EP 216: Grit, Resilience, and the AI-Driven Future of Talent Acquisition

Katie Potter, VP of Talent Operations at Healthie, grew up in upstate New York with a deeply competitive spirit — skiing by age three and racing against high schoolers before she was even a teenager. In this episode, she shares her unconventional path from studying forensic psychology to discovering Industrial & Organizational psychology, ultimately leading her into the world of talent acquisition and helping scale hiring at high-growth startups. She also discusses how she’s leveraging AI to build faster, more thoughtful, and more candidate-centric recruiting processes in today’s evolving hiring landscape.

Connect with host James Mackey on LinkedIn!

Intro (00:00)

Background (00:46)

Healthie (13:30)

AI (17:06)

TA (33:53)

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Katie

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Hey everyone, welcome to the show. We got Katie Potter with us today. Katie is currently the VP of talent operations over at Healthy. Katie, thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, thanks so much, James. Excited to connect today.

Growing Up Competitive In Upstate NY

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, I'm really excited to uh record this episode with you. Um, so let's just let's jump into it. Where are you from?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I am originally from a small town in upstate New York, Phoenicia, New York. Very small population, 250 people when I was growing up. Today I am about 30 miles west from that location in Kingston, New York, which is in the Hudson Valley. Um, and that's about 90 minutes north of New York City.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So Kingston, New York, I think I've heard of Kingston. Now, how many people are in Kingston?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Probably uh that's a great question. Uh thousands, 40,000, 50,000, could be more. A little bit bigger. I feel like half of Brooklyn is here now.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

So gotcha. So what were you like as a kid?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Oh, I was uh definitely adventurous, uh spontaneous. I was the kid that would always push the envelope, always looking to explore, grew up mostly around boys, I although I do have one sister. Uh so I was a little bit of a tomboy, heavily involved in sports. Um yeah, just always wanting to be outside, riding bikes, playing kickball, dodgeball, whatever the sport of the day was.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Nice. Yeah. And you were doing a lot of uh skiing, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yes, I began skiing at the age of three, um, was an avid skier. I I remember being 11 or 12, um, was racing against seniors in high school. And this will share a little bit about me and my level of grit and resilience, but I took first place in that competition and uh it kind of did not stop from there. I just kept going and and just wanted to keep becoming better and better.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

So so when you were you said around 12, you were competing against high school students? Yes. And you were beating them.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Sounds like a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

It is.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

So where were these like um were there what were these competitions? Was it just like from the top to the bottom of the slopes?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, just like uh yeah, like giant slalom um would be the top of the mountain. So for anyone that may know, like Bel Air Mountain is a local mountain by me, also Hunter Mountain. Um, so it would just be a full track from the top all the way to the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Okay. So you basically you just go down as fast as humanly possible.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah, in in and out of the poles. Yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah, in and out of the poles. Yeah, that's cool. How long did you end up uh competing and skiing?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Um, I believe I stopped somewhere eighth or ninth grade, and that was just because life was getting busy. My not that my interests were changing. I still love skiing today, although I do it way less. Um, but at that point I was involved in sports in high school. So basketball, field hockey, um, track and field, softball. Wow. And so it just I I was taking on too much, which is pretty typical of the person that I am, and had to make some uh hard decisions.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah, I hear ya. So are you the older sister or younger sister?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I am the younger sister.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Really?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

I you were giving me big sister vibes.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

I it that's probably true. The personality is definitely bigger, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Were you guys um close in age growing up?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Uh three years apart.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Okay.

unknown 4:07

Yeah.

Martial Arts Discipline And A Broken Hand

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Nice, nice. So, okay. Very clearly ambitious, uh, competitive. Yes. You also had mentioned, too, additionally, we didn't have a chance to get into this before we moved on. I want to talk about talk about a little bit. You were into martial arts.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Um what age did you start getting into martial arts and then how long did that last?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Uh first grade and all the way through, honestly, maybe five or six years ago. Um, off and on as I had gotten older, but when I was younger, very avid, um, involved. Uh, I remember at one point, I think I was nine or ten, and my instructor told my parents that I was a lethal weapon and should come with should should come with a certification card. Yeah. Um, and then as I got older, it it started to shift a little bit as an adult, uh evolved into more like kickboxing type of um experience.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Nice. Yeah. Um, so what what type of martial arts specifically was it was primarily karate, uh, mostly throughout.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Uh did a little bit of muay thai throughout there, um, and then into that kickboxing.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

