Hello social media followers, LinkedIn, Facebook, and everyone tuning into our show. Welcome to Beyond the Offer podcast. I am your host Bill Gates and joined by my cohost and friend, Rosanna Snediker. Thank you for tuning in as we tackle the latest trends and challenges in talent acquisition and human resources.
I am pleased to be joined by Sakena Gardner, who is the head of talent at Revecore, which is a company that combines advanced technology that helps healthcare companies and hospitals simplify their revenue collection process. Sakena has led talent acquisition with many different companies, including Lenovo, TransUnion, and Numerator.
Sakena is an exceptional HR and talent leader who has transformed recruiting within progressive companies, and she sets the bar high on the best ways to acquire and retain talent with other organizations. We are thrilled to have you join our podcast. Sakena welcome to Beyond the Offer.
Thanks. Thanks so much. It’s good to be here. So tell us, how did you get into talent acquisition? I know every recruiter has their own maybe story about how did you kind of fall into it like a lot of folks or how did you get into to TA? I did. I did. I wanted to be a lawyer. My mom thought I had quite the mouth on me.
I wanted to be a lawyer, but, you know, the path led me differently and it was interesting. My mom was seeking employment and partnered with an agency, a staffing agency to find employment. And so it was the first time I really had a chance to see a recruiter at work. And my mom said, you know, maybe you should talk to this lady and see if maybe she can help you find something, something great.
And I’ll never forget the conversation. She asked me, “What is it that you want to do?” And I said, “I don’t know, what you do looks cool.” And I say that, you know, lighthearted now, but really the partnership that she had with my mom, I mean, it ultimately changed the trajectory of our path.
She helped my mom find an incredible opportunity that just afforded us more opportunity. And so, you know, while I can say what she did look cool, I developed a newfound respect for the industry in recruitment and became interested in it at that point. If you go back to when paper resumes were a thing and people were mailing their resumes, I did.
I said, you know, I’m ready to do this. And I sent my resume to all of the staffing agencies in the county I lived in back in Michigan at the time. And I landed my 1st recruitment role with the staffing agency that my mom found that opportunity with. So it all kind of came full circle. How cool. How cool. Was it everything you kind of expected when you first started off or, you know, was it as glorified, I mean, changing career paths from a lawyer to a recruiter, talk about a different path you’re going down, but was it exactly what you expected?
Yeah, yeah. And thinking of being a lawyer, I was pretty, pretty young and didn’t quite understand how much reading was required to become a master in that field. But, I enjoy connecting with people. And for me, connecting people with opportunities, especially opportunities that maybe they didn’t even know existed, is incredibly fulfilling.
So yes, it was everything that I hoped it would be, and I can still say that today, decades later. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s great. And also, I love that printing out your resume and sending it to all the agencies. In today’s world, people probably don’t know what that was like, but I love that that’s how you started out. So you’ve led talent acquisition with private equity organizations. You’ve also led TA for PE owned companies. How have you seen that relationship between the portfolio companies and the holding companies impact talent acquisition when there is investment in the company? I think my experience actually working in the PE space gives me a bit of a unique perspective.
So I got to see a little bit of the behind the curtains and I have a ton of respect for individuals in the PE world. So the operating partners that I work with are just incredibly smart people. Many of them came from this space, so they were bringing experience and expertise to our portfolio companies. And so just as I interact with individuals from PE companies today, and the companies that I work for that are PE backed, I just, I have a level of respect and really look to them for guidance. And part of that comes from, I know that their primary objective is creating value in the company.
And so, while change can be difficult, right? And challenging, and some PE partners are more involved or hands on than others, the end goal is to really add value. And so for me, I’m interested in that. And so I can say that I haven’t had any challenges, but again, I think my perspective is unique given my time in the PE space.
Yeah, it’s great that you’ve seen it from both sides because you know what it’s like to be on the PE side, but also on the side that the company is getting the investment from. Well, good transition here, too. I mean, you’ve also led talent acquisition and diversity inclusion, you know, within some of these organizations as well.
What challenges have you experienced between I know there’s kind of a polarizing relationship sometimes between diversity, inclusion and recruiting, but how do you balance the two, right? Between the relationship within recruiting and then also bringing in talent, diverse talent into an organization?
