HR's Secret Weapon: Decoding Human Potential with Jackie Dube

Ever wonder why traditional hiring processes fail so often? In this eye-opening conversation, The Predictive Index's Chief People Officer Jackie Dube reveals how data-driven talent optimization transformed their approach to finding and developing exceptional talent.

Jackie shares the compelling evolution of PI's interview process with host Bob Goodwin. She explains how their behavioral assessments help identify which candidates will thrive in specific roles without using them as rigid filters. "It's about understanding humans and what drives them," Jackie explains, highlighting how this approach transcends the limitations of resume-based hiring.

The most profound revelation comes when Jackie shares PI's commitment to skills-based hiring. "We care about curiosity and attitude," she states firmly, revealing how this philosophy enabled remarkable transformations within their organization. Their current director of engineering began as a product marketer, and when faced with unexpected leadership departures, they seamlessly transitioned their VP of product design to lead their sales department—with outstanding results. This internal mobility has created a culture where talent thrives and adapts to changing business needs.

Perhaps most fascinating is PI's innovative "culture interview" conducted by someone outside the hiring team. This unique approach ensures candidates experience the broader company culture beyond their potential teammates and provides valuable perspective on cultural alignment with their "THREADS" values (teamwork, honesty, reliability, energy, action, drive, scope). As Jackie notes with a smile, "We do have a no-jackass policy."

For HR professionals navigating today's challenging talent landscape, Jackie offers practical advice: look beyond resumes, avoid assumptions about employment gaps, provide clear communication throughout the process, and recognize that the right attitude and curiosity often matter more than direct experience. "Don't be a bystander," she urges, encouraging listeners to leverage all available tools—from assessments to emerging AI—to make better talent decisions.

Ready to transform your approach to talent? Listen now and discover how understanding human drives could revolutionize your hiring success.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to HR Chat Show
• 0:41 Meet Jackie Duby, Chief People Officer
• 5:02 Understanding Predictive Index Platform
• 9:31 Evolution of PI's Interview Process
• 21:28 Using Assessments in Hiring Decisions
• 27:40 Skills-Based Hiring and Internal Talent
• 37:57 Culture Interview and Company Values
• 44:27 Final Advice for HR Professionals

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit HRGazettecom. And visit HRGazettecom.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Hey everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, president of Career Club, and welcome to another episode of HR Chat. Thank you to my good friend Bill Bannum and the folks at HR Gazette for allowing me to guest host every once in a while. It's a pleasure to be with you guys today. It's especially a pleasure today because I'm joined by Jackie Duby, who is the Chief People Officer at the Predictive Index Company. Jackie, welcome.

Speaker 3: 0:46

Hi, thanks for having me so excited to be here today.

Speaker 2: 0:49

No, I'm excited to have you. We've gotten to know each other over the past few weeks and you've got some very interesting stories to share, I think, some best practices and lessons learned to share. Clearly, the use of assessments, I think, is very interesting to people and the Predictive Index is obviously one of the name brand ones out there. It's been around for a while. I wanted to start off. First of all. Just let people get to know you a little bit as a human being first. Where are you calling in from? Where do you live now?

Speaker 3: 1:18

Sure, I'm calling in from the great small state of Rhode Island. So I live in a little sailing city called Newport, rhode Island, and I've been here for gosh more than half my life, so I went to college in Rhode Island and never left.

Speaker 2: 1:35

So, having been to Newport, that is a beautiful, beautiful spot. So you were born and raised in Rhode Island, or?

Speaker 3: 1:43

not. Nope, I was born actually in Basel, Switzerland. My parents were transferred there for two years and no, I'm not a dual citizen Everyone always asks. But I did grow up in the also small great state of New Jersey. So I went to college, as I mentioned, up in Rhode Island and kind of never left this area. So I love it?

Speaker 2: 2:03

And when you're not being an amazing chief people officer, what do we find you doing?

Speaker 3: 2:08

So you'll find me doing a couple of things. So I have a wonderful family. I have two girls, one in college and one in high school. So still in transferring them around, so we don't have a license for the younger one, for another for like 18 days. So we're counting those and but I'm in, I run. So I've run five marathons, multiple, multiple half marathons, and I am not an amazing tennis player, but gosh darn do I try. So those are the things you'll find me doing. Where's the Tennis Hall of Fame? Is it around you? It is, and actually that's my club. So it is about a mile and a half from my house. It's right up on Memorial Boulevard in Newport, so you should visit when you're around.