So uh as an adult kickboxing, was that still Muay Thai or was it actually like just American or it was just American kickboxing, yeah. Yeah, okay. Um well that's cool. Yeah, I used to compete in Muay Thai uh for about four years from I love it. 17 to yeah, roughly 22.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Did you ever compete?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Um, I did not. I did as a as a kid in karate. I would do the tournaments and um you know break all the boards and things like that. Um fun fact, I actually have uh a fracture in my right hand. I fractured my right hand and needed some metal plates and pins uh because in a karate tournament I I just came down wrong on the board and fractured the fifth.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

No.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

I fractured the fifth uh metacarpal and severed the tendons in there, so everything had to be restored. It's a very long process to get back.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Jeez. Okay, you have like a there's a metal.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yeah, you can see the scar.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Were you like can you still hit stuff? Or do you have to do it? I definitely can. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I don't know if it's harder, but I I have a heavy bag in my garage and I, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, it's a long day.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

It's not gonna hold me down. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Take out your uh frustrations and talent acquisition.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah. Yeah, I uh I miss trading. I I've thought a lot about getting back into Muay Thai and and boxing, and I never really do. Um, but uh I always think about it. I'm like, oh, that'd be so much fun. Uh at least like hit the heavy bag or like hit like you know, pads or something like that. Not spar at this point. I don't want to get hit in the head, but uh totally. I mean, I would love to spar, I just don't want to get hit in the head. It's like my favorite thing. I love training.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. I think for me, like growing up, the discipline from it is is something that I I really appreciated, and that has translated into who I am today. And then I think as an adult, it was just you know, more of like a physical activity workout, right? Where I was able to release that stress, stress, or tension, um, and just kind of keep going.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, I know. That's why I keep thinking because I do uh like weight training and cardio, but uh it's just not the same as training. It's not the same guy. No, a little different than getting in the rank.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Well, cool. And then so in college, unlike most people, you didn't realize you were gonna be a recruiter. No. Do any of us? There was one guy. There was one dude. Yeah, no, like 200 and however many episodes, one guy. Yeah, um, Everett. Uh I remember his name. Amazing at Zendesk. He um his dad was a agency owner. So he knew what recruiting was when he was like 12, like versus we're like, wait, what does a recruiter do?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

What is that?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, yeah, what is this whole thing? Um but yeah, so yeah, but no one, no, like less than one percent.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, it's great. Uh is there any other profession where it's like literally nobody thinks they're gonna be in it and they end up in it?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Uh you know, I don't know. It's like if you think about falls into it. Yeah, think about like you're gonna be a nurse, you're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna be a police, like you have to plan that out.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

So, yeah, I I didn't expect to end up in in recruiting. No.

From Forensic Psychology To Recruiting

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, no, I neither did I. Um well, anyway, so before you got into talent acquisition, uh, you were in college, and what were you studying?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

I was studying forensic psychology. That's right. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Why?

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Um, so growing up, my parents were very big on just morals and values. And I'm so thankful for that today. I I feel like it's really shaped who I am as a person, just doing the right things, right? Um but on the flip side of that, I was so fascinated by like criminals and criminal behavior, you know, murderers, all of the things that I'm like, what would cause a person to do that? And I was always interested in psychology, just learning about the brain. How does the brain work? How does it function? So I originally started off thinking I'm going to be a forensic psychologist and I want to be able to go into the prisons and have these interviews. So maybe that was part of the reason to do that what was that movie?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

What was that awesome movie? Um, what is the name? What's the movie with the uh where the psychologist goes that is interviewing the serial killer?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

I I know what you're talking about. I've been throwing a blank on the name. But yes, so that that was what I was anticipating. I really wanted to do that.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, now is it silence of the lambs? Remember that one? Was it the silence of the lambs?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Was that the rabbit in the pot? It may be that one. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, it's with um Anthony Hopkins.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Yes, yes, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Totally. So that would be cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yes, right. So I was so fascinated, and I was like, okay, I know my brain usually makes the right choices, the good decisions. Now I want to know why somebody's brain does not make the right choices or what drives them, you know, to make those incorrect decisions. So that was the path I originally set out on. I was super passionate about it. Um, a lot of my family is in like law enforcement and uh, you know, that type of work. So I felt like I was naturally being pulled to that. And then at one point, um, my advisor in college, I was I was graduating with my uh bachelor's in psychology, and my advisor had had a conversation to just say, Hey, I know you're thinking about your master's uh track. And again, I was still on that target for forensic psychology, but they were like, I really think you should explore industrial and organizational psychology because I think you'd be really good at that. And somehow they convinced me to switch paths. Um, and that's ultimately what led me to into talent acquisition, into talent as a whole throughout my career. I don't regret it, but part of me still is like, what would have happened? Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Uh you probably would have been just successful.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

