Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 20 with Sarah-Jayne Lehtinen

Sarah-Jayne Lehtinen, Chief People Officer at Prodigy Education, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why the best recruiting teams treat hiring like a product: constantly testing, learning, and improving. They explore culture fit, quality of hire, team performance, experimentation, and how Sarah-Jayne adapted a sales pipeline model to build a more effective recruiting function.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 19 with Sofie Roberge

Sophie Roberge, Director of Talent Acquisition at A1 Garage Door Service, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss how responsiveness, urgency, and empathy shape better recruiting experiences at scale. They explore processing 100,000 applicants with a four-person recruiting team, using AI without losing human judgment, hiring for skilled trades, and why great talent teams need to understand the business as deeply as operations does.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 18 with Yolanda Hawkes

Yolanda Hawkes, Principal Consultant at the Hawkeye Group, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why curiosity and lifelong learning set great recruiters apart and what it takes to build effective talent operations at scale. They explore high-volume hiring, reducing turnover, root-cause analysis, AI in recruiting, and why talent should be treated as a business lever rather than simply an HR function.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 17 with Jennifer Paxton

Jen Paxton, SVP of People and Talent at Roofr, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why curiosity, urgency, and strong hiring manager partnerships are essential to great recruiting. They explore how to move faster without sacrificing quality, define what hiring managers actually need, measure quality of hire, and why people leaders earn influence by deeply understanding the business.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 16 with Guillermina Cabello

Guillermina Cabello, Talent Acquisition Director at Ascend IT Management Consulting, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why great recruiters put candidates first and how empathy, honesty, and long-term relationships lead to better hiring outcomes. They also explore nearshore recruiting across Mexico and Latin America, cultural differences in hiring, AI in recruiting, and why experience becomes more valuable with time.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 15 with Pedro Velis

Pedro Velis, Director of Talent Acquisition and Workforce Development at Hanwha Philly Shipyard, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why great recruiters need to understand how the business actually works and how workforce development becomes essential when the talent simply doesn’t exist yet. They explore skilled trades, apprenticeships, recruiting nontraditional talent, and the challenge of building the workforce needed to support a new era of American shipbuilding.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 14 with Kathryn Knox

Kathryn Knox, Director of Global Talent Acquisition at Trailer Park Group, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why resilience is one of the most important traits in recruiting and how strong relationships with candidates and hiring managers shape better outcomes. They also explore sourcing, TA metrics, recruiter generalists, navigating layoffs, and what candidates can do differently in a challenging job market.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 13 with Allison Dykes

Allison Dykes, Human Resources Director at Harness, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why follow-up and follow-through are non-negotiable in recruiting, how candidate experience shapes an employer’s reputation, and why structured hiring processes lead to better decisions. They also explore building an HR function from scratch, hiring for ownership, and creating consistency as companies scale.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 12 with Stacy Zapar

Stacy Zapar joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss one of the biggest challenges facing recruiting today: candidate fraud. They explore fake applicants, AI-generated resumes, interview fraud, authentication, and Stacy’s concept of “candidate curation” as a new way to rethink the hiring funnel while helping real candidates stand out.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 11 with John Curran

John Curran, Director of Talent Acquisition at Hillendale Home Care, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why curiosity and a willingness to use data set great recruiters apart. They explore quality of hire, employer branding, process bottlenecks, bar-raising talent, and how recruiting teams can use metrics to build stronger partnerships with hiring managers.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 10 with Bruce Nichols

Bruce Nichols, Partner and Principal at the Human Resources Consortium, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why the best recruiters deeply understand the business, how culture influences productivity, and why HR needs to move beyond policy enforcement to become a more predictive and strategic function. They also explore adaptability, quality of hire, talent planning, and the importance of understanding finance and operations.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 09 with Jeremy Cockrell

Jeremy Cockrell, Director of Talent Acquisition at Torrent Consulting, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why creativity, curiosity, and a true understanding of urgency separate great recruiters from the rest. They explore candidate experience, building trust with hiring managers, sourcing in specialized talent markets, and how AI can support recruiting without replacing the human connection at the heart of hiring.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 08 with Dubi Ben Shoham

Dubi Ben-Shoham, Senior Director of Global Talent Acquisition at Socotra, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why great recruiters need to understand the entire business, build trust quickly, and deliver a white-glove experience for every candidate. They also explore outbound sourcing, the changing value of resumes, AI in assessments and interviews, and what it takes to become a true hiring expert inside an organization.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 07 with Dennis Ivanov

Dennis Ivanov, Director of Global Talent Acquisition at Unimax Global, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why fearlessness sets great recruiters apart, how to scale hiring with limited resources, and why talent acquisition has to operate as a true business partner. They also explore employer brand, workforce planning, recruiting metrics, and the lessons Dennis carried from Amazon into building a high-growth recruiting engine.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 06 with James Callender

James Callender, VP of Workforce at EPC, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why understanding the business is essential to becoming a true talent partner. They explore transparency in recruiting, balancing AI with human judgment, hiring across construction and other industries, and why finance, technology, and practical learning all play a role in building stronger workforce strategies.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 05 with Hayden Hughes

Hayden Hughes joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss what separates great recruiters from the rest, why thoughtful preparation and trust matter, and how recruiting teams can use AI without removing the human judgment that makes hiring work. They explore candidate experience, skills-based hiring, the “meeting before the meeting,” and why small improvements can compound into much better hiring outcomes.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 04 with Brian Fink

Brian Fink, founder of The Rework Group and longtime technical recruiter, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss why intentionality and trust are at the heart of great recruiting. They explore candidate experience, the growing problem of fraudulent applicants, AI screening, technical hiring in the age of AI, and why making candidates feel seen and heard still matters.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 03 with Stephanie Boman

Stephanie Boman, Chief People Officer at LiveRamp, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss what separates great recruiters from the rest, why quality of hire matters more than speed, and how structured interviewing can lead to better hiring decisions. They also explore investing in recruiting technology, building stronger talent strategies, and preparing employees for a future shaped by AI.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 02 with Emily Paik

Emily Paik, Senior Recruiter at Kit, joins Colleen Gallagher to talk about building a more strategic recruiting function, creating better candidate experiences, and using AI and automation without losing the human side of hiring. They explore recruiting maturity, quality of hire, employer brand, structured interviews, and how talent teams can become true business partners.

Podcast

The Talent Bar: Episode 01 with Natalie Fink

Natalie Fink, Head of Global Recruiting at LiveRamp, joins Colleen Gallagher to discuss what separates great recruiters from the rest, why business acumen and curiosity matter, and how strong candidate experiences can shape an employer brand. They also explore scaling recruiting teams, AI in hiring, sourcing, human judgment, and what talent leaders should be thinking about as recruiting continues to evolve.