Yeah. It’s interesting that you say it can be polarizing. I think when it’s done well, it is an embedded part of the TA process. And I understand that that is easier said than done, right? But when we’re thinking about increasing diversity of our organizations, and I’m going to say that differently, we should be thinking about increasing diversity of our organizations. That should just be a part of what we do.
It’s really about, how and where are we attracting talent? So are we widening our talent pools? Are we meeting different perspectives where they are? And how are we thinking about diversity? Is it through a narrow lens or is it truly wide? And we’re looking at all dimensions of diversity and increasing that within our organizations.
I think TA leaders who get it right build that strategy from the very top of the funnel which just allows for a steadier stream, if you will, of diversity coming into your pipeline. I think where it becomes a challenge is really in how we’re thinking about what good looks like.
Today I’ll see job postings where there’s this beautiful statement about how companies value and appreciate diversity and they’re championing the effort. And then in their job postings, I can see where they’re targeting very specific, like top schools and universities or top consulting firms or specific employers.
And I think to myself, you’re contradicting yourself. And I say that because, you know, that’s really the opposite of opening up the talent pool, right? You’re very narrowly focusing on a specific space or a specific school. And so you’re narrowing your opportunity to identify diverse talent. How is typically like KPIs? Because I would imagine, you know, when you set the diversity inclusion strategy, you’re trying to cast, as you said, build this big net, get the funnel in and open up, from any gender, racial, diversity, et cetera.
But like, are there KPI? Like, how do a lot of these organizations identify those? And then also because there’s a bar of talent, right? Level for and every hiring manager we know can be a little bit different in certain expectations. But how do you measure those KPIs in the DEI space? Yeah, so you can look at it two different ways.
Excuse me. You can look at it at your top of funnel and so, if you’re measuring the diversity within your organization based on your geographic location or US population or the industry in which you work, it just depends on how aggressive companies are looking to make progress. But you would want to make sure that your top of funnel is helping you to achieve that, right? And so if you’re looking at increasing veterans within the organization, for example, or individuals with different abilities, right? Then you would want to make sure that at top of funnel, you’re bringing in a variety of individuals that you can consider for opportunities to align with that dimension of diversity.
And then throughout that, right? How are you considering those individuals? Are they getting fair and equal opportunity throughout your recruitment process? And then ultimately, as you look at the demographics of your organization year over year, are you seeing a shift? If yes, is what you’re doing working? If no, should you be doing something different, right? So really just kind of challenging and ensuring that you’re making progress. That the actions that you’re taking at the top of the funnel are ultimately contributing to the shift in your organization. The one call out that I will make,
and I will say this and scream this from the top of, the high rises in Chicago. It’s important that we aren’t driving or pushing that decision at the hiring step. Right. So it’s, I’ll hear people say we’re looking to hire more of X, Y and Z. And when you say that, I think it does rub people the wrong way, right?
We shouldn’t be making hiring decisions based on any of those demographics, but we absolutely should be ensuring that we’re bringing talent into our pipeline that will be considered for opportunities that are, you know, different from a background and experiences, and perspectives.
Have you dealt with it like with from a recruiting perspective? I mean, recruiters obviously, when you’re working on a particular job, their jobs pretty difficult a lot of times with hiring managers just in general. But is there a lot of pushback when you’re not only giving them say, “Hey, here are your qualifications you need, but we also need, here’s our diversity inclusion strategy”.
Have you dealt with recruiters that felt frustrated in that process? Yeah, I think so because you’re sort of pushing recruiters to think about how they’re sourcing and where they’re promoting their opportunities differently. So, the recruiters who focus on post and pray and hope that a variety of different perspectives just comes through their ATS, like those recruiters are going to have a bit, a bit of a challenge, right?
Because we’ve got to think about, what are the different schools where the demographics of the university are more diverse than others? And how are we ensuring that our brand is present in those areas? Or what organizations are we partnering with that will help supplement where the talent just isn’t coming to us.
And so it does push recruiters to think strategically about those things, which doesn’t come easy, especially, early in your career. And if this is a new conversation for you. I will say though, just in my experience, the resistance was often directly tied to it just being a new concept.
