Talent Attraction in areas of extreme skill shortage is something that is consistently difficult. I’m always interested in any creative ways that employers are using to tackle the problem, particularly when they don’t have a massive budget or unlimited resources to use to solve it.
My guest this week is Ruth Penfold, Director of Talent Acqusition at Shazam, a company who are regularly having to use innovative talent attraction approaches to bring on the board the talent they need.
In the interview we discuss:
• Why Shazam’s existing employees are their most importance Talent Attraction tool and why recruitment is everyone’s responsibility
• The benefits of a transparent culture
• The importance of candidate communication and an authentic candidate experience
• Why being seen in the right communities is critical to success
• Generational mindset and purpose
We also discuss Shazam’s priorities for 2017 and Ruth gives us an insight into the unique musical experiences on offer to Shazam’s employees!
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from Career Life Stories. Career Life Stories is the flagship new series produced by Working Films, which reveals the real stories behind people and their work. Each episode delves into the experiences that have influenced and shaped the life and career of the guest. With personal and revealing insights. This series is engaging, insightful and inspiring. You can catch up with all of the episodes@www.workingfilms.co.ukcareerlife stories. That’s www.workingfilms.co.ukcareerlife stories. Real people, real.
Matt Alder [00:01:09]:
Hi, everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 77 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Talent attraction in areas of extreme skill shortage is something that’s consistently difficult, and I’m always interested to find out more about the creative ways employers are using to tackle the problem. My guest this week is Ruth Penfold, Director of Talent Acquisition at Shazam. In our interview, Ruth talks about the importance of communication, culture and employee advocacy in talent attraction. If you’re a music fan, then I think you’ll particularly enjoy this conversation. Hi, Ruth, and welcome to the podcast.
Ruth Penfold [00:01:53]:
Hi, nice to be here.
Matt Alder [00:01:55]:
So, can you tell us a bit about who you are and what you do?
Ruth Penfold [00:02:00]:
Sure. So I lead hiring for Shazam, the app globally, so I am responsible for making sure that we have all of the brilliant humans in the different parts of the world that we need and that they’re all doing what they should be doing.
Matt Alder [00:02:14]:
Basically, lots of people may be familiar with Shazam as the app you use in the pub when they’re playing a song you don’t know and you want to find out what it is. But I suspect there’s much more to that in terms of what the company does and where it’s going. Could you tell us a little bit about Shazam?
Ruth Penfold [00:02:30]:
Sure, absolutely. So, just to give you all a bit of a history lesson, because a lot of people don’t realize that Shazam’s actually been around since 2000. So we existed, first of all as a phone number that you would call from your handset and then we would text you the song to tell you what the tell you the title and who the artist was. So a lot of people kind of just assume that we appeared in about 2007, 2008 as an app. But because we’d already existed before then, that’s one of the reasons why we were the first apps that was created and we were launch partners with Apple. And so on and so on and so on. So that’s why we’ve been around for such a long time. The algorithm, though, that we use today is still the same algorithm that we use then, which is pretty cool.
Matt Alder [00:03:19]:
But.
Ruth Penfold [00:03:20]:
But we do now have a team of data scientists based in the Silicon Valley who are working on improving that all of the time. So a lot of people know us, obviously, for music recognition, and that’s fantastic. That’s very much our history and our heritage. But we also are very much. We’re very much these days a discovery platform and a means for brands to connect with users and consumers in a way that they perhaps couldn’t before. So they can do that. I don’t know how many of you watch television, but you may have seen commercials with the Shazam logo that you can. That you can Shazam. And get content from either the brand who are doing the advertisement or whatever it might be something relating to the show that you’re watching. The same is true in cinema, on radio, you can visually Shazam. Posters, billboards, with beacon technologies. So we really are a means for brands to connect to users and a platform for the discovery of stuff, basically.
Matt Alder [00:04:21]:
So how big is the company, whereabouts is it based, and what kind of recruitment challenges do you have?