Speaker 2: 2:49

So if you ever find yourself in Cincinnati, you need to come to the tennis event that we have every year in August. It's a tune-up for the US Open, as you probably know, and everybody's here every year. It's very very fun. I have actually always wanted to go to the Cincinnati Open, so maybe one year it's so hard to leave.

Speaker 2: 3:11

Newport in the summer, though, trust me, you'll find me on your doorstep. All right, let's get into it so very quickly. Maybe this is the proper way to set the stage. Do you mind just explaining just a little bit about the predictive index for people who may not be familiar with it, and then I don't want to spend a ton of time on that. We'll get into your processes and things, but just for somebody who may not have familiarity at all with it.

Speaker 3: 3:32

Sure. So the Predictive Index is a talent optimization platform. So we have a behavioral assessment, a job assessment, a cognitive assessment, but it's much more than that behavioral assessment, a job assessment, a cognitive assessment but it's much more than that. So the platform, the science, technology and services. We have a network of partners that help service the talent optimization, but it's all around helping companies to hire the right people, inspiring them to perform, using the data to design, winning, performing teams and then continually measuring that engagement. So the platform does all of those things.

Speaker 3: 4:08

I do think it might be helpful to just give some perspective on how I came to be at the Predictive Index. That'd be amazing. Yeah, so I've been in HR for over 25 years, so since I graduated from college and back in, let's see, back in 2009,. I was in the job hunt. The company that I had just worked for filed for bankruptcy and I bumped into Mike Sani, who's the current CEO of the Predictive Index, and at the time, he was taking over as a CEO for a startup which had nine people for it, and he had just used the Predictive Index for the first time at his previous investment and brought it over to this new organization, and I had never used it. I never really used assessments in any of my practices and Mike was like we have nine people, we're going to grow this company, we to do it intentionally, and this is one way in which you can make sure that you are intentionally hiring the right people to do the job that you're trying to get them to do Now.

Speaker 3: 5:19

Back then, the technology was like way different. It was just an assessment and and you needed a consultant to interpret it. We've come very far from there, but the science was so powerful in decoding humans and really getting understanding what drives them and understanding more about jobs that when I left that company, it was a requirement for me to take wherever I went. So I went to another startup company as a change agent. We sold that company. Then I started my own consulting practice and was lucky enough to have a first client that used the predictive index, and my network just expanded from there.

Speaker 3: 5:56

And then, when Mike, my former CEO, actually bought the predictive index in 2014 with his partner, they became a client of mine. They knew they were going to change the company. They needed to hire a whole bunch of new people. They knew the type of culture they wanted to build and then a year later I found my dream job and I've been here for 10 years as we've kind of grown the company. So it's really not necessarily I love PI, but it is about understanding humans and what drives them and the power that has we're so so many times, you know, as HR people or leaders in businesses, we're always looking at the resume Like what did they do before? Because that's going to predict what I want, predict what I want them to do, and that's actually not the case. So I just found the science to be so powerful.

Speaker 2: 6:45

No, well, first of all, I appreciate you saying that context, because you're right. I mean, you were a user of it and became a believer in it before you worked there, which makes this much more than a job, I'm sure.

Speaker 3: 6:59

It's a dream job.

Speaker 2: 7:01

You get to share the good news, okay, you get to share the good news, okay. So I do want to say one other thing, since we're speaking to a lot of HR people. You use the word or the phrase like decoding human beings, and I was given a talk a couple of weeks ago and you know the CEO has got strategy and all this kind of complicated stuff. The CFO has got, you know, doing everything with all the accounting and finance and all that's pretty complicated. You've got the IT person. Lord knows they're dealing with artificial intelligence and whatever else. Hr people easily have the hardest job because you've got the most complex thing that you're trying to understand, manage, help, optimize to use your earlier word and like there's nothing more complicated in the universe than a human being and that's what HR people are charged with. So tons of respect, I guess, is basically, and anything that you can use to help understand that.

Speaker 3: 8:07

And you know, on that note, like we talk about all the time is that in every other area you mentioned, a CEO has a strategy and uses all of this data and metrics to predict or measure their outcomes. And so, for so long, hr was never tied to data or use data to manage their outcomes. And so, for so long, hr was never tied to data or use data to manage their business. And there's data out there on people, on engagement, and we should be using that to measure our outcomes and set our goals in place when we have it, you know, and there's ways to get it.

