EP 209: Balancing AI, Automation and Human Connection

With a background in philosophy and logic, Polina Arkhipova approaches talent acquisition through clarity, structure, and continuous learning. At Monta, she’s exploring AI and automation to make recruiting more efficient while staying grounded in what really matters. This conversation unpacks how to thoughtfully evolve TA without losing its human core.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Hey everyone, welcome to the show. Today we have a really exciting episode. We have Paulina, our hippo va. She's currently the senior TA partner over at Monta. And we're really excited to have you on the show today. So thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Thank you for inviting.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah. So yeah, I just I really enjoyed the intro call that we had several weeks ago, I guess, at this point. Um, and uh, you know, just kind of like catching up with you before hitting record today. We got a lot of fascinating things to to talk about. I think you have like an incredible background, really interesting, um, and definitely uh unique in relation to a lot of the other guests that we've had on the show. So just to start us off, like where are you from?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I'm from Russia, St. Petersburg.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Very cool, very cool. And um, you you have a pretty interesting background. Could you share with everyone just a little bit about like how you grew up and just you as a as a small child? And I you told me some a pretty cool story about um around kindergarten age and all that good stuff.

Growing Up In Post-Soviet Russia

A Childhood On A Tiny Farm

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, so I was born in 1994, and it was quite a harsh time for Russia because so many things changed at once. And uh, I would say my parents didn't receive the paychecks so often, and it was quite a hard thing to raise a kid. And I already had an uh older brother, and he went to school back at the time. So um to make my I would say childhood more cheerful and not that dependent on the paychecks, uh, they decided uh to relocate me to a small village in the middle of nowhere, I can tell you for sure, to my grandparents. And uh it's uh not just like you know, a house that we bought, but it's a house that was built by my grandfather, I would say. It is a huge history around that. Actually, as a kid, I didn't really understand that this experience was unique because as you kid, as a kid, you just perceive uh everything that is happening to you just like that. And uh I mostly spent my days with uh animals like cows, dogs, uh I don't know, cats, uh horses, of course, there were also chickens and whatsoever. And there were no kids actually, because again, it is a very small village, they didn't have their dedicated school, so um, yeah, mostly children lived in some bigger areas around. So I can say that my social life was so uh huge and so robust, but I spent great days working as a shepherd, for example, and playing cards with my neighbors, and uh went to rivers, and we also went to church sometimes, but I would say uh again in a small village, going to the church is also like a social event because it was like in the middle, so there were also people from other villages, and people basically met each other and had hard-to-part conversations, so yeah, I also treated it like a little bit of uh like meeting the people, networking, if you call it like that. Then, of course, when it was my age to go to school, I definitely came back to St. Petersburg, uh, and I kind of also forgot about it in a way, and then I think like five years ago, I mentioned to some of my friends that oh, actually, I lived in a village when I was a kid, and they were like, What? And I was like, Yeah, yeah, uh, didn't you like uh how is that for you? And uh when I then I started to tell them stories about like how does it look to live in a farm? What uh things needed to be done, how did we prepare for winter? How you should harvest all the vegetables and fruit, oh and they were like, Wow, who are you? And I think yes, that shaped me uh pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Oh yeah, I'm I'm sure. How many people lived in the village?

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Um I think maybe 15.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

15, wow, okay, tiny, tiny, tiny. Yes, that's uh yeah. Did did it have a name? The village uh have an yeah, it has a name.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

