On this episode of Transformation Realness, I’m hanging out with the brains behind Employ: Dara Brenner, Chief Product Officer, Steve Cox, CEO and Lucy Zarlengo, Chief Marketing Officer. Employ, the force behind Jobvite, Lever and JazzHR, is rewriting the rules of HR tech by combining these brands under one unified vision. But they’re not just smushing these brands together and calling it a day — they’re flipping the script on HR tech, redefining what it means to deliver impact for recruiters and talent teams everywhere.
This conversation gets into the nitty-gritty of brand unification, inspiring teams from the inside out, and delivering tools that don’t just look good on paper but actually work in real life.
Jazz, Lever, Jobvite — Oh My!
Turning three or more brands into one cohesive powerhouse isn’t for the faint of heart, but the team at Employ makes it look easy. “We can go in, we can do real discovery with customers and say, ‘What are your business problems? What are your pain points?’” Dara says. “And as a part of that, provide the right solution to solve it because we have so many options in our toolbox.”
Let’s talk strengths: JazzHR is great for high-volume, quick-turnaround hiring. Lever’s got that professional talent vibe with a scalable, recruiter-friendly design. And Jobvite? It’s the pro for handling complex workflows in industries like healthcare. “I look at it as something that can really target highly regulated industries, because of the complexity that goes along with that, [and] the compliance that goes along with that,” Dara explains.
The biggest challenge in unifying the brands was finding the common thread across them. For that, Lucy leaned into variety and giving customers options. “I think one of the differentiations for us is that we have choice,” she says. “We have three different ATSs. We don’t want to necessarily eliminate folks understanding who Jazz is, who Lever is, who Jobvite is, but as their needs change and evolve as an organization, they can move across our entire portfolio.”
No Silos, No Drama, Just Results
Employ’s bold rallying cry — “Flip the Script” — is about shaking off old habits and doing things differently. “We don’t have to make [only one] solution fit to our customer’s business needs,” Steve says. “We can understand [their] business needs and take any of our solutions, and create customizations of modules on top of the ATS to be able to go deliver them the service that they need and they want.”
Internally, it’s a vibe shift too. Steve makes it clear: “We’ve built a really strong low-ego team, and the benefit of having a low-ego team is that we can move together as a unit and we can move together fast.” No more silos, no more “not my job” nonsense — just one team working toward the same goal: making life easier for recruiters.
But Can You Prove It? How Employ Helps TA Leaders Show the Receipts
Let’s be real — every HR tech vendor loves to shout about ROI, but how many of them are actually helping talent acquisition leaders prove it? Employ’s stepping up to the plate with a new ROI dashboard baked right into the product.
“You’ve got to make that connection,” Dara says. “It’s great to be hiring people, but what is that really doing to the bottom line business? The CFO and the CEO want to know, how are you growing revenue, how are you reducing margin or whatever their key metrics are? We’ve got to arm the talent acquisition people with that capability.”
This isn’t just fluff: it’s about empowering TA pros to take a seat at the table and hold their own. “Talent acquisition leaders need the same data-driven credibility as their counterparts in finance or marketing,” says Steve. “We’re giving them the tools to tell that story.”
Employ’s also leaning into AI — but not the scary, “we’re replacing you” kind. “Done right, people shouldn’t even really know that the AI is there,” Steve says. “It should just help them sort through, make them more efficient, help them with decision making, but ultimately allow the human to make the decision.”
Employ isn’t just merging brands — it’s creating a whole new way of thinking about HR tech. From empowering TA teams to streamlining their tools, they’re flipping the script on what’s possible in this space.
Ready to rethink how you approach talent acquisition? This is your sign. Until next time on Transformation Realness: stay bold, stay curious and, above all, stay real.
People in This Episode
Transcript
Kyle Lagunas:
Hello, my little blueberries. Welcome back to another incredible episode of Transformation Realness, the only show all about people who are trying to make the world of work less shitty, and who have the guts to share their story: the good, the bad and, most of all, the real. It’s produced in partnership with Rep Cap, and hosted by none other than yours truly, the shining, shimmering, splendid Kyle Lagunas, Head of Strategy and Principal Analyst at Aptitude Research, the boutique research firm leading the way in HR tech and transformation.
Get into it!
