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Hey, Talent Tribe! It’s your host, Brianna Rooney, steering the ship solo today on Talent Takeover Unfiltered - where we spill the tea, the coffee, and sometimes, even the champagne, on all things recruiting. 🚀
Today, I'm vibing with the absolutely electrifying Amy Silverman, the recruiting genius behind Chime's meteoric rise. We're ditching the script and getting down to the nitty-gritty of what makes the talent world tick, thrive, and sometimes, just downright explode with opportunity.
So, What's Cooking in Today's Episode?
- Journey Juice: Amy's spilling how she went from ad grad to tech's most wanted, and let me tell you, it's juicier than your favorite drama.
- Scaling Secrets: Think you need big bucks to scale? Think again. Amy's breaking down how ambition can get you further than you ever dreamed.
- The Real MVPs: Spoiler alert - it's the people. We're diving deep into the art of not just finding but cherishing the gold in your team.
- Stay or Stray: The tea on talent retention is piping hot. If you're losing sleep over keeping your stars, you can't afford to miss this.
Why This Episode Is Unmissable:
- I'm keeping it 100, sharing the triumphs, the faceplants, and everything in-between.
- Snag Amy's blueprint to build your empire, no matter how stormy the weather.
- It's about heart, hustle, and that unbreakable human spirit that keeps us glued to this crazy world of recruiting.
Your Takeaway?
In Talent Takeover Unfiltered, we don’t just face the chaos, we dance in it. Whether you're hustling in your startup garage or ruling the corporate skyline, we've got something that'll hit just right.
🔔 Smash that Subscribe Button like it owes you money and never miss out on our blend of banter, brilliance, and occasional badassery. Got a burning question or a spicy topic suggestion? Comment below and watch it come to life! 👇
We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Instagram at @talent_takeover_unfiltered
To watch this episode, visit The Millionaire Recruiter YouTube channel https://youtu.be/QnWPr8NZhZM
To watch this episode, visit The Millionaire Recruiter YouTube channel https://youtu.be/QnWPr8NZhZM
Shop Talent Takeover Unfiltered merch: https://shop.thriversity.io/collections/talent-takeover-unfiltered-merch
Creators & Guests
Host
Brianna Rooney
I am the CEO and Founder of TalentPerch, Techees Recruiting, The Millionaire Recruiter, and now Thriversity. My vision for the last 14 years has been to change the way the World views the Recruiting Industry. Even though I have two little kids, I remain firm on maintaining a work-life balance. I believe you can be as successful at work, as you are at home. You don’t have to choose. The choice is, to be present and rock everything you do!
What is Talent Takeover Unfiltered?
Hosted by Brianna Rooney, The Millionaire Recruiter, and Taylor Bradley, The Humble Hustler. When it comes to working hard and keeping it real, we know our S.H.I.T. (self-care, happiness, inner peace, time). Two women who’ve made thriving in chaos and finding the meaning in the madness an art form, provide you an “under the hood” view of all things recruiting in hopes to bring respect and awareness in a relatable way to a long underrated industry that’s oversaturated with “experts”.
welcome to Talent takeover unfiltered
when it comes to working hard and
keeping it real we know our [ __ ]
self-care happiness inner peace and time
I'm Brianna Rooney and this is Taylor
Bradley hey y'all and we have thrived in
chaos and turn it into an art form so
Taylor what are we doing here today
we're here to give you a raw under the
hood view of all things recruiting and
finally give credit where credit is due
to a long underrated industry that's
full of quote unquote experts all right
well then let's take this show to the
road hello welcome to another amazing
episode of talent takeover unfiltered
you might be wondering wait someone is
missing yes the wonderful fabulous
Taylor Bradley is not on today so sorry
about that I'm sure she'll be on the
next one uh but I have an amazing guest
Amy Silverman who is the director of
recruiting at chime Amy how you doing
I'm doing great I'm excited to be
chatting with you w nice okay so we are
gonna dig and I got to tell you guys I I
get very excited in all of these but
we're going to talk about how to scale a
company at any size at any time um and
the reason I get excited about this is
because as we've seen so many layoffs so
long I mean Amy you've been in
recruiting for a really long time you've
seen a lot of this we've seen the Cycles
I want some sustainability right how do
we how do we do that because it it all
starts with how do we scale correctly so
walk us through quickly you know how did
like you've had quite a journey in your
career so far so I would imagine you're
pretty passionate about this subject
yeah definitely I um as most people do
landed in recruiting kind of on a whim
went to the University of Illinois down
in Champagne Orana and studied
advertising and Communications and
figured that would be the the path that
I went down and I actually met somebody
who said Amy you have a really good
personality for recruiting have you ever
thought about it and I was like
recruiting like what is recruiting
what's this all about uh and so she said
well why don't you come in in Shadow and
and kind of see see if you like this
whole Rec recruiting thing and I did and
got offered a job you know shortly after
that started my career doing third party
agency recruiting I learned a ton about
the recruiting space and and just sort
of like how the whole thing works um and
then went over to Groupon very early
