EP 26: How to hire top tech talent during uncertain market conditions w/ Anit Arora

Anit Arora, Talent Acquisition Lead (Engineering) at LiveRamp, joins host James Mackey to discuss hiring  engineering talent over the last 3 months, what the best leadership teams do in uncertain market conditions, effective strategies and tactics to achieve DE&I goals, and more!

00:19 Who is Anit Arora?

02:35 Overview of the tech / engineering recruitment landscape since 2020

06:50 Availability of tech / engineering talent over the last 3 months

11:40 Top talent always has the most options in any market conditions

14:50 What are the best leadership teams doing in uncertain market conditions

18:05 Effective strategies and tactics to achieve DE&I goals

23:03 The importance of representation on the interview panel

24:35 Why ERGs need to work closely with recruiting

27:05 The importance of executive-level buy in for DE&I success

29:02 The time to start is always now

30:20 Wrap up

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:46

Hi, and welcome to Town Acquisition Trends and Strategy. Today we're joined by Annette Aurora. Annette, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Thanks, James. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah, thank you for being here. And before we jump into it today, would you mind sharing with everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, sure. So as I said, my name is Annette Aurora. I

Who is Anit Arora?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

am I live in Phoenix, Arizona right now. If you look at the weather, it's pretty hot. It's over 100 degrees, average temperatures. But as I said earlier, I used to live in the DC metro area. So I did my started my US-based career, I would say, in the DC metro area. So going back, I came here for my master's degree, did my master's in Missouri, got hired by a company based in uh Virginia, and I started working in Weston, uh, near to where you are right now. Uh started supporting federal DoD contractors, uh, did for almost four, four and a half years, then moved here in Phoenix, Arizona, near to be our families. Uh, I've been doing tech recruiting for almost 15 years, all my career, I would say. Uh, just to go a little even back in the history, I did my computer science degree to be a programmer, software engineer. But I was like, did Java programming, got bored. I'm like, nah, I would like to talk to people more. So moved into recruiting. And since then, I've been just doing tech engineering, product, whatnot. Um, this is my passion. This is what I've been doing. Um, and I'm looking forward to you know what's next for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, that's great. You know, it's funny that you were talking about you actually uh used to work in Reston, which is right where I am, and it turns out that we we went to the same doctor.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, I know, I know. It's more, you know, same building.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, yeah, that's funny. I know exactly where you are. And uh my mom actually has a place, uh right, right um a condo, like right next to that building, like walking distance, you could practically hold your breath.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, and you know what I miss because I used to live in Fairfax. I used to drive, and I used I forgot that road, it's like a one-by-one lane used to I used to take.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Um Rest of Parkway from uh Reston Parkway.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, I don't think they've expanded to now like a two-lane, two by two, but I remember back then it was one by one, it was like a scenic, you know, uh literally like million-dollar homes. I was like going through every single day back and forth. I'm like, uh, okay, one day maybe.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, yeah, it's a nice area for sure. Uh well, look, anyways, I I want to talk to you

Overview of the tech / engineering recruitment landscape since 2020

SPEAKER_00 3:21

about tech recruiting. I know right now you're primarily focused on engineering recruitment at live ramp. I would love to just get your thoughts on what you're seeing on the market right now. If you could kind of walk us through, you know, what what you were maybe seeing actually, you know, 2021 and how that kind of progressed and what you're seeing right now in the market for companies that are looking to expand engineering teams and recruit engineering talent.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Sure, yeah. Um, you know, um, a lot has changed in the last two years, especially after COVID or pandemic. Um, a lot of companies had to change their not just their business model models, but also I think recruiting models. Um, you know. Um, so what I think um what I have seen working for product and engineering companies is like they've opened their um, like they're now bounded by location now. They have opened their literally not just borders in the country, but outside also. So um I worked for companies in the last four, four or five years, which were doing dedicated North America US-based recruiting, and then then started doing even near shore, which is US and Canada, uh, sorry, uh Canada and Mexico. Um, so like kind of a near shoring. Uh, because offshoring was already happening, but they thought, well, they want to keep people in the same time zone, you know, for productivity and collaboration and all that. Um, that affected uh what I thought like recruiting also, because then they were going out for recruiting sometimes, you know, like uh near shore. Uh but you know we as a company, LiveRamp, actually grew because of the pandemic. We were hovering around four to five hundred people pre-uh COVID era. We are around 1400 people now. So just in the last two to three years, we grew by two, two and a half uh times uh you know overall. And as a company, it helped us because uh if you go to live ramp.com, um, you will see that we're a data-centric company. So a lot to do with uh uh privacy of data, data disparity. And uh the biggest uh thing is identity, uh, you know. So we are recognized as one of the leaders when it comes to identity resolution or identity management, especially in the retail and uh uh advertising industries. Um and that actually helped us to grow. Like now connecting back to why we grew more during COVID era than before, uh, you know, COVID came, we all started uh staying back home. So instead of going to a restaurant or even grocery pickups, we were ordering online. So if you think about it, so much data started flowing. Companies like Instacart came out of COVID. You know, who knew or who thought, like, okay, we'll be going putting uh online grocery order through Walmart, you know, and going doing a curbside pickup. Um, that's how and that helped us connecting to LiveRamp because so much data started flowing, we became more relevant in the industry because companies keep coming, kept coming to us in terms of um identity, disparity, privacy, and all that. Um, so I think uh it's uh uh the model is going to keep evolving based on the worldwide conditions, you know, what's happening in the industry and all that.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Sure. So it's it's just it sounds like so. Specifically for live ramp, the strategy shifted from okay, just hiring in the US market to offshore into near shoring Mexico, Canada. It sounds like that was part of the the strategy.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