Speaker 2: 8:41

Well, okay, so you're right. And whether it's modeling from the CEO's perspective Well, okay, so you're right. And whether it's modeling from the CEO's perspective, modeling like if we were entered this market, what would happen, how much resources we'd have to put against it, what's the expected return? The CFO is always modeling financial outcomes and changes in the budget and revenue's not coming in the way that we thought. So how do we have to? They live on modeling. Your marketing people live on modeling.

Speaker 2: 9:07

If we launch this campaign, what's the likely response rate? That's how it can translate into sales, whatever. And you're right, people analytics from a predictive way, I think. Maybe some descriptive, right, but predictive is a world away from descriptive. Descriptive, right, but predictive is a world away from descriptive. And you know, if the science bears it out, being able to predict how someone is going to perform, you know. So let's use that as a launching point with that. So when we, when we first getting to know each other, you were describing for me kind of a before and an after that you guys had a previous, you know, hiring and interview process and that's actually changed and improved. Can you kind of give the before and the after and we'll kind of get into the guts of it as you go.

Speaker 3: 9:56

Sure, and I feel like this, a lot of companies fall into this cycle of one like you're interviewing the candidate, it is your choice, right, and you're like no, they're interviewing you too. So that's a. You know, a good first step is to realize it's a, it's a mutual interview. But so our interview process has always been to use assessments. We use that at the very beginning of our assessment of our interview process to help not filter candidates, but to identify which ones will most likely succeed in the job based on what we're asking them to do. And we do that through a behavioral assessment, job assessment. So we've always done that.

Speaker 3: 10:40

And then we would have a hiring manager interview which consists or excuse me, an HR interview, which consists of, like just the screening, making sure like salary and all that kind of stuff match. And then we would have a hiring manager interview which consists or excuse me, an HR interview which consists of, like, just the screening, making sure like salary and all that kind of stuff match. And then we would have a hiring manager interview, and then we'd get to the super day, and the super day was like a free for all of who wants to meet this candidate. You know how, what questions you want to ask and a candidate would come in, sometimes for like a full day, a full day. You want to ask, and a candidate would come in sometimes for like a full day, a full day. Now, this was more onsite, where, where the pre COVID and you know, which is great, you get to know them, they get to know you. We weren't very structured in ensuring that the same people weren't asking the same questions.

Speaker 3: 11:17

So, imagine you're a candidate and you go to, like I don't know, four or five interviews and you start with the same six things every single time. You're like, oh my gosh, I wish they would just talk to each other. And so we took a lot of time in getting candidate feedback on their experience. And you know, through Glastonbury Reviews we took an evaluation. We had the candidates fill out an evaluation after their interview and you know, even the candidates that got the job felt like that was a lot and it wasn't necessarily always the most productive. And so over time, through lots of iterations, we've ended up in a more streamlined process where the maximum amount of super day time can be four hours max, even though it's on Zoom, and if it's on different days, four hours maximum.

Speaker 3: 12:14

We get a hiring team together. We talk about who's asking which questions. There's interview guides in terms of who's screening for what. And then one of the most valuable interview portions that we met that we introduced was what we call like a culture interview. So we have our we can talk about this later but we have our cultural values defined. It's an acronym, it stands for threads, and so we train a group of employees that volunteer in how to do this cultural interview based on our core values.

Speaker 3: 12:47

And they get to spend some time with a candidate, and the key here is that the person who's doing the culture interview is not on the team that the candidate is interviewing for, and this really gives the candidate more insight into what is this company that I am joining versus this team.

Speaker 3: 13:03

The team is important, but it's also like what does it look like outside of the people I'll be working with? Am I hearing the same things? And it really gives the candidate a chance to ask some more general questions from an employee that just works at the company, and we found this to be a huge benefit for both the candidate and for us. And then, at the end of the, if anyone makes it to this four hour interview, we send them a gift card afterwards for a coffee, for spending time with us, to really just thank them, because they are taking some time out of their day to spend with us, and we appreciate that. So so, yeah, so it's been an evolution over, you know, six or seven years in terms of getting it right, but we really think that we are efficient. We give a good experience to the candidate. We always tell them when we're going to get back to them. You know we talk about this white glove experience.

Speaker 2: 13:56

So OK, where did four hours come?

Speaker 3: 13:58

from. So it was a lot of testing to make sure, one that we had the right amount of time to get the information that we needed, and then a lot of candidate feedback around. What did they expect was too much time to spend in an interview, and it doesn't always reach four right. Sometimes there's just, you know, two or three people that the person might need to meet with, but four was the maximum.