It's called Nagli. Basically, the idea is it located very, very close to Latvia, and as far as I'm aware, it was like Latvian um before the Second World War. But then, you know, again many things are happened and somehow it started to be Russian, but that is also the reason why I have like some Latvian roots, because uh, from my grandfather's perspective, uh half of his family, basically his brother lives in Latvia, you know, it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, yeah, that's wild. So you went to St. Petersburg State University and got a degree in philosophy, which I think is really cool. I I I a huge philosophy fan, I I guess like amateur. I didn't go to a college officially uh for philosophy, but um what was that like? I I mean, can you tell me uh more about what you studied uh within uh when you were getting that degree?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Yeah, if you don't mind, I will uh start a little bit earlier than that because it's uh yes, uh it's kind of a funny story in a way. So at some point of my life when I was at school, I decided that I want to be a doctor. So I changed my school to biology and chemistry tailored one, and I was like, I will be a doctor. This is my fate, and nobody can stop me. But basically, I realized that I'm allergic to most of the chemicals, and uh that was very sad, I would say. And I realized that if you're working as a doctor, you also need to touch all the different things, or you can put gloss, of course, but under the glows, like the allergy become even worse. And uh at that point, uh I was young and I didn't realize that I kind of can study maybe like some theory uh in a way. So I was like, what should I do? Uh I don't know what to do. I had this goal, and uh then I started to look for other different things that can be interesting for me, and I thought maybe I should go for something like management, which is a classical way for many people, but then I was like, but management is too high level. So I was like, if I'm going to study something like more humanitarian tailored, I will go to like the base of everything, and I decided to study philosophy. And honestly, when I came for my like first day at philosophy faculty, I like all the people were so motivated in there because I think it was their like life goal in a way to study there, and I was still not in denial, I was like very confused how did it happen to me? But uh yeah, my next four years were really cool. Basically, when you start studying philosophy, first year is a little bit boring in a way, because for the first year you need to study all additional courses, it was even biology for us, it's just part of the educational program. But we also started to read uh antique philosophy, and then I realized that I don't know how to read, basically, because you read the text and you're like, I definitely understood what is going on here, and then your professor challenges you, but what was like what was the idea behind it?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

You're like a lot of like philosophers. I mean, the the the writing is can be challenging when you first start reading philosophy, right? It's it's different, you have to read a lot slower. Yes, it's yeah, it's not like reading a lot of uh a lot of different types of literature, right? It's more work.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, you're like you're not reading for a plot, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

You're reading for like every word, like you have to okay. What's the this is exact definition of what they're saying, why they chose this actual word or the sentence structure or the syntax. Like like you have to, you know what I mean? It's it's it definitely is a learning curve in and of itself.

Returning To The City For School

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, it it at the beginning it made me completely like uh mad because you know uh I read a lot of books in my lifetime, I really like uh to read like from the very young age, but this was so challenging, and I started to kind of really debate myself like, do I really know how to read, or was it all a lie? But of course, the more you're reading something like that. I can say it's it be it becomes easier because you know, ancient philosophy is like one thing, and when you're going to medieval philosophy is completely another thing, and then you're going to like let's say to uh German philosophy is a different approach, and I'm not even talking about French philosophy, more modern. This is also a very different thing, but at least you kind of you have an understanding of how to approach it at the beginning. You're like, okay, first, like 10 pages, you just need to get used to vocabulary, and then you can kind of build on that. And uh, I also noticed that actually philosophers they really like to beef with each other. So let's say you're reading one guy, and he's like, This is what uh this is like the truth, and then you're reading the guy next to that person, they're like, Ah, do you know what this person mentioned? Actually, it's bullshit because it can't work like this, but I will say and I will tell you how it definitely works. And I'm like, it's it's funny, it's like I don't know, it's bottle.

From Medical Dreams To Philosophy

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Yeah, it's um it's a it's a lot of I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's really interesting. I think just getting to the core of like critical thinking and rational thinking, and it's it's so important for so many different reasons. Um but it I think it's like I don't know, maybe this is dramatic and I'm a little over the top, but I really see studying philosophy as like becoming we're aware of like the matrix. Like, you know, you think about like Neo, like he realizes like, oh, this is like there's this entire layer of life that really just isn't we don't have clarity, we don't understand the truth, we don't you know, and he realizes that and it's okay, the matrix is this different thing, and he's empowered because now he knows what's real, versus like this uh veil of like kind of ignorance that we sort of live in to some extent. And and I feel like that's like studying philosophy, it's like studying critical thinking, studying reasoning and logic opens our eyes to be able to identify faulty reasoning, circular reasoning, to really be able to at least strive to identify the the truth or or the nature of things, and I I find that to be fascinating. I and you so you specifically there was within philosophy there's different disciplines or specializations, and uh I believe you mentioned you you went down the path of studying specifically logic. What were the different specializations you could go down, and then why did you choose logic?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

So basically, for example, there were uh there was a history of philosophy, and their additional courses was to study uh ancient Greek or uh Latin, which was very exciting for them, I would say. There was also anthology and maybe uh something like ethics, but uh ethics and aesthetics, but we believe that this is like the easiest path that you can take.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