We as a company did not do uh we do some offshoring of support from outside, but the company I worked before live ramp, uh, they were doing a lot of near shoring and even offshoring. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Are you seeing so in light of some of the tech layoffs that are occurring right now, are

Availability of tech / engineering talent over the last 3 months

SPEAKER_00 7:36

you seeing the labor market get any looser for engineering talent? Are you seeing increases in response rates or has it pretty much held consistent with how it was a couple quarters ago?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Um I think it's both ways. Uh, A, yes, we're getting responses, especially from those candidates who are getting affected. But then we are also seeing uh slowdown responses because they don't want to make a move now. They want to, they're cautious. So I think it's kind of balancing out uh what I have noted. We were pulling data recently, like, okay, our response rate has actually not that high. It used to be. Uh, but I I think it's more like this cautiousness in the market.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Wow, so you think you had a higher response rate last year and like the higher?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yes, well, one of our sourcing leads uh shared this just yesterday. I haven't looked at the data yet, but they said you know, their response rate as a team has gone down in the last quarter or so. Uh comparatively.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Well, that reminds me. I mean, I remember in the early days of the pandemic, a lot of people, if they were employed at a stable company, they were just like, nope, not going. And there was, I think part of like the you know, great resignation, if you will, was that pent-up demand for that people had to switch jobs that maybe they didn't want to do in 2020, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Correct. Uh, yeah, I think you're right. Maybe uh we all went through that cycle. So psychologically, you know, they're like, Well, do I really have to go again? You know, uh, through this similar situation. So um, I don't know. We are seeing um responses from really motivated candidates. And when I talk to them, like, okay, why are you looking? Oh, I think uh we don't have much funding left, or uh we're getting some headwinds, you know, uh, like uh from the management. So that's like, okay, so looks like you know what's going to happen next quarter. That's why you're proactively looking.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah, that's um that's uh yeah, I I could see that too, right? There's a lot of people. You're probably seeing an increase of people that maybe are open to having a conversation but aren't really serious yet, right? Like they're more so just building the connections and just kind of waiting this thing out to see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yes, uh, it has it is happening often now, in my opinion. Um I remember making offers to say four or five candidates a month, more than 50 or 60 percent would say yes, or sometimes 80 percent of them, but now I see like it's less than 50 percent. They want to take more time, they want to review more offers. Um, and maybe it goes back to the cautiousness, you know, they don't want to sign off a letter maybe until they are really convinced.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Wow. See, that's interesting, and I, you know, I it it makes sense to me. What's really interesting, so just to kind of share with you what's going on in my space. So again, RPO, so tech companies borrow recruiters from us, right? Um, and we do you know 40 engineering product, 40 revenue, 20 GNA. So the whole game at pretty much everything for startups and gross stage companies. And we've actually been growing throughout this whole thing. Like we're our revenue um is higher than it's really ever been before. We had our best lead month in June. What's interesting is that a lot of companies in our industry are going through layoffs, they're shrinking, so it's not consistent across the entire industry, and it maybe that has to do with customer segments, you know, and then there's a lot of different factors beyond, like for instance, if a company's, you know, we're about 35 people all in, right? If a company has hundreds of employees, they might be more of like more impacted by macroeconomic shifts because it's like a it, they're more of like the market leader, potentially, right? Like if you have hundreds of people out there, you might be more impacted by macro potentially. Um, and then maybe some competitors, if they're working with smaller stage seed Series A, they might be more negatively impacted. So maybe we're just like at that sweet spot where we're kind of on the upswing and you know, we're not quite big enough to be impacted by the overall economy, but we have great customers at our growth stage, so we're not, you know, just working with startups. I don't know what it is, but obviously I would love to pat myself on the back and say it's our strategy and our our demand uh tactics. And of course, like our strategies and our people do help, but I also think um you know there's a little bit more to it than that. And I think what you're

Top talent always has the most options in any market conditions

SPEAKER_00 12:26

saying makes a lot of sense, right? Like, I think a lot of companies were thinking, okay, when the market shifts, it's gonna shift back into an employer market, recruiting is gonna be easier. But the reality is that this is what I always say is like, okay, first off, top talent is always gonna have the most options in any market condition. So true. I mean, you you have to approach talent acquisition from that perspective and not see it as this like transactional light switch. I don't think a lot of companies get that, and then I also think even if they hypothetically pull it off, as soon as the market comes back, those people are gonna leave if you're if you're underpaying or if you're not, you know, like you can't take shortcuts and you can't underpay the best people because they're gonna find something else, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Yeah, and I think it's a great way of keeping uh those candidates, individuals, and eventually the engineering and tech teams competitive, you know, because if they're going for the the the best talent, they're gonna, in my opinion, they're gonna come out with the best product in the market.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Uh yeah, I think so. I think it's like whether you're a services company or a product company, people are the primary driver of value, right? Like people have to create the product, right? So it's like that's that's where it all starts. But yeah, I mean, it's it's like, okay, even if talent is becoming a little bit more available, the tech industry is still huge. A ton of people are employed by tech. So I still, I mean, these layups are still a very, very small percentage of the overall market. And then, too, it's like you get more conversations of you know, recruiters are getting more conversations where people are kind of just putting their feelers out there, people are more cautious. So that kind of, as you said, might be counterbalancing the fact that there might be a little bit more talent available on the market. Not to mention that people are, you know, a lot of these big tech companies are cutting recruiting teams.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

And and then they're like, they're like, oh shit, we cut, but we're not yet in a recession and we still have to hire.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, correct. Yeah, I think it's uh I mean, uh, luckily, like LiveRamp as a company, um, we have not. Um, you know, we are um like it's business as usual here, you know. We uh every other month we're doing the town halls, like the leadership is you know, giving us uh like what's next, look like forward looking, you know, all that. So um I feel like we are in a good spot. Um again, can't predict what's gonna happen next two quarters, you know, like recession or no recession. Every time I open up news of any anything, that's the only thing they're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

So I mean, I just I you know at this point, I just try to stay away from headlines, honestly. I mean, I let's focus on what we can control. It's nowadays it's so easy to get overwhelmed, right? Correct. Because it's like every time we check our phone, it's this huge catastrophe. And so it's it's balancing like obviously being aware of what's going on around us, but also you know, we also have to take care of ourselves, right? And we have to focus on what we can control and just uh data overload or information overload. Yeah, I mean, it's at some point you really just have to make a decision for yourself on on what you know what how much time you really want to focus on on everything else. I think I think the best leadership

What are the best leadership teams doing in uncertain market conditions

SPEAKER_00 15:37

teams too are they're doing a good job kind of staying the course as much as they can, right? I mean, I guess profitability some so to some extent determines if they need to make drastic changes, but um, or path to profitability at least. But yeah, you know, I think uh I think that the best leaders are are are kind of helping their team not get overwhelmed, helping particularly the executive team set the agenda for continued growth, right? Um, and just helping their companies kind of stay on track because obviously the more intact the organization is coming out of a correction, the better positioned they're gonna be able to thrive and ride that whole next growth wave. Versus companies that cut really, really deep because they have to because they're so unprofitable, they're gonna be less well positioned to take advantage of the full growth wave coming out of a correction, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

And I think that's where we think as a company, um, and to your point, James, like uh that constant communication from the leadership to the rest of the company. Um, just today we had our uh total rewards down hall. Um, and we're as a company talking about how to like do more for our employees than talking about, okay. Did you check the news? Do you do you know what's going on outside? No, I mean, we I think the leadership is like, well, we're on track, we're gonna keep doing what we're doing, uh, what we're good in. Um, you know, and uh I think we think, I mean, again, leadership uh things like you know, we are positioning ourselves to be more competitive.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's the way that I'm I'm looking at it too. It's it's uh now's the time to double down. I mean, I want I'm getting more aggressive with our revenue strategy. I'm not getting more conservative, I see an opportunity because I see other players on the market like get taking more of a conservative posture. Yeah. And so I'm like, this is our chance. Like if we want to be the category leader, we need to make moves like a category leader is gonna make.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Right. And and that's kind of been our our philosophy. And I think a lot of people didn't anticipate the things that you're saying. Like, yeah, you know, candidates are more cautious, right? A lot more people are just taking time, right? You're not talking to qualified candidates from the respective they're not qualified as and they're not looking right now, right? So they might be a good fit, but they're not ready to, you know, to move forward. So all those kind of factors start to, you know, kind of play into the fact that it's still a tight labor market. And we still are seeing strong job gains across the board in the economy.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yeah, uh, I think there's like a shift, you know, like if one side is losing, the other side is absorbing also. Um putting it. So um, and as a recruiter, you know, like uh for me, the good sign is okay, my calendar is booked with leads, with candidates uh I have to speak with. That's a good sign for me, uh, for my team, for the company, because we are busy hiring, you know. Um, so for me, it's like it's very busy than doing nothing, uh, because I will start doing or thinking something else then, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Right.

Effective strategies and tactics to achieve DE&I goals

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah. So so one of the other um uh I think good good time for segue to just um would be uh to talk about a little bit about DENI and and what you're seeing as effective strategy and tactics to to achieve DENI um goals, right? Um and what maybe if you could if you're if you fill up to it, just kind of sharing a little bit about what live ramp is doing um to help achieve DENI uh goals and outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Well yeah, um, I mean I personally been involved with DENI for last six, seven years. Um, I I I'll give reference before I came to LiveRamp, I was with Choice Hotels, um uh pretty big group now. They actually recently acquired Radison Americas. Oh wow, just this year. So uh they were really passionate about their DI uh program, and I got an opportunity to actually start my own ERG group there. I got funding and all that. I it was a good uh uh way of getting FaceTime with the CEO of the company, also, you know, because uh I felt like uh the CEO of uh Choice Hotels uh was really passionate about you know, like getting involved and doing that, you know, uh self-check, like okay, what is really going on, you know, all that. And that helped us to not just uh uh do an outreach, but bring people, uh especially in the tech. You know, tech is I think one of the sectors which is always going to be facing this challenge, you know, with the representation and all that. Uh, but you know, outreach, um, going out, and then it's it's more about awareness, you know, like uh, okay, um, I know we always look for the qualification on paper, but hiring the right person, a right candidate for the team is sometimes more than that. Um, so for that, you know, like companies investing in that area of DNI, um, not just like uh having ERG groups, but um bringing value to um to the company, you know. Um so now coming to LiveRamp, uh LiveRamp is actually one of those companies which has invested a lot. Uh I would say it's one of those companies I've worked so far which actually really cares about. Uh, you know, it's not just a paper pushing thing, but real effort and all that and regular involvement. Um, because sometimes, you know, in a tech, it's always like, oh, did we did we innovate a candidate? It's not just that, but also did we uh did we try our best to bring them on on board, you know? So it could be like a woman or like minority or race and all that. Um and also uh not just that hiring, like bringing them on the team, but also looking from the other side, which is let's say um a woman candidate, when they interview with a company like uh ours, they also want to see if we have women in the hiring panel or at a leadership, you know, uh um position. So that's where you know we um as a company I think have done a lot. Um and personally speaking, I try to uh take time from our leadership, you know, like okay, can could you just spend 30 minutes with this candidate and you know just have a conversation to make them feel you know um accept like um so they are acceptable or like

SPEAKER_00 22:46

know they are like they feel like comfortable you know um and um another thing is um like here the culture is at li ramp is very pretty much flat like um i can go to my cto of live ramp and have a conversation with them and the culture here is they will take time out so that actually makes it easy for us especially in the recruiting standpoint to hire people you know like where i can go to a candidate i'm like okay you know you have these questions you have these concerns let me find someone in the leadership i want to talk to them for 30 or 45 minutes and i'll go set up like a zoom uh session between them you know and on top of that our leaders are really accommodative they sometimes even move things around you know to talk to uh a candidate you know to make them feel comfortable for sure and i think one of the things that really stuck stood out to me what you said is there has to be ideally

The importance of representation on the interview panel

SPEAKER_00 23:49

representation within the interviewing panel so people want to know that it's an inclusive culture right and I mean the interview panel is a great way to uh achieve that and then also on careers pages right putting out video content particularly uh from employees that work on the teams that you're hiring for at scale so that people can get a you know a sense for the uh diversity um that you have on the team to uh which is it going to influence kind of you know okay does this organization kind of have a a balanced perspective and do they have different perspectives coming to the table which is incredibly valuable right like that's one of the biggest value ads of working with multiple multicultural teams uh internationally and having diverse uh groups of of people work within a team is that people can come from different perspectives and bring original ideas and creativity right that that maybe uh is not uh going to be as strong if if there if the diversity piece is missing. Absolutely and I uh you know there are so many studies being done where they're saying like uh uh diversity brings more value uh you know to a team to the company in the long run so um I think LyRamp is just not just a believer in that but also like a doer you know um so I feel like there is a lot of lot of uh effort being done with a lot of people here in this area yeah I hear you and and I question for you about the ERG that you were part of uh at Choice Hotels

