Laura joined the leadership team in 2018 as Kinetix’s first Vice President of Client Advocacy. With an impressive resume and undeniable talent industry success Laura comes correct with killer strategies that serve up exactly what our clients ordered. Laura is one of those people who can make things happen in the RPO and employer branding spaces – in fact; she has spent the last 25 years raising the bar for talent management pros across the country.
Before joining the #RPORockstars at Kinetix, Laura was a Portfolio Executive for the IBM Talent Acquisition Optimization team where she developed relationships with key stakeholders and ensured top-notch delivery of RPO services. Laura is no stranger to leadership in the talent world; she held multiple roles at the leadership level when she was a top dog at FutureStep and Recruitment Enhancement Services.
We are pretty stoked to have such a passionate industry leader bleeding orange with us at Kinetix.
1. Tell us why you’re in the RPO game and how you got here:
RPO – Maybe it’s my love of puzzles mixed with a need for creativity. I spent the first part of my career in transactional staffing, moving on after I got a taste of building a full recruitment solution with paper clips and gum. So when I got to Recruitment Enhancement Services (RES, part of Bernard Hodes Group), it was a natural fit to take our transaction-based recruitment tools and piece them together to create a total recruitment solution for Kellogg’s, hence why RES was named the “Inventors of RPO” by HRO Today. I love the mixology of the process, technology, data and the creativity of talent branding, all under one roof!
2. A great tradition in Major League Baseball is that each batter for the home team gets to pick their own intro music as they walk up to the plate. If you could choose a song to play as you entered the Kinetix HQ, what would it be and why?
I am certain no World Champion Astro would ever pick my kind of song! I have never heard of most the songs they walk on to. Maybe Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” Or better yet, Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World.” I think we should suggest that Jose Altuve walk on to “What a Wonderful World”!
3. Give it up—2 things that the people outside of Kinetix don’t know about you:
Native Texan- born in El Paso (long after Texas took control from Mexico in 1846!) moved a bit (17 times) and have been back in Texas for over 30 years now.
I love games & puzzles- Scrabble every Sunday with my mom and sister; get whooped by my mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in Rummy whenever we can get together; and used to partake in Murder Mystery dinners, so I guess you could say I have a little in common with Annie in Game Night. But I’m a better shot than Annie!
Not sure who knows this, but in my earlier days I hocked a few pieces of my artwork to unsuspecting buyers! Mostly florists, because my subjects were almost always flowers and my medium of choice was Pointillism (a technique in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image.) I did install a piece of art on the wall of a bar….it was a hot air balloon and I spent way more than I made trying to get it right. “Art for sale!”
4. What’s your favorite HR/recruiting buzzword to openly mock and why?
This could get me in trouble – but seriously, in business in general, there are many! And a few I might even say myself. Agile and agility hang incessantly in the air like the humidity in Houston! Certainly, there are very appropriate times for these words to be used, like when one is developing software. The best definition I have heard of being agile is moving with “quickness, ease, and grace.” I read it at some point a while back when I was researching agile methodologies. And in recruitment, quickness, ease, and grace are fitting. Or just say “put a wiggle in it.”
Then there’s Best Practices, Value Add, Disruptive, Synergies…
5. Describe your first car to us. Please let it be a junker that embarrasses you:
Oh, yes, a very sexy faded brown Fiat Brava, circa mid 70’s. It was literally a square sitting on four circles, like how a kid might draw a car! My brother drove it first (chick magnet), then I was fortunate enough to get ahold of it! Not complaining, always grateful I had wheels!
Jay is the Vice President of Operations and Healthcare Strategy at Kinetix and has nearly two decades of experience in the healthcare industry. Specializing in hospitals and health systems, he most recently worked as the Vice President of Human Resources at All Children’s Hospital/Johns Hopkins Medicine in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Prior to joining All Children’s, Jay served in human resources executive roles with HCA in Tampa Bay and the United Health Services Healthcare System in upstate New York.
Jay gets fired up about lots of things including social media, speaking, his leadership blog, NoExcusesHR, doing HR differently, and watching more hockey than anyone should. Follow him on Twitter @jrkuhns or connect on LinkedIn.
5 Questions with Jay Kuhns
1. Step up to the plate and give us the insider’s edition on how you make grand slams for Kinetix on the daily:
I am the luckiest member of the Kinetix team. I have the privilege to work with a great team of people at our super cool offices in Atlanta. Plus, I’m also with our remote staff onsite with clients each week making things happen for them in ways they could not achieve on their own. Tell me that isn’t awesome?!
2. Tell us why you’re in the RPO game and how you got here:
I spent twenty years leading hospital human resources teams prior to joining Kinetix. I adopted social media, original content, and a heavy focus on employer brand strategies into my talent acquisition work. Now I don’t have to get bogged down in the administrative realities of a traditional corporate role, and can focus exclusively on making our clients more contemporary and successful than they ever imagined.
