EP 198: Why Context Matters More Than Hiring Templates

Esra Huseyinzadegan grew up in Istanbul, a city that quickly teaches you to adapt, question assumptions, and see the world from multiple perspectives. Those instincts carried her from academic success in Turkey to leading Global Talent Acquisition at Namecheap, where she builds recruiting strategies for a truly global organization. In this conversation, she shares why context beats templates, how great leaders listen deeply, and what it means to practice “minimal leadership” in fast-growing companies.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Hey everyone, welcome to the show today. Thanks for joining us. Today we have Ezra Hussein Zadigan, uh currently based in Turkey. So I'm really excited to talk to you a little bit about Instabol and what it was like growing up there. But, anyways, getting ahead of myself. Ezra is currently the head of talent acquisition, head of global talent acquisition at Namecheap. So, Ezra, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Thank you. Thank you, James. Great to be here. I'm excited.

Growing Up In Istanbul

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Yeah, I'm really excited too. It's been great getting to know you on our prep call and then like before this recording, just to talk to you a little bit about what we're gonna be discussing and learning more about you. So um yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun, and we have a lot of really good things to to talk about. Um, but I think honestly, I think what it would actually like if if we how about we just get started on what it was like growing up in Instanble? Because you like that, I think that's kind of foundational to who you are as a person, and particularly as somebody who uh highly values cultural studies and studied that at university. I think like, hey, let's uh where we're from, uh, the culture that we grow up in, um, particularly in Turkey, which is like, as you say, Instable is like sitting like essentially on two continents, like right in the middle, right? So it's like that kind of like such a uh just important place like historically in the world, and as well as just like probably a very interesting upbringing coming from there. I would love to just start there. I would love to hear more about your background and and growing up in uh in Istanbul.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Sure. I spent most of my life in Istanbul because we moved here when I was three years old, and yeah, I've been living here basically for 40 years as of today, and I was actually born in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, but I don't know anything about it that much. It was only a coincidence that I was born there. So basically, yes, I I'm from Istanbul. I can say that with fullness, with the fullness of it. Uh I grew up in this city that is literally at the crossroads of cultures, as you said, Eastern West, ancient, modern. It was the capital state of so many ancient cultures as well. Uh, so that geographic and cultural in between is shaped pretty much naturally. I mean, I wasn't aware of it during the time, but I think it shaped naturally how I think today, how I think across boundaries, how I think about even defining a culture, what is a culture, what do we call a culture exactly? So, yeah, it's it is uh a big formative component in my life. Uh, just to give you an idea, I'm sure our listeners heard Istanbul, but to give you the idea about with some numbers, uh, if you think about the whole country, it's a huge country, Turkey is huge in terms of the field, the area. Istanbul covers less than 1% of that whole area, but it it includes 20% of the whole population of Turkey. It is really, it is literally not this is not an uh ambitious things thing to say. It is literally the uh cultural and economical capital of the whole country, and it is so chaotic, it is so crowded, it is so messy, and since I was a kid, I always had to be very practical. You can make a plan for the day. The bus is told to come at that hour, but it will not come at that hour, so you cannot really rely on that plan. You should always have that contingency plan. Uh it's so strange when you think about it like that from the outside, but it was my habitat, basically. It was my ocean that I was born into. So it felt natural to me until I really met different people, different people, different cultures, different perspectives, people who can plan, who is able to plan, like I don't know, three years ahead. I I I don't understand that, like, you know, from my heart. I can understand it in a mental level, but yeah, so it's it's really chaotic. You it is one of those cities you love and hate at the same time. That's why I never moved somewhere else, except for that really brief period in my college education, six months in Rotterdam, which was great. But then I really understood how much I was taking it for granted. I mean, growing in Istanbul teaches you to be agile, even before I heard that word in my life, you know. So it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah, it's it sounds like a fascinating place to grow up. I'd love to talk a little bit about your uh your teenage years leading up to university because you truly do have like a fascinating story. So um maybe we could slow down there a little bit, and you could tell us a little bit about yourself in that chapter.

