Hiring On All Cylinders

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Jul 2026

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About the show

Tune in with Talentful's founder and CEO Chris Abbass each month as he speaks with innovative talent acquisition and tech leaders. Get ready for some powerful conversations from Chris and his guests as they share insights on the recruitment industry, leadership, and successfully scaling businesses.

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60 recent

August 18, 2026Episode 829 min

Building Credibility, Structure and Influence in Talent Acquisition with Amanda Johnson (Sr Director, Global Talent Acquisition at DeepL)

Amanda Johnson, Senior Director of Global TA at DeepL, joins Kathryne Friend to unpack how she built a data-driven hiring engine across Salesforce, Uber and DeepL. From turning recruiter buy-in into genuine data fluency, to rethinking candidate profiles as AI reshapes how we work — Amanda shares the frameworks behind a 25% YoY productivity increase, improved NPS, and a hiring function that measures what actually matters: right people, right roles, staying power.

July 30, 2026Episode 743 min

From Buyer to Builder: Why TA Leaders Are Coding Their Own Tools with Hope Weatherford (VP of Talent Acquisition at Camunda)

Hope Weatherford, VP of Talent Acquisition at Camunda, is doing what most TA leaders are still evaluating: building. In this episode, she sits down with Matt Staney to unpack how she vibe-coded her own interview question generator and JD tool with zero engineering background, why "change leadership is the job now," and how Camunda's process orchestration mindset is reshaping how her team hires. We get into over-engineering vs. first principles, the deepfake and fake-candidate problem, and the near-future where AI agents are extensions of us; applying for jobs, splitting revenue, and forcing a rethink of what "capability" even means. If you're a TA leader wondering where to start, Hope's answer is simple: just do it.

July 16, 2026Episode 636 min

Hiring Without a Benchmark: Moving From Enterprise Scale to Scale-Up with Ben Baillie-Lane (Head of Talent Acquisition at Mollie)

How do you build a high-performance hiring bar when you're expanding into a brand-new country with zero historical data, zero benchmarks, and limited local brand awareness? Ben Baillie-Lane knows the playbook inside out. Having scaled teams from 2,000 to 13,000 at Revolut before taking the reins at Mollie, Ben joins us to discuss the art of market expansion. He reveals why the biggest mistake TA leaders make when hiring for pioneering roles is over-indexing on technical skill sets, and how reversing the engineering of performance data holds the key to quality.

July 6, 2026Episode 543 min

The New Era of Commercial Talent Leadership with Frankie Greenwell (Early Stage Talent Lead at EQT Group)

The days of Talent Acquisition operating as a reactive, order-taking engine are officially over. In today’s hyper-competitive tech landscape, headcount is no longer a vanity metric for success—quality of hire is everything. In this episode of Hiring on All Cylinders , we sit down with Frankie Greenwell , Early Stage Talent Lead at EQT Group (one of the world's largest private equity and venture firms), to break down the profound evolution of the talent leader role. Drawing from his experience advising 50+ early-stage portfolio companies, Frankie pulls back the curtain on what venture-backed founders are actually looking for in a TA partner today. If you are a talent acquisition executive looking to transcend traditional recruiting boundaries, bridge the credibility gap with the C-suite, and build a world-class hiring infrastructure from seed to pre-IPO, this masterclass is for you.

May 28, 2026Episode 453 min

Employer Brand in the Age of LLMs with Duarte Mendonca (Director, Talent Acquisition at PayPal)

Candidates aren't clicking on your carefully curated career site anymore. Instead, they’re asking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude what it’s really like to work at your company—and the answers might surprise you. In this episode of Hiring On All Cylinders, host Matt Staney sits down with Duarte Mendonça, Director of Global Talent Systems and Operational Enablement at PayPal, to unpack a massive behavioral shift: the transition from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to AI Optimization (AIO). Duarte shares startling data on how LLMs source employer data, why third-party sites like Reddit control 40% of the narrative, and how TA leaders can structurally adjust their infrastructure to fight back.

April 2, 2026Episode 346 min

Why Human Judgment Still Rules the Recruiting Process with Mary Price (VP TA at OneTrust)

Efficiency in recruiting isn’t just about working faster; it’s about working smarter by knowing where to let the machines take over and where to double down on human connection. In this episode, Mary Price, an enterprise talent leader with experience at LinkedIn and Apple, reveals how her teams are leveraging AI to reduce administrative burnout while driving a 32% decrease in attrition through better candidate-to-role matching.

March 12, 2026Episode 237 min

Beyond Hiring: The Evolution of Talent Acquisition with Barbara Gaillard

When a company scales from 5,000 to 17,000 employees overnight, the traditional HR playbook doesn't just need an update—it needs a total transformation. Barbara Gaillard shares how she moved TA from a purely transactional function to a "People as a Product" model that balances rapid execution with deep long-term strategy.

February 19, 2026Episode 142 min

Scaling the White-Glove Experience: High-Touch Hiring for Every Role with Neil Crumpton (TransUnion)

How can corporate talent acquisition teams replicate the high-stakes, "white-glove" service of executive search for every role in an organization? Join host Matt Staney and Neil Crumpton, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at TransUnion, as they discuss transforming recruitment from a reactive function into a strategic partnership powered by human judgment and AI efficiency. In this episode, Neil shares his journey from executive recruiting to corporate leadership, revealing how to build high-touch experiences for candidates and hiring managers alike.

December 18, 2025Episode 1416 min

The Best of Hiring on All Cylinders 2025

The holiday season is here, and we're taking a look back at some of our favorite podcast moments of the year. We hear from some of the TA leaders who have joined us in 2025: James Lafferty, Manjuri Sinha, James Footman, Jocelyn S. Lai, Lars Schmidt, Kobi Ampoma, Jonathan Beaney, Jamie Edwards, Tracy St. Dic, Jerome Leclerq, Tommy Hansen, Samantha Perlman, Karen Arnold and Anastasia Pshegodskaya. Discussion topics include: Human connections in hiring Authenticity in employer branding Defining quality of hire What makes a 5-star recruiter? We've got so many great guests lined up for the podcast next year. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out!

December 11, 2025Episode 1327 min

Global Expansion Secrets: Lessons from 5,000 Global Hires with Kathrin Holzfurtner

Hosted by Kathryne Friend, VP Community at HIGHER, this episode of Hiring on All Cylinders features Kathrin Holzfurtner, a 3× Regional and Global Head of Talent who has led hiring at Google, Microsoft, and Ideals. With more than 5,000 hires across 40+ countries and new-market launches on three continents, Kathrin reveals why global hiring breaks when companies treat it like copy-paste recruiting — and what high-growth teams should do instead. Together, Kathryne and Kathrin unpack the pillars of successful international scaling: how to use talent intelligence to shape location strategy, how to choose the right operating model when entering new markets, how to build TA capacity and enablement ahead of demand, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that derail global growth. Required listening for any TA leader driving global expansion in 2026 and beyond.