Selling a Role Like a Car: Inside Hendrick Automotive's Hiring Playbook

Every employee at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, from the clinicians to the people cleaning patient rooms, is expected to give the same answer when asked what they do: "I find cures and save children."Dana is the Senior Vice President of Human Resources at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where she's spent nearly three decades helping the organization recruit and retain talent against biotech giants and coastal salaries it simply can't match on paper. In this episode, she talks about how St. Jude leans on mission instead, why a campus visit can change a candidate's mind in an instant, and how her team is thinking through AI without losing sight of the people doing the work.You'll also hear:Why she believes anyone can learn HR, but not everyone can learn resilience and relationship buildingHow St. Jude's CEO uses the line "If not St. Jude, then who?" to recruit against for-profit competitorsHow St. Jude's AI council decides what gets piloted and what gets shelvedConnect with Dana: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-bottenfield-5b38541/Learn more about St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: www.stjude.orgConnect with us:💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter  Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

Mario Pennycooke never planned to end up in recruiting. He built a career in graphic design, sold cars at a Toyota dealership, then trained as an automotive technician before any of that pointed toward talent acquisition. Mario is the Director of Talent Strategy at Hendrick Automotive Group, the largest privately owned dealership group in the country, with over 100 locations coast to coast. In this episode, he talks about why he treats every open role like something he's selling, how he coaches a team that all communicates differently toward the same results, and why AI still can't replace the judgment call of matching a candidate to the right dealership. You'll also hear: Why he thinks every recruiter is secretly a marketer, whether they admit it or not How he decides when to enforce a company-wide standard and when to let a location do things its own way Where he thinks AI genuinely helps his team, and where it falls short What he tells young recruiters who are great with candidates but avoid the hiring manager relationship Connect with Mario: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariopennycooke/ Learn more about Hendrick Automotive Group: www.hendrickcars.com Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.  

Jason Munoz didn't choose a career in recruiting. He was “voluntold” into it after years running operations in the field, and it ended up shaping the next 26 years of his career. Jason is the Director of Talent Acquisition at Entergy, a Fortune 500 energy company that generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to more than three million customers. In this episode, he talks about how his operational background taught him to run recruiting like a business, why he ties every investment to a measurable outcome, and how the childhood habit of taking things apart to see how they work still shapes the way he approaches people and problems today. You'll also hear: Why he measures time to fill instead of time to start, and what that one distinction reveals about accountability How he turns recruiting asks into business cases finance and leadership actually respond to Why he believes the biggest shift for new leaders is learning to let go of perfectionism How he thinks AI will change the skills recruiters need in the next five years Connect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmunoz/ Learn more about Entergy: www.entergy.com Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

James Hardie is the company behind Hardie, TimberTech, and AZEK Exteriors, a global leader in exterior home and building solutions. Running talent acquisition for a company that size, especially one growing through acquisition, takes someone who has learned to lead through other people instead of fixing everything herself. Doris Smart is the Head of Global Talent Acquisition at James Hardie. Her path started in contract recruiting for healthcare, taken almost by accident after college, and grew into a career built on listening, developing others, and bringing new companies into the fold without losing what makes them work. In this episode, she talks about what changed when she stopped being the person who solved every problem and started developing the people around her, why integrating people is the hardest part of any acquisition, and how AI is reshaping the administrative side of recruiting without touching the part of the job that requires a real conversation. You'll also hear: What "leading the witness" means in an interview, and why most recruiters do it without realizing Why quality of hire is the metric she always comes back to, and why it's so hard to measure How James Hardie is investing in AI training and tools across the organization Connect with Doris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doriszavala/ Learn more about James Hardie: www.jameshardie.com Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

Hasbro is the toy, gaming, and entertainment company behind Monopoly, Nerf, Transformers, and Magic: The Gathering, and running people strategy for a brand that big takes someone who has done a little bit of everything. Holly Barbacovi is the EVP & Chief People Officer at Hasbro. Her path started in the Peace Corps in China, wound through Microsoft's early recruiting days, and eventually landed her at the helm of talent for one of the most recognized brands on earth. In this episode, she talks about using AI to make sense of thousands of employee survey comments, why hiring the biggest fans of a brand can backfire, and how Hasbro is aging up its products for the generation that grew up with them.You'll also hear: Why she believes creativity looks forward while AI mostly looks backward What "aging up" a brand actually requires from a talent strategy Why fans of a brand aren't always the best hires for it How Hasbro protects a 97% retention rate among its top performers Connect with Holly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollybarbacovi/ Learn more about Hasbro: https://corporate.hasbro.com/en-us Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