You think you think ethics is the easiest? I think ethics is the harder because there's like no ethical framework that like works at every situation. Ethics drives me up a wall, like because it's like it's you're trying to like distinguish what I I I I mean you're right, like I guess in a way it's like it's not as formula heavy per se, but like yeah, ethics to me is like I I don't know, that feels like endlessly complicated in a sense, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, but that was the approach we were living in. Uh and I think the thesis were it was a little bit easier for them to write a thesis because again they can maybe uh tackle different sources, and as you said, they could go for different conclusions, but if you rely on something more like structured in a way, it's a little bit harder to you know shape your thought in the concise way, right? And uh uh I chose logic. I don't I feel like I don't know why it did so many things in my life, but I think it happened randomly because previously when I was at school, I was a part of the uh debate team, and I yeah, actually was quite successful in it. Can I brag in this podcast? I don't know. Yeah, please do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

This is this is the opportunity to do that, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah, so I I was quite successful in it, like we won some championships, and then I went to university and mentioned in once uh talking to some logic professor, and he was like, Yeah, you did it. Well, it sounds exciting. Do you want to join the logic track? And I was like, Yeah, I think so. And this is how I joined them, but actually it was uh quite hard, I can tell, and I was a little bit maybe jealous uh sometimes because we definitely spent less time on the faculty of studying logic, so it was a lot of additional homework, I would say, when you needed to kind of ramp up your knowledge, um, because then again, it's like in the middle of philosophy in mathematics, and the mathematical part is not covered in uh philosophy faculty. We had some one course, but it was uh an easy one, I would say. So sometimes I was a little bit jealous for people who read, you know, books and they had so many interesting uh sources, and uh I also had a very strict mentor, which is a good thing actually, but sometimes I was also a little bit jealous because she didn't allow me to slack on things. I do remember when I made one of my thesis and she gave me some remarks, and I decided to skip one, and I was like, she will never notice the test. And the very next the very next iteration, she's like, Paulina, I definitely mentioned this like to you. Why didn't you do anything? And I was like, No. But yeah, at the end of the day, I was in charge of abstract argumental systems, and uh yeah, it was also hard because basically it was a very new theory for everybody in the scientific world, and it was implemented by Vietnamese scientists, and he did his articles in English. So for me to write my thesis, I needed to build the whole vocabulary in Russian so I can refer to the terms he used in his articles, and uh yeah, it was such a challenging work, and then my mentor also gave me a lot of remarks about that one, so it was like no.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

So so you said it's abstract argumental or argumentation theories.

Learning How Philosophers Read

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Is that yeah?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Could you explain exactly what what that is for maybe folks that aren't for like 99% of folks that are not gonna be like aware but what what that is exactly? How would you explain to somebody who's not like familiar with philosophy or this?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

So it's basically trying to inter like it's it's building an interpretation of the um conversation, but in the language of uh letters and symbols. So let's say, for example, you have an argument in court, and uh basically, of course, you can read the transcript, but you can also um split it argument by argument, nominating with different letters, and you can build a scheme what argument was defended, what is not, and by building this consequence, you can see which side was not necessarily right, but was which side uh won. And uh basically the whole idea behind it was to help um actually um computer interfaces and what's not like machine interfaces to communicate better with human beings. Of course, I didn't uh dive that uh you know that deep, but yeah, basically we just tried to make um our speech speak mathematics.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Wow, okay. Oh, that's that's really cool. I would actually like to learn more about this.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Do you recommend any like books or any resources that I could uh I don't necessarily remember his name, I think it was Panmin Duk Dunc, but if you I think Google abstract argumental systems or approach, you should find someone.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Honestly, when I ended my uh thesis, I was so happy about this.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Okay, yeah, it's just uh that was painful. Yeah, well that that's really cool. You definitely didn't go the path of least resistance there uh within your degree. It sounds like you really pushed yourself and uh did something really, really challenging, which I I definitely I admire about you. Was it after university that you relocated to Denmark? Or when when did you what what brought that about?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Uh actually, no. I studied my career definitely in St. Petersburg. It was uh a tough experience because you are so cool studying philosophy, and then you kind of realize that you need to find the original job. Uh and I was lucky enough to start my career as an ATE recruiter as an agency, and I worked, I think, four or five years in different companies in St. Petersburg. But then my friend uh told me that they have an opening in the company in Copenhagen, and he asked me if I want to try it, and I didn't want to try it because I really liked my previous company, but then I was like, well, it definitely like it's like my first interview with an international company, so it's definitely won't be you know a hire, so I can just try it and uh see where I should uh build more skills to be more successful next time. But surprisingly, I got the job and I worked remotely for some time, but then I relocated three and a half years ago, so spent quite a lot of time in Denmark already, but I would say I started to feel like more at home like last year or so.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Yeah, that's that's great. So um you mentioned like I'm just curious, like from a cultural experience perspective, like what was it like making the transition from living in Russia to living in Denmark? That must have been a pretty interesting transition for you.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, I would say so. So I think what was easy for me and somehow hard for other people is uh to live in this uh more or less northern climate because I know many people who relegated from like Greece, Spain, Italy, and some other warmer places, and uh most of them were like winter in Denmark is like very hard, and Polina, be aware about it, it's very depressing, there is no light. And uh luckily or not luckily, I don't know. St. Petersburg is extremely cold, so we have like minus 25 in winter and uh three hours of light in December.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