But once it’s truly embedded into just how teams operate and that is sort of the expectation and the resources are available. That’s another thing. It just becomes a part of what the teams do. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you see the DEI strategy come better from HR or from the business? I mean, a mix of both, but like where it actually sits in the organization.
Curious where that’s most successful. It’s most successful when it comes from the business and when the leaders of the organizations are excited about it. Because it’s not easy, right? Especially when you’re looking to hire and you’re looking to hire quickly. You know, leaders who have been in rule for some time, they’re generalizing of course, but very used to hiring what they believe good looks like and good looks like who has pretty consistently been in the roles that they’re hiring for. And so when you’re looking to shift that and have people think about what good looks like differently, it requires some change in thinking.
And one of the things that I’ve been surprised about just over the years, right? We’ll say the last 10 years or so, is just how deeply embedded unconscious bias is and just how we operate. I think we talk about it and people get it. But there are times where I have to check and say, wait a minute, I just had this conversation with this individual. I’m not, I’ve seen the resume, the resume looks great. They said all the right things, but there’s just something that’s off. And I have to walk away from that and say, okay, Sakena, what is it? What is it that’s holding you back?
Right. And how can I challenge myself to really push beyond that sort of emotional gut, that I have used maybe in the past to make hiring decisions. And so when you can get hiring leaders to think about that in that way, it really does help to make progress. It’s just, it’s a muscle that is, is not readily used.
And so having the conversations openly and honestly and transparently as I’m doing here today, is really important for leaders to just understand, that they aren’t unique in how they’re thinking about hiring and how they’re defining, like I said, what good looks like. But there are other ways to think about it as well. Yeah. Well, and you said it, I mean, what you said is spot on. I think we all just have to remind ourselves, check ourselves why are we thinking this way and kind of take a step back. So that’s all great perspective. To shift gears a bit and just talk about the ups and downs of the market that we’ve seen in recruiting in the past few years.
You know, there’s been numerous companies where I’m sure you’ve experienced high growth, but maybe not enough recruiters to account for the new job openings. How do you meet the ups and downs of the job market, but also keep your hiring managers happy with the appropriate candidate volume and flow that they’re looking for when things can shift super quickly in today’s market that we’re seeing?
Yeah, I found success in and staying close and this is going to sound very, it’ll sound like I’m oversimplifying a bit, but, I found success was staying close to where the business is going. And what I mean by that is, the times where I’ve been able to anticipate or know or foresee how the business is shifting, I’ve been able to get in front of the recruitment needs.
And so, significant investment initiatives, we’re ramping up and we’re building out, fill in the blank team, understanding what that looks like from a hiring perspective, I’ve been able to go back and say, okay, well here is what our function is producing today. With this increased volume, here’s the gap, right?
Whether it’s a half a resource or a full resource. And if we’re investing in this effort and we’re standing behind it, we absolutely need to support an investment in a recruiting resource to support the ramp. And so having those conversations early on has allowed me to be set up for success.
Now, you know, there has absolutely been times where I’ve been caught off guard and have made some decisions and now here we are. And now my recruiters have doubled the volume that they had. And we’re just literally thinking how the heck are we going to support this? There’s a couple ways in which I’ve handled that.
One is absolutely being transparent with the business on what our priorities are. So just ensuring that there’s alignment on what we are focusing on and how we’re aligning our resources to support that, where there are gaps that create business challenges, then we have to look at resourcing.
And so I’ve been known to call up Bill and say, “Hey Bill, this is what we need. This is what we’re challenged with”. And even that. Right. In some cases it’s, hey, you know, we have five roles. Can we talk about how we can partner with someone from the team to support those for us. Or it’s, hey, I really need a resource that can add as an extension of our team.
Who do you have that can support that? And even that looks differently, right? It could be just peer sourcing support and identifying potential leads or it could be someone running a search full cycle for us as a representative of our team. So there’s a variety of ways to do that.
I’d say the closer we as talent leaders are to the business and understanding what’s coming ahead, the better we’re prepared to support those. Yeah. The proactiveness with the hiring managers, and like you said, having a good partner that you can bounce ideas off of and figure out what the best solution is helps a ton.
How do you, when things are hiring for scale, extremely busy, things come in quickly, and maybe you do have to be a bit more reactive, how do you do that without reducing the quality of the candidates and just that experience? Yeah. I think the branding of the TA team is important.