In this episode, we are talking about the fascinating journey of Employ, the brainchild of tech giants like Jobvite, Lever, and JazzHR, all rolled into one beautiful little baby brand, a force to be reckoned with. What does it take to pull off such a transformation? Well, we’ve got the leadership team here to spill the tea. First up, Dara Brenner, Chief Product Officer with 25 plus years experience in HR tech. And let me tell you, this woman’s got a vision.
Joining her is Steve Cox, the new CEO, who has joined Employ to drive it to its next chapter. He’s still getting his feet wet in the HR tech space, but guess what? He’s married to a recruiter, and also he was brave enough to jump right in and talk the real tea here on Transformation Realness. And of course, we also have their CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, Lucy Zarlengo, fellow Austinite extraordinaire. It’s a pretty big conversation.
In this episode, we are diving into what it takes to consolidate multiple brands, build a unified vision, and flip the script on what HR and talent tech should be. Spoiler alert, it’s not just about selling software. It’s about driving impact for the people on the ground, the practitioners who need real tools to survive, and dare I say it, thrive. Are you ready? Are you listening? Do you want to know what’s really going on? Well, let’s get into it.
We are coming to you live for Transformation Realness from the Glider AI Booth. I’m actually really excited, because if you are tracking the space, you know that every day is a new day, and it feels like there has been a lot of action and activity in the vendor landscape. Of course, companies like Jobvite and Lever, and I think Jazz is a part of this, too. We’ve got a lot of different pieces of really fun tech. They all have been rolled up into a single new brand called Employ.
Today, I’ve actually brought the leadership team to talk to us a little bit about what are they up to, what are they doing, and how are they going to get from here to there? Yeah, so I’m actually going to invite you guys to jump in and say hello. First, we’ll introduce ourselves, since nobody knows us. We’re going to say who we are and what we’re doing here.
Dara Brenner:
Okay, so I’m Dara Brenner. I am the Chief Product Officer at Employ, and I have been in the HR tech space for a minute, actually about 25 plus years, from large organizations to small organizations. I just absolutely love this space, and I’m so excited to be responsible for the vision at Employ.
Kyle Lagunas:
It was actually our meeting where you showed me your vision and I was like, “All right, we got to record something because I really want to dig in here.” Thanks for coming.
Dara Brenner:
Yeah, thank you.
Kyle Lagunas:
Hi, Steve. Who are you?
Steve Cox:
Hey, yeah, thanks. My name’s Steve Cox, CEO of Employ. I’ve currently been here about six months. This is my first time in the HR tech space, so I’m new to it, but I’m not new to the concept of talent acquisition. I’m going to drop my favorite line. My wife is a recruiter, and so I have an inside track into the day in the life of a recruiter. That’s helped me immensely get up to speed in this journey.
Kyle Lagunas:
That’s exciting. Now, you’re going to have somebody that’s like, “Well, I actually don’t know if my wife agrees with you on that.”
Dara Brenner:
Actually, I use it as an opportunity. Anytime I come up with some crazy idea, I’ll run it by Steve and I’ll say, “Hey, do me a favor. Can you run it by your wife?”
Kyle Lagunas:
I love it. You know what? Let’s get her here now. Do you want to say hi too?
Lucy Zarlengo:
Sure. Lucy Zarlengo, the Chief Marketing Officer. I joined Employ this time last year. Actually, HR Tech was my second week of joining-
Kyle Lagunas:
That’s right.
Lucy Zarlengo:
… The organization, but I’ve been in B2B software marketing my entire career.
Kyle Lagunas:
Yeah, yeah. Where do you all sit? Are you in Austin, Texas?
Lucy Zarlengo:
I’m in Austin. Yep.
Kyle Lagunas:
Did I learn that? Okay. What about you guys?
Steve Cox:
I’m in Denver, Colorado. We just opened our new office. Yeah, center of excellence is now there, and based myself out of there.
Dara Brenner:
I’m from Atlanta, GA.
Kyle Lagunas:
Atlanta. Hot-lanta.
Dara Brenner:
You got it.
Kyle Lagunas:
I’ve actually only been once, and I think I went for an afternoon meeting in Buckhead, and then left the next morning.
Dara Brenner:
You didn’t even get to enjoy any of our fantastic restaurants?
Kyle Lagunas:
We went to a good steakhouse, but that was it.
Lucy Zarlengo:
The food scene is great.