3. What’s your favorite HR/recruiting buzzword to openly mock and why?
That’s an easy one! Synergy. Ugh! No one EVER uses the word synergy outside the workplace. Have you ever heard anyone say to their family or friends at the end of a busy day that they are excited about the synergy they created that day? NEVER!
4. A great tradition in Major League Baseball is that each batter for the home team gets to pick his own intro music as he’s walking up to the plate. If you could choose a song to play as you entered the Kinetix HQ, what would it be and why?
“The Idiot Box” by Shadows Fall. I love the energy the band puts out in this song. It’s about the negative messages television advertising pushes on society.
5. Describe your first car to us. God, please let it be a junker that embarrasses you:
Sorry… mine was a 1980 white Camaro Berlinetta. It was beautiful, super-fast and I loaded it up with a ridiculously loud stereo.
J
acki Neal is the Vice President of Talent Solutions at Kinetix. Her mission will be to provide strategy and delivery to the Kinetix Staffing Practice. Prior she wasCEO of Peak Resource Group, a Technology and Communications staffing firm that was acquired by Kinetix in May 2015. Before Peak, she did Business Development for a Telecom Consulting organization, was a Technical sales Executive for several computer hardware manufacturers, and started her career as a hardware and software engineer.
She really digs all things technology (rebuilding computers, Apple life, and playing with website development) as well as meeting with clients to solve the world’s issues over lunch.
On the personal side, she connects with women as a MoneyWise mentor, assists with off shore mission work, and works with ‘at risk’ women to help them develop confidence and skills to get out of poverty.
5 Questions with Jacki Neal
Know any “Cops” that live in HR?
The modern day HR Department is moving away from process and transactions. But you knew that, right?
What’s probably keeping you up at night is how to transition from a HR function dedicated to policy, procedures and rules to one that’s designed to give business leaders what they need—smart, flexible solutions to the people and talent issues they face.
Say hello to the 9 Faces of HR. It’s the Kinetix way of absolutely nailing who you are and what you want to be as an HR function.
The 9 Faces of HR maps your entire HR organization into an easy to visualize map of 9 profiles/personas. We look at each HR team member’s career level, then evaluate factors like Rules and Detail Orientation, Assertiveness and Cognitive Processing Speed to accurately tag them with a profile/persona.
Successful HR Transformation starts with understanding who’s on the team. Call us and we’ll introduce you some HR faces you know (The Cop, The Judge) and some you don’t (The Assassin, Gandhi). You’ll be shaking your head in agreement 10 minutes into our first conversation.
Life used to be so simple—you’d post to the big boards, then sit back and wait for the resumes to come in.
Then someone moved your cheese—Indeed, LinkedIn and Glassdoor to be specific. The recruitment marketing industry has changed significantly with Indeed owning SEO/search, LinkedIn owning the candidate database and Glassdoor owning the company reputation space.
Today, you need an analytics pro on your team—we call it Moneyball—to help you maximize your recruitment marketing spend.
Post and Pray is dead. Time to move on.
Our Recruitment Marketing Efficiency package is designed to help you evaluate your current Recruitment Advertising spend. We’ll help you identify where you spend and how it relates to both candidate flow, interviews and hires. Then we’ll go to the lab and come back with recommendations on how your spend should change based on what others are doing in your industry and beyond.
Regardless of where you are, Kinetix can help. Give us a shout on the Batphone and let’s talk shop.
Let’s say you’re the perfect judge of individual talent and who to hire in your organization. You’re not, because everyone misses in the hiring game. But let’s assume when people google “clairvoyant”, your picture shows up in the
image results. Nice.
You know what you’re not great at Nostradamus? Onboarding new talent into your organization with an eye on assimilation into your existing team and getting the most out of each individual based on how they’re wired.
That’s where Kinetix comes in with an eye on the development of your team performance strategy – post hire. Connect with our HR Consulting practice and we’ll show you how to build a team and get better business results through two specific types of engagements:
Regardless of how good you are at selecting talent, you have unlimited opportunity to maximize performance by understanding what makes your employees and teams tick from a behavioral perspective. Bring Kinetix in to help, and we’ll show you how it’s all connected.
Click here to download, “Pop The Hood: Building Better Teams Through The Use of Assessments”
You already know what’s wrong with most training you send your managers to. You sign your managers up for a session on Leadership – maybe at a 3.5-star hotel with some standard meeting space and one of those 
fake Starbucks named “Coffee Town”. The description looks great, but – wait for it – your managers come back to the office, put the binder they received on the shelf, and make NO CHANGES related to how they manage people on a day to day basis.
We think there’s a better way, and that’s why Kinetix has invested in developing our own training platform for managers of people. We call it BOSS: Leadership Skills for the Modern Manager, and it’s designed to cut through the boredom usually associated with manager training.
Modules include sessions on Building Better Teams, Goal Setting, Coaching Skills, Delivering Performance Reviews, Compensation 101 for Managers and more (But we use non-clinical titles like Pop The Hood, Don’t Bore Me, Please Shut Up, You Don’t Suck and Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems).