Ruth Penfold [00:04:29]:
Okay, so Shazam. Is. People either think that we are a dude in a bedroom or that we’re Google most of the time. And we’re neither of those things. We are a small but perfectly formed 220 people globally. But I like to describe us. In fact, I always say that I’m a bit like a sort of human Shazam in that I’m very small with a rather loud voice, and I think Shazam is exactly that. So very small business. But, you know, we are at something like 300 million monthly active users or something like that now. So we have a pretty huge footprint. So in terms of humans, though, we have. London is our biggest office at about 100, and then in New York we have about 30 to 40. Redwood City in the Silicon Valley, we have about 40 people. And then we have smaller offices in LA, Chicago, San Diego, Sydney, and rather excitingly, we’re just about to open Berlin, which is very cool indeed. So that will be very cool. So looking at recruitment challenges, though, I mean, recruitment challenges take a very similar shape for many tech businesses. So we are definitely a tale of two halves. So on the one hand, we have this incredibly strong brand in that we are a verb. We have amazing recognition. People know, apart from our recognition of music, people generally know who we are when we talk to people when we reach out to people, which is great. And I would say that any kind of role that’s either in sales or, you know, anything that’s non engineering, actually we get a fantastic response when we advertise and also when we, when we reach out to people directly. So we’re very blessed in that way. So. So part of our talent attraction problems is actually the number of applications sometimes because, you know, we, we are, we are. The roles that we recruit for can be incredibly popular indeed in a couple of days. I have a business partner, business partnerships analyst, just remembering what the title, what we’ve just decided that the title changed to. And I’ve had something like 100 applications in that space of time. So, you know, very popular for roles like that. But then we look at engineering and then that’s a very different story indeed. So, you know, engineering is always a difficult area to hire for. It requires patience and a certain amount of resilience. You definitely need to be meeting people where they are and being prepared to take your brand to whatever they might need that to be. So it means that you have to be a lot more creative about talent attraction and the way that you are getting your message out to those people. And you’re up against some pretty stiff competition a lot of the time from other organizations, some of which you can compete with and some of which that you just can’t. So, you know, we have quite a different offering. You know, we can’t give everyone the sun, the moon and the stars like some of the bigger companies can, you know, with the sort of breakfast, lunch and dinners. But we can do maybe the stars with Friday lunches and, you know, artists coming in and singing in the office once a month and things like that. So there are definitely things that make us special and that appeal to people. But you tend to find that people, regardless of the role that they’re coming into here, there is normally a common thread of a love of music and this sort of connection to the original reason for being for the product. And that gives people a lot of. Gives people a kind of lovely story that they can connect into. And the same is true for a lot of the artists that come in and meet with us. Actually, most of them have a tremendous amount of affection for Shazam. Because a lot of the times we’re the reason that they have got a deal because somebody happened to be somewhere where they heard their music and they Shazam’d it and then they got a deal from it. So you kind of have that sort of Special connection to music, which means that you kind of. We have a company full of very passionate people working on different things that aren’t always relating to music. You know, a lot of the time it might be software development or something like that, but they’re very passionate about what they’re doing.
Matt Alder [00:08:51]:
So you mentioned that you have to be quite creative in your talent attraction. What sort of tools and techniques have you used to find that difficult to find engineering talent?
Ruth Penfold [00:09:05]:
So lots of different things in the fullness of time. So you sort of need to make sure that your house is in order. So you know, what, how are you presenting the roles that you have? How are you telling them about people? So the first thing that I did when I joined Shazam Was to really change the mindset of the business around recruitment. So starting for everybody to start to see recruitment as their responsibility, not just the recruitment team, because our people are our greatest talent attraction tool that we have. So what I do, and in fact I ran a workshop on this towards the end of last year, I’m very big and big on employee advocacy at this point. So it’s really, you know, as many as our people are out there talking about the amazing work that they’re doing, whether that’s writing about it online or speaking about it somewhere, or just meeting someone in a pub and talking about it so that they really can be the pivotal thing in attracting the right people to us. So I really wanted to create that mindset amongst the people that are here because not everybody wants to stand up on a stage and talk about it, but most people do meet people in their day to day life and say, hey, I work at Shazam, right? So I think that far and away my cheapest and most effective talent attraction tool is definitely the humans that work here. So sort of stepping back from that, it has to be about making sure that they’re having the right experience here. Then there’s the. Then there’s the other sort of outreach type stuff that you would do. Having a great process and making sure that communication is at the center is the focal point of all of your recruiting, is the key stuff really for making sure that everyone has a great experience. The way that people