Dara Brenner:
You got to come back, Kyle.
Kyle Lagunas:
I know. Maybe we should do something in Atlanta next, once it cools off. All right. Well, so Dara, let’s start with this epic vision you have. Last year when we met, it was all still the individual brands. We were trying to maybe just get our arms around it, but you really are coming at this, and I was stunned and inspired by what you have in mind. Do you want to share with us a little bit?
Dara Brenner:
Absolutely, thanks. If you think about it, and you mentioned it in the opening, you’ve got Jobvite, we’ve got Lever, we’ve got JazzHR, we also have Telemetry.
Kyle Lagunas:
I knew I was forgetting one, yeah.
Dara Brenner:
Which is part of the acquisition, and there’s a few others that were acquired over time, more features in my mind than products themselves. When you look at all of these things, you actually have the opportunity to put together a story that’s really compelling. What it gives us the ability to do is to really look at the customer base across those different solutions and say, “What is similar within each one of those areas?”
What we’re starting to find out is that people in the Jazz world, as an example, tend to be folks that want to really get hires in the door quickly. It could be large hourly workforces. The person who’s leveraging something like a Jazz in a lot of cases could be a franchisee manager, like a store manager, and they just need to get people hired as quickly as possible. By the way, they’re not professional talent acquisition people.
Kyle Lagunas:
What?
Dara Brenner:
Yeah, exactly. You compare that to a typical Lever customer. In this particular case, it’s much more of a scalable-
Kyle Lagunas:
You’ve got a very evangelistic sell, by the way. Lever was like, “We’re going to change the world.” It wasn’t just an ATS.
Dara Brenner:
Yeah, and it worked in a very interesting part of the market. If you are a tech company, if you’re a professional services company, if you are really looking to scale quickly, in most cases, Lever was a perfect fit for those particular customers, and you’re starting to deal with people that have more of a professional view on recruiting and talent acquisition. You could have a sourcer, you could have a professional recruiting team, talent acquisition team.
For that particular type of user or that particular type of company, you really want something like Lever to fit for those folks. We have that as well. Then if you think about the other one that I haven’t mentioned yet, Jobvite, in terms of an ATS, it is so well-built to handle complex workflows. When I think about Jobvite as a product, I look at it as something that can really target highly regulated industries, because of the complexity that goes along with that, the compliance that goes along with that.
If you have an organization that has a ton of different hiring types, so let’s use a hospital as an example. You could have a neurosurgeon, you could have a janitor, you could have the cafeteria worker, you could have the biller, you could have clinicians. It’s so many different candidate types. And in all cases, they will need different workflows-
Kyle Lagunas:
With very different interview types, application interfaces-
Dara Brenner:
Exactly.
Kyle Lagunas:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dara Brenner:
Because of the ability to handle the complexity in Jobvite, it gives us a unique opportunity to really sell that solution. We can go in, we can do real discovery with customers and say, “What are your business problems? What are your pain points?” And as a part of that, provide the right solution to solve it because we have so many options in our toolbox.
Kyle Lagunas:
So you’d be more consultative.
Dara Brenner:
Exactly.
Kyle Lagunas:
That was the challenge in front of you before. It was like, “Well, these are different. We have different client bases, they’re all built on different code. What are we going to do, integrate all of these products?” Now you’ve renamed them. Are you keeping the legacy names?
Dara Brenner:
We are. Lucy, you may want to chime in on this as the CMO.
Lucy Zarlengo:
Yeah, so we’ll continue to use the product names or the solution name, right? Employ is the overall company. JazzHR, Lever, Jobvite are our solutions. There’s deep resonance in the market and awareness in the market of those names. Really, I think the challenge for us and what we’ve started to work through as an executive team is how do you actually build a connection across those brands? I think one of the differentiations for us is that we have choice,r right?
We have three different ATSs. We don’t want to necessarily eliminate folks understanding who Jazz is, who Lever is, who Jobvite is, but as their needs change and evolve as an organization, they can move across our entire portfolio. It’s valuable to us to go to market as Employ and how do we build some distinction there, but also maintain the current brands as well?
Kyle Lagunas:
I like it. I feel like there’s cohesiveness with this approach. Having somebody that has a lot of experience in this space, you know the complexities of these things and the nuances from one to another. For you, though, I feel like you have a lot of meat to tell. You have a lot of storytelling that you can do in market, right?