We keep the non-traditional vibe and accompanying engagement levels up by using movie clips tied to the theme at the start of each section, providing Spotify playlists tied to the training and making sure interaction happens throughout the sessions.
How do you know it works? We include something we call “The Playbook”, which is a short list of specific things your manager should be able to do once they come back from a “Boss” session. You can test them – they’ll be ready!
Fill out the form below to download the table of contents and two sections from “Please Shut Up: Coaching Skills for Managers” (one of multiple modules from our BOSS Leaderships Skills Series).
I
f you’re like most of our clients, you’ve got a review process, some forms and, at the end of the year, the herding of cats begins. “When are reviews due?”, “Who doesn’t have their reviews in yet?”, “Did you see Bob recommended that Sarah gets a 6% merit increase? I must crush him.”
Are we kidding about Bob? Maybe.
What you wanted to be strategic about has turned into a boring, transactional event.
You deserve more. Regardless of where you are today, Kinetix can help you transform how performance management is viewed in your organization by helping you focus on what truly delivers organizational results. Bring us in, and we’ll guide you through a process focused on real goal setting, building coaching skills in your managers, being fanatical about defining what good vs. great performance looks like at your company, and more.
If you’re really feeling frisky, we’ll even set you up with the holy grail of performance management—helping you create a philosophy that blends performance vs. potential and gives you a high level view of talent in your organization that leads directly to better workforce management and succession planning.
Taking a fresh look at performance has been on your list for a while, right? Give us a call and we’ll help you get started.
Click to see how APQC revamped their approach to performance management with the help of Kinetix
We get it—not everyone who has the feeling that their recruiting function could be more efficient is ready to outsource. That’s why we’ve made the Recruiting Diagnostic available to our clients. Engage us to do a Recruiting Diagnostic for your organization, and we’ll unleash a systematic flurry of information requests and one-on-one interviews designed to help you understand the present state of recruiting in your company.
Some of what we’ll report back you’ll know, much of it you won’t. More importantly, after we collect the data, we’ll go into our lab with the express purpose of benchmarking your recruiting function against others who do it well, then we’ll tell you where the best ROI is for any investment of time and money you’re considering making in your Talent Acquisition function.
Along the way, we’ll look at everything—your process, efficiency, spend and marketing, as well as how people inside your company feel about recruiting. Like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, we know that most people can’t handle the truth. The good news is that you can, or you wouldn’t have read this far.
Give us a call and we’ll use our Recruiting Diagnostic process to help arm you with the data you need to get true change.
Get 10 Slides from a Recent Recruiting Diagnostic Engagement
If you’re looking for a recruiting partner, there’s an i
mportant question you need to ponder:
“Are you looking for a resume slinger, or do you want a targeted approach to your search needs?”
Resume slingers aren’t hard to find. Call up five contingency search firms and sign them all up for a single search. Let them race to flood your inbox with resumes.
How’s that working out for you?
At Kinetix, we’ve got the analytical tools to have educated opinions about the marketplace for the talent you’re looking for. That means we enter the search process understanding what it will cost, where to look and who’s looking for the same thing in your specific industry and geographical area.
Combine those tools with our intake process and sourcing discipline, and it stands to reason our recruiters will have opinions about where your search process stands and what to do next.
You want educated opinions rather than resume slingers, right?
Of course you do. Call us today and we’ll give you an honest take on the candidate you’re looking for
Your company has an unique spot in the employment food chain. Whether you’re the equivalent of Coke, Pepsi or Diet Fresca in your industry, there’s a pecking order related to who really wants to work for you.
That’s why Kinetix recruiters are trained to close on your behalf, selling who you are regardless of where you fall on the food chain. The ability to “Always Be Closing” at your company comes down to three things:
Kinetix recruiters start framing the money issue on the first call to candidates, because our research shows that early action maximizes the close rate once offer time rolls around.
Once compensation is a match, our recruiters become career agents for the candidates they talk to, comparing and contrasting what you can provide with what the candidate wants – all while keeping the client’s best interests at heart.
Sit back and have a sip of that Diet Fresca. We’ve got this.
“I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.”
–Steven Wright
Recruiting is Sales. Our RPO reporting stack is designed to give you a view of the recruiting funnel for every position—visibility that is key to you being in control.
Our reporting capabilities typically center around a monthly business review/progress report, and in addition to a recruiting funnel for each active position, you can expect reports of all the usual metrics and ties to SLAs on the Kinetix side (time to fill, candidate funnels, offer acceptance rate, cost per hire etc.).
When it comes to reporting our progress, we typically find that Kinetix wants to report more than our clients want to review the data, so we adjust over time to a cadence that suits your culture and believe that simple is better.
Speaking of simple – we also use something called the Screen/Show/Hire Statement, and it’s designed to show you how healthy the Kinetix process is across your company, or within individual hiring areas.
Example – “We screen 49 candidates, show you 6, you hire 1.”
Those numbers mean (for the client in question, or in the area in question) we would make 6 submittals, and out of those 6 submittals, one hire is made. It’s a great way to top line the health of a recruiting practice,.
Numbers never lie. But deeper conversations usually result from good reporting.
We’re going to bring you great candidates. But we’re also here to help you cut through all the stuff that doesn’t matter and get to what’s real when handling the interview feedback loop and the hire/don’t hire decision.
We call it Area Code Hiring and it’s brutally simple, but deep enough to add maximum value. As part of our RPO solution, our recruiters will lead a brief but valuable debrief session with everyone who interviewed a candidate for an open position, ensuring groupthink is minimized and all valuable feedback is considered.
The sessions take as little as 10 minutes. All your managers have to do it—and they have a little fun.
Everyone gets Area Codes. You’ll soon understand why the best candidates are nicknamed “Raleigh” (area code 919) and the worst ones are tagged “DC” (202).
You? If you’re this deep into our site, we’ll probably call you Brooklyn (718).
All searches we launch include a behavioral assessment platform we love—we call it TalentDNA, and it features eight capabilities mapped for every candidate who comes through our process. Capabilities include Cognitive Processing Speed, Assertiveness, Rules Orientation, Detail Orientation, Sensitivity, People Orientation, Team Orientation and Faking Good.
That’s right. Faking Good. You know you love the sound of that. Think of it as a coachability index for anyone you bring into the organization.
We use TalentDNA to create a behavioral map at the start of each search to hone in on what the hiring manager is truly looking for, then prevent false positives as result.
False positives in your hiring process equals turnover. TalentDNA helps us prevent bad hires.
Partner with Kinetix and we’ll help you figure out what makes a candidate tick—beyond what you see on the resume.
Download the Kinetix Whitepaper on TalentDNA, “Would You Hire OJ?”
You know you’re better than that. That’s why all Kinetix RPO clients have access to the Recruitment Marketing services we provide. Partner with us and we’ll do the heavy lifting as part of your RPO deal, making you look as cool as you really are by focusing on the following drivers of your employment brand:
Upgrading your employment brand and careers site/marketing strategy has been on your list for awhile, right? Partner with Kinetix on RPO and we’ll do it for you. You’re going to look great as a result.
Want to know how RPO works? We thought you’d never ask.The Kinetix RPO model is the perfect choice for when you need to make the strategic decision to outsource some or all or your recruiting function. If you’re experiencing strong growth in your hiring needs, or feel your recruiting function could use an assist, we’re a great partner for you.
This is how we do RPO:
We can hire great people faster than you. Call us and let’s get it started.
The Purple Squirrel. At Kinetix, that term refers to the perfect candidate in a hopelessly difficult search.We expect all of our recruiters to be hunters rather than farmers. That means every Kinetix recruiter is expected to do the following on every search:
– Map out a sourcing strategy detailing what they’re going to do to market the position to candidates who might not otherwise be aware of the opportunity, and
– Add USCs to every hiring funnel they’re responsible for. What’s a USC? We call them Uniquely Sourced Candidates, and our recruiters are responsible for ensuring that every position worked includes candidates that they found and recruited that wouldn’t have naturally applied.
Our ability to recruit on behalf of your company is only as good as our ability to find candidates that others can’t find. We hate the post and pray model and believe in the need to build pipelines for positions that will have multiple hiring needs over time.
Purple Squirrels are real. You just have to know where to look.
VIDEO: Listen to Kinetix recruiters talk about their favorite ways to source candidates!
“I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company…”
Do you have big goals? Teaching the world to sing in harmony seems like a stretch goal, doesn’t it?
At Kinetix, we’ve got big goals, but they all revolve around helping you find the best candidates for your company. That’s why we’re so focused on what we call our Intake Process.
Simply put, our intake process is our commitment – as well as yours – to spend the time necessary up front at the start of a search to really dig into what a hiring manager is looking for. To accomplish this, we’re going to ask you to make the hiring manager available for at least 30 minutes to talk about the most important things – what’s truly going to drive the success of any candidate who lands in the job.
What’s most important to the hiring manager usually doesn’t appear in the job posting.
Once we have those details, we’ve got a great chance to nail the search. And that’s what both of us want, right?
Great hires are the result of a recruiter truly understanding the “real job.” The Kinetix Intake process is designed to give us that snapshot.
Perfect harmony? We’ll tackle that tomorrow. But you can still grab a Coke when you stop by the office.
VIDEO: See what Kinetix recruiters do to set the tone in an intake meeting!
When you work with most RPO firms, they’ll hand off the hard work—the actual recruiting—to generalist recruiters without any experience in the area of need along with the following encouragement:
“Good luck, kids! Don’t screw it up!”
Not so at Kinetix. Our integrated model including Staffing & Recruiting (in addition to RPO) allows us to build teams of recruiters by specialty and functional area. This approach allows us to keep those folks busy in their specialty until you have a need—then they bounce over to deliver a critical hire in their area of skill specialty for you in significantly less time than it takes a generalist recruiter.