feel when they come in and meet us is again key talent attraction tool because if they have a terrible experience, they will definitely go and tell everybody about it. But then it’s also about making sure that I was giving access and that we were giving people access to what it looks like on the inside in Shazam. So our careers page is still a Work in progress. Our entire website was relaunched last year, so. So the careers page development was somewhere on that list. I would like to say it’s somewhere near the top of the list of importance, but I think I would be lying to myself. But that will evolve in time. So whilst we were waiting for that to complete and the roadmap has been developed, but we are at kind of MVP stage with that at the moment in terms of redesign. So it’s really kind of what are the other ways that we can make sure that people get to see what’s going on in the inside? So, using things like the free platforms like Instagram, using things like having a Facebook page which quite simply is called Inside Shazam. Which we originally set up as a sort of external attraction tool. So, hey, these are our humans, this is what they look like. We’re actually all quite silly. If you’re silly too, this could be a great place for you. But rather wonderfully, it’s actually become just as much an internal tool and an internal point of reference. And it’s been a lovely thing that’s really kind of brought together our global communities a little bit more. So, you know, people love seeing what so and so in New York is doing, or the fact that they’ve all worn the same shirt as each other today or whatever it is. So, you know, the kind of external and internal branding very much kind of do weave together from that perspective. So there’s that kind of stuff which has been very useful for people that want to find out a bit more about us, but it’s also been about where you take yourself. So, you know, so I. I sort of started creating my own content and, you know, I actually started blogging about in a much more personal way about some of the things that. That had happened in my life, but then started to write some of the things that. That I was working on professionally and sort of ended up presenting Shazam from the sort of inside in. In sort of blog form and telling people about us that way too. And, and then from. And then also, you know, taking our message to the right kinds of events, attending meetups, sponsoring meetups, particularly when we’re talking about tech talent. So, you know, making sure that we are, you know, attending, sponsoring, being seen in the. In the right communities that we need to be seen in and really kind of taking that further, you know, exhibiting events. And I guess, you know, we kind of. We learn as we grow or, you know, the other way around, whatever. But, you know, there’s lots of things that we’ve Tried some things that have been successful, some things not so successful, some things have been more like a branding exercise, whereas some things have actually, you know, turned around and turned into amazing hires.
Matt Alder [00:14:31]:
You mentioned your blogging, and, you know, you’re quite a prolific blogger, and it’s kind of very clear that you’re very passionate about your job. You’re very passionate about the whole world of talent. What’s on your radar at the moment? What, what, you know, what are you. What are you most passionate about? What are you sort of really focusing on for 2017?
Ruth Penfold [00:14:50]:
So for 2017, my big focus is around diversity. So Shazam Is an organization, I think a lot of tech companies, we kind of. It’s very easy to take diversity for granted. You know, we, we naturally. Because, you know, we. We naturally hire a very diverse range of humans from all sorts of different backgrounds. And that’s quite normal for us. But because it’s quite normal, it’s easy to get complacent. And when I arrived at Shazam, I was presented with a very diverse organization, and I had a lot of other things that I needed to tackle before really that, that landed in, you know, that became my area of focus. But then we had a few people leave, and then suddenly you look and you kind of start looking at your figures and you think, actually, do you know what? Our diversity could be better? And I guess I’m largely talking about our gender diversity when it comes to tech. And so that’s become a huge area of focus for me. So a lot of the initiatives that we’re involved in from a talent attraction standpoint are centered around actually looking at the long game when it comes to diversity. So the ways that we as an organization can use really, the tools that we have to help encourage a more diverse workforce. So frankly, the biggest asset that we have is the skills of our people, right, and the knowledge of our people. So what I’ve been working on is really creating opportunities for our people to share that knowledge, whether that be in workshop form with schools, with school schools and colleges and things like that. We’ve done a few of those. There’s also, we’ve done a few things with organizations like Mums in Tech who are looking at sort of people who are wanting to reskill and move into a career in technology. And really kind of looking at, you know, we are only a small organization, and I don’t have that many humans to get out there, but I do think that we still have the ability to create an impact and to help be at the forefront of change in that area. And so really our focus has been on how we develop those sorts of outreach initiatives and how we best utilize the skills that we have to support, you know, to support more female talents, particularly coming into the sort of technology space and not necessarily just as developers. Right. You know, product people, whatever, you know, but really kind of encouraging, you know, helping people to see that actually this is quite a cool area that they could come and work in.
Matt Alder [00:17:32]:
I know one of the other things you’re passionate about is the kind of the generational mindset and how it’s evolving the workplace. How are you seeing that sort of play out as Shazam?