Speaker 2: 14:27

I'll tell you what. Just from people who know me outside of this podcast know that I devote a decent amount of time to helping job seekers, and you know one of the key things is just like these really brutal interview processes and you know what might feel like a super day to you. Might be a super, not great day from experience perspective. I mean seriously. And you know to your point, like, is there a process?

Speaker 2: 14:58

Why did I just answer that question for the third time? I, like I said, do you talk to each other? But what I think I would like to kind of dial into, because people are using assessments and I do want to talk about the predictive index in particular, but you said that you use the instrument on the front end, right, not as a filter, but as a way of kind of you know, making sure this person's going to be a good fit for the role that we need. How do you use the assessment in the interview process? How does that shape the kinds of things that you might want to learn and who's asking those things?

Speaker 3: 15:39

Sure, so typically I'll just answer the last question first. Sure, so typically I'll just answer the last question first. Typically it's the hiring manager that will talk more about like behavioral fit for the job with the candidate, and so one of the great tools that we have also is this job assessment, and what that does is it sends out a survey to all the stakeholders for the job. So just say that you're my manager or you're the hiring manager, so you would take it, and then maybe a key stakeholder in finance would take it, and then anyone on the hiring team or not anyone, but some people on the hiring team and that comes back. One it shows are all of the people that are going to be interviewing this person looking for the same thing? Yes, right, because sometimes you're like this person is not going to drive this process forward and you're like I wasn't expecting them to. They're going to execute on things I asked them to. So now you're interviewing for two different things and the interview is over, right? So one on the forefront of hiring it gets everyone aligned to what is this job, not even the person like what's the job. So once the job is defined, then you can say to the candidates. So take a behavioral assessment and the software will kind of just give are they matched or not? And there's a numerical match of how close they are from a behavioral to job fit. And so just say that in this job you're in a finance role and detail, orientation, rule following and process following are really important to this job, and you get a candidate that might not have great attention to detail but has know, has everything else that you're looking for, is curious, has good attitude, has got some experience. So you're like, okay, let me find more out about this, and so then you can, the software will do this.

Speaker 3: 17:35

But the questioning around this comes to like, hey, this job requires, you know, a lot of attention to detail. There's, you know it's really important to get the numbers right. Can you tell me about a time where you had to dig into the details and how did you feel about that? Is this something that would drain you? Because we can all do jobs that are outside of how we're wired, it's in, how we're driven, it's just like, how sustainable is it? Does it exhaust you?

Speaker 3: 18:01

And so I think it's digging deep in there, but even knowing what questions to ask are so important, because sometimes you're like and this is why we do it at the beginning too because, just say, you're hiring for a sales job that requires lots of social interaction and extroversion. Everyone is going to fall in love with someone who's social and can hold a conversation. Right, you're like this is great, but like they might not be able to put pressure on to close a deal or negotiate. But if you've already kind of fallen in love with them because you had this great conversation and connection, you might not. You might be considering, oh well, they'll figure that out and it's actually they're not going to be a successful salesperson. So it's those types of insights that just help you ask the question. So it's those types of insights that just help you ask the question to learn more.

Speaker 2: 18:49

So I'm a big fan of assessments and I have used predictive index in the past and it's very, very, very good. And a couple of things that come to mind and I just think about to your earlier point, like the biases. Like, I just like Jackie. She's so nice, you know, she's friendly. I think she'd be a great culture fit here and, you know, if our flight got canceled she'd be a fun person to talk to, you know. So yeah, let's go. And so we have our biases.

Speaker 2: 19:18

There's also a consistency kind of a thing, right, because I might accidentally, luckily, maybe intentionally, uncover the fact that details is not your thing.

Speaker 2: 19:32

You're an amazing strategic thinker but you know, actually getting into the operationalizing of those things is not your lane as much. And you're right, when we can do stuff, we can kind of push through, but it's exhausting and to do it repeatedly there's going that's going to come at a cost, right, either the quality of work, burnout of the person, whatever. And you also have people from the candidate side. I really need a job. Right now I'm going to say whatever I need to say to get hired I need a job. This is a very tough job market. As you and I record this, this is not an easy job market for power professionals, and that's everybody who's been laid off, so there's an abundance of supply. So being able to kind of cut through, either as a hiring person, my biases or as the candidate, my desire to get an offer from somebody having an objective, you know, validated instrument to help, is invaluable, because the cost of a bad hire is real high.