If I stayed on the forensic path, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

You would have been just as successful. But I I mean, I I find that fascinating. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

It's like what drives human behavior and decisions and getting into the psychology of uh just different people and yeah, and that's really so the industrial organizational path of that is like what drives human behavior at work versus what drives human behavior for people to go murder somebody, right? Right. Uh and that was the pivot that I made.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

How different really is it? I I don't know. I mean, I feel like there's like a set of reasons why people make decisions, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah, it's like um that's that's wild. That's really cool. Do you do you um ever still read like criminal psychology books or do you think that's a good idea? I am obsessed.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, I'm obsessed with all of it. All even the true crime shows, you know, which some I know are like fabricated a little bit, but uh so fascinated by all of it still.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah. Well, that's really cool. That's really cool. And so you are in talent acquisition now, currently recently promoted to VP, down operations. Congratulations. Yes, thank you. Just to rewind a little bit, your first was it like hypergrowth startup experience was at uh a company that was acquired by 2U, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yes, that's correct. So started out there at Trilogy Education Services, which was um teaching uh boot camps for technology.

Hypergrowth Hiring And Health Tech Scale

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Okay, and then they were they were then acquired by 2U?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

We were acquired by 2U, yep. And then primarily at that point in time it it hyperscaled like honestly almost overnight. We were filling like 4,000 roles a year um with instructors that were teaching boot camps across fintech, data analytics, full stack web development. There were like seven different you know, product lines there. And I had a team at whatever point of 60 plus uh recruiters that were globally dispersed, which was the largest team that I've been responsible for today.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

That's a lot of recruiters.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Definitely. You said you're filling thousands of roles a year?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah, it was over 4,000 roles annually.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Wow, that's that's wild. And uh and more recently, so for the past few years, you've been at Healthy.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

What's uh what do you guys do over at Healthy?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah, so Healthy is a health tech uh company where we are focused on um EHR. So the EHR is electronic health records. Our platform offers everything from patient billing, patient communications, right, scheduling, patient charting. And uh we are predominantly focused just across all of the medical spaces that are um outside of the hospital healthcare setting.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Okay. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. Healthcare is just seems like a great industry to be in.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

It totally. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

I you know it's actually it's interesting. So um I I don't know if I we probably haven't had a chance to talk about this before, but I run two companies. Yep. Um, and they're essentially solving like the same problem just through a different angle. Um we actually have customers that use both, but I have embedded recruiting and RPO, which is traditional recruiting solutions, and I have June, which is an AI interviewer. Yes, and we sell them independently, and we also sell them in conjunction like together. Uh but uh healthcare is actually a space that we're really um last week actually identify. We just decide, okay, as of last week, we're gonna start to put together like specifically outbound campaigns, yeah, uh, do some ABM toward uh hospital systems and testing out the waters and different uh in healthcare because we feel like there's just so much potential in that industry. It's like no matter what happens, it's just growing.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

It's like up into the growing and it's you know, it's one of those areas that I feel like most of us can comfortably and confidently say it it needs help. It needs it's one space, right, uh within the market that um just needs to evolve. And yeah, so I just deeply appreciate that it's it's mission-driven, it's impacting real patients, real people's lives for the better.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah, that's um that's amazing. And it's a somewhat early stage company, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Like we are so healthy was founded in 2016. Um, we have actually been fully profitable on our own since year four, so since 2020. We did raise a series A round of funding in July 2022 and then a series B round of funding in July or sorry, in October 2025. So we're still sitting at that uh series B. Today we're around 170, give or take a little bit, probably more um employees. When I started three years ago, I was I think employee number 40, somewhere right around there. Um, so a lot of scale and and growth over the last three years.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And a relatively small talent team, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

I think uh you said, it was just me. It was just me up until two months ago. Yes. So yes, very small.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

So um, and now you have one recruiter on your team, or I have one senior recruiter, yes, uh, working with me, and she's fantastic. So I'm gonna give her a shout out. Thanks, Lena. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Thank you. Yeah, that's you're not alone anymore. I'm not alone. A little bit easier.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

That's right.