stay Groupon days I I'm based in Chicago
and there was really no Tech in Chicago
at all sobron was kind of like the first
tech company in Chicago that was was
growing and scaling quickly uh so built
out their marketing design creative
functions bunch of other teams uh very
like I said very early on was there for
almost six years um and saw it kind of
go through its its high points uh and
and kind of then jumped off the the
group on coupon Factory roller coaster
and went over few uh Facebook well now
meta but when I was there it was
Facebook uh was there for about two and
a half years and and built out and and
scaled their leadership functions across
the family of apps so think Instagram
Facebook uh WhatsApp Oculus sort of
across the board
um and then a former cooworker of mine
from gron said hey Amy we're we're
building out a a Chicago office uh for a
little company called chime would you be
interested and uh kind of learned a
little bit about our mission and kind of
what what chime was all about and really
loved it uh so decided to join been with
chime for over four years when I started
there were under 200 employees and now
we've got about over 1,200 or so so lots
of growth short amount of time really
fun I was one of the first I think I was
the second employee in Chicago um we got
you know over a 100 in Chicago now so
lots of lots of moving and grooving
which has been fun yeah oh my God it's
hard for me not to start at group on
because when you said roller coaster I I
also I was a um contingency recruiter so
like I know all of the group on like
that's what was like the heat of my
recruiting career and I I definitely saw
a lot over there um so with all of I
mean because you have you have like name
brands on on you know your your resume
and your your uh Journey
what is the hardest part of
scaling yeah you know I think it's
really just taming the wild west right
you come in and there's a lot of things
going on and it's really about figuring
out what to tackle first um and I think
sometimes what happens is folks can get
really overwhelmed because it feels like
maybe there's no process and maybe
there's no tooling and maybe there's no
this and that and so you can kind of get
like sucked into this what do I do first
and and how do I do it and I got to make
shirt it's perfect and I that's where
people tend to get kind of stuck um and
so my thought is all right if you don't
have the budget for you know some big
fancy tool that that's okay you can kind
of build it and and do it on your own
and it doesn't have to be perfect and as
you continue to building scale you'll
make a use case as to why you may need
the budget for X Y and Z and it'll
continue to get better over time but
it's really taking that first actionable
step to doing anything and I think
that's where a lot of people kind of get
hung up yeah so how do you when you talk
about having budget like how lean have
you had to be I know like as we're
starting to tighten things up even again
but I'm sure imagine you're was pretty
lean in the beginning yeah you know I've
I've done things out of you know Google
Sheets and just I'm sure as as everybody
has um to to kind of like build
reporting and build things like that all
the way through having you know amazing
tooling that that you can kind of use to
to pull things even so far as I've
worked in in places and in scaled where
we didn't have any ATS and we were using
you know email as form of of an ATS
which is obviously not sustainable or
scalable but you know you have to work
with what you have and you also have to
be able to understand how to explain
recruiting to people that don't work in
recruiting Because I think sometimes
people think recruiting is like easy
right you know it's like how hard could
it be to you know get on the phone and
get somebody to come and work here and
you know why is this so challenging and
all these things why we need to spend
money on it and I think once people
start to see the value of recruiting and
the value of people and talent at their
company then they start to to want to
invest for it because at the end of the
day your human capital is the most
important thing that you have in your
entire company right like that that's my
two cents anyways you are giving me
chills over here because oh my god um I
I once had someone tell me that a monkey
could do my job so thank you person for
that man no monkey I don't
know that was many years ago and I just
will never forget that I was so insulted
um but yeah so hiring is literally the
most important thing any company does
it's like so I I'm building a course on
um how to recruit for startups because
that's its own separate you know the
Beast right um like as we're talking
about sustainability and so I was kind
of doing research around what I wanted
to deliver but like working with
startups working lean and then now
seeing why do startups fail and one of
the main reasons is because they didn't
have the right
Talent yeah and the communication wasn't
together or they didn't you know so that
like I totally agree Talent is
absolutely 100% the main the main
component and then also keeping it
together retention and all absolutely
because at the end of the day if you
don't have the right people and the
right rules you're going to have to do
your job all over again so we always say
that when we're you know talking to
candidates too I always tell this to my
team when they're about to close a deal
and and chatting with somebody that
might be joining company we're not in
the business of convincing you why you
should take a job that you don't want to
take or doesn't make sense for you
because at the end of the day you'll
just leave and we'll have to refill the
