ROTR - Stephanie Boman
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[00:00:00] This is Recruiters on the Rise. And I'm Colleen Gallagher. Join me for Candid Conversations with Talent Leaders as we explore the work that drives them, the lessons they've learned, and how they're helping people find careers they love. The show is sponsored by Lavalier and Interview Intelligence platform built by Textio.
Colleen Gallagher: Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Recruiters on the Rise. I'm so excited to have our guest with us today. I'm lucky to call her a close personal friend. Um and we've known each other for more years than I will admit on this show.
Um, she is one of the best talent leaders that I have met and worked with. She has spent time at. Number of the largest companies in the world, starting with Motorola, then Flex, which is the world's second largest contract manufacturer. She's currently the Chief people officer at LiveRamp. Welcome, Stephanie Bo
Stephanie Boman: Hi. Thanks for having me
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, thanks for joining. Um, alright, let's jump in. You [00:01:00] know, we are doing the show, um mainly focused on recruiting and obviously you have a pretty broad, uh remit in your current role, but, you know, you've worked with a lot of recruiters and talent acquisition leader and so I'm curious from your perspective, you know, what is the one thing or one action that sets the best recruiters apart from the rest?
Stephanie Boman: Gosh, I don't know if I could boil it down to just one. I think, my answer to this is likely evolved over the past few years. I think earlier in my career I would've said it was about sourcing and finding people that others couldn't find. the longer I've sat. Seat. Um the more I land on kind of a few things that I think are genuinely harder to learn and harder to replicate, I think table stakes.
You know, I think it starts with just deep curiosity about the business, not just the role. I think when you sit with a recruiter, um who says, you know, why does this hire matter for [00:02:00] the company strategy right now? That's a very different conversation than someone who shows up with a job description and a sourcing plan. you know, the curiosity is just like foundational. but I do think that there's probably a few other things that separate, like great recruiters, I think equally. You know, just a deep understanding of the overall talent landscape. think the best recruiters know the market the way, you know, a great salesperson knows their territory,
They know where like the talent is concentrating, what's moving people like right now, what competitors are paying, and really, you know, candidates at different levels care about different things. So I don't think these are things that you can just look up the night before a search. I think they're kind of developed over time through relationships and pattern recognition.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
Stephanie Boman: the best recruiters really know how to sell the company with authenticity.
I [00:03:00] think candidates know when they're being sold a line.
Um And I think, you know, nothing damages a recruiter's credibility faster than overselling a role and ultimately having the higher. Leave, you know, six to nine months later. and then I do think, you know, there's a, there's an element of courage.
You know, I, I don't know if it's just being a strong ta um, recruiter, but I think courage is, you know, just hugely important as an HR professional. Just having the ability to, you know, have the straight talk to tell the hiring manager, look, I know you love this candidate. But I'm not sure if they can actually do the job.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
Stephanie Boman: and then conversely, the courage to tell a candidate the truth, even when the truth is hard. So I get it. Most recruiters are under tremendous pressure to fill the seat and keep everyone happy, but I do think that the great ones optimize for the right outcome. And then look, there's [00:04:00] certainly an element of.
Technology. Right? I think the best recruiters are leaning into tools, that add structure and reduce bias. Like help us stop hiring the most charming person in the room.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
Stephanie Boman: I think that's where tools like, you know, lavalier can really help,
Setting the route, the right foundation from the onset.
Colleen Gallagher: I love that. I love the curiosity and courage. Um, I think courage in particular, you're totally right because what I hear from a lot of recruiters is I know that. You know, I shouldn't say a lot, but certainly people talk about, and I think recruiters, what sticks in their minds a lot is I knew that person wasn't the right person for the role, but I didn't have a way to convince the hiring manager otherwise.
Stephanie Boman: I think a great recruiter really hold both sides of a conversation with integrity. Like the business needs, the honesty about what's [00:05:00] realistic, but the candidate also deserves transparency. You know, where do they stand in the process? What does it actually look like? you know, we've all been there in terms of, you know, the experience going into a black hole after an interview.