A Father’s Ethics And Fallout

Bankruptcy And A Scholarship Plan

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Sure. Uh pretty regular, normal middle class family. I mean, we were not poor, like there is nothing, you know, that you would make a movie out of it until I was 15, which I will talk about. But you know, it was pretty regular, like not rich, not poor, not like not having big crises or you know, big losses, whatsoever. So it's pretty much standard until I was 15. Uh, I should talk a little about my dad and his profession to give you more context about this. He was a senior police chief, uh, a successful and respected one. Actually, he was famous, like his reputation was for having this real ethical standard. Like, normally, other people who would have his, you know, like uh circumstances, let's say, uh they would really probably behave differently. But he was like he had this ethical thing that really guided in everything he did. So basically, when I was 15, as to of course, this is to the best of my memory because not everything was told in detail at home, but of course I know what was going on. Someone influential politically at that time in that context, whoever I don't care, but someone influential asked him to do something, or maybe not to see something, like to ignore something, maybe I don't know. That crossed the line. Okay, that was not legit, whatever. He said no, because that's who is. And that person had a lot of influence over other uh corporations or you know, other uh bureaucratic uh organizations, let's say that person made sure he pays for it. And we were living in Istanbul, as I said, since I was three years old, and in that moment of time, I'm 15 years old, I'm going to high school, my sister is also a high school student, it's all good. But that person did something that resulted in my father's uh being appointed to a tiny village right on the Syrian border. Let me put this more on context for the people who are not familiar with the geography. It is at the time, especially, it was one of the most underdeveloped, genuinely dangerous regions to be in the country, the Syria uh border. It is a village, it has probably no, I'm not sure, but like probably it only has primary school, nothing else. We are very, I mean, my sister and myself were successful students in high schools that accepted students on exams. So we were really there were these were good, prestigious high schools. So basically, my dad has to had to make that decision. Like he would either take us there all together or he would just go himself. So many discussions, conversations, whatsoever. He didn't want to disrupt our lives. We were in good schools, as I said. He went himself. I visited him once there. I I understood immediately why he couldn't stay. He only stayed for six months because it's I mean, it's the maximum I think he could take. And then there was only one option. The only exit, actually, was he ended up taking early retirement. I mean, if he were in Istanbul, if if the conditions weren't like that, I don't know, he would do the job for another 10-15 years. It was really an early, early retirement. That was the only option to not be there at that time. That was okay. I mean, uh, at first we didn't understand the implications a lot, but then, you know, he tried to build a business, like because he was not a commercial person, you know, he was that policeman, basically, if you think about it. But he wanted to build a business, it didn't work out. He built another business, it didn't work, like it didn't work out a couple of times, okay? And then within a couple of years, and by that time I was 17 and I was uh yeah, I was in my final year of high school. Uh within a couple of years, we were in serious financial difficulty. He we went totally bankrupt. We had no owned home, we were in a rented house, no savings, everything uncertain. Like yeah, we we basically lost like all of a sudden. I mean, as I said, we were not rich, but for what we could afford what we needed to to survive. But then I was prepping for uh national university entrance exams, uh maybe to make it more understandable, something similar to SATs that you have, but probably the system is different, but it is like nationwise, you know, everybody has to take that exam if you if they want to be in any college in Turkey. So what I did was I mean, I had two options, I think. Uh literally, stop my education there, get a job, a day job, any job, physical job, whatever, like make sandwiches or coffee or what it doesn't matter, or clean houses, but I could take that kind of like immediate job, but then I was thinking, I I'm a really good student, you know. Like I'm not ambitious in a competitive sense, but I always like I'm hardworking, basically, you know, and I don't want to leave that like that. I mean, I I was so of course depressed and everything, it's really like a dark period until some point. So basically, I suddenly I don't know how, but I suddenly decided to be very pragmatic about it. Like, I don't know how, but I just thought you know, I could have a leverage. I'm a good student, and if I really study harder, I could get a good degree in this national university exam, and that would give me a lot of scholarships from that colleges. So that would basically cover my uh living and tuition and everything, because literally it was impossible for my family to support me anymore, and then what I did my first step, I think, was I found that uh prep course for the university exam, okay, but then you have to pay for it, obviously, for that prep course. But I took an exam there and it was for free for myself, so that was my first thing, I think, because normally you have to pay for two years, they prep you with this tactical things and everything. I did that prep course and then to my surprise, I wasn't expecting it. I mean, I was working hard, but I wasn't expecting to rank 55th in Turkey out of one and a half million students. I mean, when I say it, it feels surreal. I can't believe that teenager girl who did this, I don't know how many years ago, like somehow, again, I say somehow because I don't know how, I became so pragmatic. Like, I was like, okay, I will do this. I somehow noticed that this is a life changer, this is a seminal moment. I mean, I don't say this to brag, honestly, not, because everybody who works so hard they got degrees. I mean, it's it's nothing to brag about, but I think what is more meaningful to me, and what I count as success in this story is not the degree itself, but I think it is the epiphany I had as a teenager. Hey, this is a game changer that could be defining the rest of my life, versus I drop out of school now, I work in any job and whatever. So I start off totally in a different place, versus I start off, by the way, as a graduate of really great universities. Uh one of the great universities in Turkey, it's Sabanji University. It has more like an American system, it lets you be flexible about your area, etc. But before I move on to that part, what I try to say is I thank to myself, you know, when I look at that year, I thank to this teenager girl for realizing hey, I have control on something, you know, I have no control about what happened with my dad, with my family. It's just it suddenly happened to us. But what I can call I can study really hard, I can get good scholarships. And then all the best colleges sent me scholarship letters, and I picked the best one for myself.

Values Become Real When Costly

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Well, that that's amazing. And I um I think the story just of uh overcoming like hardship and and all the the lessons learned and probably the values developed from what was going on with your family and and what like very unfortunately happened with your dad just for sticking up to values and doing what was ethical. Um but nonetheless, like I feel like there's such a big lesson there in terms of living life when it comes into like being in accordance with your values and your principles, even when it's hard. Like I kind of had this like approach when you think about any virtue or any value, like courage, you don't actually have courage unless there's a reason to not be courageous, right? Like, unless there's an alternate path that can seem like less resistance. Like loyalty isn't loyalty if you aren't loyal when things aren't going wrong or when things are hard, right? Like virtues are virtues because when you need to use them, there are typically what can be perceived as easier alternatives. You see what I'm saying? So it's like being honest wouldn't be a virtue if there wasn't a reason to lie.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

You see what I'm saying? So it's like it's like you know, people actually don't have those virtues or don't have those values if they're not something that are upheld when things are are hard. They're not virtues if you just use them when it's convenient, right? Like that's not a real value, right? That's not it's not something that like you could say somebody lives by, but when you see somebody, you know, it's like I can't even imagine too, as like a father, it's like, okay, like you're trying to like provide for your family and set you know set them up for success, and at the same time, you're you're trying to lead by example and and live life in accordance to doing so in like an ethical way and and set your family up for your children up for success from that side of the house too. Like those are are are two things that's a very difficult situation to be in. But I think it speaks a lot to your character and who you are, too, to be able to like in that situation really focus and apply yourself and turn that situation into something that propels you into success. And I'm wondering, like, do you think ranking 55th out of 1.5 million, which is awesome? Uh it's incredibly. Yeah, well, that I mean I can. I mean, just speaking to you, but like, could you just do you feel like a lot of your success there was was based on just I I know you said you weren't previously ambitious, but like based on where your family was at, just kind of drove you to succeed and work really hard and focus a lot. Do you feel like that was the what your family was going through was part of the reason why you scored so highly? Because of like how much it kind of like did it kind of propel you forward, or or do you think it was more so like unrelated? I'm just kind of curious.

Choosing Cultural Studies On Purpose

SPEAKER_00 17:50

So it is it was definitely related. I mean, it's definitely part of the reason uh that's what my family went through. You know, I would be lying to you if I say I don't care about success. I cared about success. I mean, as a kid, I don't know, five years old, ten years. I cared about it. But when I say I was not ambitious in a sense, I wasn't competing with anyone, I was not that crazy person who tries to get ahead of everybody. It's it is in my head, basically, the success, the the persistence. I think the word persistence is more close to me, honestly. Hardworking is definitely something I value. But to your question, yes, I wouldn't score like that if I wasn't pushed into that corner myself. So it was like it was black and white for me, you know. Either I will get out of this as a very successful person, so everybody will want to give me scholarships. Or, by the way, another scenario could be because now I am talking about it retrospectively, right? It's easy to say it had to be this way. But let's think about another scenario. Yes, I was a hardworking good student, I was going to go to a good college, by the way, but not like this, like not with huge scholarships or whatever. But then I would have to work in, I don't know, seven or eight jobs during my whole college education. So that was another scenario. I thought about it, I could have done it as I said, I don't know what would happen in a parallel life. But why I think this as a success is about this. I think the emotional intelligence component of it that I noticed something. There is a leverage here that will prevent me from working uh like in seven jobs, you know, during college. So and enjoy college, actually, you know, like enjoy the courses, like really think about your courses, not the shift in your, I don't know, fast food restaurant, like whatever it is. So basically, I can't believe as a teenager I was able to distinguish that in my head and focus on it like really crazy. So I think yes, I would get go to a good college if my family situation didn't go worse, but no, not like this. No, I think it just triggered me to be to do the real best. Whatever I had, I had to show it in that exam.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

And then you decided, so when you went to university, you ultimately landed on uh studying cultural studies. Um, can you tell me tell us more about why you decided to go down that path?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Sure. During my high school years where I discussed with friends, like what do you want to study, like which colors, whatever. I knew what I didn't want to study or to become. I wasn't like an I wasn't an engineer, I wasn't going to be a doctor, I I wasn't going to study business administration. I'm not saying to, you know, to disrespect any of those fields, but none of them felt like close to me as a person. But I was always saying things like this. Okay, I'm into social sciences. I like, you know, I was reading psychology and philosophy books all the time. And back then, when you are when you were bored, you would read books for the younger audience listening to us. We didn't have even, I don't know, Facebook wasn't invented, so to say. So I was reading a lot of psychology, philosophy books, as well as fiction. Anyhow, I was saying, I'm into social sciences, but I'm not sure. I wish there was like an interdisciplinary social science that would cover everything, like literature, art, psychology, sociology, whatever. I was dreaming about it, but back then I didn't know anything about the concept of cultural studies. I didn't even know that it was a thing as a major degree. By the way, the the university, the Sabanji University, was the only university that had that program in Turkey. That is why it was so new. And then, as I said, I got that result in the exam. The colleges sent me this like invitation letters. Like, I'm like, oh my god, what the hell? What should I do now? And then I was reading that letter from Sabanji University. The first thing, of course, that caught my eye was they were covering everything for five years, including the prep class. Prep class is by the way, English prep class for languages. So prep class plus four years of education. They cover it all. They give you a dormitory room, you don't pay. For a dormitory room. So we were in a rented house. So you know it was a question mark for me like, do I have a place to stay? Because it is out of the city. I mean, you you cannot commit to there. They give you this place to stay, they give you your books for five years, and they give you laptop to work, and they give you pocket money every month,$200. It was a great amount back then for a student. So that caught my eye, and I was like, oh my god, is this real? And the second thing, second thing, that was like a movie scene for me. I I was reading it, I don't know, hundreds of times. I didn't believe the letter. I was just there making fun of me. This can't be true. The second thing I noticed was the programs, the majors that I could choose. Cultural studies, like I heard it for the first time in that letter. Wow, it sounds interesting. Let me just go to this school that like they were having these introduction days, you know, get to meet us, blah blah blah. So I went there and I was so I was so sure that I will pick this university and I will pick cultural studies as a major. And I did.

