Karin Wagner has spent 20 years building the operational engines behind talent acquisition. She started as a CPA, used an MBA to move into HR, and built a machine learning hiring model in 2016, before most of TA was talking about AI. Today she’s VP of Talent Acquisition Operations at Empower Pharmacy. In this episode, she talks with Colleen about why AI speeds up the good and the bad, what it means to see inside the black box of hiring manager interviews, and why quality of hire is everyone’s job. Karin also shares what changes when talent reports straight to the CEO, how a farm kid turned CPA found her way into recruiting, and why her house is currently full of elite figure skaters.   Takeaways: Learn the business before you try to hire for it. Use AI to research competitors and how the company wins, then ask your business partners a little at a time about their next big goal. The best recruiters Karin has worked with are subject matter experts in the business they support. Fix the process before you add AI to it. AI only speeds up whatever you already built, so a three-stage-too-long process just fails faster. Get the job description and the fundamentals right first. Ask what you’re doing with the hours AI saves you. Hours saved is not the win. Reinvest that time in consulting with hiring managers, improving candidate experience, or evaluating talent better, then check that you’re getting the outcome you actually wanted. Make vendors prove it before you buy it. Pilot new AI tools against a measurable outcome, and ask every vendor for their innovation roadmap. Then pick two or three things to get really good at, because trying to do everything will burn out your recruiters. Share quality of hire instead of passing it around. TA, hiring managers, and even onboarding all play a part in whether a hire works out. When everyone owns the metric, nobody can point the finger at someone else. Quote of the Show: “The real story behind AI is what are you doing with the hours you are saving? I’ve said AI does speed up both the good and the bad.” - Karin Wagner Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-wagner-b26500/ Website: ​​https://www.empowerpharmacy.com/ Ways to Tune In: The Talent Bar: https://thetalentbarpodcast.com/  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6j8LK95YtqW7ZMU4kwBNgR   Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-talent-bar/id1891705495  Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7f77aa2-de4c-4e5c-b5de-cfe60fe39c77   iHeart Radio:https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-the-talent-bar-328811219 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTalentBar

Britt-Angela Williams-Ward ran her own boutique staffing firm for over eight years, then took her talent acquisition career in-house at one of the largest health systems in the country. Today she leads talent acquisition at Cape Fear Valley Health in rural North Carolina, where her team ranks among the top AI-powered sourcing tool users in the world. In this episode, she talks with Colleen about her "four E's" framework, why remembering the details about a candidate is the most underrated recruiting skill, and how a rural health system went from outside the top 100 to the top 20 healthcare employers in its state. She also explains how her team uses AI to resurface past applicants, why she always asks nurses why they got into nursing, and what it means to be both the gatekeeper and the ambassador for the people who care for your community.   Takeaways: Keep a file on every candidate, even the ones who aren't right for the role today. When a new opening comes up, reaching out with details they shared shows them they were never just a number. Ask hiring managers what isn't on the job description. Work those intangibles into the posting and the intake form, and sit in on a couple of their interviews to learn the why behind their questions. Before you spend a dollar on job ads, use AI to resurface past applicants already in your ATS. They've shown interest before, so they're far more likely to say yes to an interview, and it can shave about two weeks off a hire. Ask candidates why they chose their field, then listen for the personal story. If they can get to the why, you likely have the right person, and if they can't, that tells you something too. Get out from behind the video call and spend time where your hires actually work. Rounding on units monthly builds credibility with hiring managers and helps you describe the culture to candidates with real authority.  Quote of the Show: "We are the shining lights that are bringing people in the door, but we're also the gatekeepers." - Britt-Angela Williams-Ward Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittangelaward/ Website: https://www.capefearcareers.com/ Ways to Tune In: The Talent Bar: https://thetalentbarpodcast.com/  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6j8LK95YtqW7ZMU4kwBNgR   Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-talent-bar/id1891705495  Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7f77aa2-de4c-4e5c-b5de-cfe60fe39c77   iHeart Radio:https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-the-talent-bar-328811219 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTalentBar

Daniel Dale started his career carrying a quota in enterprise security sales, then built his own recruiting agency before moving in-house. Nearly 10 years later, he leads talent acquisition across EMEA and APJ at Tenable. In this episode, he talks with Colleen about why understanding the business matters more than filling reqs, how he separates business problems from recruitment problems, and why quality of hire belongs to everyone. He also shares how recording and reviewing interviews has become his team's "thousand hours of tape," how Tenable handles candidate fraud, and the charity cycling ride that has him climbing Mont Ventoux in memory of his mother.   Takeaways: Learn the business you're hiring for. Recruiters who understand what the company needs and want to see their hires succeed do better work than those who just fill seats. Ask yourself whether you're invested in the end result or just the offer letter. Sort your problems into two camps: recruitment problems and business problems. If your team has done everything from kickoff to a strong slate of candidates, decisions about hiring now, later, or not at all sit with the business. Know where your job ends so you can support your team through the pressure. Treat quality of hire as a shared responsibility. When a hire doesn't work out, look back at the interview, the onboarding, and the environment without pointing fingers. Use backfills as a chance to ask what's changed and what you don't want to repeat. Review your interview recordings the way athletes review game tape. Have people watch themselves back first and frame it as coaching rather than inspection. You'll build better interviewers, get better data, and protect your team if a candidate disputes what happened. Fight candidate fraud at every stage of the process. Be upfront about requirements like no virtual backgrounds and ID checks, and never make an offer without meeting the person face to face. When your gut says something is off, press on it. Quote of the Show: "We never make an offer without actually meeting that person face to face." - Daniel Dale Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dadale/ Website: https://www.tenable.com/ Ways to Tune In: The Talent Bar: https://thetalentbarpodcast.com/  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6j8LK95YtqW7ZMU4kwBNgR   Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-talent-bar/id1891705495  Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7f77aa2-de4c-4e5c-b5de-cfe60fe39c77   iHeart Radio:https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-the-talent-bar-328811219 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTalentBar

Vikki Costello has spent nearly 15 years at Pariveda, growing through six different roles to become Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at the employee-owned tech consulting firm. In this episode, she talks with Colleen about what it took to rebuild her team from nearly 30 people down to eight, why curiosity and diagnostic thinking are the traits she looks for most in a recruiter, and how bringing in interview intelligence software and migrating ATS platforms helped her team scale without adding headcount. Vikki also shares how Pariveda's employee ownership shapes a culture of radical transparency, and why AI has made critical thinking, not automation, the skill that will set recruiters apart in the years ahead.   Takeaways: Curiosity is the trait that separates good recruiters from great ones. Vikki looks for people who are diagnostic, who dig into why something is happening instead of letting it slide. In a field as unpredictable as recruiting, that instinct to ask "why" catches problems before they become bigger ones. Rebuilding a team is a chance to build utility players, not just replace headcount. When Vikki's team shrank from nearly 30 to eight, she cross-trained everyone to run and cover multiple functions instead of simply backfilling roles. That flexibility is what let the team scale again without ballooning in size. Build the business case before you build the tool. Before bringing in interview intelligence software, Vikki mapped out interview counts and time to hire so leadership could see exactly where the investment would pay off. Running a pilot with senior stakeholders first turned early skeptics into advocates. Partner fit matters as much as product fit. When Vikki's team evaluated new platforms, they weighed vendor relationship and hand-holding just as heavily as features, especially as a smaller organization. Choosing a partner who can grow with you beats chasing the flashiest tool on the market. AI can speed up screening, but critical thinking is what will set recruiters apart. Vikki's team uses AI carefully, with guardrails, to manage volume like 8,000 applicants for a single role. She believes the recruiters who can think critically about fraud, fit, and candidate behavior are the ones who will matter most as AI reshapes hiring. Quote of the Show: "Critical thinking is what's probably gonna help set us apart as a recruiting team in this next wave of work." - Vikki Costello Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikkicostello/ Website: https://parivedasolutions.com/ Ways to Tune In: The Talent Bar: https://thetalentbarpodcast.com/  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6j8LK95YtqW7ZMU4kwBNgR   Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-talent-bar/id1891705495  Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7f77aa2-de4c-4e5c-b5de-cfe60fe39c77   iHeart Radio:https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-the-talent-bar-328811219 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTalentBar

Mawulom Nenonene spent nearly seven years building weapon systems for the US Department of Defense as a mechanical engineer before an unexpected pivot took him into technical sourcing at Google, and from there into a decade of building and leading talent functions at Thumbtack, BetterUp, the Long Term Stock Exchange, and Point. In this episode, he talks with Colleen about the real difference between a good recruiter and a great one, why he gives every new sourcing tool a strict four to six week trial, and how he's building a recruiting engine from scratch as Flux scales from 18 to 80 people. Mawulom also opens up about the personal loss that redirected his entire career, why he believes consistency matters more than kindness when it comes to earning trust, and why "culture add" has replaced "culture fit" in how he hires. Takeaways: Good recruiters know the job. Great ones know the why. Understanding an organization's disposition and gaps, not just filling a seat, is what separates a recruiter who hits targets from one who actually shapes the team. If you're not steeped in the "why" behind a role, you're optimizing for the wrong outcome. No action can beat the wrong action. Moving fast with an untested process (like blasting thousands of automated messages to the wrong candidates) does more damage to your brand than simply pausing to figure out the right approach. If you don't know what to do yet, it's often better to do nothing than to guess loudly. Give new tools, and new roles, a real runway before judging them. Mawulom tests every sourcing tool for four to six weeks minimum, watching not just results but responsiveness to feedback. The same patience applies to people: expect a real learning curve before writing off a new hire, a new process, or yourself in a new industry. Consistency builds trust faster than charm does. Mawulom has learned to judge leaders less by how pleasant they are in the moment and more by whether they apply their principles the same way every time, good day or bad. A leader who is tough but fair, consistently, is more trustworthy than one who's warm but plays favorites. Hire for culture add, not culture fit. When you're building a high-performance team, the goal isn't finding people who match the existing vibe, it's finding people who bring something the team doesn't have yet. Culture fit protects what already exists; culture add pushes it forward. Quote of the Show: "A good recruiter is an individual that knows the job. A great recruiter is someone that understands the why." - Mawulom Nenonene Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mawulom/ Website: https://www.flux.ai/p Ways to Tune In: The Talent Bar: https://thetalentbarpodcast.com/  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6j8LK95YtqW7ZMU4kwBNgR   Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-talent-bar/id1891705495  Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b7f77aa2-de4c-4e5c-b5de-cfe60fe39c77   iHeart Radio:https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-the-talent-bar-328811219 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTalentBar