Hiring Happy Hour

Can you answer this question right now: who are you, really? Not your title, not your role, just you.

Hiring has never been more optimized, yet 53% of job seekers have been ghosted by an employer, and the most sophisticated tech stacks still can't explain why the right hires aren't sticking. LaShawn Davis, Founder and Chief Culture Strategist at The HR Plug, believes the problem isn't the technology. It's that we've stopped treating...

Transformation rarely happens in perfect conditions. Sometimes it happens during executive departures, a rocky return, and a phone call on your birthday telling you that you're now the CEO.

In part two of this conversation, Rebecca Carr, CEO of SmartRecruiters, an SAP company, joins Hiring Happy Hour for a candid look at one of the most defining chapters in company history: rebuilding momentum internally, pivoting SmartRecruiters in...

Rebecca Carr didn’t plan to end up at SmartRecruiters. What started as an accidental application through a demo recruiting account became the beginning of a decade-long journey helping shape one of the most influential companies in hiring technology.

In part one of this special two-part series, Rebecca, CEO of SmartRecruiters, an SAP company, joins Hiring Happy Hour to reflect on the early career moments, bold bets, and custom...

Only 37% of hiring leaders say they feel prepared for AI, so what's the other 63% missing? Matt Alder, host of the globally renowned Recruiting Future podcast and one of the most forward-thinking voices in TA, joins Nicole to cut through the noise. From drawing sharp parallels between AI and the early internet to defining what actually separates real, working innovation from a flashy demo, this conversation is grounded, strategic, ...

What does real TA transformation actually look like, beyond a system migration? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with Alan Walker, Co-Founder and CEO of Udder, to unpack what it takes to build hiring operations that actually work from the ground up, under pressure, and at scale. Alan shares how Udder grew from a two-person startup, launched mid-pandemic with a few hundred pounds, into a global consultancy that...

Some of the best ideas in business history weren’t born in boardrooms, and Steve Hardy has the Sip Club to prove it. In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with Steve Hardy, five-time CMO, Forrester Marketing Executive of the Year, and current SmartRecruiters CMO for a conversation about what modern hiring innovation should actually enable and all that it takes to get there. From building a Friday ritual that ...

What does it actually take to build a hiring system from scratch, launch it during COVID, and hit 1.3 million hires in a single year? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with her friend and former implementation partner Preeti Woods, Senior Product Manager at Amazon Web Services, to unpack the real story behind deploying SmartRecruiters to 3,000+ Amazon DSPs across 14+ countries, including the moment a UAT crisis...

We're bringing this one back to the feed because some conversations are too important to only hear once. Jamie Szymkowiak, Head of Talent Acquisition at EcoVadis, former political advisor to the UK House of Commons, and disability rights advocate who turned personal adversity into a top 5% billing career, is someone whose story doesn't lose anything on a second listen. Nicole and Jamie’s conversation is a masterclass in doing...

What happens when the host becomes the guest , and her closest colleague holds the mic?

In this one-of-a-kind episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole Hammond steps out of the interviewer seat and into the spotlight. Her friend and SmartRecruiters' Global Head of Content & Communications, Erin Diamond, takes the wheel, pulling back the curtain on Nicole's career journey, her philosophy on change management, AI, and what it actually ...

What happens when you combine deep technical expertise with a genuine love for people? You get Carrie Brophy, and she is everything. With over 20 years of experience driving HR and recruitment transformation across the globe, Carrie is a rare ATS specialist who can speak the language of the recruiter on the floor and the HRIT team in the boardroom. She has implemented some of the world’s most powerful platforms across more th...

Ed Zetusky, Director of Talent Acquisition at Comoto Family of Brands, spent over a decade transforming a good referral program into a great one, starting at RevZilla, a Philadelphia-based motorcycle e-commerce company, where he identified that only a small group of employees were driving the majority of referrals and set out to fix it by designing a point-based contest that rewarded employees at every stage of the hiring funnel, l...

What does it actually mean to build a hiring process that works for everyone, not just the majority? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with Jamie Szymkowiak, Head of Talent Acquisition at EcoVadis and former political advisor in the UK House of Commons, to dig into one of the most underrepresented conversations in TA: accessible and inclusive hiring for people with disabilities. Jamie speaks from both professio...

What really happens to your culture, your people, and your identity when your company gets acquired, and what does it look like from both sides of the table? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with Lehua Stonebraker, SVP of People & Culture at SmartRecruiters, to unpack the very human side of mergers and acquisitions. Drawing from her time leading TA through eight acquisitions in 18 months at Dayforce, and n...

Strong hiring doesn’t happen in isolation; it happens through relationships. In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, host Nicole Hammond sits down with talent leader and transformation expert Andrew Porter to explore the power of partnerships in hiring, leadership, and technology. Andrew shares why the most effective talent strategies are built on authentic human connection, including building trust across internal stakeholders...

What does it actually mean to be AI-ready, and are you already doing it without knowing it? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with Kyle Lagunas, Founder of Kyle & Co., whose rare vantage point spanning practitioner, vendor, and analyst roles makes him one of the most grounded voices in talent today. Kyle unpacks the three dimensions of AI momentum and makes the case that getting AI-ready isn't about chasing...

What happens when you need to double your hiring output in the middle of a global pandemic while competing with every business on the block for the same talent? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole Hammond sits down with Adam Reynolds, Head of Talent at Fraser's Group, a leader who oversees hiring for a 40,000-employee multinational retail powerhouse supporting iconic brands. Adam shares how his team scaled from 12,000 hire...

If recruiters only spend seconds reviewing resumes, why are we still telling candidates to play a game they can’t win? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with James Ellis, employer brand strategist, author, podcaster, and unapologetic truth-teller, to unpack what’s actually broken in hiring today…and what both candidates and companies can do differently. James challenges nearly every outdated ...

Can centralized hiring really scale without losing speed, quality, or trust? Or is it just another idea that sounds good on paper? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with Chris Bailey, Enterprise Solutions Architect at SmartRecruiters, to unpack what really works when scaling hiring in complex organizations. This conversation goes beyond theory into real-world decision-making, change management, and why playing ...

What does it take to lead hiring through relentless change without losing the human thread that holds teams together? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole Hammond sits down with Kim Nicholas, GM of Talent Acquisition Systems & Payroll at The Warehouse Group, for a candid conversation about resilience, leadership, and high-volume hiring under pressure. Kim reflects on navigating COVID-era disruption, enterprise-wide agil...