Classes That Teach Better Questions

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah, it's really cool. It's uh it's fascinating. Also, I just feel like uh being from Istanbul and uh studying cultural studies, it just kind of makes sense, right? Because it's such a multicultural, just deeply uh historically relevant place to grow up. So yeah, it's like a really interesting kind of combination of experiences between education and uh geography in terms of where you you grew up and and probably has developed like your you know a big part of what's developed your worldview. When it comes to cultural studies, I I'm curious, like what was your favorite class?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Like I had so many favorites, but I of course it's also a bit a bit historical, but let's think there was a course called Text and Context. Like imagine that course. I don't know what you imagine when you hear that, but I was also like, why? What what what do they mean? You know what we did in that class? It's so so strange when you think about like all the pragmatic uh disciplines uh that we have at the moment. But it was basically every week, we of course we had a lot of uh reading material, like weekly on a weekly basis. I think I had to read in a total sense, not for this course only, but 300 pages of something like all over the for the general course. So read, read, read, write, write, write. That was the gist of the whole thing. But this course, text and context. We were reading a fairy tale every week. Stay with me. All right, like the Liddle Red Riding Hood, okay, but not in the childish sense, but some, I don't know, reinterpreted by a feminist writer, just for the sake of example. But that that is that tale. So every week we read that whatever fairy tale is assigned, we discussed it in the class and we discussed the context behind it, how we interpret it now, how it was interpreted back then. So it's like I cannot recall everything we discussed, but what I remember is the feeling. Like when I was out of that class, I was like, oh my god, like I feel like my universe somehow got wider, like my perspective, like it really teaches you. What I'm trying to say, it's not even about the favorite courses. That's my message, probably. Here the whole thing was designed, the whole program was designed to teach us to ask questions, to read, analyze. I mean to read it, to analyze it, ask questions and make some discussions, and of course, be critical about what you read. Ask the right questions. You know how it do you see how it relates to being a recruiter now? Like really ask the right questions, be critical of it, you know, be critical of what you read, what you hear, analyze it, synthesize it, and write an article about it. We didn't have exams, we had open book exams, by the way. We didn't have it in the traditional sense. I remember for another favorite class, and that's the second and probably last. I won't go into a lot of detail with the classes, but another favorite class was art history. That's pretty much more generic. But what is interesting is the professor gave us all the books. It is open. We are in the classroom. There are only two questions, and you have to write two articles to answer that two questions. The book is there with you, but imagine the questions are like this. Uh, look at the, I don't know, ancient. I'm just making up this two, like paint the picture. Look at the ancient sculpture on page seven in your book, and then look at the I don't know how to Salvador Delhi painting on page 250. Okay, compare them in terms of visual language and write an article about it. So that was the one question that and if you cannot answer that question, you lose half of your grade for that exam. So basically, that's that was the idea of my program. The program I selected. I I'm so glad that I selected it. I don't regret it because it's like it doesn't teach you basically any practical professional, it doesn't give you a license. You cannot become a cultural studies expert when you graduate, no, but it gives you, I think, what exactly a university needs to give you uh the ability to question, the ability to think, discuss, read and write. I think that's pretty much the gist of the uh program.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Yeah, yeah, no, it's um just it opens up your world, right? It opens up your mind.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

That's how I always felt with philosophy. Like studying philosophy. I felt like sort of it just in just general like um critical thinking uh abilities and to see other perspectives and kind of to open up your mind to different perspectives. I think teaches you right like how to approach to to question your own worldviews, right? Like and to see beyond like your little corner of the world. It's like it's just like critically important, and I think cultural studies like definitely helps you know, helps people do that, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

I think so. And you know what's very interesting? The graduates, I mean, the my cohorts, let's say, I think we were 15 people in total that finished cultural studies at that time. We all work in so many different areas. One person works in a museum as a curator. One person, like most of them are academic people, like really they are professors, lecturers, and successful people all over the globe, by the way. Couple of people like me, we are in HR. A couple of people went into marketing, you know, marketing analytics, research, customer behavior, etc. So, yeah, it's it's very diverse, and I think it was great to have that opportunity.

Applying Cultural Studies To HR

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Yeah, definitely. How do you think it has impacted how you operate in uh HR and in talent acquisition? Like, what impact has it really had in how you approach your work?

SPEAKER_00 30:36

I think it's helped me to be somehow more open-minded and flexible in about everything. What I mean is it helped me from an early age, these are the formative years that we kind of, you know, like university shapes all of us, I think. Yeah, and it kind of shaped me early on in a sense that I didn't learn to put people into boxes, for example. But I mean, let me give you an example. In in our classes or courses, for example, in a discussion, I want to say something like, you know, Turkish people are like that and like that. Just imagine I use Turkish people, and the lecturer asks me, what do you mean exactly by Turkish people? Like because you just generalize Turkish people, like you have to just as an example. So, what I try to say, it taught me not to put people, cultures, or anything into boxes early on. That's that's what I mean with the open-minded and flexible mindset. I think that is one of the reasons that I was interested in HR as a field. Because imagine, I think we are so lucky as HR talent people teams, we are so lucky to be able to see the whole picture of an organization, right? Whatever we do. So versus being in a department and just doing that job, you know, like of course, I mean, they have their own uh complications and everything, but if you think about the whole organization as a system, we we have the luxury of seeing this big picture in whatever we do, and that's great, that's a great place to be. So I think how cultural studies impacted me in that sense is I wanted to see the big picture rather than being in a how the I don't know, in a predefined or you know, like predefined and yeah, very boxed, let's say. I don't know a better word for it, but like a really defined, rigid job definition versus being flexible about what you want to do, how you want to be, as long as of course you get the right results for the business.