job so it's basically like putting water
in a bucket that has holes in the bottom
of it we don't want to do that we want
to make sure that you're suited for the
role and that you're going to be
successful we're setting you up for
Success you're excited it makes sense
for you um because otherwise you know
we're just going to have to do it all
over again so at the end of the day I
think sometimes recruiters can get a bad
rap like oh you're just trying to push
me into a role or push me into doing
something and that's not the business
that we're in at all we want to make
sure that you're going to be successful
at the end of the day okay I love that
so then are your goals like your
recruiting goals are you guys think
about like what your closing rate is
because that's definitely part of a
metric that we talk about sure I think
closing rate is important but I I think
fundamentally more important than
closing rate is candidate experience and
on on top of that that um I think the
other metric that you have to think
about is the difficulty of the search
that you're working on right if you're
working on a pipeline search of you know
I don't know entry level customer
service folks let's say that's going to
be a much different Clos rate than a
senior director director VP search that
might be a little bit more challenging
there might be some more Nuance to it um
so I think you have to take into account
the challeng challenging this it's not a
word but the difficulty you difficulty
for Monday bear with me the difficulty
of a search to to really understand the
Clos rate that's tied to that and I
think across the board we tend to get
into this place where we make one
universal metric and we use that to
measure a bunch of different things
without thinking about the
nuances sometimes folks do that with
diversity sometimes folks do that you
know close rates people do that with a
bunch of things things and I try to
really tell the whole narrative because
I think that's really important when not
only when you're just scaling and
building something but even when it's
built and you're in maintenance mode uh
it's just as important to understand
what you're measuring and how it's being
talked about and thought about does that
make sense no 100% I think that's great
especially like my my ears perked up you
said diversity and inclusion you know
those numbers because like that's its
own separate Beast probably its own
separate like webinar because well okay
I have I have to ask this when scaling
when scaling when do you sit like hey
let's not forget about this let's Stu
because I I know like I've worked with
lots of seed companies series a right
they're fresh like all they're thinking
about is we have something to build
they're not thinking of anything else
how we do it are we doing it right
anything so at what point do you sit
down at the table with them and been
like we're not thinking this through
we're thinking only about the F next
three months can we think past that so I
think there's a couple of things at play
first of all whenever you get into a new
company and you're scaling really in any
role recruiting aside you have to build
trust right and so how do you build
trust so I think about building trust
with data because I could tell you all
the feelings I have in the world and
that's all fine and well and I
personally think my feelings matter but
you know the business may not right so
coming to the table with data is way
more important than saying I think or I
feel and so I think you start to build
trust by coming to the table with data
first and that what the data shows
historically is that companies that are
the most successful tend to be diverse
and tend to match their user base so
when we think about things we think
about I always use the phrase like do
our insides match our outsides so does
our company match the member base and
the user base that we're going after uh
and at the end of the day if the answer
to that is no then I think the argument
becomes well you can't build something
something that's going to be successful
you can't scale something that's going
to be successful if you don't understand
the users that you're serving and the
only way to understand that user base is
to have this diversity of thought within
your organization and so it's sort of
this like chicken or the egg scenario
where you have to kind of like walk it
back to get folks to kind of like
understand and buy into that value so
that's kind of my thought on it yeah wow
that's awesome so at what and I don't
doesn't matter what company but what was
the biggest ask as far as headcount like
has anyone said all right here's 100
here we need, 1500 like what what was
the biggest ask at one time yeah I mean
we've we' I've read a lot uh you know I
think there's been points where I've had
Recruiters on my team working on like 45
recks at a time which is a pretty big
you know and and these aren't like
pipeline searches we're talking about
like nuanced individual wrecks that they
may from on top of maybe a pipeline of
like 20 or 30 so they're they could
working on 80 wrecks at a time which is
it certainly that's not the case
currently but I've I've worked in places
and and built places where that has been
the case um when I think about like
recruiter capacity and when I think
about like building and scaling I like
to look at that number and the first
thing that I like to have the business
do is prioritize because
realistically I know that it's really
kind of fun to be like okay we need to
hire like a thousand people people let's
open all a thousand recks at one time
right but like that's not realistic and
that's also going to be a recipe for
failure and so what you have to do is