Speaker 3: 20:48

Yeah, and imagine a scenario where you're hiring like three or four people in the same job. So you have three user support positions open, right, and they're all have different behavioral profiles and you have lots of different projects and areas where they can shine and need to take on. So you can hire your four people and like see how to direct the work, because now you know who's going to be more driven and excited and engaged in that type of work. So it's not, like I said, it's not always a filter. It's kind of just gives you insight into how to best match the job to be done to the person who's predictably going to do the best with it.

Speaker 2: 21:30

Where do you guys see? Where would you counsel people how to not use an assessment?

Speaker 3: 21:39

If you're using it as a filter. I think that's wrong, because people are complex and there's lots more than just an assessment. So if you're in an organization that isn't, If you're in an organization that isn't fully trained, I would say I can't imagine a world where I wouldn't use one. I don't think there's a scenario. But it's more about training. It's about the mindset and the openness to assessments and understanding the tool that you're using. So there's a self-awareness. You should take the assessment yourself so you understand who you are as well. So you can, you can speak to it, but I can't you know other than misuse. I can't imagine a scenario where I wouldn't use one when we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 22:26

Can you define filtering versus how to use it to prioritize candidates, or what's the distinction between filtering and how you use it?

Speaker 3: 22:36

Sure. So when I say you prioritize candidates, so so just say, you know, we just opened a product manager role and then we had 250 applicants, right. So you're like, okay, what, how do I manage and prioritize who I'm going to talk to, because there's only so much time in a day, right? So you, you kind of look at resume and experience, then you send assessments to your top candidates that you want to talk to and then you have a job assessment. So you're like, okay, I'm going to take the first 20 that are behaviorally driven or matched to this job and we talk to them first. So it just helps you prioritize when those situations happen.

Speaker 3: 23:19

There's many times that you know.

Speaker 3: 23:22

I remember over the last 10 years, we know we've been through so many ups and downs in the economy and in talent, talent demand.

Speaker 3: 23:30

But there are times we post a job and we're like three people came in for, like you know, particular job when software engineers were so hard to find, and then we're just use it as a tool to help us have a conversation about like this is what the job is, this is, you know, what we're we've learned about you like how are we going to navigate that?

Speaker 3: 23:54

What we're we've learned about you, like how are we going to navigate that, etc. And just being very open about it. So, um, a filter would be like oh, this person, their profile, is not the one that is on this job assessment, so I'm not talking to them. That's just like hard stop. And we were just talking about this earlier, where I think a lot of um, a lot of of HR departments or talent acquisition and professionals like filter out people on things like a gap in employment or a location where they might live or some story they've made up based on a resume. And resumes are just one piece of information, experience is one piece and there's so much more so you know it's.

Speaker 2: 24:34

It's interesting. Let's talk about that because you know you're right. We were talking earlier about you have more skills based hiring and the resume, you know, is that the be-all, end-all things? I mean, first of all, you want to about a biased document. A resume is a highly biased document by its very nature and how it's intended to be used. So there's that. Can you talk to us a little bit about why you're more an advocate of skills-based and how your fellow HR compatriots could be thinking about being maybe a little less direct experience You've done this exact job for eight years and how we're looking more for attributes than we are exact experiences.

Speaker 3: 25:23

Yeah, and I'll use some real life examples. And I do believe that there's jobs where you need some experience. Like, in most cases you're going to hire a software engineer, you need to know how to code in some cases. So the example I'll use is that when, when Mike and Daniel are two, our president and CEO acquired the predictive index, they we sat in a room, the three of us, and we said what do we want this company to be? What do we want it to feel like from a culture perspective? What do we value? How do we look at performance? And one of the things that we agreed to as we were going to build the company was that we cared about curiosity and like, is a person smart and curious and want to learn? Do they have a good attitude? And we would not compromise on those two things, but the only thing we would compromise was on their job experience, and so we use that. It's been about 10 years.

Speaker 3: 26:39

There was a time where we were trying to build our engineering department and we're based in a suburb of Boston and there was just no talent. We weren't in the city, no one wanted to commute, we were, you know, in-person company, um, and so we had to be creative. So we hired people that were already in our company to become software engineers. So our our current director of engineering is a former product marketer. He came to us for part marketing and he's interested in coding and he he knew our business, he knew our science. We're like we're gonna have to teach that to someone anyway. So he wants to learn and that's how we ended up and that's to this day we are able to be so adaptable and flexible and maneuver with all of the changes and when you know, headwinds that we hit from what's happening outside of our control. Because that's the mindset of, like anyone, really, if they're curious and want to learn, we can teach them anything, and that's how we take it.