Why ERGs need to work closely with recruiting

SPEAKER_00 25:22

I've I've heard a lot of mixed reviews I've heard ERG stories where it goes incredibly well um and then others where maybe maybe not so much. So I'm curious to to were there any lessons learned getting the ERG off the ground of okay these are the things that we kind of have to check off to ensure that this is going we're going to be able to get the value from this that we want to and and and then I guess after that it would be good to know were you able to implement change within the organization based on what you were talking about? Yeah that's a great question James um I feel like having an ERG group and then the catalyst to that to bring a change in my opinion is recruiting because yes you have an ERG in the company but ultimately what we need to do is have more representation you know like have more like people or communities coming working for the company so I mean in my opinion ERGs they need to work with recruiting closely to make that happen you know uh because I mean yeah ERGs can go and have uh quarterly or uh semi-annually events you know like let's have fun together but uh there has to be like action and then uh outcome you know having that ERG group um but yeah going back to choice um when I started uh although there was a lot of support given by the ERG leaders uh even the CEO as I said you know getting FaceTime and then um giving the CEO like big picture so that helped to kick off the group but then eventually it uh also uh helped in going out and talking to people and bring to the company because Choice Hotels I was mostly uh involved with the tech here in Phoenix um so helped to do outreaches like we had a program at ASU you know through that uh Arizona State University which is like we were going out and like okay well we're not just a tech company but we are also you know like doing a lot of other things uh as and as you said they want to see similar faces you know kind of to feel comfortable um so yeah yeah for sure and I think one of the differentiators too

The importance of executive-level buy in for DE&I success

SPEAKER_00 27:51

is that what you just mentioned about the CEO directly getting involved you need executive level buy-in to make it work right yeah so I love that I love the concept of you can't scale relationships and executives have to get in there and have real conversations and you can't just look at a survey yeah exactly you gotta you gotta get in there and get a pulse on the organization um and you it when you stop doing that like I think that that should be one of the biggest fears of CEOs as they scale like am I gonna lose my pulse if you're not asking that question I feel like you're just setting yourself up for disaster. Yeah yeah and I think it also uh you know to know like okay uh is leadership really serious about this thing you know um or I mean granted we all get funding for running a group but at the end of the day if there are outcomes there are results uh let's have the other side also you know and it goes uh to the ERG groups also if the leadership is very much involved then those ERG leaders need to be really you know like uh uh showing uh are showing the outcome the results you know that uh um we are doing the work and it helps with really good branding also uh yeah I mean for sure I mean particularly in in tech like people want generally speaking they want to work for um you know progressive companies right companies that share uh similar values when it comes to people right and people rights and these types of things so yeah I I agree it's um it's something that um a lot of top talents looking for as well right so it's it's it's good from every you know every perspective right it it it works out so I I think too one of the pieces of advice I've gotten from a few CPOs is the time

The time to start is always now

SPEAKER_00 29:48

to start is always now like the earlier on you start the better because if you can build a small diverse group then when it comes to referrals um and representation and being seen as an inclusive culture it's it's a lot easier to to make that happen from the start versus if you get to you know 300 employees 500 employees a thousand and then it's like all right let's start working on DENI it's you know it just it it can be a lot more difficult sometimes to really shift the tide right when when you're already at a late stage of growth versus if it's part of like your core fabric and culture and values uh from the jump. So yeah yeah it was one of something I actually had not thought about before and I remember the first time I heard that I was like that makes it just so much sense right yeah yeah I think it's it's like uh uh if you're starting a company um you know day one uh goal or vision um you know like okay how can I bring diverse team or how can or I how can I bring diversity from day one uh you know um because eventually you want to have productivity for profit business you know so um so it adds to the value oh for sure for sure well look

Wrap up

SPEAKER_00 31:06

this is this has been uh a ton of fun and and uh we're gonna have to sign off here we're coming up on time uh but I just want to say you know thank you so much for for joining us today and uh we'd love to have you on the show again next time sometime soon thanks for having me James pleasure yeah for for sure for sure and by the way if people want to find you online what's what's the best way to to connect with you uh I'm on LinkedIn uh so you can just put my name in the search and uh you'll find me there. Cool okay good stuff good stuff well for everybody else tuning in thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

All right thank you