How We Hire Podcast Episode 29 Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In our talent strategy, the goal is you should stay at Apple about for at least four years, and during those four years should have at least two different roles, meaning we want people to stay longer than the average. Average in Stockholm right now is like three-ish years and I think it's decreasing and we also want people to grow here, hence the at least two roles. And then my job has been a lot about, okay, how do I then optimize for that? So it has so many implications, but we've had the discussion of is that the same for everyone? Should we specify more for different roles? I think it has implications, but at least in my mind it's helpful that you spell it out. What is it that we expect? Because it's going to be easier to know who can I look for and who shouldn't I look for and what expectations do I set on the candidate and what do I inform them on?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Welcome to How We Hire a podcast by Alva Labs with me, lanaya, licensed psychologist and head of people. This show is for all of you who hire or just find recruitment interesting. In every episode, I will speak with thought leaders from across the globe to learn from their experiences and best practices within hiring, building teams and growing organizations.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Our guest on today's episode
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Is Elise Demy Elise,
Speaker 1 (01:33):
It's a dynamic and commercially minded leader in the tech industry with a wealth of experience in building high performing and diverse teams. Her professional journey has taken her across multiple countries, including Sweden, Australia, and France. With a background covering agency consultancy and in-house product companies, Elise brings a unique perspective to talent acquisition. During today's episode, we will focus on Elise work at Volvo Car Mobility where she has led the talent acquisition team through an impressive growth journey. She's driven the hiring roadmap and fostered alignment within the organization's strategy. Welcome to How We Hire Elise.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So excited to get started to talk to you and today's overarching topic will be hiring strategy, like how you can build and I guess stick to a sustainable hiring strategy, especially in a growth company and how you during that process navigate stakeholder and create this collaborative process. But before we jump into that, Elise, can't you introduce yourself a little bit? Who are you, why and tell us a little bit about Volvo Car Mobility.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I've been now working at Volvo Carability for the last five years, so basically started when the company was very, very small, maybe about 20 people. Currently I'm head of talent acquisition in the company, so I've had definitely a big journey in this organization for those that maybe don't know so much about Volvo Carability, I can also say a few words about that. The company's a mobility technology products founded in 2017 and owned by Volvo Cars. So what we do now, what we've done for five years is developing the car sharing service called Volvo on the Mount that maybe some of the people know as M that was the old name for these products and bring those five years. We've been growing from around 20 people to almost 200. So impressive growth, amazing journey along the way. Fantastic colleagues and a lot of fun in between.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I actually have a fun fact. One of my fantastic coworkers, Christopher, there's actually an episode with him. He's our head of customer success. He made a great example of Volvo Car Mobility in the relationship to how important customer service and customer support is because he was using your service, had trouble getting out of a super complex garage, called the support and had amazing support and was so helped. So he never wanted to use another service again. So fun fact, Ali is a fan
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Amazing story.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So you've obviously hired great support reps, at least
Speaker 3 (04:24):
For sure. They're amazing and yeah, really helpful in all kinds of situations and there has been funny,
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I can't imagine. Okay, so to kind of set the stage, Elise, could you provide a brief overview of this hiring strategy that you and your team implemented through this growth from 20 to hundreds?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
So for us, it all started in 2018 when basically I joined and I was the first person representing TA in the organization. So I basically started pretty much from a blank page, everything to figure out really. I think if I just reflect on a few observations from that time, I can say that we were in a place where we had the need quite constant need to hire new people for them to join the company and the business was growing rather fast. We were going through different periods of alpha soon going into a beta trial. So it's been very exciting in that time, but basically, yeah, a need for a lot of people to join. We were also of course facing the same tech market as everybody else. Obviously talent scarcity has also been very much a reality and also a lack of diversity. Then also I think that a lot of the team members that were already there when I joined had joined through being referred in the company.
(05:45):
So we had also a need of diversifying a little bit the talent sources quite early on in parallel, well I was the only employee for the first few years focusing on ca. So had definitely a need to think a bit big, try to think, okay, what do we need to do to make this sustainable for everybody and the need of this organization, but also focus on the context of growth to do that. Of course then later on with other people as well as the TA team was growing a little bit, I thought about how to do this and I think that one of the first realization was creating a sustainable hiring process. So basically looking into how this hiring process can be self-supporting itself and just looking into how can we make this as clear as possible, as low maintenance as possible and as scalable as possible.