Speaker 2: 27:44

I want to just side note, there's a professor at Wharton who leads all of their HR school, if you will, named Peter Capelli, and he's actually written a book on this and it's essentially around internal talent marketplaces. And you know, with all the layoffs and everything that are going on because we've got people so rigidly identified as I am a product marketer, rigidly identified as I am a product marketer, therefore, and for whatever reason, we can think we can cut product marketing right now. That you're just cutting loose of somebody who is curious is a great culture, fit, great attitude, actually curious in the thing that we need people to be good at. And instead of letting that person go, we've actually figured out a way to reskill, upskill them and keep a great talent. You know, at the risk of making a sports analogy, like I can't teach you to be tall, I can't teach you to be fast, I can teach you a position.

Speaker 3: 28:47

Right, yeah, I love that, and you know, that's how we've been so successful, like in December our head of revenue gave notice and then in January our VP of sales followed him and so we're. We're like, what are we going to do? And we pulled in our VP of product design. It is now running our sales department and it's been going swimmingly. So, like understanding who's on the team and people you know are driven like, this person happens to be what we call a maverick and like work in ambiguity, loves curate, like to take on new challenges, likes to fix things. So it was like a perfect segue for one for her and two for us. And now we have. You know, we didn't skip a beat where a lot of companies would be like we have to go hire someone.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Yeah, and pay big bucks to go, lure them away from whatever they're doing and it's like why this person's already in our company and knows us. We trust them Right.

Speaker 3: 29:50

And we had an answer for all the people on the sales team we're going to be like what's going to happen to us, right? And if you're hiring someone new, they're like I'm not going to like that person, let me go dip my my, my foot in the water of a new job, right? And we didn't. We didn't skip a beat. It was like the next day. So they had, they had, they knew exactly what was going to happen and it was really worked out very well.

Speaker 2: 30:11

No, that's awesome. So you talked about the cultural interview and I wanted to go back to that real quick, because that sounds like something that's worth learning a little bit more about.

Speaker 3: 30:24

Sure, so we have. I mentioned our values. It's an acronym, threads. It stands for teamwork, honesty, reliability, energy, action, drive and scope, and each of those have definitions. It's an acronym, threads. It stands for teamwork, honest, honesty, reliability, energy, action, drive and scope, and each of those have definitions.

Speaker 3: 30:37

Um, so, depending on the job, or um, potentially um, whatever the hiring team has asked you to kind of dig in on um, we'll talk about things. Those things because they're important to us as a company, like share with us a time where you've been a good teammate, or what does a good teammate look like to you? And you know, I think a big one for us is scope, especially as you start getting to leadership things. It's like, and scope for us means like, don't try and boil the ocean and be able to call the scope card. And be able to call the scope card and be able to say, like I'm not going to be able to get to that, or if I do that, I might not be able to get to something else. What are we going to move? And just getting some examples of how a candidate might think about those things and then also giving them experience of what that looks like at our company Right.

Speaker 3: 31:28

So, like we have one of ours, one of our values is like errors of action are better than errors of inaction, and so we're like we want people to be empowered and comfortable making decisions when they don't necessarily have all the answers. We'd rather you make the decision in most cases and we'll fix it later. We're like we're in assessments, we're not assessment, and we're in talent optimization. We're not doing surgery, so we have a little bit of leeway here. But in most cases you're going to make the right decision, so go ahead and make it, and we'd rather you take that error of action versus waiting around and not making a decision.

Speaker 2: 32:09

Yeah, so that's interesting, that would be, you know. Back to personality attributes, like do you need complete information to be able to make a decision? And you know there are assessments and I'm sure you all do the same. You know they can get at things like that and it's like well, that's not our MO here and you're going to be very uncomfortable. It's not even a judgment, it's just that person might feel irresponsible putting something forward that's only 60 baked and we'll figure the rest of it out in market, you know a little bit of ship and fix and then, like you can't do that that's terrible, like you're knowingly shipping things out that aren't perfect.

Speaker 2: 32:50

well, if we wait for perfect, we're never going to ship anything out, and then, to the extent we get to perfect, then we put it out there. We figure out it's not perfect. We just spend a ton of time and money aiming for something that wasn't realized.