And so being a team that is known for quality versus quantity is important. I’ve worked with managers before and I think most TA folks have where, you know, they want options, right? They want to see more and more. Where you can brand your TA team as one that is going to provide and whatever that metric is for your function or that works well for your function.
It’s, you know, five candidates for a search, right? That is the target. We then go and we talk through each one of those candidates and identify who are the top contenders, right? And so just establishing that upfront is important. And when you brand yourself as a team that prioritizes quality over quantity, it’s important that you’re aligned at what quality looks like, right?
And so what are the core requirements that your managers are looking for where they will feel comfortable with making a decision based on seeing four of the top candidates in your search. And so I think that’s important. The screening process is of course key, right? The leaders need to feel comfortable that the recruiters can identify and can suss out who is qualified for the role and who’s a great culture add for the team. And so all of that has to be in place, but I think just focusing on the quality is incredibly important and you can go fast, right? So once you’ve established those parameters and you’re aligned with what quality is, you have that sourcing strategy, that talent attraction strategy to bring the individuals into your pipeline and then it’s vetting and screening. Again, I ‘m sounding like I’m oversimplifying it, but that alignment with the leader on what quality looks like and the attraction strategy to help bring that into your pipeline is going to be key. Yep. All makes sense. Well, something that we’ve talked about before, Sakena, too, but process also is something that’s always a hot topic in recruiting.
You know, the hiring process, how many steps are too much versus where do you insert an assessment or a screen in order to identify the right candidates? How do you approach and how do you approach, yourself or members on your team and balancing enough steps? But not too many to where the candidate has a poor interview process experience, in that sense.
Yeah. So my thoughts on this have shifted over the past few years, I think, just given the remote environment that we’re in today. If you had asked me this question four years ago, five years ago, I probably would have given you very rigid numbers like for individual contributor, no more than three.
And an experienced professional, no more than four. I would have been more rigid about it. Given the remoteness of how many of us are still working today, I think what’s most important is that the candidate and the hiring team approach the interview process in a way where they get the most value out of it, right?
So each one of those conversations should be intentional. Each person who’s on the interview panel should be intentional. And so the way that I look at it is, who are the stakeholders for the success of this role? Who are the individuals who are impacted if this person isn’t successful? And those are the individuals who should be on the panel.
Now generally speaking, it probably does align to maybe what those rigid numbers would have been five years ago that I would have told you. But I am more flexible now. As long as the interview process is organized. What I mean by that is, I don’t want the candidate to have an experience where they’re having the same conversation four times, right?
Or they’re answering the same question five times, or they aren’t hearing anything different from anyone. And so I would ask the leader, who are the key individuals to ensure this person’s success? There are times where I will push back and say, tell me more about this individual.
And then I stack where I can. So where we can have a couple of individuals on a call with the candidate, we’ll absolutely do that. Where I will draw the line though, is once it gets to seven or eight conversations, it’s like, okay. Now, because what we do want to avoid is the process being burdensome on the candidate. And then two, presenting ourselves as an organization who can’t make decisions, right?
Or who’s indecisive. So that’s not a very direct answer, but I would say that it’s what’s most important is that every single conversation or person that the candidate interacts with, it should be with intentionality and purpose. And the candidate should walk away knowing more or something different about the organization. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it’s always tough too. I mean hypothetically, I’m sure you’ve gotten into a circumstance to where you’ve had, let’s say a great candidate right out of the gate, but they’ve got multiple other things that are going on. That’s the 1st person the hiring manager is seen and they want to see comparisons or they want to see, you know, right it’s only the first person. How do you keep that person warm? I think is what we usually say. How do you get them to still be interested in it? Because it’s a lot like recruiting is a lot like dating, right? It’s like, if you don’t hear from somebody you went on a date after, and you don’t hear from for a few weeks, three weeks, you’re like, oh, I think I become way less interested.
How do you manage that process when candidates aren’t really at the same stage in the interview process to kind of keep people engaged and interested? It’s all about setting expectations. And this is a reason why I am a huge fan of candidate slates. I Have been there where you know the first person you talk to seems great and you’re like, oh, but I really want to see-
I want to see more, right. And so I like going into a search and advise my teams when they’re going into a search. You set the expectation right up front to say, listen, it takes about two weeks to ramp up a good pipeline of candidates. And so, week one, we’ll have a calibration. I’ll show you a little bit of who I’m targeting, right, to ensure that we’re aligned. By week two is when I’ll likely have some individuals to actually present to you.