(06:36):
Because we were in a situation where basically we had a few people in the teams, a few managers as well, but not so much time to spend also in interviews and of course when you're hiring the first few months around 50 people, there is a need to obviously being able to scale everything that you do around hiring. I think also that quite early on for us, we've been promoting the talent sustainability approach for the organization and really working hard on continuously attracting, developing, but also retaining talented people with the skills required for current but also future roles. And I think we can go into a bit more details regarding that a bit later. Yeah, and then for me, I was also thinking, okay, when I look out there great companies that are really good at hiring, building great cultures, what do they really nail? And I think they really nailed the hiring culture. So for me that was also aiming to create that hiring culture internally and really making, basically hiring a company-wide commitment, making people on board with the plan, having them really understand what it means to hire quite a lot and take that from there. Basically.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
I love the concept hiring culture that's absolutely brilliant and I think one of the luxuries that I feel that I've had has been working with hiring for a company that is already obsessed with hiring. It made my life so easy, and I guess when you say we probably do have a hiring culture, but I mean if you don't have that, how do you get it? What did you do to create that?
Speaker 3 (08:11):
I think for us it's been a lot around how to promote hiring and really make people commit to the work, making them understand why it's an important part of what we do on a daily basis as an organization. Why if we win with people, we will win with the product, we'll win as an organization. And I think that being quite systematic and holistic in that approach is so necessary and everybody has a role to play in that. So we've been also using some frameworks that really sort of break it down. What kind of roles can you have when you're a part of a company that grows fast, basically?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Do you want to share some examples of what those roles are?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
We actually use the framework from the c e o greenhouse Daniel Cha, who has been developing that framework called Talent Makers, and I found it very inspiring and I use that a lot in terms of how to think about the hiring culture because I think it's quite easy to understand and it really helps people know what kind of roles they can have. And it's not just one role, right? It's not just about, yeah, I'm an interviewer, I'm a hiring manager, but thinking a bit bigger than that, Daniel explained in this framework is that you can be basically a talent leader part of building that hiring culture quite hands-on and really promoting this in terms of how you communicate, what kind of prioritization you do around hiring, making sure that this is aligning throughout the organization. And then there is also this role closer to what he calls a talent magnet.
(09:40):
So creating that environment where also great talent is attracted to common work and that is where you can also use everything that people do basically and really promote that externally, making it attractive and using basically all resources you have and of course people are the best to promote what they are doing and why it's fun to work somewhere. And then there is also this last role called Talent Partners that is basically everyone that ensures that there is the best support and tools around hiring and to make it successful. So that's sort of those three different roles and if you're in ca, you can be a part of different things. If you're hiring manager, it's the same, you sort of jump in between roles, but I think that it's really sort of structure very well with how people should focus on this work.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That's really good way to divide it. I think one thing that I guess sometimes is a challenge is when you put the emphasis that it's only the TA person that can find the candidates and attract the candidates and it's their job to do that, then it's going to be really, really hard to, because you need to share that responsibility and most likely it's not me that will be the most relevant talent magnet, it will be the hiring manager or someone from that team. So when you can nail that, I think that's a massive power to unleash. Did you succeed? Did you have a lot of talent magnets?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
For sure. We had a lot of people that joined because of the people we had in the team, so definitely that was visible and it worked very well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