Lucy Zarlengo:
We do, absolutely. We have stories that we can tell in terms of the individual solutions. We have stories we can start to tell of customers who’ve moved across solutions, et cetera.
Kyle Lagunas:
Then my question for you, as the business leader, how do we make sure that we’re not just selling a bunch of stuff, you know? What kind of commercial organization are you trying to bulk up and build to make sure that we don’t just have a big, we’re not just a portfolio company, that we don’t just have a whole bunch of things?
Steve Cox:
No, absolutely. I think that’s a really good call out as well, because when you think about the journey of Employ and where it started, it was the bringing together of these brands under a single name. It was bringing together of the brands under the name only. There was no real integration inside the organization, so very siloed. Everybody stayed in their lane, all the way from product development and engineering, right, away through to go to market.
One of the things that we are doing now is we are bringing the company together in a single structure with a set of products, rather than keeping it as a house of brands. Everything we are doing now from a product development and engineering perspective flows through as like ATS, data and integration, and AI teams that work across multiple products. We are starting to now run that through our organization. We are there in terms of products and engineering. We are well on our way in our customer group, and we are at the, I would say, the early stages in our go-to-market of driving this messaging around choice.
And we are breaking out of the small, medium and large for the products, and we are bringing it together as optionality for customers. Rather than having to find out-
Kyle Lagunas:
I love that matrix. I really do. You have small, highly complex companies, right?
Steve Cox:
Correct.
Dara Brenner:
Exactly.
Steve Cox:
Absolutely. I think this is where we have a key differentiator in the market, because we don’t have to make our only solution fit to our customer’s business needs. We can understand our business needs and take any of our solutions, and create customizations of modules on top of the ATS to be able to go deliver them the service that they need and they want.
Kyle Lagunas:
Well, I’m excited, I’m really interested. This is a friendly space, but we got to get this right. This moment in the industry is a really tough moment in the industry, and if we are not getting it right, we’re all really vulnerable as solution providers, right? Having a good idea, there’s a lot of good ideas on this floor, and execution is a big one. Maybe for you all now, I don’t know who wants to pick this up, but how are we going to get there? How are we going to get that done?
Steve Cox:
I’ll start and let everybody else chime in. For me, it’s the beginning of it all starts with people. We need to find the right people. We’ve built a brand new executive team of people that have got not only 20 plus years experience in this industry, but also 20 plus years in building enterprise software companies. We’ve built a really strong low ego team, and the benefit of having a low ego team is that we can move together as a unit and we can move together fast.
We are proving that in the things that we are doing. It’s not lost on us that the time is now. I see it, we see it in the industry, we see it with our competitors, and I think we’ve got a winning team with the experience to go out and dominate in this space.
Dara Brenner:
I would say from a product perspective, we want to move really fast, but we also want to make sure that we’re getting feedback along the way, so typical kind of agile, but if we’re going to- one of the things I hadn’t mentioned yet was Telemetry. We’re going to break that apart and allow every customer, regardless of their ATS, to leverage capability there.
What we may do is say, “Okay, let’s go ahead and take a piece of that, and let’s start selling that, because the capability is there from a product perspective, to our Jazz customers, to our Lever customers, get some feedback on it, and then continue that journey.” Go really fast, but do it in a well-informed way after customers have the opportunity to use the technology and see the benefit that it has.
Kyle Lagunas:
Yeah. Well, I’m glad to hear low ego, I think, is such a ticket. You’re not the only company that has had this kind of consolidated moment, but there’s a not my job mentality, like, “Oh, that’s them. This is me.” It’s like, “Well, no babe. We’re all on the same team here now.” There’s a lot of culture that we have- like, change that has to drive to enable it. You all can be connected and on the same page, but that’s going to come all the way down to that CSM, who’s also trying to get the engineering team to respond to these feature requests or these bug reports.
I am coming into a QVR, and our engineering team hasn’t said shit to me, so I have no idea what’s going on, actually. You know what I mean? There’s a really deep level of integration that we need to work on to make sure that we’re delivering on this vision.
Steve Cox:
And change management, right? Change management and culture is absolutely key, like you said. We run a monthly all-hands, and we share updates around the business. We do internal, just started to do internal product reviews, product roadmap updates, create feedback loops. I think what’s really important is we have to have a mission to be able to get everybody to rally behind.
We’ve just introduced a new rally cry inside of our business, which is “flip the script.” It’s all about challenging our people to just go do something different. Let’s not do what we did before in Jobvite, Lever, Jazz. Let’s do something new as Employ, let’s do something meaningful. Let’s put customers right at the heart of our decision making, and let’s make it easy for them to have choice.
Kyle Lagunas:
Look at all these goodies you get to play with.
Lucy Zarlengo:
It’s super fun. We can get you a flip the script T-shirt as well.
Kyle Lagunas:
I love a hoodie, I love a cardigan.
Lucy Zarlengo:
Put in your swag order.
Kyle Lagunas:
I was at a dinner last week where we designed our own Levi’s jackets.
Lucy Zarlengo:
Oh, I love that.
Dara Brenner:
Oh, that’s cool.
Kyle Lagunas:
I got… What is the leather? Not tassels, but anyway, fringe.
Dara Brenner:
The fringe. That’s awesome.
Kyle Lagunas:
… On the back.
Lucy Zarlengo:
That’s amazing.
Kyle Lagunas:
We’ll see. I had a couple of cocktails at that point, so I had a lot of ideas. Well, that’s really, honestly, I do want to see this work. I really do. Jobvite was a long-time client of mine, and Telemetry was an early CRM. I worked in the CRM space. I really want to see it work, but it’s a competitive space too. One thing, as you were talking, Steve, I’m thinking, you do need to inspire these teams that you have, because it has been a bloodbath the last several years.
You couldn’t build fast enough, you couldn’t sell fast enough, you couldn’t deliver fast enough. Especially coming out of that “everything’s on fire” moment to now, it’s everyone’s budgets getting cut, all of these things that we just sold might actually not get implemented. It’s still a really uncertain time. Keeping the people inspired is also important as at the same time, delivering, and building product, and getting out in market. You guys really do have a big challenge ahead. Are we excited? Are we… You know what I mean? Are we fired up?
Lucy Zarlengo:
Super excited.
Steve Cox:
Super excited. I see this right now. There’s a real opportunity in the market with some of the people that have done recent layoffs. There’s a lot of good talent come to the market. It’s an opportunity, and you’ll see this from us in the coming weeks, that we have the opportunity to bring in some of that talent to just enhance and make better our processes, programs and controls, and then bring more of our benefit into the market.
Kyle Lagunas:
I love to hear you say it. I’m glad to see you guys fired up, but I also feel like yes, we need to inspire our teams and give them a rallying cry, but I’m also looking like, yeah, it’s been tough in the solution provider space, but it’s been even harder for the practitioners that we support, for the teams that we’re trying to support. I would love to know, what opportunity do you guys see there to become absolutely obsessed with solving the customer’s problems?
Steve Cox:
Yeah, I see two real things. One is that, we just run a jump start program back in July to bring in 15 new customer success managers into our business. They were not replacements, they were additions to the team. We are really over-indexing in being able to put people on the ground to talk to our customers, help them get the most out of our products, help them become more efficient. As you say, it’s a tough time recruiting teams of downsize, and work effort in terms of backfills, even if not growth, is still there.
So I think that’s one of the things that we’ve done. Then one of the other things I think that I’ll let Dara talk about is what we’re doing around our ROI dashboard. Being able to take out data and analysis, put it into the hands of a talent acquisition professional, so that they can go show leadership the value that they’re adding and the return on investment that they’re getting, to go try and garner extra resources to help them do their job better, faster, more efficient.
Dara Brenner:
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we’re looking to do, and I don’t know what it’ll be called ultimately, but the idea is that everybody talks about ROI on the front end, but no one can ever turn around and say, “Did you achieve the ROI that you expected to achieve by using this solution?” We’re going to bake these into the product itself, into the products themselves.
And essentially, at any given time, to Steve’s point, the talent acquisition leaders could use it to justify additional resources, because they can show the impact that they’re making on the bottom line business. Because you’ve got to make that connection. It’s great to be hiring people, but what is that really doing to the bottom line business? The CFO and the CEO wants to know, how are you growing revenue, how are you reducing margin or whatever their key metrics are? And we’ve got to arm the talent acquisition people with that capability.