And here it's like the worst day was minus five, to my experience. So for me, it's a huge upgrade. Yes, it's it's a huge upgrade. So I didn't really notice. To something, it was like a really nice benefit. Also, it was quite quite easy for me to communicate with people because most of them are like reserved in a way. It's not that they're cold, but they have a different approach of communicating. They're a little bit more like distant, maybe. But uh it's basically the same. I think it's maybe a little bit like something that is going from the Nordic countries in a way. This is how we communicate to each other, or better to say, not to communicate with each other, because I think we don't have this culture of going like uh on the streets and walking around because the weather is not that nice to you. But even so, I one day I realized when you like meet an eye of another person, when you like, let's say you for some reason looked at another person in the subway and trying to avoid it by any cause, but let's say it happened, they smile you back, and it was very awkward for me. You will never smile back in Russia, no, because if you know if you're smiling back, it means that you are weird, like it means that it's basically it's a dangerous situation, yeah. So you will never smile back, and uh, when I look at these different people on the bikes, on the palms, or whatever, they were smiling to me, and I was like, What do you want from me?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

I don't want you thinking I don't know why it's maybe thinking it's like you know that like horror movie where it's like the smile thing where like people are just smiling. You're like, What's going on everywhere I go? People are like smiling at me. That's funny.

Choosing Logic And Doing Hard Work

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah, it's it was very confusing, and I needed to train myself to smile back. I basically need to train because I was always like with this how they call um slavic gaze, like this, and they smiled at me and I was looking at them like awkwardly because why something is wrong with me? Like, I don't know, do I look funny? I don't know, but I trained myself because uh it was important, and uh also, of course, I would say mostly in Europe, people ask you, like, how are you doing? And uh most likely you need to reply, I'm doing good or something, and then the conversation is going naturally, it's more like a small talk. In Russia, we do not ask this question if we are not interested at all.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah, I love that. So, like, no, not really.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

No, you need to have a purpose of the conversation, right? And uh, if someone asks you, you can you're eligible to tell you the whole story of your day, like this day, let's say, sucks. I woke up, everything went super wrong, my mother called me, I don't know, everything chapter by chapter, and this is an expected answer. Or if you say that everything is good, you also can explain the context of why is it good for you. So we expect something like this, and here I realized that maybe people are not so invested in the story of my day. So I was like, okay, I will not start the whole conversation around it, and basically, even messaging to other people like if you're working in like Russian workplace, we don't even say hi sometimes because if you have a task, you just like print this message or do this, do that, and it's not true that just you're speaking with the things you need from another person, or vice versa. And here you need to kind a little bit, hi, how are you? And nobody replies to it, and I don't understand why I should ask it, but I trade myself as well. But uh what is uh very cool about Denmark is that they have this culture of work-life balance. I was also very confused about it. I I don't know, it it felt that I'm an alien because when I went to the office and it was like 5 p.m. I would say, people started to go home. And I was like, why everybody is leaving? Because we just started, and nobody really messages you in the evening, or if they're messaging you, they're not expecting you to reply immediately. That was very confusing to me as well, because I think I got used to the working culture when things need to be done immediately, and uh they nobody cares if you're like if it's like 11 pm or not. So I went with this mindset and then I was like, oh my god, I actually have a whole evening to do something for myself. Yeah, it's very hard.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Well, so now you're getting into what you're doing today, currently over in Monta, which is a a growth stage tech company. How many employees do you guys have?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

We have 205.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Okay, so two oh five. And uh I I'd be curious to learn more about like what what are you working on this year uh at work? Like what what problems are you solving? What opportunities? Like what's your what's your focus for 2026 over at Monta?

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Um my personally or company wise?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Just for you, like yeah, I maybe both. I don't know. It's like some context on like what you're what you're up to.