How did you show them off?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I would say it's more them and being awesome that really attracted people. So it was not really like anything that we've been super loud in or making a ton of marketing, but rather making the process intentional, placing people in different steps of the process where they can really shine and use that leverage. This of course networking as well. A lot of people have been very connected in the talent community, but I think that also, of course they have been promoting us on many occasions during events and conferences and things like that, but I think that at the core of it is simply who they are that made it really successful.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And one thing that strikes me is I'm not sure that we were half as successful at this when you described what you've done when we scale Elva, but anyways, you live and you learn, but one thing that strikes me is how can you be so thoughtful with your strategy and at the same time, I'm assuming you had numbers to hit and people to recruit. How did you do that?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
It was intense but so much fun. I mean the thing is also when you start small and also when you get that chance of doing everything really from scratch, I think that you get so much energy from that. We have been also in a pretty good place when it comes to being able to have also a budget to support purchasing an amazing ATTs very early on, being able to really scale and do the work that is necessary to reach that kind of level and those kinds of successes. So I think that is where we've been lucky, but in parallel, I mean for sure it takes a ton of work. I've been very, both very strategic but also extremely hands-on the first few years hiring myself on a cadence every month because that was obviously what the business did
Speaker 1 (12:59):
For sure. Getting the right tools is for sure an enabler. Do you want to share what a t s did you use in case people want to copy?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Yeah, we use Greenhouse. We have had it since end of 2018 and it's working very, very well. I would say actually a great way to work collaboratively when it comes to hiring, so we can go into more details when it comes to that as well. But super good tool for that
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Follow up question, but setting this hiring strategy, how did that help or hinder the company growth
Speaker 3 (13:28):
When you set up a hiring strategy that is pretty ambitious like that in terms of how we are going to do things and not just looking at, because I think that maybe sometimes what can happen when you start from a very small setup and having big ambitions to grow that is that you sort of get lost maybe in the very hands-on activities and it's like you hire a lot of course, but you lose maybe a bit the division and the higher purpose of TA on a bigger scale. So I think that is where I've really tried to focus on that from the very early days. I also used actually because since we had to design this service from scratch, really I've used design thinking tools to also support that mindset because for me, I also needed something to hold onto to be like, okay, we're going to do this, but I need to also mentally break it down. And because this was pretty huge and that also helped because when presenting to the organization, people have been also I think relating to that work and understanding it a little bit more,
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Never underestimate a powerful presentation of something. That's a good tip actually. How did you and the team manage to clinging onto this strategy when you were working?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Being a small team from the beginning, we were not in the capacity to go up and down so much every month. So we needed to, well constantly deliver each month. So instead we needed to really focus on quality, secure the best hires with basically, well, if you think about it, rather small volumes of interviews and candidates because we were of course networking, sourcing, but at the same time we didn't have a full TA function with people having different roles. We were still in the model where people were doing end-to-end, so this was also a place where we needed to secure the quality because we were not able to beat things with volumes. So that is how we tackled that. I think also that it's been critical to really working at understanding the business and going down to the details of that. So of course that goes in line with also the stakeholder management and our approach to that, but I think that we have been really trying to understand the business from the beginning, which has been also made easy for us because the organization has been very transparent, having all hands the most.
(15:44):
So for us it was also very easy to understand what people were doing and really promote that to different candidates in different ways. But I think that having that very strong business interest and really doing that work has been also a way to be successful in the end and then also as early as we could. That was not something we could do from the very, very start, but shortly after we could also work on the 12 months hiring roadmap and really take that to the next level because we needed to be able to plan and to be able to be more proactive and anticipate future needs and of course hiring for today's needs but also work on the future. So that is also where we've been able to create well transparency and alignment also then when sharing that roadmap with managers and people around the different teams. But I think that those two things were the most important ones.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
And this roadmap, do I understand you correctly that that's a plan for who we hire, how many people we hire? Two, what teams?