I think we’re doing that by spending a lot of time going back to being customer obsessed and spending time with customers and saying, “What is it that’s not getting through for you? How can we help you be a better business partner?” You know, being in this industry forever, HR folks have been wanting to get a seat at the table, and so now they have a seat at the table, but talent acquisition people need the same seat.
They need to be able to be armed with the same data and information that shows the business leaders, their CFO, their CEO, that this is really important, this function is important, and the impact we’re making is valuable.
Kyle Lagunas:
I mean, it’s the right time. I said a lot, I feel like part of the vulnerability for TA was that when the jig was up, the business was like, “Well, what are you doing?” We were just like, “We had been so head down just hiring, hiring, hiring.” They’re like, “I don’t think we had really strong ROI stories.” We’re like, “What do you mean, what have I been doing? Barely keeping it, barely staying alive is what I’ve been doing.”
We needed to see actual tangible ROI, and it’s like, “I love you, I’m sorry, but we can’t justify having all these recruiters when we don’t have this much hiring to do,” ya know? When I was a talent leader, we backed off on recruiting scorecards because we didn’t want to micromanage people. We just were trying to deliver, deliver. Even there, I couldn’t say, “Well, this is what my recruiters are even up to.”
If you are investing in the CS organization and you’re building this product, I want to get all of my CS team using this product as part of my QBRs. I’m going to be building my QBRs in this product.
Dara Brenner:
It’s funny that you say that, because the very first stakeholder is our CS organization.
Kyle Lagunas:
Love it. I’m a genius.
Dara Brenner:
Before we roll it out, exactly, before we even roll it out, we’re already working in Q4, so in the upcoming quarter, to roll this to our CS so they can start using it.
Kyle Lagunas:
I love it, because then you’re also practicing what you preach. Using the product, being actual product experts, you’re going to get closer to your user experience. Look, I’m thinking you’re going to have, yes, the head of TA, but also the team leads, right? And the individual recruiters. Everybody needs to show what they’re up to, which kind of sucks, because it’s like, “Will you just get off my back? I’m just trying to stay alive here.”
No, they’re like, “The new normal, we got to show what we’re up to.” I like that this maybe gives you an opportunity to empower your customers with the product, and not just facilitate a new workflow.
Steve Cox:
As we start to return back to growth, we see the tech companies growing, we see the industry, the economy growing as a whole. Talent acquisition is going to be the first thing to bounce back. They’re going to have the problem scaling to keep up with growth. Today, it’s about, how do we become efficient with a reduced workforce? Then it’s going to become how do we go scale?
Kyle Lagunas:
See, I love that, though, because in the past, efficiency, everybody in the back of our heads are like, “Oh, cost-cutting. That’s what that is.” I don’t know that that’s… Look, we did need to cut costs. Spending was out of control. Efficiency now, especially in the AI age, efficiency is excellence. We need to be building the most excellent functions right now, so that when we’re scaling up, we’re not just throwing bodies at problems, we’re actually building out new operating capacity is what it is, right?
Steve Cox:
The phrase you used there is one that we’ve lived by, is scaling efficiently, right? It’s easy to throw people at a problem and try to get a better result, but the more efficiency that we can build in now, that’s going to allow organizations and talent teams to be able to scale efficiently through the work we do today. Everything we do sets itself up not only for today, but for future growth and scalability.
Kyle Lagunas:
I’m really into it. I think that’s what teams are really feeling, just like waiting for one more shoe to drop. They’re working tirelessly still, but with something like this, I can engage my business stakeholders and build that credibility back up. Everyone’s jobs are hard right now. It’s not easy anywhere, but most of these other functions, you’re going to come to your boss and have some reports, and not just some fluff stuff. You’re going to get into the nitty-gritty, and you are too.
You’re going to want to click down and they’re going to be ready for it. I just feel like TA hasn’t had a moment to catch its breath and be investing that time in being more data driven, and being more just excellent and efficient. It’s just like, “Cut here, cut here, scale back up, scale back up.” You know what I mean? It’s just so reactive. I really think that this might be a good new foundational moment for us to build up a stronger base.
Steve Cox:
We can be at the heart of that because if we can provide the tools that drive that kind of-
Kyle Lagunas:
We’ll see. Just kidding.
Steve Cox:
We will see. I’d bet on us, though.
Kyle Lagunas:
Yeah, I hope you would.