F5 helps the world's largest organizations keep their apps and websites fast, reliable, and secure. Doing that takes a global workforce, a TA function built for a company in transformation, and someone who knows how to build recruiting infrastructure from the ground up. Valerie Weingarten is the VP of Global Talent Acquisition at F5. She spent 16 years at Salesforce scaling recruiting through some of the fastest growth the tech industry has ever seen, then made the deliberate decision to start over somewhere smaller, harder, and more interesting. In this episode, she talks about how F5 is using AI to eliminate low-value work so recruiters can spend more time in conversations that actually move candidates. She also gets into why revenue impact is the only TA metric worth bringing to a CEO, and what most interviewers get wrong in the first 15 minutes. You'll also hear: Why she walked away from a career in medicine and never looked back What she learned at Salesforce about process standardization, before you can automate anything How she thinks about the line between what AI should own and what humans should never give up Why the best candidate experiences are built on conversations, not campaigns Connect with Valerie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyutterback Learn more about F5: https://www.f5.com/ Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

The USPS delivers to 167 million addresses almost every day. That takes 640,000 employees, 30,000 post offices, 250 processing facilities, and one of the largest HR operations in the country. Jenny Utterback, VP of Organization Development at the United States Postal Service, is the person responsible for the people side of all of it. She came in through recruiting nearly 20 years ago and never left, because the problems kept getting harder and more interesting. Today, she leads workforce development, succession planning, and a full modernization of HR infrastructure for an organization that competes with FedEx and UPS while also guaranteeing delivery to every address in America, every week, no exceptions. In this episode, she gets into how you upskill a workforce where 35 to 40-year tenures are still common, how she thinks about internal versus external hiring decisions, and what it actually takes to lead people through change when the change isn't stopping. You'll also hear: How USPS rebuilt its recruiting and HR systems from the ground up Why connecting with employees on a human level is the only way change management actually works How she develops internal candidates for leadership roles before the seat is ever vacant The framework she uses to cut through competing priorities when everything feels urgent Connect with Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyutterback  Learn more about USPS: www.usps.com Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

Most companies with nearly 5,000 employees have a recruiting army. Green Thumb Industries has 12 people, a network of cannabis dispensaries spanning the country, and Joey Niemczyk, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition, figuring out how to make it work. Joey started her career watching her immigrant parents build something from nothing, and that shaped everything about how she thinks about people and opportunity. She learned to recruit at staffing agencies, sharpened her instincts at a boutique firm serving high-growth tech companies, and eventually landed at one of the most unusual talent challenges in the industry: building a TA function for a cannabis company that's growing faster than most teams can hire. Today, she shares how she leads a lean team without losing the human element, why she thinks the best hires rarely come through the traditional funnel, and what she told her team to do differently once AI started rewriting every resume in the pile. You'll also hear: Why she intentionally built a tough interview process How saying "I don't know" out loud became the fastest way to solve hard problems What she measures beyond time-to-fill and why the qualitative side matters just as much The skill she says every TA partner needs more of as a business scales Connect with Joey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-niemczyk Learn more about Green Thumb Industries: www.gtigrows.com Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

Every product you order online passes through a warehouse. Someone decided how that warehouse runs. Dematic builds the systems that make it happen, and when you're operating at that scale, the difference between the right hire and the wrong one isn't just an HR problem — it's a business problem. Jenny Ferrell knows this better than most. She started her career recruiting engineers for a small, privately held firm in Phoenix, competing for talent against companies with bigger brands, bigger budgets, and bigger offices. She figured out how to find the right person for a business that couldn't afford to get it wrong, and that ability followed her all the way to Senior VP of HR at one of the world's leading supply chain automation companies. Today, she shares the framework she uses to turn talent acquisition from a transactional function into a strategic driver of business results and the hard lesson she learned when she skipped the process and went straight to the solution. You'll also hear:  Why recruiting stops being strategic the moment you "throw it over the wall"  How Dematic interviews candidates who've already rehearsed every answer The two things Dematic's CEO actually wants to measure in HR right now  Why hiring for an A-player résumé can be the most expensive mistake you make  Connect with Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-ferrell-53b832a5 Learn more about Dematic: www.dematic.com Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

Hiring thousands of employees for a new casino resort launch is a high-stakes race against time. You are operating in an unfamiliar city without established market dominance, all while under the constant scrutiny of industry regulators. Jenn Reagan has done it multiple times. As VP of Talent Learning and Development at Bally's Corporation, she's figured out how to walk into a brand new community, earn their trust, and build a workforce from scratch without blowing the whole thing up in the process. Her secret? Rigid flexibility. Know exactly what you're doing and expect none of it to go your way. You'll also hear: Why the moment you start copying and pasting from your last property is the moment you lose the community How Bally's earns trust in a new city before a single brick gets laid The two numbers she'd give a CEO in a 60-second elevator ride to prove her team is working Why she thinks "learning and development" is almost a four-letter word in hospitality Connect with Jenn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-reagan-7b910241 Learn more about Bally's: www.ballys.com Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.