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Exactly. And making sure that this is aligned on the company roadmap. So if you think about, okay, let's say now we are transitioning from alpha to beta or now we are actually launching commercially the product, then really aligning those faces with what it means in parallel for ta.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
I love the analogy of in tech you're building two products. I mean that's probably true for every company, but you're building two products. One is the product itself and the other one is the company. And if you can align those two, and I think your example is really, really strong that you could build your roadmap based on the product roadmap. Something that we have tried and I'm not sure how successful we were, but to be a few steps ahead so that we could plan our time. How did you do that? How accurate were that roadmap?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
The thing to make it really as good as it can get is to be always N C A, of course ahead of the product roadmap because you need people to be in to be already onboarded and all of that. So I think that is where of course it takes so much effort to be up to date to make sure you do things with the right timing. And I'm not going to say here that we have nailed this every time. This is not the case, but we've tried anyways to stay as close as possible to the business, really understanding the product and what was coming, taking it from there really. But it is hard and it takes a lot of time to also, because things change all the time. That is the nature of tech companies. So directions can change, features can be prioritized in different ways. So yeah, that is definitely where we stayed close to the managers because they were of course a really good source to know a lot about those things.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
And then I guess you could base it on the product roadmap because you had clear targets of what you wanted to do and I guess also some sort of fairly secure financial situation so you didn't have to bootstrap. Would that be a good Yeah,
Speaker 3 (18:40):
No, and that's right. And here we've been of course in a very privileged situation because we've been able to every year basically, again, when I talk about this 12 months hiring roadmap, I know that's not always possible everywhere. It really depends on financials and how investments happen and things like that. But for us, we sort of had a yearly investment in this organization so we could actually plan ahead because we knew when the money was coming. Of course there was a lot of work put into, well, the business plan and everything that leaders had to present of course to secure that. But at least when this was settled, then we could really plan ahead and do quality work in that sense because we could also do long-term work.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
I love planning. So this kind of makes me drool a little bit. Before you talked about stakeholders, let's talk a little bit more about that. What role would you say the different stakeholders have stakeholder management had throughout this process?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
We of course had stakeholders that were involved in more of the company direction. Then of course for us having input for workforce planning, the hiring roadmap and so on. We had stakeholders that were very key players well in the hiring process, interviewing, promoting the company in different ways. And then we had also, you always get also leaders that are maybe a little bit more informal leaders in an organization, but also can give you so much information. It's important to not miss them, understand who they are, what they do, and make sure that they are kept in the loop also for different updates.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And how do you do that? It sounds so easy to like, oh, you need to practice stakeholder management, but what did that mean for you at Volvo Car Mobility on a Tuesday?
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I would say a great start of course is to have regular check-ins. Different of course when you start a new recruitment, having your kickoff meeting and things like that. But I think that for us, we tried to take it to a bit of another level and really try to understand how people were thinking and how they were also having challenges or different realities and always also trying to be sometimes that actor in terms of how the information was being shared in the company and also sometimes making others aware of different things because how rare is it that when you talk about hiring a role, you realize that another team is maybe sometimes also planning for the same thing but with a different title, sometimes slightly a different scope. So I think that sometimes you also catch those things when you do this work. And that is also what is so interesting here, because you can really see also the value of what you do of course.
(21:17):
But I think that nurturing those connections, understanding their challenges, anticipating the hiring needs based on just what they say. Sometimes they might not have thought, yeah, I need this person now in my team, but sort of having an understanding of, okay, there is maybe a hole here, something that we will need to take care of in the future. Sort of having that understanding quite early on I think is important and really trying to, well also get that information because at the end of the day you will use it and being able to present it to candidates, and this is the most accurate way I would say, to also really promote the brand and do good work when it comes to talent acquisition, to never promote something that is not true or not aligned with what the reality is actually about.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
That's what makes it so complex. You have to know so much because you need the bits and pieces of information that maybe you don't even know that you needed it or wanted it until you have it, which makes it fun. But also challenging. I guess that also leads us into the positioning of you and your team internally. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, we've done a lot of work to be extremely visible in this organization. I think that at some point last year it was in 2022, that was the year when we hired the most ever, I think internally. And people could look right, left up, down, it didn't matter. They were just C T A I think at some point. And I'm very proud of that together with the rest of the team because I think that was amazing to reach that kind of level because then you become this strategic business partner within the organization and you have that position and you gain that trust because also you are almost successful when you work that way, which makes you in return also more involved and more connected. And people will come to you when they need advice on, okay, but how does the market look like? Or Oh, I have this recruitment and now I'm making an offer. What do you say about salaries and things like that. So I think that being in charge and proactive really helps in being invited also to those tables. And I think that this has been also a lot of the work we've done when it comes to positioning.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I mean you mentioned trust and if you don't have the trust from the hiring manager or the overall organization, you're just not going to be able to have the same kind of impact. And I guess, I don't know, to some extent it's like a catch 22 because if you don't have the trust, you won't be able to gain the trust either because then you won't be invited and then you can't prove yourself. So I guess it's on one hand you need to take every opportunity you can to really prove the value and deliver high quality. But on the other hand, how do you get your foot in the door? I mean, you were a new team altogether, a new company. How did you manage to actually position the TA team in such a favorable role?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
From my side, I mean it took a bit of coaching to really get the team to see the value of working that way. And I think especially for sometimes people that can come from bigger organizations where they have maybe not been as visible in their previous roles, I think that has been for them a really interesting learning curve. And I think also a lot of fun because being more in charge and more in control also of what you do, I think it's very rewarding because when you succeed then it's all your own work that is paying off. So I think that yeah, definitely a lot has been done there, but I think when you really work on recruitments, you know how to build really robust talent pipelines, you work proactively with future needs that you anticipate. I mean it has not been rare that sometimes we've been in contact with people for a year, sometimes even two years.