Steve Cox:
We have the opportunity to be at the heart of that, and to be able to give them the tools to be able to do the work that they want to go do. That’s what’s super exciting for me, is to just think about what we can go build to go bring the underrepresented talent organization up in stature inside of a company, and get people to really understand and recognize the value they provide.
I think that’s lost at the moment, right? There is no data, there is no insight that can be shared. So some of the work we’re doing will bring that kind of front and center.
Kyle Lagunas:
I think it’s really cool. I’ve been a Jobvite friend for a lot longer than, I don’t know if you guys ever knew Jobvite before, but once upon a time, the head of marketing created- remember when social was a big deal and social recruiting was all the rage? They created the social recruiting report that they published annually. It was a best practice every year.
It was good market research. You guys did it yourself. An analyst didn’t do it for you. Do something about data-driven recruiting. That’s what’s new now, and that’s what we really need to figure out. I would say invest some time in building the thought leadership that’s going to empower your people and get interest in market, but just building on what you’re already doing.
Dara Brenner:
Yeah, and it’s interesting that you say that, because one of the things that really got me excited about joining Employ was that we have 22,000 customers from very small to very large, so 22,000 customers have a lot of data. When you aggregate all of that data, it provides insights that really no one else can match. When you combine that, and that provides the insights to our customers with, and again, you mentioned AI earlier, and people still think of AI as, “You’re going to replace me with AI.”
We don’t view it that way. We view AI as part of our DNA. If we’re doing AI right, and we’re combining that with the insights that we bring to bear, you don’t even know. You don’t know there’s AI inside, if you will. It’s kind of like Intel inside. It’s just there. It’s just making you more efficient.
Kyle Lagunas:
Well, good. It’s not a feature play, right? This is a new found- you’re talking about new foundations.
Dara Brenner:
New foundation.
Kyle Lagunas:
It’s a core technology now. It’s a core capability.
Steve Cox:
Done right, people shouldn’t even really know that the AI is there.
Dara Brenner:
Nope.
Steve Cox:
It should just help them sort through, make them more efficient, help them with decision making, but ultimately allow the human to make the decision.
Kyle Lagunas:
I was talking, there was a session yesterday about candidate experience, and I forget where this person worked, but they were talking about their chatbot for scheduling interviews or candidate care, and they were saying that even after an interview had been scheduled, which completes the workflow, the candidates were still texting with like, “Thank you so much. Is there anything else I should know,” like chatting with the bot, knowing it was a bot, by the way.
Dara Brenner:
Oh, that’s funny.
Kyle Lagunas:
I think it’s so interesting what we’re going to do.
Dara Brenner:
That’s funny.
Kyle Lagunas:
Well, thank you guys for coming, opening up a little bit. I am really looking forward to what you guys can do. I think the vision is definitely going to be a really good guiding light. Let’s flip the script, girls.
Lucy Zarlengo:
Let’s do it.
Dara Brenner:
Yeah.
Kyle Lagunas:
Okay, cool. Well, thank you, guys. We’ll see you again soon, okay?
Lucy Zarlengo:
Thank you so much.
Dara Brenner:
Thank you, Kyle.
Lucy Zarlengo:
Thank you.
Kyle Lagunas:
Ugh, that one was so much fun. I loved it. But unfortunately, we’ve reached the end of this episode, folks. A huge thank you to Dara, Steve and Lucy for coming on the show and bringing the heat. We really got into it. Everything from building low-eagle leadership teams to the realities of transforming brands without losing sight of the end user. And the message that hit me the hardest: success isn’t about throwing bodies at a problem. It’s about scaling with excellence, with purpose and with heart.
The truth is the HR tech, TA tech landscape — no joke right now. Everyone’s working twice as hard to keep up, and let’s face it, no one has the luxury of just coasting. Here’s what I love about Employ’s approach: they’re putting customers at the heart of their process. They’re staying agile, and they’re building tools that actually help instead of just complicate these processes. That’s the kind of transformation we need.
If this conversation got your gears turning — and I know it did — be sure to like and subscribe, share with all of your friends, and leave us a review. Don’t worry, we’ve got even more juicy content coming your way in future episodes. Until next time, take care of yourselves. Stay sharp, and remember, excellence isn’t just a goal: it’s the standard. Thanks for hanging out with me. We’ll catch you on the next episode of Transformation Realness.