AI Tools For Screening And Sourcing

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Well, okay, so you got a pretty lean team. Um, and that is what's I find really interesting is yeah, you have a lean team and you your title is TA operations, right? So clearly focus on the the technical uh side of things and and ensuring that you're optimized uh and and thinking strategically between about how to incorporate like people and AI and these types of things, which is like also my obsession. That's like literally my life. That's all I think.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Um, so I I'm curious your obsession 2026. You gave me a little preview uh before we recorded, but could you please share with us what is your obsession for 2026? Like what are you thinking about every day nonstop?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, it's AI. I think for me it's it's both a love and a hate. The negative parts of the AI for me personally, um, or what I've experienced is you know, candidate usage of AI. We've experienced candidates that are, um, for lack of better words, essentially just stealing profiles off of LinkedIn and then using those as their own profile. And then when we're coming into that interview, they are utilizing AI to answer our questions based off of that profile that they had shared with AI ahead of time. So essentially just reading those answers. And it's really difficult to be able to gauge, you know, is this person who they're saying they are? Is this information that they're sharing accurate? And obviously, as you know, there's a lot of legalities around all of that and the types of questions that you can and can't ask. So um definitely a challenge from that aspect. All of the other aspects and the love definitely outweigh the challenges for me. Um, we're utilizing AI right from screening the resumes, or, you know, the resume will give a score and then help us stack rank based on uh what our job description is and exactly what we're looking for. So that's been really helpful to cut down on pipeline volume and help us surface the stronger applicants first. We predominantly do more sourcing, where we want to source candidates more directly versus just automatically going into that organic pipeline. And so AI for sourcing has been huge. Um, and then AI just in terms of the process and pipeline automations throughout, you know, moving candidates through stages, sending them emails to uh keep them engaged and make sure we're checking in to share information about the next interview stages. All of that has helped us to just gain back a lot of bandwidth, which then allows us to think more strategically longer term and just make sure that our plans are solid as we're moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I love that. Yeah. And um so I'm excited to have this conversation, learn more about how you're thinking about AI. So let's start start with the resume screen. Actually, give us a lay of the line. Could you tell us uh your your tech stack that you're currently using?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, so we are using Kula for our applicant tracking system, um, which is Kula K-U-L-A. They are newer to the market. Um we are well, we'll be coming up on a year with them in September, I believe. Um, but it's a fully AI-driven platform and it's fully customizable to the user, which has been huge for us. So we're using Kula. We are also using JuiceBox for sourcing. We have a LinkedIn recruiter seat. Um, and then outside of that, it's just all the old school manual manual work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Cool. So with Kula, is Kula who are they doing the um AI uh the resume reviews?

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yes. So basically what we do is we'll load in the job description and we then have the ability to manually stack rank the requirements that are listed within that job description in terms of like which is most important, and then you can give that a weighted percentage. So based on what we're entering in for every new job that we open, as the resumes are coming in, and or we're manually uploading the resumes, the AI will grade it. Um, and it it really just helps us to like dial in very tightly on this is the amount of weight you're putting on this specific skill, and this is where that candidate is falling based on their resume.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

So, what like what percentage of the resumes do you end up needing to review? So if is this cutting down on like 50% or 30 or 70 or what?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

So I I again I'm very old school. I've been doing this for 24 years. I will still manually read every single resume, regardless of where it's falling. I just believe that while I trust AI, my human eye is gonna pick up on things that, you know, I just need to be able to see that. So I'm still reading them all. However, AI will kind of stack rank it and we predominantly it will set a threshold. Um, our threshold is 80%. So essentially anything that's showing up in the AI scoring above 80%, those are the ones that we're gonna review. And then depending on the volume of those, uh, we may reduce that further. We may say, okay, we're getting a lot for this role. Let's let's change that threshold to 90%. The one drawback is that while AI is great, this is also where it's a frustration because candidates will now take your job description, plug it into AI, add their resume in, and then say, tweak my resume to this job description. And we know that they're doing that because cooler that will then say 100% match. So it's it's really hard to read between the lines to understand like, did you actually do these things? That's where we then go look for a LinkedIn profile or something that we can match that up against. Um so it does still require a little bit of additional bandwidth to do your homework and and dig a little further. Um, but overall it's it's been a huge asset.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah, that's really cool. And I also wanted to ask you about uh AI sourcing. So juice box is uh a name that you know it's going around right now a fair amount. Um a lot of folks go into juice box, but now there's Also some like more all-in-one players who are adding juice boxes functionality. So that yes. Um, you know, so I actually know a couple people who's just have recently moved off of Juice Box.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Um but yeah, I'm curious. I mean, how is that is that truly from your perspective as much of a like a huge game changer, or what are your thoughts so far?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