you have to think about okay I have a
recruiting team the size of X Y and Z I
need to hire a thousand people how are
we going to break this down and looking
at the business what are the you know
top wrecks that are going to be most
important and how do we sort of like
work backwards to achieve those those
things instead of being like yeah let's
just open the floodgates and you know
open a thousand wrecks like not going to
be successful your employer brand is not
going to to look good doing that so
there's a bunch of sort of like negative
connotations that can come with that and
so you have to be really thoughtful
because you only have one chance to do
it and so you've got to do it right um
and you've got to kind of understand how
to do
it so is there ever a time where like
they said okay here's here's a thousand
recks right and you're like and they're
like nope I don't care what you say we
have to fill these thousand recks by you
know six months or whatever it is right
something crazy where you say all right
well then here's my plan I'm going to
need agency help over here I'm going to
need this much more for my team I'm
going to need this tools like do you
actually then lay it out completely in
its
entirety yeah 100% so that that would be
a situation where I would do exactly
that so I would figure out what's the
recruiter capacity realistically without
them burning out and breaking um what's
our you know recruiter coordination
capacity but even more important than
that what's our interviewer capacity
because I think depend to great right
you think all right we'll hire a
thousand people we'll just interview
them whatever well do you want your
salespeople also selling do you want
your engineers also engineering do you
want you know your compliance people
also doing compliancy things like or do
you just want them interviewing because
if you're saying to me you can give 100%
of your time to interviewing then sure
let's open them all up let's let's go
for it but if you're saying I can give
you 20 to 30% of my time to interview in
the week then we're going to have have
to scale back what that looks like so to
me that's like the biggest thing because
otherwise you're going to have folks
interviewing candidates from you know
900 in the morning till 5:00 pm and
we've also done things you I've been a
part of things where we've done uh
interview dates where we've like Sprints
like you've done Sprints right yeah
exactly we put them together done them
on like a a Friday Saturday Saturday
Sunday we brought folks in and you know
you also have to think about how does
that impact candidate experience and the
me message that you're telling
candidates so there's a lot of other
pieces that kind of come into play there
but at the end of the day there have
been situations where it hasn't been
ideal and unfortunately we've just had
to do it but yeah I think there's
there's a lot of pieces that people
don't think about yes so I was talking
about that just the other day again I
was working with a seed funded company
and they're like okay we like you're
only sending us four resumés a week well
I'm like well you guys are like a really
small company and you're telling me you
need to build so I'm trying to be
mindful to time like no open it up I'm
like
okay but so then so of course we open it
up and I'm I'm trying to trying to work
them through that you know there's like
that fine line right especially when
you're not in the org itself and so all
of a sudden within two weeks now I have
people being like hey I can't even
schedule on the hiring manager's
calendar for another three weeks y
exactly now we're in a situation and
you're gonna lose candidates that are
really solid uh and so to me like I I
preach this all the time it's quality
over quantity and it's really thinking
about how we can strategic do that
because let's say you find a candidate
that you know you you really want you
want to push them through but there's no
time for them to interview because the
the folks that are interviewing are
already all booked up well now you're
going to lose talent to a competitor
because they're going to go interview
somewhere else uh and so you have to be
really thoughtful about that stuff
instead of just saying all right a
thousand let's just open a thousand
we'll just go one by one we'll take them
off and we'll be you know good to go
uhhuh you know what's funny is um I
always find that hiring manager is like
well that's exactly why you need passive
candidates because they'll wait they're
not actively looking but what I feel
like they don't understand is the moment
you get a true passive candidate they're
now looking you've now put it into their
mind that there's probably something
really there's cool stuff out there
right so all of a sudden it's like well
wait you said they were they weren't
actively looking well they weren't
yesterday but they are today certainly
and build and building a talent
community and and building pipelines
like super important but you also have a
lot of times where you have really Niche
roles and you're not going to build a
pipeline for every single bespoke role
that you have so certain things you can
absolutely build pipeline for so call it
like you know PMS designers Engineers
you know maybe analysts whatever the the
you know large populations might be uh
but then there's going to be these sort
of like nuanced roles whether it's
creative roles or or other things where
you know you're going to know who the
top 10 candidates are and there may not
be more than 10 people that you even
want to go after for that role um and so
it doesn't even matter if you pipeline
or not because the top talent is those
10 people and you have to think about