That means for any open position, you get the Kinetix recruiter with the best chance of nailing the search. No other RPO firm does this like we do it, and we’re happy to push recruiters to your account that specialize in your positional needs.
We think that’s a significant tactic, and we’re the only ones doing it.
She’s the Chief Executive Officer for Kinetix. She’s got a background as a finance executive for companies that do hundreds of thousands of hires annually. She rode the corporate wave. She had a big expense account. Then she opted out to do her own thing. For you. For us. For the kids. Shannon founded Kinetix with the goal of creating a firm that could help growing companies get the talent they need to compete. She had a dream. She thought she’d get more sleep by running her own company. She was wrong. Luckily, that’s not contagious.
In her role as CEO, Shannon is responsible for overall operations and leading the strategic direction of Kinetix. In real talk, that means she creates the foundation for company strategy, delivers new business for the company, keeps up good relationships with existing clients, manages the leadership and sales teams, and drives the overall vision and culture of the Kinetix brand.
Prior to forming Kinetix, Shannon held various positions throughout ten years at Spherion Corporation, a Fortune 500 staffing, recruiting and workforce solutions company. Without breaking out her entire resume, let’s just say she knows a thing or two about how to make the trains run on time.
Prior to Spherion, Shannon held various positions at large, public and privately traded companies such as W.R. Grace, M&M/Mars, Inc., and Kidder, Peabody & Co. Incorporated in the US and overseas. She earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics Management from Ohio Wesleyan University while running track and playing field hockey and achieving academic All-America status.
Specialties: Financial chops. Deal-maker. Eye for talent. Lack of need for sleep.
10 Questions with Shannon Russo
1. It’s hard on a recruiter/HR pro out there. Tell us why you’re in the RPO game…
A crazy passion for what happens when you do talent acquisition right—everybody wins. It’s sad that we see so many do it stupid and wrong, from candidates, to companies, HR, recruiters—you name it. Plus, I do love the hunt; I love seeing a deal/match happen when no one thought it could.
2. Finish the following sentence: “People want to hang out with me because…”
It’s so easy to seem normal and calm in comparison. My energy and that I am genuine are the things I hear most, so I will go with that—final answer.
3. First thing that comes into your mind when I say this: “RPO works because ____…” First thing. Don’t plan it.
Because of the focus and leverage we have… that other companies don’t.
4. What’s your favorite HR/recruiting buzzword to openly mock and why? It has to be…
“Seat at the table” and anything related to that discussion… ugh! Too many of the HR peeps literally aren’t even in the right building and are so clueless that they even miss the point of the conversation about it—which kills me, by the way. Two thoughts here, ahhhh, get a life, for one; and if you have to ask, you are clearly not in the game. Make it happen, people. Move the business forward every day and it will happen… geez. (I know, so tell me how you really feel…)
5. Let’s face it… there’s a lot of humanity out there in the recruiting scene. What’s the sure sign in the first 3 minutes you interview a candidate that it’s not going to happen?
There are soooooo many. Let’s see… completely unprepared (not sure what they are interviewing for, have not researched the company, etc.), nothing to write with or on, no copy of their resume, cell phone ringing, snapping gum, dressed like they are _______ (fill in the blank with something not work appropriate) are all good starters. But my favorites have to be around over-sharing on personal stuff you should never tell me (or perhaps anyone, ever, in a work setting), and old company/boss bashing, I mean, really?
6. Who are your favorite two recruiters—RPO, sports, entertainment, whatever—and what makes them rock stars from a recruiting perspective?
Easy: 1) KD/Ari Gold, with his take-no-prisoners mantra (besides, who else knows where all the .net developers in Birmingham are?) and 2) Lou Holtz, especially his story around the magic of thinking big and his list, focus and approach.
7. We’re midstream in this interview, so let’s give a shout out to the intellectuals. What are the last three books you’ve read? Why did you choose those books and what did you learn?
The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. Love his blog and knew the book would be awesome. It did not disappoint. Great perspective on the changes in how we all research, buy and should market, whether to clients or candidates. Serpent by Clive Cussler. I am a huge Dirk Pitt fan from way back; this is the first of another set of books by Cussler with a different protagonist. I like the connection to the characters that proceeds book to book and the technical details always included as part of the marine settings. No learning, just fun reading. Try Not To F**k This Up, But If You, Do Call Us by Starr Tincup. Good stuff on the human capital space, shout out to both William and Bret—love you both!
8. Enough with the book learning. A great tradition in Major League Baseball is that each batter for the home team gets to pick his own intro music as he’s walking up to the plate. If you could choose a song to play as you entered the Kinetix HQ, what would it be and why? Feel free to give us 2-3 choices, and you can’t say the uber-lame “I like all types of music… “
Eminem, “Not Afraid” because I’m not (which can sometimes be construed as stupid, crazy btw). My old-school shout out is “More Human Than Human” by White Zombie. Number 3 is a tie between ACDC’s “Thunderstruck” and Sheryl Crow’s “A Change Would Do You Good…”
9. Describe your first car to us. God, please let it be a junker that embarrasses you…
The follow-the-rules-answer: A burgundy Chevy Impala like this (although I don’t think I had those stylin’ hubcaps); it was the year they downsized the body and kept the 305 V8 (pretty lame that I know this)… it was fast.
Real answer: A 15-year-old gelding named “Butterscotch” (yes, he was that color, and no, I was not lame enough to name him that). I even rode him through the drive-thru at Burger King (he liked french fries). Sad fact that my “Freshman Facebook” at college has a pic of me on him, like this:
10. Give it up—2 things that the last 10 people you’ve talked to outside of Kinetix don’t know about you…
I have actually ridden an ostrich and my wedding included 900 wild elk, 5 Percherons and a handful of people…
Who is Kris Dunn? That’s an easy question – he’s the Chief Human Resources Officer for Kinetix. He’s a VP of HR type who has led HR practices in Fortune 500s and venture capital-held startups, and believes that the key to great business results is to get great people, then do cool stuff to maximize their motivation, performance and effectiveness once you have them in the door. As it turns out, that’s his simple definition of talent management.
Kris Dunn is a Partner and the Chief Human Resources Officer/Chief Marketing Officer at Kinetix. Prior to joining the team at Kinetix in 2010, Kris was a VP of People for DAXKO, a VP of HR for SourceMedical, a Regional VP of HR for Charter Communications, an HR Manager for BellSouth Mobility (subsequently known as Cingular and AT&T based on which round of consolidation you are referring to), and a Project Manager in the market research division of Aragon Consulting (gobbled up by IBM Global Services).
Kris holds a B.A in ES/Communications from Northeast Missouri State University, an M.A.E in Education from UAB and an MPPM from Birmingham-Southern College. He’s also the noted founder of The HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent, as well as a Contributing Editor at Workforce Management Magazine and workforce.com, where he has written over 50 feature columns. He’s also achieved the SPHR designation from the Human Resources Certification Institute.
Kris is among the most transparent HR pros or recruiters you can find, and here’s why: He cares so much about the art of HR and recruiting that he’s started two blogs (The HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent) with the goal of building a community he and others could learn from. He’s been putting his thoughts down every business day for over 4 years. As a result of that commitment, he’s been named one of the Top 100 Influencers in the World of HR and a Top 25 Digital Influencer in the HR and Talent Management communities.
Specialties: Belief that the HR function rocks. Business chops. Crossover Dribble.
1. It’s hard on a recruiter/HR pro out there. Tell us why you’re in the RPO game…
Why am I in the game? Opening…. Sourcing…. Interview… BOOM!!! … Great Match… There’s nowhere else you get that feeling… I’m an HR pro by trade, but matching talent with an open slot is really the intellectual pursuit that charges my batteries and gets me through the aspects of the job that aren’t as thrilling… It’s also the reason why I wanted to own a piece of Kinetix. Why should I limit myself to that feeling for one company when I can be a part of helping multiple companies get that match? Word.
2. Finish the following sentence: “People want to hang out with me because…”
Because I look like a cross between Brad Pitt and George Clooney. No? Because I’ve got every line from Caddyshack and Blazing Saddles down cold. No? If that doesn’t do it for you, then try this: I get how cool HR pros and recruiters really are. They’re rock stars trapped in a profession that has long touted administration as its primary value add. It’s a lie, and it’s limited how others view us. HR pros and recruiters are much more than that. It all starts with getting the best people you can afford for every gig in your company. That’s what we help you do at Kinetix.
3. First thing that comes into your mind when I say this: “RPO works because ____…” First thing. Don’t plan it.
Your company gets to focus solely on picking the best candidate. We do all the dirty work for less money than you would spend if you did it yourself. We hunt so you can stay strategic. Boom.
4. What’s your favorite HR/recruiting buzzword to openly mock and why?
Seat at the table. It was hot for awhile, now it just seems like a cliché. Just take the seat, Alice. No one’s stopping you. Oh, right. You have to deliver the goods. Ship product. That’s what it takes to stop talking about the seat.
5. Let’s face it – there’s a lot of humanity out there in the recruiting scene. What’s the sure sign in the first 3 minutes you interview a candidate that it’s not going to happen?
There’s no eye contact whatsoever. It’s like candidate repellent to me. Also, I’ve had a “close-talker” or two on the way in from the lobby, and that can be a deal-breaker…
6. Who are your favorite two recruiters – RPO, sports, entertainment, whatever – and what makes them rockstars from a recruiting perspective?
1) Ari Gold from Entourage – singular focus on the business and getting good deals done for his clients. A little profane, but hey – some eggs are gonna get broken when you get in an egg fight. 2) John Calipari (college basketball coach for University of Kentucky)—4 first round draft choices from the same team in the same year, and he got them all to come to the same school and share the spotlight. I think he knows a thing or two about talent. Love him, hate him… You can’t ignore him…
7.We’re midstream in this interview, so let’s give a shout-out to the intellectuals. What are the last three books you’ve read? Why did you choose those books and what did you learn?