Coaching Training And Deep Listening

SPEAKER_02 33:02

I mean, like so one thing you said earlier was that it's it taught you how to listen versus label, which was uh just that little saying is it helps helped me kind of remember, right? Um, so I really liked that. Uh and then also it's it's so that was very formative in how you approached it. I think you also another formative experience to an extent, like a little bit further in your career in adulthood, was getting a coaching certification, right? Yes. So how did that impact you professionally and and how you like approached town acquisition and your career?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Sure. Great question. You know, you remember when I said it when I was in high school, I was into psychology, but also blah blah. So I never wanted to become a psychologist myself. I mean, but I was always curious, like, you know, in another life, could I be a psychologist? You know, I always had that bugging uh question at the back of my head. When I came across this coaching uh certificate, this course, and it was by the ICF, which is International Coaching Federation. So it was credible, you know, it was really like solid. I think for at that time it was the closest thing to psychology to kind of feed my soul with that. That was the first reason I jumped into it. I didn't have like really, yes, it was related to my career as an HR person, that's pretty obvious, but that wasn't even my first reason. It was really about uh really satisfying that psychology. I need to learn something about psychology. I need to like execute it. I mean, not only learn on a theoretical level. So that kind of triggered me. When I was working full-time in this headhunting agency, I was finishing work on weekdays, and I was going to the course like during so many weeks, by the way. Not one day, not two days, like it was an intense period of time. And you know what? I was so tired, but I was so happy doing it. Like it really, it really did the right thing, it rejuvenated something in me. Uh, yeah, that's so important. It's not only about placing people, matching people with jobs, and vice versa, but it's also about deep listening and understanding that person as a whole, not only as a finance specialist, so to say, but as a person who is there, who is making a living, and changing jobs maybe for that person means like something more dramatic than you could imagine because they have three kids to fit. I don't know, like for whatever reason, they are a whole person, and you cannot just sit there checking boxes, like, okay, did you do that? Do you have that certificate? No. So when I did this coaching course, the first thing they teach you, they taught us basically was to work on ourselves, not to coach other people. You go there thinking like they will give you tactics, like you know, do this, do that, whatever. No, but they didn't do it until the very late stages of the course. We had a lot of actual coaching going on there, most of the time being coaches ourselves, uh, by these professional coaches. So we worked on ourselves a lot. I had a great time finding or defining, not finding they were there, but defining my values as a person, naming them, like why like understanding why they matter to me. So that was really the closest that I could get to psychology, being a psychologist, not psychologist, but psychology professional, let's say. And then I I really was lucky to be able to apply it as a side geek, uh, probably I can say a side gig. During all those years, I always had full-time jobs as a talent HR people person, but on the side of it, on and off, I always had coaches, and I just do it for the satisfaction of it. You know, it's not like a it's sometimes my friends tell me, hey, you can do it like a full-time thing, you can just exit the whole corporate world. I say, no, I I'm happy, you know, I'm I'm having the best of both worlds. I mean, I live in a great company, talent acquisition, I love it, but then again, I need to sometimes have more deep conversations with some people to really help them clarify their values this time, uh, their direction, their destination in life. And it's it's priceless. I mean, I I just do it for the sake of it.