(25:04):
I have one person in mind that, yeah, we checked in that was not exactly the right time, the right role, but let's keep in touch. This is very exciting and very interesting, so let's take it from there next time. And then in a sudden you have this perfect role for them and sometimes the timing is just right and the stars just align. And from there, when you come to sometimes a kickoff meeting because you know will now hire a certain role and you can already come with a name and this person is amazing, that is exciting and that is what we've actually managed to reach as a level roster. So I was very proud of how the team has been doing this because this takes a lot of work, sort of like being everywhere to be able to catch those things and having also very good memory obviously, but it is extremely rewarding when those things work
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Proactivity at its finest. We've talked about how you kind of set the strategy, how you and the team positioned yourself and made the most of that strategy with your stakeholders. Looking back at the process now, what's your learnings? What were the main challenges that you faced through this setting of the process of the hiring strategy?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Consider how much the company has changed in during those five years, how much the product was also evolving during this time and growing a lot, reaching almost 200 people recently. I think that the biggest thing has been to always ask ourselves how do we do to remain relevant? And how do we make sure that all this time we continue the attention on the right things, also the right side projects sometimes as well in parallel to really support the bigger thing we were trying to achieve. So I think that the challenges there have been common ones. If you think about industry standards, I think that one of them is of course, how do you help an organization commit to D N I work and build that skilled diverse team. I think that here, one of the solutions we've looked into was well show the data of the hiring pipeline, really remind people of maybe certain groups of candidates all dropping in the same place in your hiring process and act on that basically and really show, okay, this is what is happening, what do you think is at stake here?
(27:25):
Things like that. Also make the organization aware of why you do this and why and communicate on the reasons and why it's so crucial for the business. Another thing, I think that was one of the challenges for us was how to cope in peak periods and also when plans have changed. So I think that for us, a big lesson from the time in 20 21, 20 22 when obviously so many people were hiring so much has been to look into how can you build a team and make it as scalable as possible when necessary. And also it's not just about the team, it's also about the ways of working and really questioning those aspects for us. We've also tried at times to decentralize part of the work that we were doing, tried to also involve others in different parts of the process. That can be, for example, for a little additional sourcing done by the hiring managers in parallel of what you also do in TA for them to make sure that if you have maybe an offer acceptance rate that is maybe going down a little bit, that you act on it quite quickly and you just maybe arrange those last half an hour career talks at the end of the process just to make sure that everything is aligned with the candidate just before sharing the offer and you're not trying to be proactive with those kinds of situations.
(28:44):
And then I think that's definitely retention. I mean now it's maybe a problem that depending on the hiring context in different industries but also in different companies, the situation can be very different out there and it's a case to case situation. But I think that for us anyways, during the last few years, this has also been a topic because we were growing from sort of startup to scale up and don't necessarily have the same people to do the work in those different phases. So also a natural change happens after a while. And for us, this put of course a lot of pressure on TA at times because we had added volumes of replacements that we could not always anticipate in the best way. So I think that is also something that could be looked into
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Very philosophical question here, but retention at all costs, is that a good thing? I mean I really hear that we want high retention because we want to keep the talent and we don't want to spend time back solving or backfilling, et cetera, et cetera, but can a healthy number of retention actually be beneficial? I don't know. How did you discuss retention?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
So for us, retention has been not something that has been entirely in the TA team, but also responsibility shared with the rest of the people team. But I think that as you say, some level of change is normal and of course should be also accepted. And because it can of course be a good thing, but it depends really on the numbers. For us, we saw that there was anyways a bit too high of a rate at some point given also if you look at the average tenure in the job, yes things change fast, but still people sometimes didn't stay long either. So using exit interviews to really understand the issues and really act trying to act on that in the best way.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Elise, we have danced around the topic of the hiring managers and how we can turn them into talent magnets and how important they are. How do you align the process so that you can really to gather with the hiring manager, make sure that you have high quality candidates.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
We use those structured update meetings. So we sort of try to decide in the TA team what information do we need on a regular basis from different parts of the organization. And people were taking responsibility for having those meetings in different forums. So having that kind of structure approach to updates and getting the information was definitely something that has worked for us. We also of course had structured kickoff meetings when having new recruitments on our table trying to understand what level of partnership could we expect to know and sharing mutual expectations. They also working quite transparently for them to know what your day looks like and for you to also know what their day is like. So I think that is super important to have this really two-way street. And I think to get there, well we communicated quite consistently and we were focusing on what we are doing in the TA team, trying for them to understand the reality of the job.