Speaker 3: 33:03

Yep, yeah, and then you can actually have these conversations, because we would still want that person to work at our company. We'd be like, okay, but now we know that, so we're like we'll be able to help you. Like Bob, I know that this isn't like you don't have all the information, we're going to do this. How do you feel about it? Like you can kind of get through that because you know that that's the issue. It's not that the person you know isn't doing their job, and sometimes it comes out as like performance Like Bob just won't make a decision. Performance Like Bob just won't make a decision. It's like, no, bob doesn't have the information that he's comfortable with making the decision. And it's not about Bob, it's about the context of the situation in which how Bob can make a decision. So, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 33:42

Well, I was going to say it reminds me of a time when and I think this again would be instructive for listeners I remember presenting the strategy of the company to our analyst team and of course I was mostly the author of some of this stuff. So it was brilliant. And so I'm presenting all this stuff and with a lot of enthusiasm and whatever, and it was just sort of like flatlining with these 15 people that I was presenting to and I'm like is it because you don't care? You're too dumb to get it? And of course it was neither one of those things.

Speaker 2: 34:20

The way that this particular personality type that makes them amazing analysts is they need a little bit of soak time. They don't just viscerally react to things like I do, and so I'm missing the visceral reaction because that's what I'm comfortable doing. And for them, again, it's like that's not even in my nature to do that, and if I was, it would be again, not to overuse the word irresponsible Yep, I haven't even really thought about it yet. I haven't kind of walked all the way around this thing to form an informed opinion. So I'll see you tomorrow after I've had time to think about it and thankfully, one of the and she was great a very young analyst actually, you know, just a couple of years into her career. She's the one that provided me that insight.

Speaker 2: 35:04

Yeah, you can see I've carried this many years forward of not everybody thinks the way that. I think that's not a bad thing. In fact, that's probably starting to get into the definition of diversity, right, that's a good thing, but I appreciate what you're sharing. Go back to the. I think you also mentioned that the cultural interview is provided by somebody who's not on the team. Yep, and that reminds me of Laszlo Bock, I think his book is called Work Rules. He's the former senior VP of people at Google. Yep, they put a lot on people not in the department to make the hiring decisions, and you're not going that far I'm not hearing you say that anyway, but somebody that's got input who's not on the sales team, and we're hiring a salesperson.

Speaker 3: 35:52

Yeah, and I will tell you that. You know we do have a no jackass policy and like that doesn't get tripped. So there have been times where and it wouldn't just it's typically not just a red flag in the you know what we call the threads interview, but there's a lot of influence in that. It's not just a nice to have and a touchy feely type of thing Like it's credible influence over whether or not someone can join, and so we do take time in working with the people who do those interviews and like teaching them how to interview, and these are the types of things you should look for.

Speaker 2: 36:31

Are you guys consensus based, or could somebody be a dissenting vote and we still go with the other candidate?

Speaker 3: 36:39

Yeah, I mean it's the hiring manager, so that's the decision maker, Like people ops doesn't make the decision. I mean we try and mediate a decision and get to a decision and make sure we're thinking about the big picture, but it's the hiring manager's decision for us For sure.

Speaker 2: 36:54

So we don't have to be unanimous. Nope, Gotcha, Okay. So I think I have some notion because we've talked about some of these. But specifically, Jackie, when you're interviewing somebody I know this could change based on the role or the level or whatever but generally speaking, what are the attributes that you're looking for in a candidate?

Speaker 3: 37:15

Sure, you know, I like to. I like for someone to be prepared Like I think someone shows up to the conversation and knows who they're talking to, knows a little bit about the company. I think that's important. Again, curiosity, I think asking questions about the company, the job, the manager, taking a real investment in the people that they're working with, Because when they're interviewing with me, unless it's a senior leader at the company, it's more of a you know what's this company about versus the job. So I look for examples of where you know they can provide, where they've been curious, how they've made an impact, the work they like to do, so really can be self-aware. I think self-awareness is a big component of a good hire, because we're not all perfect and we do have interpersonal issues at work no matter who we are, and we do have interpersonal issues at work no matter who we are, so being aware of that. So, like I said before, a good attitude and curiosity above all, I think are great.

Speaker 2: 38:29

Awesome. And then, as we start to land the plane here a little bit again, there's a lot of HR professionals people you would consider, peers listening to this. What if we're recording this in March of 2025,? What advice do you have for your HR colleagues?