Colleen Gallagher: given that you have, you know, sort of this unique role and you spend, you know, a decent amount of time with your board, I'm curious, what are the metrics that you are reporting out, um to the board and how do they tie into the, you know, recruiting work or talent acquisition? Generally.
Stephanie Boman: Yeah, we used to, um track things like, you know, qual, um, time to fill. You know, obviously that's like one of the easiest ones
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
Stephanie Boman: Um, we don't do that. I think we are have refocused more on kind of the overall like. Talent landscape. So when I say talent landscape, it is more around attrition. Um, you know, what does it look like [00:06:00] across the different classes of employees, you know, different tenures, different geographies. we do track succession planning, um, and then, you know, we, we tend to only go. deep into like talent acquisition metrics when it's like a key hire.
So if its someone obviously at the C level, you know, certainly we report out more frequently around that.
Yeah.
But otherwise it's really more localized within our functional qbr.
Colleen Gallagher: I'm curious too, when you, when you think about why time to fill is no longer sort of this indicator for success for talent acquisition, like why is that? You know, we've talked a little bit before about, It's not about speed anymore, it's about quality. So I'm just, you know, curious how you're thinking about that.
Stephanie Boman: I think like we got really good, we as in just companies, [00:07:00] you know, HR teams, TA teams in terms of. Optimizing for speed and cost of hiring. Um, I think we've really, like overall there's just been an underinvestment in whether these hires actually work out.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
Stephanie Boman: so again, moving more towards trying to move more towards quality of hire versus time to fill. But quality of hire is super challenging because it can't directly be observed in real time, right? It's inferred from outcomes that emerge months or sometimes even years after someone starts. So I'm not sure if any company has fully cracked the code,
around quality of hire, but. unlike what we may have thought in the past, it's not just one, I don't believe it's just one single indicator. I have done a little bit of research around this, just out of personal interest and how can you really secure, right? you spend time, you [00:08:00] spend resources in identifying, a critical hire. you want that person to be successful, but more and more studies or research, Are pointing to the fact that the front end planning, so planning around like being more efficient and effective around pre-hiring, you know, structured interviews versus gut feel.
So I do think that these outcomes end up feeding into part of the quality of higher formula, if you will.
Well you know, I think it is a combination of indicators, things like. Predictive results derived from structured interviewing, the actual performance on the job. Obviously performance will always be an indicator. Um, time to productivity, you know, retention at certain markers, you know, maybe manager satisfaction. You know, I do think it's a combination of these factors.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, I mean I, you know, I've also [00:09:00] done a lot of thinking on this, and you know. Transparently. You know, the reason that we have brought our newest product to market is to help solve this. But the more and more I dig in and the more and more I think about it, a lot of the ways that are out there right now, and I, you know, I even know that there are, are things really focused on manager surveys and I, I have a huge problem with that because there's just so many, there's so much noise in that data.
And again, it's just, it comes down to. There are all these subjective data points that can't be looked at, you know, consistently across the who, who is providing the input. And I think ultimately what it comes down to is it's less about this equation of a retention metric plus a manager survey, plus a performance metric.
And it's like, to me it comes down to two things. Like did we assess whether or not the candidate has the [00:10:00] skills that we outlined? And are the skills that we're hiring for the right ones. I think those are the things that people are actually trying to come up with when they are going after quality of hire.
And the problem up until this point is that a lot of that lies in the discussions and conversations that people are having in an interview or before an interview or, you know, getting the intake aligned with a hiring manager. And we just haven't had visibility into a lot of that for a variety of reasons.
Um, it. I think we are in a, in a spot now where we do have technology available that can help make that better. So I think I agree. You know, I agree with you that I think we're getting to a point where we will have better signal on this that isn't just wrapped around the lens of manager feedback, whether that's in a performance review or a survey, you know, 3, 6, 9 months after they've hired someone.