(31:56):
Otherwise what do people think? They think about people on Monday morning coming for their first day and for them that's hiring. But to get there, think about all the work that is happening ahead of that. And of course it's fantastic to have a new colleague, but there is so much work put into one successful hire. So I think that is really a reality that people need to really share and also for them to be critical towards the volumes they need to put in. If you need to hire to introduce, sorry, 25 people for one hire, well there is an issue there obviously that is unfortunately not following industry standards. So really trying to, going into the details of that and being critical and acting on, okay, if maybe something is not great in let's say the technical interviews or the TA interviews, well then really trying to understand why is that and acting on the issues you will identify.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
And you mentioned having those regular follow-up meetings or sharing information, getting the information that you needed, what were the bullet points that you made sure to always cover?
Speaker 3 (33:06):
What was highly prioritized in the team, what people were doing.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
And when you say team there you mean the hiring team or the team that you were hiring for?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
The team we were in contact with. Sometimes we're even having updates without necessarily hiring. And I think that's also very important. So really keeping those updates at all times. So trying to understand their prioritization, trying to understand what will come for them in the next few months. Do they have of course anybody that might leave the team or might be moving to another team that can also happen. So sort of really anticipating those kinds of things, especially in the context of product teams where things can change fast or competencies need to move for different reasons. So I think that is definitely things that we need to be aware of in the teams. So anticipating people dropping and if there is more work all in a salon because maybe something in the product is not always working super well and that requires extra work, how do you make sure that this is also covered?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
So finger on the pulse at all time regardless if you were hiring not that's a tip to still with pride. So you talked a little bit about how you set the strategy, how did it improve over time? How did you ensure learnings and incorporating those learnings?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
So for us, securing the change in hiring was definitely hard because sometimes we realized that we improved something and then six months later we realized, oh no, we are back in square one. When it comes to something that can be, for example, let's say you managed to do the work with hiring managers for them to consider maybe more junior profiles for example, for a role because it could be considered in a certain period. But then six months later realized that no, now requirements are very long in the job ads and you are looking for those people that basically don't exist. That happened quite a lot and we realized that of course it's very frustrating because you think that you've managed to improve something to secure the change, but then in the end it's the setback. And when we tried to change something, we really started by thinking, okay, what is the desired change?
(35:16):
And over time we were I think doing a lot better to also gather those promoters around us, having those people that will make the change happen and then it won't just be us asking for that change, but it would be also other people believing in it and why we're doing this and creating that vision internally. So I think that then it's easier for them to also gather others to join us on the mission. And so we've actually done that and this worked quite well to support the change over time. And we made sure of course to demonstrate our commitment ourselves towards that change because of course you need to lead by example and really believe in what you do. But I think that this has been working quite well. And then of course communicating successes, celebrating them, making people proud of what they have achieved I think is very important. So that is also something that we use those cases that works so well afterwards to be able to also encourage people to take the chance again.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
And if we take a step back and think about the people that will now want to implement the hiring strategy or improve theirs or whatever the scenario is, what would you say are the headlines? What is it that a good hiring strategy should cover?
