Nicki Paterson to discuss:  

• How title inflation can be used as a positive tool with today’s workforce  
• The importance of a playbook for your team’s success – especially as a business scales  
• How to nurture talent to become the top 1% of sales people  
• Why hard work beats talent every day 
• And much more...  

More on Cognism: https://www.cognism.com/
Jonathon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathonilett/

What do you get when you cross a UX/UI designer with a human resources expert and DE&I activist?  

A pretty solid candidate user journey... 

This episode’s guest on The Talent Intelligence Podcast is the ever-talented Stella Bailleux, change practitioner, IT recruiter, and UX Designer.  

Stella is currently working at Upday, a rapidly growing technology and media company that strives to contribute to a better-informed and more trustworthy world. She is also setting up her own free HR consultancy for businesses, dedicated to helping companies like make a positive impact and create a safer space for everyone. 

Although Stella was hired as a technical recruiter at Upday, they are currently navigating a hiring freeze and her role has pivoted to improve employee retention – something that many businesses are going through.  

In this episode, Stella sits down with host Claire Murray to discuss:  

• Why KPIs are useless if you’re not comparing job titles and genders, like for like  
• Why company structure’s for women need to be rectangular, rather than triangular  
• How to negate the effects of nepotism in a business  
• The best ways to automate the recruitment process for diverse employees  
• How to react when an underperforming employee wants promoted  
• Stella’s top tips for promoting diversity in a hiring process  
• And much more...  

Stella's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stellabdesign/

Audacity: https://www.audacitycommunity.de

“What effect does my behaviour have on the people around me?”  

This was one of the main talking points of the latest Talent Intelligence Podcast where host Alan McFadden sat down with Sara Milesson, VP of HR at Trelleborg.  

Clearly someone who has done a lot of self-reflection on her leadership style, Sara admits that she can come across as intimidating – but she’s put the time and effort into changing that and making herself a better leader and manager.  

According to Sara, the pandemic did a lot to change her management style and made her take a step back and consider what was best for the team overall, not just the leadership team.  

She also believes that knowing who you are is a vital trait for being a good leader.  

Sara and Alan dig deeper into these points in this episode, and look at:  

• How to  better enable managers to become better managers  
• How to improve communication with your team  
• Why tech can be both a help and a hindrance  
• And what Sara would go back and tell herself at the beginning of her career  

rom selling cutlery door to door at 17 to enterprise B2B, Ethan Parker has sold it all.  

Now VP of Sales at Outbound Squad, there’s little he doesn’t know about prospecting and closing.  

Or coaching.  

Because Ethan doesn’t keep his insights to himself. He’s an outbound sales coach and trainer for B2B reps and sales teams, trains his own internal team, and appears on podcasts like ours’ to discuss his sales coaching philosophy.  

Listen as Ethan joins host Alan McFadden on episode 26 of The Talent Intelligence Podcast to discuss:  

• Hiring people with the right attitude and skills  
• Why hiring the right people won’t work without a proper process  
• How to build consistency  
• The importance of KPIs (and why some are pointless)  
• And much more  

From what tech a sales team needs to why companies buy too early, Ethan has insights into every part of the hiring and sales process. He even gives us some insights into what he would tell his younger self if only he could time travel.

Ethan Parker
Outbound Squad