Stephanie Boman: Yeah, no, I completely agree. [00:11:00] I do think that there's more and more data that's pointing to kind of setting things up, taking the time to set things up before. You get the hire. So this is where I think, you know, this is the space that you guys play in. Um, so that's where I think like lavalier is tremendously helpful. Um, you know, managers are always eager to fill the role, but they don't wanna take the time to do the proper planning. I do think that, you know, that's a, that's a broad generalization. I think that we're getting better. Um. And I think just more discipline across the board. And when I say we, I'm just talking like. You know, I saw it at Flex. I see it at LiveRamp. Again, I do think that managers are starting to see the value in like the front end planning. I also think, you know, there's data out there that can't be denied, that structured interviews versus gut feel. Um, again, the outcome. Ends up being [00:12:00] better.
So when you have well-defined or predefined evaluation criteria in advance, um, and again, ai, we can leverage AI to continuously, um, correlate pre-hire signals with post-hire outcomes. Um, and, you know, learning over time, right? Like which interview questions? Assessment scores, like sourcing channels. You know, recruiter behaviors actually help, um, drive higher success rates.
Colleen Gallagher: Shifting gears a little, I know, um, you recently made an investment in a new a TS, um, and I'm curious, talk to me a little bit about. You know what, what we've heard in the market and what we've seen in the market over the last few years is, at least the perception is that there's been a reduced investment in the talent acquisition function within organizations.
We've seen that, you know, there was sort of this ramp in hiring in 2020 through 2022, and then we, you know, a lot of [00:13:00] companies have since then, you know, been laying folks off, unfortunately, or, um, you know, slowed their hiring and so. I'm curious how you are talking about the investment in talent, even, even like an a TS or even other talent, um, general talent, uh, management solutions.
Like how do you think about investing in those things right now?
Stephanie Boman: I don't actually see a slowdown in investment on like, ta, um, like ATSs or other supplemental tools. Um, you know, obviously everyone is cost conscious and everyone wants to streamline. When I came into LiveRamp. Four years ago, we, um, had multiple, we had a different a TS and then we ended up, um. We had the intent to consolidate our HR tech stack.
So we, um, [00:14:00] we did not renew our contract with the a TS that we had at the time. And since then, we, like I said, we consolidated and we will actually be transitioning to a new a TS later in 2026. So in the fall of 2026. And really the conversation that I had with the CFO was. Hey, look, we made this decision to reduce. Um, we thought that we were gonna ultimately save costs. We thought that there would be tremendous benefit in terms of integrating, I won't say you know, who we went to, but just being part of the ecosystem, um, of the, the ERM and it, it hasn't. It hasn't proven. So while yes, there has been a slight cost savings. I don't know if ultimately there is a cost savings because it impacts recruiters, it impacts hiring managers, it [00:15:00] impacts the HR business partners. From a productivity standpoint, just the lack of visibility, like there was a need for us to continue to hire. Um, we did, like all companies, you know, we have tried to slow down hiring just because the macroeconomic climate, there's a lot of uncertainty out there.
Uncertainty impacts business. Um, but again, we, you know, we haven't shut off hiring. There is a need for our recruiters to be able to be agile, to have visibility, to move quickly. And the a TS that we're currently on now, it's clunky. It's. You know, simple things are like 15 clicks. You know, recruiters don't have visibility like it.
There is no reason in today's day and age you shouldn't be able to, like every resume. I mean, again, it's, you know, everything, things that are a strength, often, you know, there's a. It's a double-edged sword, right? So every job now has hundreds of applicants, right? Probably like AI is playing [00:16:00] a part in that.
But like, there's no reason why you shouldn't, A recruiter shouldn't be able to quickly search. And again, the, the current tool that we have prohibits us from doing
that. So, um, you know, ultimately I had to ensure that I had the budget in my, um. You, you know, within my cost center. But, you know, we've decided to prioritize being able to source, recruit, and attract candidates.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. I think that is always a challenge. You know, I can, I can say from my seat sitting in a, in a prior seat as a CFO, it is challenging. I think sometimes the investments in technology that supports the organization tends to feel the fuzziest around ROI
Stephanie Boman: Oh yeah.
Colleen Gallagher: and at the same time. You know, it, it, it's sort of obvious, but as I have moved into, you know, broader roles within an organization.
Sometimes you just have to understand that that fuzziness can't be as [00:17:00] defined as you might want it to be. And you know, you, you can't look at a, a, a sales variance and know that it was because you sold fewer things than you thought, or the price was lower than you thought. It's just not gonna be as transparent in that way.