Speaker 3 (36:36):
I think it should be very strongly to win as an organization, you need to win with people. So you need to really make sure that your hiring strategy is highly prioritized that people on C-level talk about it, commit to that work together with you, and really make sure that they are part of that picture as well. You can look into fancy tools and amazing ways of doing things, but at the end of the day you need to really secure that collaboration, that partnership, build that trust. And from there I would be surprised that the strategy doesn't work as long as it's aligned with the business.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
And then I think that's a great thing. But if we then dive even more like concrete, should it cover who you should hire? In what way from what's a pool diversity, what are the must haves?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Definitely focusing on building a diverse team. It's so important. We will build a better product, build a better team, a more enjoyable culture for everybody. I think that is so important. I think that making sure that people know who is taking care of what kind of recruitments and using those trains also in the TA team and those networks that you have also outside of the TA team. So I think that making it clear who is going to do, what's the purpose of each step of the process that people find clarity in this work and what their role is, again, I think is so important.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Great answer. And I think it's, it's so much about setting the expectations, right? I know one thing that we've been discussing internally is who do we hire based on how long we want people to stay in our talent strategy we have the goal is that you should stay at about four, at least four years. And during those four years should have at least two different roles, meaning we want people to stay longer than the average. Where average in Stockholm right now is like three-ish years and I think it's decreasing and we also want people to grow here, hence the at least two roles. And then my job has been a lot about, okay, how do I then optimize for that? So it has so many implications, but we've had the discussion of is that the same for everyone? Should we specify it more for different roles? I think it has implications, but at least in my mind it's helpful that you spell it out. What is it that we expect? Because it's going to be easier to know who can I look for and who shouldn't I look for and what expectations do I set on the candidate and what do I inform them on. Is there any one of those pieces of the puzzle that you felt helped you the team more so than others?
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I think so. I think that core values definitely concept that for us helped a lot. We could refer to that with the candidates and really this is actually something that has been rolled out this year, so we have not used it for so long, but this has been anyways, adding clarity I think for people to know who are you if you join this company and what should you believe in on a certain level. So I think that has definitely been helpful for us.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
What sort of tools or strategies are crucial for maintaining a sustainable hiring strategy
Speaker 3 (39:57):
For us right now? I think that it's very important to look into new innovative tools. Like for example, AI has been something that a lot of people have talked about recently and having used it myself quite a bit in the recent months, I think this is definitely something that can really enhance the work we do in ta. Of course everything needs to be double-check. Still a lot of work is required, but I think that at this point we can see anyways how fast it's also improving and really see this as I think a really big opportunity to optimize our time and really focus on those high value tasks instead. And also what we find most interesting, I think also that to set up that strategy and work on collaboration, investing in great A t s is making such a big difference. It is of course a bit of a cost, but you will hire probably less people in the TA team and grow more in a more mindful way probably, and trying to be a bit focused on what you truly need to succeed. And also keeping things to a reasonable level. Sorry,
Speaker 1 (41:02):
I don't know what I would do. Can you even do hiring without a well structured A T Ss? I don't know what that even looks like.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
No, that's true. But I know a team's struggling with that.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, that feels like a nightmare. So you said that you used ai. Do you want to share the most helpful use case that you have seen or tried with AI within hiring?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
I mean, I think everybody has tried to write a job, has tried to see test a bit, email outreaches to candidates coordination tasks, also trying, okay, you have an agenda for a certain meeting, how can you make it better? Maybe also using it for interview questions you need to, for example, you have this interview and you know will really focus on let's say leadership. What kind of questions can you try to elaborate for that? I think that again, you will need still to work on everything that is being produced, but you will anyways get I think a really good base to get started. So I think there are so many examples. Also assessments, actually technical assessments. You can actually at this point put together a job skills case and really try to test the person from a case that has been actually done by ai. So many cases really
Speaker 1 (42:24):
One aspect I'm looking forward to really trying out a lot more is how can we, as you say, use it for cases but also score and draw conclusions on my interview notes so that I can use that for the personalized feedback. So how can it help me take the most important bullet points and sum that up and stuff like that. So it's an interesting evolution for sure. El Liz, final question. What would you say to someone that's now creating their first or second or third or 10th hiring strategy? What's your best advice?
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Be ambitious, I think is the first thing that comes to mind. I think that you will never regret thinking big when it comes to the potential of people that you will bring in. So I think that aim for as good as you can when building a hiring strategy and aim for that quality. Do that work that you might think, ah, I'm going too much into the details. It will pay off, it will really pay off. And that I think I cannot emphasize this enough because for us having that business understanding and really making the most of it to promote the jobs, the company and trying to make the most of that I think has been really fantastic and successful in the end.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Amen. Okay, so let's close this podcast with let's go out and be ambitious. Elise, thank you for joining. It was a pleasure talking to you. Hope to continue this conversation now. Off the record,
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Thank you so much line. This was a lot of fun it.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Bye.