1) Linchpin by Seth Godin. Quality isn’t job one. Job one is to be absolutely freaking amazing. Be an artist in whatever it is that you do. Give gifts. Refuse to let the lizard voice tell you it can’t be done. 2) One Page Talent Management by Marc Effron and Miriam Ort. Complexity is the enemy of getting things done in business. Have 2-3 good ideas and focus on those when it comes to talent. Got 100 competencies you’re working with at your company? Your managers are ignoring you. 3) The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. This just in – random stuff happens every day that you have no control over. Understand probability theory and the stats behind it, and you can make an educated decision whether to double down or walk away.
8. Enough with the book learning. A great tradition in Major League Baseball is that each batter for the home team gets to pick his own intro music as he’s walking up to the plate. If you could choose a song to play as you entered the Kinetix HQ, what would it be and why? Feel free to give us 2-3 choices, and you can’t say the uber-lame “I like all types of music”…
First of all, those rumors about me being a huge Deep Blue Something fan are just that – rumors. I’m a man, baby.
I’m also Gen X through and through. So my walk to the plate is going to sound like I should be wearing flannel, because it’s all grunge. I’d roll with the following: 1. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana 2. “Spoonman” by Soundgarden 3. “Machinehead” by Bush
If you push me for something more recent, I’ll roll with something like “I was a Teenage Anarchist” from Against Me:
9. Describe your first car to us. God, please let it be a junker that embarrasses you…
Soft top, manual Orange Jeep CJ5, with no heater in the Midwest. Let’s just say gloves weren’t optional in the winter. Took it to college, the knob of the stick shift was replaced with a Miller Lite Tab from a bar. My dad gave it to me. Wouldn’t he go to jail for that today? It defined me by making me never buy the premium model of anything. You have three packages? I’m taking the middle one… I’m thrilled to have it after driving a machine of death with no heater through Midwest winters…
10. Give it up – 2 things that the last 10 people you’ve talked to outside of Kinetix don’t know about you…
I started my career as a college basketball coach in the Division I ranks, working for Gene Bartow at UAB. HR and recruiting have a lot in common with that experience. Ask me how sometime… The best man in my wedding and college roommate is a guy named Glenn Jacobs, who’s had a decade-plus career in the WWF/WWE. He’s a character known as Kane (brother of the Undertaker). He was an honors student in English. Taught me never to judge a book by its cover.
Michele Silagy is the Chief Talent Advisor at Kinetix. Prior to joining Kinetix, Michele was the Corporate Director of Recruiting at AutoTrader.com, a leading Internet auto classifieds website based in Atlanta, where she created the company’s first centralized, strategic recruiting function. Michele was responsible for building strategies related to university hiring, diversity recruiting, succession and workforce planning, employee referral programs, and pre-hire assessments. It was in this role that Michele first met Shannon and hired Kinetix for several recruiting projects.
Prior to AutoTrader, Michele was Director of Staffing and Relocation at ING, US Financial Services at their Atlanta offices where she led the successful implementation of a shared service recruiting function due to the acquisition of Aetna Financial Services and Reliastar Insurance in 2001. Michele also spent five years at AHL Services and its predecessor Argenbright Security, where she was a Regional Human Resources Manager for the Western Region out of Los Angeles, and later served as Director of Recruiting in Atlanta.
Michele has an MS in Human Resources from Georgia State University, and received her BA in Human Resources from Michigan State University. Originally from Michigan, she currently lives in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband, Ron, and two children, Emily and Jack.
5 Questions with Michele Silagy
1. First thing that comes into your mind when I say this: “RPO works because ____…” First thing. Don’t plan it.
RPO works because it provides the right amount of focus and skill to a very complicated function. Recruiting should not be taken lightly – the pace of change and chances for error are too great.
2. Who are your favorite two recruiters – RPO, sports, entertainment, whatever – and what makes them rock stars from a recruiting perspective?
My recruiting rock stars (this is too easy) – Coach John Wooden and Mother Teresa.
a. “Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way.” – John Wooden
b. “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” – Mother Teresa
3. A great tradition in Major League Baseball is that each batter for the home team gets to pick his own intro music as he’s walking up to the plate. If you could choose a song to play as you entered the Kinetix HQ, what would it be and why:
First song that comes to mind… “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins (cue the fighter jets and some hot Navy pilots…) It’s all about tension, pushing the limits, living on the edge – gotta take chances to learn what you’re made of…
4. Describe your first car to us. God, please let it be a junker that embarrasses you:
Can you say “1974 Plymouth Scamp”? Yeah, baby… I started working when I was 14 so when I turned 16 my parents were more than happy to buy me a $500 set of wheels to become more self-sufficient. I loved that car. V8. 4-60 air (4 windows down at 60 miles per hour). AM/FM stereo with presets – remember those clunky buttons that made a “cha-chunk” sound when you pressed them? I was totally stylin’.