So I do think having a leader like you that has some conviction around it and can articulate the value is incredibly valuable because I think it, tying it back to what you said earlier. Time to fill is not really the metric anymore. Um, it, it was almost, when you focus on doing things quickly, it doesn't always get you the, the yield that you want, which is why I think, you know, I, I, I don't wanna imply that people haven't been talking about quality of hire for decades because we know that they have.
Um, but I do think that in terms of what I have heard from other leaders and talent acquisition leaders as well, is that. It's, it's sort of a secondary metric right now because when hiring does get somewhat slower or when it does get even a little bit tighter than it was the last few years, [00:18:00] it's so much more important to get the right person in the seat the first time yeah,
because you, you aren't hiring as fast and you just don't have as much flexibility around that.
So I, that, that makes a ton of sense. Um.
Sure.
I guess the last question I have in terms of sort of, of uh, you know, where, how you think about the business, but in your role as the chief people officer, especially with what is happening with ai, how do you think about, um, know, skilling your existing employee base and how are you thinking about doing, you know, do you, are you doing training?
Do you. You know, how do you focus on making sure that your employees are actually staying up to date and not just focusing on the folks that you're hiring, making sure that they have it.
Stephanie Boman: Yeah, so actually about a year ago, maybe slightly over a year ago, We decided to like really double down our efforts [00:19:00] around ai, um, as a company. So I actually lead the AI enablement initiative like in close partnership with our CIO.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
Stephanie Boman: we have deliberately branded IT people plus ai, um, because AI itself.
Isn't gonna transform the org. Um, our people will,
Colleen Gallagher: Yep.
Stephanie Boman: You know, we really wanted to send a strong signal that we're not replacing. Um, you know, we're not replacing humans with ai, but really amplifying what our people can do. Um, our people will still own the judgment, the decisions, and the quality. And we want AI to handle the repetitive time and intensive tasks so everyone can kind of move upstream and work on higher value add, activities. So. We kicked off the global upskilling last August, um, with, you know, we launched an AI week. We had like [00:20:00] 30 plus sessions, um and in addition to like a full AI literacy curriculum. Um, and then ultimately we put out a certification. Um, we actually hired, you know, one of the, the top ai um, SMEs in the world.
She's actually based outta Germany, Barbara Lampel. She's amazing. Um and we, we have a certification that our employees are able to take. We did not make it mandatory because we really wanted, you know, employees to lean in. We are now saying our, our fiscal year just started in April and we are saying for this next fiscal year.
By the end of the year, we are. Um, expecting all employees to be certified, at least from an AI literacy standpoint. But we are actually in phase two of our AI enablement, um, initiative now, and we're going deeper. So we're entering the AI fluency phase, um, with three [00:21:00] roles specific upskilling tracks, so AI powered development, agentic working and advanced prompting and, um, AI engineering. really. I think, um, I think our CEO like has done a really good job of just how he positions it to the organization and really it's a, you know, it's an opportunity. We are like putting things on like AI week,
You know, it, it costs millions of dollars when you add up all of the sessions. And, you know, we have asked people, leaders to prioritize letting their employees participate in AI week.
So again, our CEO really like, I think the, the metapoint that he always tries to make is those that don't embrace this are ultimately gonna be left behind. gonna fall behind and this is like. Future proofing your career as well.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
Stephanie Boman: similar to many [00:22:00] organizations out there we're like full blown, like ai again, I am actually really proud of like, just our branding.
We were like people plus ai. We definitely don't wanna, you know, there are a lot of organizations saying we're AI first, but again, at the heart of it, like I think jobs will be very different. Um, but I don't know, I don't, maybe I'm a late. Adopter, but, uh, I don't know if there are gonna be that many jobs that just dramatically go away.
I do think that the landscaped will shift,
there will still be a need for, you know, human component.
Colleen Gallagher: totally agree. Yeah, I think it's about upleveling and upskilling, um, and getting people to a space where they can do more of the thought leadership work and, um, I, I agree with you there. Um. I think it's, you know, I was talking to somebody yesterday too, and I think the fact that you're doing an actual certification requirement is really good because I think we're the, a lot of organizations, or some [00:23:00] organizations I should say, are falling short is they're doing some training, but they're not actually assessing whether or not, and we all know that, you know, generally training is somewhat ineffective.