Speaker 3: 38:50

Yeah, well, I think we started this by saying like it is a really difficult place to be as someone looking for a job. So a job seeker is really tough place because there's so many people out there and it's a little bit uncertain. So one my advice to you is put yourself in those shoes and make sure that you're you're looking more beyond the resume. There's so much talent out there and you know diversity of thought brings great ideas and innovation to companies. So look beyond the resume. Don't fill in the gaps with stories you've made up like there's a gap in the resume or something doesn't make sense. Just take the time to go explore that before just saying no.

Speaker 3: 39:45

I think that what I hear a lot from candidates is a lot about ghosting or not knowing. Going in for an interview and never hearing back. Is set some expectations and give candidates the experience that they deserve as a candidate at your company and let them know whether they're still a candidate or not. It's not that hard. And, yeah, I think, just be open to more than just the resume We've got so much talent.

Speaker 2: 40:21

I was going to ask you about that, jackie, because while I agree with that and skills-based hiring is certainly in vogue to talk about right now, there's also sometimes a reluctance to actually act on that, because hiring by its very nature is a risky business and if I go ahead and hire somebody that doesn't have the degree, who doesn't have the exact experience, and it doesn't work out, I've heard people say I'm afraid of the blowback that I took a risk.

Speaker 2: 40:54

And I probably should have just hired the safer candidate, at least on paper, safer candidate. How would you respond to that concern?

Speaker 3: 41:03

Well, I mean, hiring in general is a risk, and I do agree like there are and I might have said this earlier that in some cases it is if there's candidates out there that have the experience to do the job and the skill sets. By all means, that is important and should be taken into account. But I think that you know there's lots to learn at any company, no matter what. So I think about Salesforce administrator, for example. You could be a Salesforce administrator at one company and go to another company with your Salesforce experience and need to go to training, because every system is so different on a different version. So it's like you're going to have to teach them something, and so what is it that you're going to teach them? So, and sometimes, yeah, it is a risk and it doesn't always work out.

Speaker 2: 42:02

Well, it's interesting to me because, you know, it's like I want you to be curious, but I want you to have done this exact job. It's like, yeah, but I'm curious, I want to learn new stuff yeah, that's awesome, but I just don't want to fund your education. So I want. But I think the more enlightened approach is we want people that want to continue to grow, that have a desire to grow, that have a drive to continue to improve and get better and learn new things. I think it's going to be a much better hire, not even in the long run, I think probably in the short run. Then, hey, this guy's plug and play today yeah, it's, he already hit his ceiling and we could have hired somebody else and she, you know, we could have gone much further with her, you know, because he's got more drive and more capacity to continue to grow in the role as we grow.

Speaker 3: 42:53

Yeah, and I would say that in all of our senior leadership positions, a PI, when we've hired externally, it's always been someone who hasn't had that job before. So we hired our VP of engineering, who was a director of engineering at Wayfair. So we wanted to find you know, this was the next job for them versus the person who had done it before yeah, versus the person who had done it before yeah. And I will say that's when we hire externally. But the majority of our leaders, from you know directors to all the way to myself, are all promotions. We've hired from within, we've promoted and developed from within.

Speaker 2: 43:41

And it keeps people on track everywhere in your company because they see growth, yeah, growth, yeah. Well, I can't think of a better note to end on than growth. Is there anything that we didn't talk about, jackie, that you just wanted to make sure that you shared before we?

Speaker 3: 43:48

we let you get back to running a great company no, I think that, um, you know, as I think about the future of work and the future of, you know, hiring and it's going to be an interesting, I think, next few years. And you know, whatever tools you can use to help navigate and set your organization up for success, like, take advantage of them. I think AI is going to be powerful. So, you know, don't be, don't be a bystander in all of the things that we have to help us, you know, make these critical decisions for our companies, exactly.

Speaker 2: 44:31

And and you know I do agree, and we'll end on this with Jim Collins like you know, job one is get the right people on the bus and tools tools like the Predictive Index can really help companies make much better decisions. So I really appreciate your time. This was so much fun. Like you've, clearly thought about this a lot, I learned a few new things, which I really appreciate, and I thank you and I thank the listening audience and again Bill Bannum at HR Gazette and all the good folks at HR Chat. Thank you so much for allowing me a few minutes to be the guest host. With that, jackie, I'll say thank you again.

Speaker 3: 45:03

Thank you so much. I could talk about this for days, so appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 45:07

Well then, we'll have to have you back.

Speaker 3: 45:08

Okay, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 4: 45:29

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