Talent Acquisition Depends On Context

SPEAKER_02 37:34

I love it, I love it. And uh, you know, not getting into where you are uh today, you know, you're currently in a uh head of global talent acquisition role for Namecheap, which um how many employees? A few thousand, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Almost three thousand, yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Almost three thousand all over the globe. All over the globe, all over the globe. Let's talk about like let's get into talent acquisition for a minute. Um, you know, when it comes to talent acquisition, you say like one of the top takeaways, one of the top things that you've learned is that it's it's different for every company. Could you explain to us what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Sure. When you look at my CV or anybody's CV, let's say if it's whole recruiting experience, you know, they did recruiting the whole time. And that's pretty much my CV, with some little exceptions. I did HR generalist jobs, HR BP jobs. But if you look at my CV, it's a recruiter's CV. But it's it, although it seems like I'm doing the same job for so many years, 20 years as of today, it was never the same. Context is very important. I worked in a hospitality holding with restaurants, uh, like really high-end restaurants. I I built an ATS star, for example. And I I know that I knew that somehow I cannot create an enterprise-level ATS star. So I I think I built ATS and systems three times in three different companies, including that restaurant business, then e-commerce, then technology uh namechip, basically domain, hosting, and etc. Um, I didn't do the same job because the scope was not the same, the organizations were not the same size, even if that they were the same size, they were not the same culture, they were not the same uh people, like the mix of people is even important. And I think taking all of this into account, what is important is what business problem I'm solving here by implementing this ATS. Okay, so implementing an ATS is great, of course, you should have one for sure, but it shouldn't be like I'm an ATS builder and I came to build my ATS to your company, it's not one size fits all. So, even picking the vendor, but even implementing it or training your hiring managers on it, etc., it is all different. I think what business problem you are solving is the big question that all you should always keep on the top of your head. And as you you know very well that the answer of those questions, but that question is so different in every organization, even if the solution seems like to be like when you look into it, it's like okay, I built an ATS, but it is not like that. There are so many things that impact. I think that's my takeaway with this. Like, it was not always the same job, although it looks like that. And yeah, I think that that's that's about it.

Namecheap Growth And Internal Mobility

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Okay, yeah, I mean, and so just getting to Namecheap a little, I'd love to learn a little bit more about what you're working on this year. Um, you know, within the context of Ton acquisition and your role as head of TA, like what is what is your focus for 2026?

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Uh a lot of things going on, actually, in a nice way, in a positive way. We we are about to close a deal of an acquisition. The majority shares of our company was bought by a really big venture capital company. It's public information, uh, but a deal will be closed very soon. What this implies for our people is uh keeping our values, keeping our identity, we will grow even more. So, what I'm focused on to help my business leaders, hiring leaders or non-hiring leaders in a sense, I want to help them first to define the right business problem, meaning, is this a like is this a business problem that can be only solved by hiring a person? Or maybe not. So I don't want to recruit a person for the sake of it. So I really want to be a sparring partner to them, sit down with them, decide, help them to know if it is an internal hire, if it is an external hire. Maybe that talent you are looking for is already in the company, but you didn't meet them because you didn't announce that job internally. Uh, one thing I also like about my job here is I also oversee the internal mobility process along with global talent acquisition, external talent acquisition. So it gives me the leverage to make transitions in between. Sometimes a hiring manager comes to me and it's a hiring request externally, but then we talk and we find an internal uh hiring solution.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

So basically just a quick question on that. Can you explain to me the difference between internal and external? Like what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Of course, internal internal means you hire, like you transition your teammates to new jobs.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Oh, okay, so like moving talent internally from one okay, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

But you do it exactly with the same methodology, like you post a job, we don't like they come for interviews, they come for home tasks, whatsoever. So when I say internal, it means the candidates are internal, basically. Got it. Okay. So external global is basically when I put a job post out there on LinkedIn, whatsoever platform. Uh, and yeah, I want somebody with a fresh perspective outside of namesheet.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Got it. Okay, yeah, thank you. Sorry, I just wanted to slow down on that and make sure I understood.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Sure, sure. So so that gives me the flexibility to kind of shift even the solutions. But to come back to your question, my priority is helping business leaders define their problems right, and if if the solution is among my portfolio of services to solve that problem for them as fast as possible, but with the highest quality to optimize that solution.

Work Life Harmony Over Burnout

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Love it, love it. Thank you for sharing that. Um I did also like you brought up a really interesting point in terms of like a top takeaway, which is a little bit more holistic in nature, could apply to your professional life as well as your personal life. You talk about the transition from being a goal-oriented person to a destination-oriented person. Could you explain to us what that means?