So we are very new to juice box, I would say, within the last 90 days, maybe 120 days, um, but we have fully uh turned to juice box over LinkedIn. Just the ability to be able to set tighter parameters on searches or very specific niche roles, and juice box is able to populate those, that has been a game changer. We predominantly want to be able to source more candidates that that convert to higher versus like organic traction, right? Um, because we believe like we're really looking for that niche skill set that is going to fulfill the position. And juice box has been able to help us do that in I think time from sourcing to fill has been like 32 days.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

It is pulling from LinkedIn though, right? Like it's scraping all the LinkedIn profiles.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

It is scraping. I think just the functionality is able to dial it in more tightly than what we've been able to do just through LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Nice. That's exciting. Well, yeah, I think everybody would like to deleverage from LinkedIn as much as possible. The cost, it's the cost. It's the cost, and it's it's also just like the yeah, like it's the the lack, yeah, lack of flexibility.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

It's the lack of flexibility too. Yeah, the I mean the cost, especially when you're in earlier stage startups, the cost is just astronomical and it could literally just tank you. Um, so we we only have a LinkedIn recruiter light seat, which is a recruitment, very minimal cost. And up until about a month ago, we didn't even have that. So Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

How does outreach work with Juice Box? Are you able to like do you have a certain amount of in mail kind of credits, so to speak?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Or yeah, it depends on like which package you purchase, but yeah, you you get a certain amount of credits, um, and then you're able to, you know, just send out the messaging directly through them. The one thing that we do appreciate about Kula, so we're kind of doing like a triangular approach here. Kula has a Chrome extension where if you go, let's say we source some candidates in JuiceBox, we populate those, we click on the candidate, which brings us to their LinkedIn profile through Kula's Chrome extension within LinkedIn. We're then able to just click a button and then it will funnel the candidate directly into Kula as a prospect. And then we're able to kind of send out our prospect messaging directly through Kula to keep all of the candidate information in one platform, which is nice.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Okay. So you're actually also using Kula for outreach, even before people hit the funnel, too.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Interesting. So is Kula sort of going for this all-in-one play, too? It sounds like correct.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Seems like they're all doing that these days.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah. Which from a recruiter standpoint, yes. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah, yeah. Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

What do you feel like is the most impactful use case for AI and recruiting right now?

SPEAKER_00 26:05

There's a couple. Uh so Kula also has the built-in note taker. And this is gonna come more from like hiring manager interviews and those throughout the pipeline that are conducting the interviews. With the note taker that's built into Kula, it it records the interviews. So you have the visual and the audio, but it then also will transcribe a full the notes for the scorecard. And within five minutes after the interview, the interviewer will receive an email where they can review the recording, they can review, you know, all of the notes, but it just imports directly into the scorecard. They can then add any quick notes that they want. And then it's just the simple like give your thumbs up or you know, your thumbs down. Our hiring managers have reported that that is saving them a tremendous amount of time where we're actually able to stack interviews back to back for them now without leaving that gap in between because all of that administrative burden is removed. So that's been huge for us. And then I would say AI in terms of surfacing candidates. So from that sourcing standpoint, right, just being able to surface candidates, I wish it could almost go a step further. And maybe it can. I haven't had time to dig into this, but you know, there's a lot of like private groups and communities. Um I wish it could source from those and be like, oh, well, these people are in this specific group, right? Because predominantly it is just, I think, pulling LinkedIn profiles.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, cool. Um, that's super helpful. I appreciate you sharing just what you've been up to uh these days and uh what your obsession is. I'd I'd love to zoom out for a little bit and just get a sense of like, you know, you've been in the talent space for a little while and you had some big successes with some really fast growing uh scale up organizations.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Top takeaways, just as a town acquisition leader. Like if if you had to, it could be one, two, three things, what would you say is most important to be successful in your role?