5. Give it up – 2 things that the last 10 people you’ve talked to outside of Kinetix don’t know about you:
I’m a pretty open book so there isn’t much people don’t know about me… how ‘bout these – I was voted “Most Likely to Adopt a Grandparent” by my senior class and Brad Pitt touched my tummy when I was 8 months pregnant.
Larry is responsible for generating solutions for new clients of Kinetix. He was formerly the Senior Vice President for sales at Vistage, the world’s leading CEO organization where he lead the strategy for bringing Vistage to the Fortune 1000. Prior to Vistage, Larry was the Guidant Group’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing where they provided outsourced services and technology to enable enterprise management for all contract labor. With over 20 years experience in operations, sales, and developing new business strategy, he is a pioneer in the Human Resources Outsourcing market and developed the first Recruitment Process Outsourcing model to become commercially viable.
Larry has held senior leadership positions at Accenture, Spherion, and Monster Worldwide. He is a published thought leader and a speaker on the topic of Human Resources Outsourcing and talent acquisition. He served as an advisor for the Human Capital Institute and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and the Juran Institute for Six Sigma facilitation.
5 Questions with Larry Kihlstadius
1. Tell us why you’re in the RPO game and how you got here:
I am an early pioneer in the RPO game. I was the leader of one of the very first relevant RPO business units and Shannon Russo, our CEO, was part of the senior leadership team of the parent company. We have been in touch for over ten years and always wanted to work together again!
2. Finish this sentence: “People want to hang out with me because…”:
Outside of work, I am a great organizer of world class shenanigans. Inside work, I am calm in the face of any storm.
3. Let’s face it—there’s a lot of humanity out there in the recruiting scene. What’s a sure sign in the first 3 minutes you interview a candidate that it’s not going to happen?
Poor “presence.” No eye contact, low energy, and a feeble handshake.
4. Describe your first car to us. God, please let it be a junker that embarrasses you:
A very large and reliable Plymouth Fury with a Commando V8!!
5. Give it up—2 things that the people outside of Kinetix don’t know about you:
I really love bad 70s pop music and eat way too much junk food.
Kipli Storey is the Vice President of Administration at Kinetix. Prior to joining the team at Kinetix in 2013, Kipli was a Vice President of Operations and Business Development for Snapfinger, Vice President of People Services for Church’s Chicken, Director of Shared Services for Randstad, Director of Business Services for Spherion and a First Vice President for Suntrust Banks.
Kipli holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources from the University of Georgia.
5 Questions with Kipli Storey
1. Finish this sentence: “People want to hang out with me because…”:
I’m funny… and edgy. Plus, Ellen DeGeneres has nothing on me… but money (and a mansion in Malibu).
2. Give it up—2 things that the people outside of Kinetix don’t know about you:
I’ve owned 42 cars but not a Porsche like Ellen. I have a bulldog that is a great granddaughter of UGA5. Her name is Betty Lee. She is named after my mother-in-law… not sure my mother-in-law took that quite as the compliment it was intended as!
3. Describe your first car to us. God, please let it be a junker that embarrasses you:
OK… before, a little backdrop as a short disclaimer—I grew up in Southern California and it was 1976—it was a baby blue 1970 VW Bug. It had snow-covered mountaintops painted on each door, and personalized “KIPLI” license plates and the 8-track player was awesome! (See, I told you the disclaimer was needed).
4. What’s your favorite HR/recruiting buzzword to openly mock and why?
It would have to be “Results Driven.” Seriously, doesn’t everyone think they are results driven? If they don’t… do we really want them on our team?
5. Let’s face it – there’s a lot of humanity out there in the recruiting scene. What’s the sure sign in the first 3 minutes you interview a candidate that it’s not going to happen?
Candidates that appear disinterested or talk negatively about current and/or previous employers/coworkers is a sure sign that they are not “Kinetix” material. So, I make sure not to waste a lot of time trying to make them “fit.”
David Bach joined Kinetix in July of 2016 after building and running Talent Acquisition for a publicly traded company for three years. Prior to that, David spent several years with two Fortune 500 Staffing & Recruiting companies. David comes to Kinetix with notable staffing experience within the areas of professional resourcing, project solutions, and direct hire across multiple professional disciplines.
At Global Power, David took great strides to develop a “best in class” recruiting organization. He redefined the branding and marketing strategy of the organization, delivered and integrated multiple technology platforms to drive efficiencies in recruiting, and built a team of recruiting professionals that delivered top talent under the tight deadlines that exist in the power generation industry.
David also spent several years at Experis, where he was Managing Director, responsible for several recruiting teams that placed highly skilled professionals in the areas of Engineering, Information Technology, and Accounting & Finance. He successfully led the company’s efforts in the creation of a start-up initiative to deliver direct hire solutions for clients in the Southeast US Market. Prior to Experis, David was a Recruiting Manager for Robert Half International.
David holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Management of Technology from Wentworth Institute of Technology and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Georgia State University.
He resides in Cumming, GA with his wife Jennifer and daughter Emerson Grace.
5 Questions with David Bach