strategically how are we going to
attract and entice those 10 people to
engage with us yeah oh my gosh it's own
separate scaling problem so I I can't
believe we're already coming up up on
time right now so but I have I I'm like
oh my God geez I got to keep track of
this um so here I I have to ask this
question how do you balance though
trying to do something really quickly
trying to scale fast because you you're
being Innovative you got to get the
market first you got to do all of these
things where we talk about going back to
the business how do you have a fine line
between holding strong on you know make
sure that org's okay making sure
everyone's getting onboarded properly
like all the other stuff that comes
along with hiring that I think a lot of
people don't think
about so balancing like that and speed
is that your ask yes yeah it's it's
tough on you know I don't think that
there's like a perfect science to that I
have it cracked perfectly uh but I I do
think that one of the best ways to make
sure that you can do that is going back
to like what I talked about with
interviewer capacity it's looking at the
infrastructure that you have to bring
these people into and are you going to
be able to bring them into a place where
they're going to be set up for Success
um and if not what are the areas that we
need to beef up so are there trainings
that we need to be working on is there
an onboarding uh you know structure set
up how are we thinking about uh 30 60
90day plans you know all sorts of things
like this where it doesn't even I mean
it depends how big the company that
you're scaling is if there's an HR
function already or not if there is sort
of a people partner function there's got
to be a really tight relationship
between between recruiting and that
people partner function um and if there
isn't then recruiting is going to have
to really think about some of those
things and start to think about how do
we build that infrastructure to set
these people up for success and
sometimes that means like taking a beat
and being able to sort of like build
that to to to be successful and I think
at the end of the day like I said
showing through the data why that's
important you will absolutely get the
buyin from senior leaders as long as you
start to bring in the most important
hires first so that the progress can
start to begin and then you can start to
kind of like scale from there yeah it's
almost like giving the business a little
time to breathe you guys breathe you
keep doing what you need to do and now
we're going to move this other part um
but I would imagine hiring managers or
or different functions are kind of like
fighting they're like probably pulling
recruiting no mine's more important
yours is more important like do you find
yourself being a like a mediator
sometimes oh for sure you you want to
kind of be able to sometimes just like
you might get like a he said she said
sort of a thing and you've got to get
everybody in the same room and have
conversation uh to me I think about it
through the lens of asking questions I
think you tend to get a lot more
information that way so what questions
can I ask to kind of get folks to figure
things out you know on their own and and
start to kind of like unwind um and then
I can kind of jump in from there and be
like you know what that that totally
makes sense let's you know let's run
with that uh but yeah sometimes
recruiting I'm sure folks have said this
before it's a lot of like hurting cats a
lot of like trying to get everybody's
message across and who's doing what and
who said this and just kind of like
getting everybody United to like
understand how we're gonna move
forward I actually know a uh I have a
recruiting friend that I've known for a
really long time actually her title is
hurting cats yeah it's totally true you
know and uh it's it's definitely one of
those things where it's like you know
you you it's part of the job being able
to to kind of like communicate and kind
of piece the threats to together for
everybody that sort of kind of comes
with the
territory my God I love it so Amy I I I
got to end it I'm sorry um I first I I
want to know your broke to boss tip and
also I'm just gonna fullblown and ask
you live I feel like this is a webinar I
feel like this is something where people
are gonna they were gonna have so many
questions I think we could have kept
digging and we can have like a good 45
minutes chat on this are you in yeah
let's do it okay put you on the spot all
right what's your broke to boss tip
what's the main thing one person one
thing they got out of
I I I think the biggest thing is lead
with data uh be strategic and I know
this is more than one thing but I'm I'm
giving you a couple step step here like
with data be strategic uh and really
start to build trust and build
relationships because at the end of the
day that's going to be really what helps
you and and also process driven uh we
didn't really get into that we didn't
really have time but I think building
really strong recruiting process that
you can kind of Bank on is going to it's
just like working in a restaurant
restaurants that are successful have
really good systems they have really
good process in place same thing with
recruiting really good systems really
good process in place tends to make you
successful uh and and really think about
uh that diversity think about the
structure that you're building and make
sure that you're you're filling the
bucket with Talent that's going to be
sustainable for the long term yes I love
it Amy thank you so much remember you
guys can also watch this on the
millionaire recruiter YouTube uh but
thanks we'll see you next year Tu day
take care
byebye