Candidate Experience Alignment And Signal

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Yeah, definitely. For me, top one is candidate experience that is always going to be at the forefront, right? Um, and in a landscape that is like ever changing, um, it's hard to sometimes keep up with that. But I can just speak from experience where specifically healthy interviewing candidates three years ago that are still coming back to me today, some of which we have actually wound up hiring at later points in time, just based on that initial relationship that I was able to build with them. So that's that's gonna be the first thing. Uh, the second thing is internal alignment, ensuring that before that role even goes live, you are aligned internally, right? What is the hiring manager looking for? What are the must-haves? Um, because especially in startups where that may continue to keep evolving even after you have the candidate pipeline flowing, there's so many negative things that can happen when that internal alignment isn't there up front. So as much as possible, being sure that that is solid. And then the third thing is just signal. Uh, we do a really great job, I believe, of just looking for signal, making sure that through every stage of the process that the candidate is hitting that signal for us, we we know that this is absolutely somebody we want to move forward. And we're not just moving people forward to move people forward, um, just being very deliberate and intentional.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

I love it. I love to slow down on candidate experience.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Can you help like in terms of like implementing where to focus on there? Can you give us a few different examples of maybe what you've done at healthy to optimize candidate experience?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah. So for specific for our engineering roles, right? That's a little bit more of a lengthier process than say our business roles and understandable, right? We need to do some type of technical assessment. We need to understand that the candidates have the technical skills. Um, but being able to do that and still reduce overall interview stages has been really pivotal in us being able to secure talent and get them onboarded more quickly. So we sort of live and breathe now by a four-step process. Um, that is working really well for us. At one point, I think we had seven steps in our engineering uh pipeline. So um reducing the number of stages to get candidates through and also be able to, you know, understand that they have the skill set that you're looking for. Um, and then I would say communication is huge, right? Things are moving so fast. Um, I have I've heard so many candidates tell me, are you going to reach back to me or are you gonna ghost me? And I'm like, I cannot fathom for the life of me ever ghosting a candidate, whether they are gonna make it all the way through or they're not, just keeping that communication open and transparent, letting them know where they're at in the process. Um, that is vital. And part of that just goes back to building that relationship of trust right from that first conversation and supporting them throughout. Like I feel like that's your main job as the recruiter. So just being really firm with that.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Yeah, for sure. And you know, the other speaking to your second point, internal alignment, that's huge. And that's always hard at like early stage companies, right? Because things are evolving and moving so fast, it's never perfect. No. Um, but how have you focused on doing that? Like it being healthy as you okay, raised a series B, things sounds like are accelerating.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yes, uh, continue to still it's still a work in progress for us too, right? And I think it is something that will always be a work in progress. But being able to just identify and and really solidify as much of it as you can up front, um, you know, we've we have lost candidates because of it, right? And or we've had to go back and tell candidates that were halfway through the process, hey, listen, you know, we've aligned more deeply internally and we've made updates to this role. And unfortunately, your skill sets no longer a fit, right? Those are the conversations that are devastating. You have a candidate that's super excited, they want to be a part of the company, they understand the role, they're feeling strongly aligned, only for you to come back later on when you could have aligned on that originally. So those are challenges that we will continue to experience. But I think just being able to get ahead of it as much as you can is the best approach.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Yeah, I I totally agree. And I also I wanted to talk to you just to zoom out a little bit. When you think about your own like development, right? Like holistically, um, at this point in your career in your life, like what are you really focused on? Like how what does the essentially like the next best version of yourself look like over the next few years?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah, definitely. Um, so communication, right? Uh, a people person in a talent role, communication is always at the forefront for me. It always has been and it always will be. I think communication for all of us is something that continues to evolve throughout our life and is something that I am consistently always trying to remain mindful of, and also an area that I will always continue to work on. We can use that last example of candidates having to circle back to them to say, hey, I'm so sorry. Like we've we've realigned internally, right? Um, so in those types of situations, I'm consistently self-reflecting and thinking, what could I have shared prior to that conversation? And trying to get ahead of things like that so that in the future, that communication is as transparent as it can be, but also allows uh enough flexibility as things change to still be delivered, you know, in a in a respectful way and in a way that doesn't leave anyone feeling um upset or you know, disjointed by it.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah, for sure. Oh yeah, communication that's always that's solid, right? It's something we always gotta it it is.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

It's at the core of everything, personally and professionally, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah. Wow. Well, we covered a lot. We got through a lot, like action-packed, like very, very quickly too. Like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yeah, that that that kind of resonates. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Yeah, that's uh yeah, that tracks, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

It tracks.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Well, look, uh Katie, I I want to say thank you so much for joining me on the show today. It's been thank you a lot of fun getting to know you, and um, I appreciate you sharing your expertise with everyone and what you're up to and what you focus on for the year and your top takeaways. It was all really good stuff. So thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

And for everybody tuning in, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll talk to you soon.