And by then you have a couple individuals that you’re able to. And so it’s not the one, and then the wait, but you’re managing it such that you’re presenting a slate, which also going back to our earlier conversation allows you to ensure that you’re thinking about the diversity mix of the candidates that you’re presenting.
And so I like it that way. The other thing is setting the expectations with the candidate on where you are in the process right up front. We’re very early on. This is what the end to end process looks like so that they can then reconcile that in their mind and say, okay, this is the investment that I’m going to make in pursuing this opportunity. Or they at that point can tell you like this is either not the right fit, or I have something else is moving quickly, which then it allows you to adjust.
But it’s all about expectation setting up front. Yeah, 100%. And being able to continually, you know, let people know where things are in the process. I know candidates are always saying no news or no change is better than not hearing from recruiters. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. So hopefully we have a lot of recruiters listening, but we wanted to have a question kind of geared towards advice for them. So we have seen some companies slow down with hiring. What advice would you give folks that are TA professionals on other projects they can get involved in, whether it is TA focused, HR, or even just raise their hand of, you know, other skill sets that may be aligned to the business that they can jump into whenever recruiting slows down to help secure their job if there is a dip?
So for recruiters, I think it’s important that we are always thinking about how we broaden our skill set and what value are we adding to the business beyond the recruiting function.
And I say that because, as you mentioned, when business slows down, when hiring slows down specifically, companies do have to look at, is the investment that we’re making in these particular resources, the right investment? Individuals who are showing interest in how the business runs, how it operates and supporting cross functional efforts that have a business impact are really setting themselves up for sustained employment during uncertain times.
And so I would say, if anyone’s in a recruiting role today and they are heads down laser focused on recruiting and don’t have visibility to, or aren’t touching projects or efforts outside of recruiting, now is the time to raise your hand to work on something beyond the TA function.
And what I would say about that too is, ensure that you’re aligning your things that have true business impact. And so how will the business be better because of the project or the work that you are performing? The second thing that I would say on that is during slow times, this was honestly a lesson learned for me, is when our teams are working on projects or efforts that are bettering the business
I mean, those slow periods are the times when it’s good to do your housekeeping, right. Or your process improvements or piloting a new process within your function. You want to make sure you’re marketing those things. Right. So, the folks in the business should understand that you’re utilizing this time to sharpen the sword of the team and ensure that on the other side of the slow down, you are better prepared to partner in a stronger, better, faster way. And so those conversations should be happening with the business, across the HR functions, certainly with HR leadership. They should understand that during this period of slow time, here’s how we’re maximizing this time and making an impact on the operation so that we can set this function up for better success after.
I love the advice to like start those conversations now, not whenever the recs slow down. It’s something that you want to be thinking about while you’re still recruiting and just getting ahead of that versus waiting until things are slow. Well, we’d like to now wrap up with our unfiltered HR question segment, which is where we ask our guests a little bit less formal or more uncomfortable questions.
So, you know, COVID and this whole remote versus non remote piece has always been a really hot topic ever since COVID happened, but there’s always going to be challenging hiring managers and senior leaders who have unrealistic expectations of finding the right candidates and how often they need to come into a particular office.
If you were the CEO of a company which didn’t have any recruiting in place and you were tasked with doubling the company in size and creating rules on how often employees would actually need to be in the office, what remote hybrid in office rules would you set? And how would you strategically plan to double that employee company size at the same time?
Ooh, that’s a doozy. That’s a doozy. So I’m CEO and I’m doubling the company in size. So I think remote first is the way to go. And I’m not only saying that because I am an introvert, and I love working remote. I just, I think we’ve proven that we can do it. And I have been surprised by some of the return to office mandates.
And I just, I think about the impact that that has on culture of the company, on families and how they manage. And so all that to say, I mean, for me, it would certainly be a remote first hiring strategy. If I don’t have a recruiting team in place, I’m certainly hiring a strong recruiting team first.
