Gem recently held its second annual Talent Summit—a virtual conference in which 2500 talent acquisition professionals came together, shared best practices, networked, and got inspired. This year, top recruiters from best-in-class teams shared career-long learnings for sourcing, nurturing, and diversifying talent pools; and talent leaders shared how they’ve strategically helped their teams weather the storms of 2021 with data-driven insights into hiring.
Sessions covered everything from the future of remote hiring; to crafting compelling messages in our post-pandemic world; to ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion in a remote workforce; to the core reports that every talent leader needs. We also had the opportunity to offer product sessions in our Customer Day, summarize some of the most exciting features Gem shipped this year, and celebrate our customers’ successes in our inaugural Top User Awards Ceremony. Plus, there was a photo booth, which was one of our favorite elements of the day:
With that, we wanted to offer a recap of our keynotes, sessions, and panel—both for those of you who missed the event and are curious about how the day unfolded, and for those of you who were there and want to relive the experience:
Gem’s co-founders Steve Bartel (CEO) and Nick Bushak (CTO) kicked off Talent Summit with a reminder that 54% of surveyed talent have recently said they’ll be searching for new jobs within the next 12 months. In our post-pandemic “Great Resignation,” companies have to reimagine their talent acquisition strategies. Steve and Nick discussed the state of talent acquisition in 2021, along with how Gem—and our network of customers, partners, and advisors—is working to be the silver lining of recruiting. Here are some insights from that keynote:
After nearly a year and a half of working from home, employees and candidates have shifted their expectations about their work environments away from traditional office settings; and companies would be wise to shift their recruiting efforts in the same direction. Dai Marie Strong, Global Head of Talent Operations, Compliance, Programs & Early in Career at Cisco Meraki discussed the benefits of hiring remotely with regards to budgets, location, and new markets; offered best practices for transitioning a recruiting strategy; and told the story of how Cisco Merkai used multiple resources to scale their hiring needs. Here are some insights from Dai’s talk:
In December of last year, when Shopify announced the goal of doubling its engineering team via Twitter (hiring 2,021 new technical roles in 2021), Talent Attraction Lead Krystle Olson knew that her team needed to be both creative and proactive with their hiring strategies if they were going to meet that goal. Curious about whether the team met that number? You’ll have to click in to find out! Krystle presented two different programs Shopify created in an effort to meet their hiring goals. She talked about everything from how the team structured its sourcing program to scale hypergrowth to how they empowered leadership to advance their success... and more. Here are some insights from Krystle’s talk:
Creativity comes in all shapes and forms, and that’s perhaps especially true in the Talent Acquisition industry. Bernardo Sosa, Director of Talent Sourcing, Ops & Programs at Box, came to recruiting with a background in sales and marketing; and he has a unique lens into TA from that experience. In this conversation with Sarah Koo, Head of Product at Gem, Bernardo discussed how Box thinks “outside of the box” when it comes to talent sourcing and resourcing for all roles in a Talent Acquisition team. Here are some insights from Bernardo:
Over 300 billion emails are sent and received daily across the globe. So how do you break through the noise of your prospective candidates’ inboxes with a data-driven, high-yield messaging strategy? How do you use your unique voice to connect, human-to-human, with prospects? What are the best strategies for personalization across industries and roles? Maisha L. Cannon, Manager of Global Talent Sourcing at Procore Technologies, shared ideas for creating engaging outreach that converts in a sea full of #recruiterspam and other inbox noise. She showed us how to work smarter by infusing practical creativity into our outreach. Here are some insights from Maisha’s session:
What’s top of mind for companies when it comes to hiring? That’s what we explored in our keynote session with Pat Wadors, Chief Talent Officer at Procore. In conversation with Matt Tague, Director of Customer Advisory at Gem, Pat provided industry-level observations on the current state of hiring, including talent hiring trends and strategies that should be top of mind, CHRO priorities for the rest of the year and beyond, and how to rekindle diversity inclusion and belonging in a changing environment. Here are some insights from Pat:
As organizations assess their return-to-work strategy, questions are bound to arise about attracting a diverse team and ensuring an equitable environment for all workplaces and styles. This esteemed panel included Marco Lindsey (Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley), Jason Medley (Chief People Officer at Codility), Ragini Holloway (SVP of People at Affirm), and Dr. Christal Morris (SVP of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion at Peloton). They discussed the current state of DEI and shared their strategies and successes with DEI in a changing workplace landscape. Here are some insights from that conversation:
Peloton’s mission is to bring immersive and challenging workouts into people's lives in a more accessible, affordable, and efficient way; they’ve taken the fitness world by storm and become a staple in many people’s lives. And their commitment to technology doesn’t stop at the pedals: Peloton has evolved its hiring strategies to use the latest tech to enable the talent team to be a strategic partner within the larger business.
During this session, we chatted with Tim Brown, VP of Talent Acquisition, and Will Blaze, Director of Talent Acquisition, to discuss Peloton’s hiring journey. Here are some insights:
In the wake of the pandemic, Credit Karma made a strategic choice to restructure their teams and push the reset button on their hiring program. With a fresh, holistic view of their team, they were able to pinpoint and hire for enablement roles that most organizations might not even be aware of, to create a high-performing and functionally-sound team. Ashleigh Anderson, Vice President, Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Credit Karma, talked about the decision behind pushing that button, how the team pinpointed the most effective enablement roles they needed to hire, what technologies they used to hire for those unique roles, and how the restructuring and introduction of new roles has optimized team performance. Insights from Ashleigh include:
In this session, Chelsea Cohen, Manager of Recruiting Operations at FullStory, explored the three core reports talent acquisition stakeholders can leverage to understand recruiting productivity and inform their journeys to building high-performing hiring teams. Chelsea covered which metrics to report to your Head of Recruiting, how to use recruiting technology to streamline reporting, and strategies to optimize your core recruiting KPIs. She talked about data and empathy together, such that KPIs and reporting ultimately lead to better candidate experiences… not to mention ICs who can do their best work with the right structures in place. Here are some insights from that talk:
If these sound-bytes interest you, we hope you’ll take the time to watch Gem’s Talent Summit sessions, keynotes, and the panel in full. We think you’ll come away from them as inspired as we’ve been… we know we’ll be re-watching some of them ourselves!
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