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Of course. Uh, yeah, over time, I mean, by nature, I'm a hardworking person, but you know, it's it's a blessing and it's a curse. And I I'm sure people who are passionate about their jobs and work uh a lot, they would kind of resonate with this. Over time, I I realize that purely chasing like work outcomes without attending to the rest of life is. Unsustainable. I noticed just it really with a burnout experience myself in one of my previous jobs. I mean, but it was not even about the job I think, it was about the sottage I was at as a professional. But I think now success has to be holistic, or it isn't really success. Meaning you can, I mean, you cannot be a successful person in your professional life if you are totally desperate and unhappy in your private life. They are they make you as a human together. And also something I noticed is work-life balance doesn't explain the concept well enough. Because when you say balance, think about it. When you what do you visualize? When you say balance, one thing rises and the other falls. Okay, that's like they cannot be good at the b at the same time. So I rather choose to say work-life harmony, not balance, because we are a whole as a person, and especially with the perks of remote working, I have to say this. And consider the hectic traffic of Istanbul with 20 million people. When I say this, I save three hours of commuting as I work remotely. So that's really a game changer. And to come back to your question, I think what I learned about success is if you are holistically in harmony as a person, I think that you are successful. And you don't have to sacrifice success to be healthy, and you don't have to be sacrifice being healthy to be successful, vice versa.

Minimal Leadership And Ruthless Focus

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Yeah, I I agree. I think it's um, you know, and that's something that we all at times I think can struggle with. We're trying to find the right way to navigate those things. Um, we're coming up on time here, and the one one additional topic that I thought would be really helpful for our listeners is you you talked to we we've discussed a little bit about how you see your leadership style evolving over the next you know several years, and and you you shared with me that you would like to become a more minimal, in your words, a minimal leader. Um thinking about like removing like it took you talked a lot about like prioritization um and having clarity and focus. So when you say uh a minimal leader, could you kind of walk us through this concept and how you think how you're kind of transitioning your thought process around prioritization, clarity, focus?

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Sure. But yeah, when I say minimal leader, I mean someone who is almost invisible, but who created such a system, of course, with the teammates. I mean there are humans in the system, it's not only the system in the technical sense. But you know, the leader is almost invisible, but they created such a system that it goes it goes so seamlessly that you think they are doing nothing. No, you know what I mean, but you remove them out of the picture, like say they leave the organization, for example, and then everything might be different. You more you might feel the difference when they are absent. So, what I'm trying to say is I think we should say uh no more to projects and say yes to a couple of only important projects and focus on them in a deep way, and really not I mean, coach people not in the active sense, but really remove the blockers on their path so they can become successful, create that environment so they don't even need you every day. That's my point with the minimal leadership.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Yeah, that's a really well really well said.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Yeah, if they need to ask me everything every day, I I'm a terrible leader, probably, you know, so it's a minimal meaning. There's a lot of thinking going uh into that, but on the surface, it really should be calm. People should know like what are their priorities. One, two things, I mean, not more, not even three, because you know, scientifically it's proved that our brains cannot really multitask, we just shift context, it's not multitasking. So, yeah, maybe we cannot single task in this intense work life that we are in, but we can be courageous to say, hey, these are my two priorities, and these are at the backlog for the time being. So just focus on that and do your best work about those ones. So, yeah, that's something like that. I imagine I I'm not saying I am like that. This is more aspirational.

Final Takeaways And Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 49:46

Yeah, I mean, there's just like certain things like we're we're looking working toward, or it's almost like um a principle to like live by. It doesn't mean it's like perfect, right? But it's like something that we keep in mind as we're building, right? Um, so I I love that. I think it's um really well said. I I like I just like the phrase minimal leader, like being a more minimal leader, like it makes sense to me, and I just haven't heard it ex explained or uh articulated in the in the way that you have. Uh so that's definitely something we created it together. Yeah, it's something that like resonates with me. It's something I like or a takeaway from me, something I will remember. Your story uh in high school and and and university and cultural studies, and then the takeaway in terms of being a minimal leader or something, or a couple uh uh aspects of this conversation that really resonate in and are very memorable. Uh, I know are gonna be very memorable. So um Ezra, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your story and your life lessons and how you think about talent acquisition. It's really been a very uh interesting conversation, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity for to be able to have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

Thank you, James, very much for first of all inviting me and then for your really great questions. We talked about asking good questions today. You are one of those people who asks good questions. So, yeah, the best comes out of me as the answer. So, thank you for giving the opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Thanks, Ezra. I really appreciate that.