Thanks to our sponsor ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠candidate.fyi ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for their support!  Listeners get 1st month free + 10% discount with promo code CEP. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠candidate.fyi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ – the candidate experience platform that transforms your company’s interview process into a world-class experience Welcome to the ‘Falling Into TA’ episode where Rhona Barnett-Pierce, Director of Recruiting Operations at the Leaf Group is my special guest. Rhona shares some great tips for improving the candidate journey for both companies as well as job seekers. We cover a number of important topics in this episode including: employee retention, applicant testing, the importance of hiring managers and more. Enjoy! If you like what you're hearing on this podcast please subscribe wherever you enjoy podcasts and please share with others. Want to comment, discuss, provide feedback you can send me a note via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, via the contact form on our website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TheCX.xyz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or via audio message below. Thank you for listening! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Chuck Solomon ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host of The Candidate Experience Podcast This episode was recorded in May 2023 Resources: Connect with Rhona Barnett-Pierce on: LinkedIN ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhonabarnettpierce/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/rhonab TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rhonabpierce IG: https://www.instagram.com/rhonabpierce/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RhonaPierce #candidateexperience #candidatejourney #employerbrand #HR #talentacquisition #culture #workplaceculture #recruiting #worklifebalance #talent #worklifeboundaries #recruitmentmarketing #employerbranding #diversity #diversityandinclusion #hiring #networking #career #WFH #zoomfatigue #on-boarding #HR #mentalhealth, #resilience, #transparency, #ATS, #universityrecruiting, #DEI #assessments #meritocracy #feedback #candidatecommunications, #ERG, #employeeexperience, #thegreatresignation #empathy #quietquitters  #cultureadd #chatgpt #AI #hiretoretire #humantouch #jobadvertisements #retention Transcript: Chuck Solomon: Hi Rhona, how are you today? Rhona Barnett-Pierce: I'm good Chuck. How are you? Chuck Solomon: Very good, thank you. Can you tell listeners a little bit about yourself and your current role at your company? Rhona Barnett-Pierce: Sure. So first of all, thank you so much for having me candidate. Absolutely. Candidate experience is really one of my favorite things to chat about. I'm Rhona Pierce, like you said. I'm a former software engineer and project manager turned talent acquisition leader. I've been in TA full-time, officially since 2017. Mm-hmm. Unofficially long before that. Sure. I'm current, I'm currently the director of recruiting operations at Leaf Group, which means that I oversee the. Full recruiting process at leaf, everything from candidate experience, employer branding, sourcing all, all of the fun stuff. Sure. Many people haven't heard about Leaf Group. Leaf Group is a portfolio of media and e-commerce brands. Sure. Mostly in the lifestyle category. Some of our most notable brands are live Strong, well and good society, six Sachi Art. Most of the roles that we hire for are editorial marketing, software engineering, basically any role that you would imagine is needed to support a media or e-commerce company. Gotcha. So media company, not an arborist. Yes, exactly. Chuck Solomon: Gotcha. What got you started in this talent acquisition space? Rhona Barnett-Pierce: I love this question because the answer is definitely not. This is what I always dreamt of doing and went to school for. Yeah. Like most of the TA professionals that I know, I literally fell into ta. I was trying to solve the problem, the hiring problem we were having. Mm-hmm. At one of the companies I was working at at the time, I was an operations manager. Read full transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yj3Y-Rm9Hz_Qv9L504O3Zoj3vYX-2p-mhiSigqqbYms/edit?usp=sharing