Offer Accepted

Increasing Internal Transparency/Accountability Leads to Recruiting Team Success with Leah Knobler, VP of People @ Help Scout [Reshare]

Ashby

How can transparency in hiring transform your talent acquisition strategy and build trust across your organization?

Leah Knobler, VP of People at Help Scout, joins host Shannon Ogborn to share how her team reimagined recruiting through hiring summaries. It’s an approach that breaks down how decisions are made, celebrates wins, and uncovers areas for growth.

Leah discusses how intentional practices have strengthened team collaboration, sped up hiring timelines, and reinforced Help Scout’s remote-first values. She also shares the case for compensating candidates, gathering feedback, and reflecting on both successes and challenges to continuously improve the hiring process.

Key Takeaways: 

  1. Transparency creates better outcomes: Sharing hiring summaries within your organization helps teams understand the "how" and "why" behind decisions. It builds trust and shows the effort recruiters put into finding the right fit.
  2. Learning from missed opportunities strengthens your process: When offers are declined, capturing feedback and analyzing the reasons opens the door to improvements. Regularly collecting candidate feedback gives insight into their experience and provides a foundation for refining your hiring approach.
  3. Paying candidates for their time shows respect: If you're asking candidates to do significant work during the hiring process, compensating them sends a clear message: their time and effort are valued.

Timestamps: 

(00:00) Introduction

(03:04) Challenges faced by recruiters in a shifting hiring market

(06:44) Implementing hiring summaries and their structure

(08:49) The benefits of hiring summaries for remote and in-office teams

(11:54) Using data to identify bottlenecks in hiring timelines

(12:54) Streamlining engineering hiring processes with tools 

(14:05) Automating hiring summaries with Ashby dashboards

(15:21) Expanding recruiter roles during intentional hiring slowdowns

(21:46) Collecting candidate feedback to refine recruiting practices

(22:36) Advice on achieving hiring excellence

(25:37) The importance of compensating candidates for their time