I think having a strong recruiting team and an HR function that really helps you define what the culture of the organization that you’re growing should look like and feel like is important and to be able to represent that with talent and just really help kind of build processes to help you to sustain that and grow that is important.
So I’d certainly start with hiring those folks. I do though, and I joke that I’m an introvert, but I do see the value in people coming together. Like there is magic that happens when you get people in a room to talk about what’s on their wishlist for their team or their function or their product, right? There’s magic that happens where relationships are built and developed when people come together and engagement is increased. And so, with the remote first strategy, I would certainly target specific markets. So just have people where they can just easily come together quickly. I think that’s important.
And so, for me, it would be less about the number of days that people are in office and if it’s a Monday or Tuesday or who’s swiping what badges I wouldn’t get into all of that. I focus on hiring the right people. I’d focus on investing in our leaders. I think some of the struggles that companies have seen with remote workforces has been less about any quiet quitting or people not being engaged.
I think it’s an opportunity for us to invest in our leadership, in our management teams to ensure that they understand how to lead employees during or in this remote environment. And so, how are they setting very clear expectations, managing to those and keeping employees engaged and feeling like where they’re working is a great place to work.
I can’t say enough about that. So investing in managers and then ensuring that folks can get together, you know, when it’s appropriate. So anytime we’re talking about planning, anytime we’re talking about problems or challenges that we’re facing, those conversations just kind of riff off of each other.
And like I said, magic happens. And so I would make sure that there were opportunities for folks to do that. Do you think- one last question here in regard to the lot of the companies that have mandated bringing people back into the office five days a week. If you had to guess percentage wise, like how much of the candidate pool population do you think you cut out by mandating a five day in the office work week for a company?
Oh, that’s a good question. I would be, I would be guessing. But what I can tell you is that a very large percentage of the individuals that are applying for our roles are individuals who are facing those return to office mandates, whether it’s one day or two days or five days or even in some cases, folks are being asked to relocate for their employers.
We’re a remote first organization for most of our roles, right. There are always those roles that do require an on site presence. And so because of that, we are attracting talent from, you know, frankly, some pretty impressive talent competitors. And I think that our approach to our people working and doing their best from the comfort of their own home, I think it’s really driving some of that.
So I’d be guessing to estimate, you know, how much people are losing or any of that. But I can tell you that a good percentage of our talent’s coming from companies who are mandating return to office. Yeah. I’ve always guessed it’s about 80, 90%, honestly. Because I think that if you do five days a week, I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s like having a location that is two hours away. It’s never going to necessarily work and people are going to eventually be unhappy about it.
So it’s an interesting thing. And not a lot of companies require the five days in the office piece. I’ve always been a fan of putting it much more on the hiring or manager, whoever manages that team to kind of create the best rules about a remote and hybrid feel. But we’ve definitely worked with a lot of companies that do require it and especially on the like manufacturing side, right?
I mean, you can’t sit here and or a distribution facility or something like that, you know, where they’re making like a car for example. It’s not like you can get at a plant doing that. Of course. So there are these occupations, of course, that you’re just going to have to, there’s no way around going into the office.
But most of the folks tend to realize that and like that set up, so. Yeah, yeah. And I think the biggest thing on that is, asking ourselves the why we want people in an office. And for me and my teams, you know, being in office is a great opportunity to connect and build relationships and engage in that water cooler conversation, right.
That many of us miss. I certainly do. But the expectation for someone to, you know, essentially sit at a hotelling space and work, for the sake of that, I would just push back on employers for that. What’s the real value add there? And what are we trying to solve for going into the office where you’ve got back to back meetings on and they’re just, they’re there for that.
There’s no real value add to that. And so I would, I would question that.
Well, that’s all we have time for today. So thank you Sakena for joining us and thank you for everyone tuning into this week’s episode. Today we met with Sakena Gardner and discussed her career, her thoughts on HR and the talent market, the best hiring practices and how to handle hiring within different hiring markets and climates.
We’ll be back again with you all next month with a new special guest and quick reminder of how you can support our Beyond the Offer podcast, you can find all the content on Hirewell’s social media platform, which you can find through Hirewell.com. Take care, everyone. And thank you for tuning in! Thanks, Sakena.
Thanks, Sakena.