Ruth Penfold [00:17:44]:
Sure. So I think, I think it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting one. So Shazam. Right now, you know, you need certain things as an organization right now to have a happy workforce. Right? And I don’t think that necessarily it’s all about a section of new young humans coming along. And then, you know, they want this stuff and everyone else is in the old mindset and so on. I actually think that the work workforce as a whole changes. So I think that it, you know, regardless of age. But obviously we can’t deny that perhaps the younger generation coming in has an impact on that. Right. In some way. But I think people in general are wanting a sense of purpose and I think that’s a very normal human thing that humans have wanted for a long time. So they want to be clear what the purpose of the organization is that they’re working in and what their role in it is. They want to feel like they have something that they believe in and that they’re doing something good in the world, whatever that is. But they also want to be able to see where their growth is coming and what that looks like. And you know, they want openness, they want opportunities for collaboration and need it. You know, I think looking at the new generation, that’s that everybody’s talking about at the moment. You know, we’re talking about the screen ages, which I do love that word. I do love it. But you know, the fact is, is that, you know, people are much better at communicating digitally than they are in real life or irl. LOLs. So we need to make sure that as organizations, we support those sorts of in real life interactions and that they have space for collaboration and things like that. So at Shazam, we do a few things to support that. We. And the desire to be a kind of entrepreneur in your own life, right, where you’re innovating and you’re creating something that changes the world. So, you know, we make sure we give our people hack time. So we have hack days where they can go and work on something that they want to work on that’s maybe not directly relating to their role, but hey, whatever. And people go off and then present back. This is the thing that I worked on. What do you guys think about it? You know, and a lot. And as an organization, a lot of our product decisions and next product development things have actually come out of those hack days. So they have come out of the fact that we’ve given people the space to go, hey, what do I want to do? One of those things was our Mac app, which actually didn’t exist for a long time. We had our mobile product and that was it. Until one of our engineers went, hmm, I think that that could be cool. And so developed something in their hack time and then presented it. Everyone went, oh, my goodness, that’s amazing. Why aren’t we doing it? What then happened was probably one of my favorite Shazam stories, because within four weeks we’d ship that product. So what I watched was it be presented at the hack day at the demo session, and then everybody working together like a series of wonderful army ants to create this amazing. And literally within four weeks, you have product design development, everybody working together to ship. And we ship our product frequently. I mean, it’s more than. It’s more than monthly. It’s, you know, it’s all the time. So we are very much an agile organization. And we do. We can pivot quickly and we can add in new things, but because we give our people the space to innovate, that’s how we’re able to do that stuff. The space to collaborate is also important, and as is the ability to create impact. So we give our people a lot ability to create impact. They’re very empowered, they’re very autonomous, but they also need to be visible and accountable with it. An example of that kind of, I guess, independence and ability to create impact would be one of our interns who joined us last year. And when they arrived, this is in our development team. And when they arrived, they were asked to work on the new iMessage feature. So I don’t know how many of you are iOS users, but Shazam is now integrated with iMessage so that you can share your Shazams and things like that. So they would literally set that challenge, go and work out how that’s going to work, which was obviously very cool because that meant that that person was completely inspired by it. Now, we didn’t Just leave them to it and not give them any support. Just to be clear, they were supported in this quest, but what an amazing thing to get as an intern, right? What an amazing opportunity. And I think that level of empowerment is true regardless of where you are in the organization. And it’s certainly one of the things that keeps me in my role because I know that I truly do have the ability to create impact here and innovate. I just have to. If I think something’s cool, I just need to persuade all the right people that it’s cool enough to do it and then we do it.
Matt Alder [00:22:53]:
So I’ve been dying to ask, you mentioned a number of artists, you know, come in and play and come in and meet you guys. Who’s the coolest one that you’ve seen in the office?
Ruth Penfold [00:23:04]:
Oh, whoa. That’s really hard. So, honestly, like, musically, we’ve had some amazing singers, right? Amazing artists come in, but the ones that I love the most are the ones that are the most human and the ones that, like, tell you a few stories and, like, make friends with everyone. Because, honestly, it can be kind of awkward because they come in and sing to us in our kitchen and they have. We have a little stage in the corner and some of them get really weirded out by it. I won’t name the ones that have been really weirded out by it, but I will tell you the ones who have been utterly adorable. So quite recently, we had a chap called JP Cooper come in, who you may or may not know, but he was utterly brilliant, hilarious, funny. George Ezra was also very sweet, very funny. Passenger, the same. But my favorite last year was a band called the Ark Els, who are from Canada. And they’re not that well known. Rather randomly, I thought I didn’t know them, but I actually can see that they were in my music collection about four years ago from some. I am a music nerd, you know, finding new music on the Internet and whatever. Anyway, they totally just turned it around and they were like, hey, no, we just want to walk around and be in amongst you. So they just sort of walked amongst everybody singing, laughing. I obviously heckled them a bit. And it was super fun. So they were really. They were great. They were, you know, so it’s. Anyone that brings in that extra level of kind of comedy value is pretty cool.
Matt Alder [00:24:31]:
Thank you very much for talking to me.
Ruth Penfold [00:24:33]:
Thank you, thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:24:36]:
My thanks to Ruth Penfold. You can subscribe to this podcast on itunes, on Stitcher, or via your podcasting app of choice. Just search for Recruiting future. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about Working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