You actually need to use it. And so I think it's. You know, important to have that certification piece, not just the fact that you're giving people access to the information about it. Um, alright, well shifting gears a little, wanna learn a little bit more about you and, and sort of what got you to where you are today?
Um, so I'll start with, you know, if you were to go back and, you know, it's graduation day from, from Vandy, um, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Stephanie Boman: Gosh, I think, uh, so many learnings, right? In 20 plus years of working, but, uh. I think, you know, one of the biggest ones is really just your network, right? The people that you come across, you never know when really just, you know, particularly [00:24:00] as you move up and along in your career, you know, you will likely get your next role, you know, through your network.
Um, so again, just. embrace those like chance encounters. Um, you know, anytime you, you meet people you never know, um, you know where that's gonna lead potentially.
Colleen Gallagher: how did you end up in HR? Was it something you knew you wanted to go into, or, or what led you there?
Stephanie Boman: No, definitely not. So I, um, I think like many people, um, of my age are like. Year of graduating college. I think that was definitely like the consulting years. So I was definitely planning to go be a consultant and, you know, travel all over and be very glamorous. Um, but growing up in Chicago, Motorola was
huge.
Um, you know, was huge at the time. Huge Chicago land employer and I ended up randomly getting an HR, uh, internship. And [00:25:00] every summer, you know, I was able to come home, live at home. See friends from high school made good money and I thought, I'm in the HR department. I have no idea what this means. I was actually in the l and d department. They had this, um, very robust like next generation or hipo leadership program. So, you know, I created beautiful PowerPoints for them and Yeah. you know, senior year of college at Vanderbilt, I got a full-time offer to go consulting and the head of HR. left me a voicemail on my message at my apartment, and he basically said. I heard you got another offer. Do not take that offer without talking to me. And my roommate was like, there's this weird voicemail on the answering machine. Like, it's just strange. But uh, yeah. Anyway, he basically said, you're gonna go into consulting and in five years you're gonna be so, burned out.
You're [00:26:00] gonna be begging me for a job. Um. So anyway, I accepted the job and the rest has been history. So yeah, I've stayed in HR. I actually, um, I'm super passionate about HR. I love the function. but uh, yeah, I'm definitely, uh, an HR purist. Yeah.
So when I see non-HR professionals leading the function, I'm kind of looking at them sideways,
Colleen Gallagher: I,
my fun fact is that, um, the first job I had was babysitting at the Motorola Museum because I too grew up outside of Chicago in the town where it was headquartered at the time. And,
Stephanie Boman: The Galvin Center, I loved the Motorola Museum.
Colleen Gallagher: my good friend's mom was a docent there, and so she and I, her daughter and I, who are best friends, we would go and, and keep little children occupied.
Stephanie Boman: It is funny. Well, we, you know, from being, uh, from being from Chicago, if you grew up in the Chicago land suburbs and you were at [00:27:00] all, and you said you worked at Motorola, you always got the, do you know so and so?
Colleen Gallagher: Yep. Um, all right, well, thank you, uh, so much for, for joining me today. Um, I really appreciate the, the conversation around. You know the quality of hiring stuff. I think it's something that's top of mind for, for any leader of a business today. Um, where can people find you if they wanna connect with you?
Stephanie Boman: Uh, find me on LinkedIn. I'm SF based, so would love to connect as well.
Colleen Gallagher: Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for listening. Um, if you learn something today or left, tell somebody about this podcast. Thank you again to Stephanie for joining me. Great thank you. This has been another exciting episode of Recruiters on the Rise. We'll see you all next time.
And that wraps up another episode. Thank you for joining. For show notes and other episodes, visit us at recruiters on the rise.com. Recruiters on the Rise is sponsored by Lavalier, an interview intelligence [00:28:00] platform. Lavalier goes beyond basic note takers to approve your ability to assess candidates with AI powered interview questions, summaries, and transcription.
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