Abstract Argumentation Explained Simply

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Um I think um like internally what we are aiming for Monta now is a switch for AI. Uh our engineers started to use AI last year already, like Cloud Code and Copilot, but uh mid of February we decided to switch to Cloud like as a whole company, and uh everybody is using Cloud Code nowadays, including like my team or marketing team, like everybody. I can't say that this is uh an easy time because I think it's basically the first time I've seen my life when such technology came to life, and you basically need to rethink all of the processes or all of the habits that you developed previously in your life. Maybe for engineers it's a little bit easier, but uh I can speak about myself. I'm like, okay, I gathered all of this knowledge, but what now? Like, what should I do with it? Uh it's not relevant anymore, maybe to some cases. And uh I think I'm currently researching on what can be done in the AI area because it seems that there are a lot of opportunities, but at the same time, I think there are a lot of things that you shouldn't do. It's a big topic in talent acquisition, but I think that we need to understand what actually AI is, and it is a Netherland model, it's not objective, it is trained on the pieces of information that was gathered from other sources, so it's also biased. Uh, we cannot say that this is some kind of you know very objective decision maker, but at the same time, I do not want to, you know, deny the progress because it's also strange. And uh, piece by piece I'm trying to understand how to utilize it the best. Currently, I have a very holistic uh approach of how to implement it because the hardest thing is to start, right? Let's say I'm doing the same task again and again, and then I kind of catch myself on it, and I'm like, actually, something can be done here, probably. I don't know. I don't know. The limitation of Claude is uh dark material for me. So I'm like, I will do my best. So I'm spending some time on doing my best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's not, sometimes I I spend like I will say like a week, but it doesn't mean the whole week because I have other tasks to do, but a nice amount of hours on that. And yeah, sometimes it's successful, still, sometimes it's quite frustrating. But I think this is the only way you can actually get to the idea of what's going on. Um sometimes, of course, I also ask it, what can I do better? But I would say in many cases it's quite unrelevant to what I'm doing. So I'm just trying to overview my own work, make a step back or outside, like just like with philosophy, to catch the momentum, to see like what's what's going on actually at my work, and then to try to solve the issue. But I'm rather curious what will happen next with AI. There is, of course, a huge potential, and it's like growing so fast. So let's see where we will be in a year or so.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Within talent acquisition, are there any use cases for AI that you're most interested in? Or are you still sort of you're just looking to see what seems to happen over the over the next year? I was curious if anything really stands out to you as a potentially really strong use case.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

I think I already implemented some things that I find rather cool. You gave me an opportunity to brag about myself. Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Come on, let's see what's what do you got? Like, what have you done so far?

Starting A Recruiting Career In Russia

Relocating To Denmark And Adapting

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Uh so basically um we have an ATS system which I believe uh has a lot of gaps internally. And with the usage of Claude, I'm trying to make it better, at least for me. So, for example, we have uh scorecard system, everybody has it. And uh unfortunately it doesn't give you the average number of all the like uh numbers, uh evaluation numbers that you gave to a candidate. So you like say like communication is four, resilience is three, I don't know, um self-starter five. There are different numbers, but what is the average? Uh so some people use the their like mind to calculate it, maybe some people try to kind of look at it very closely and try to guess. But I think it's very valuable to see an actual number at the end to see if the candidate is closer to let's say four or closer to three or closer to two. So it's just and it's also well documented. So if let's say if I want to count the quality of the candidates a heart so far in the first quarter, I will have precise mathematical data. So, what did I do is I basically trained Claude to gather the information right after the scorecard was submitted. It counts it and the back, and uh then in the comment section it gives like the stage, the name of the interviewer, and the average number. As easy as that, but it helps a lot, and now I believe it started to make more sense actually. Uh also I build the thing that uh nudists hiring managers to fill their scorecards because I think you know there is sometimes an issue when they actually conducted an interview, but then forget to put the information there. So after 24 hours, uh Claude is sending a Slack direct message to the person who forgot about it and basically say, Hi, name. It seems that you forgot to like fill out the scorecard for name with the hyperlink, so it will be easier for them to go to you know the AT system without you know searching for the name. And uh, if they don't do it in 24 hours, then they will receive a new message in 72 hours. It's sometimes hallucinating, you know, it's not working perfectly well, but I'm on it. Also, I realized that I don't receive text notification that good. Actually, while we are talking, I have a new scorecard average. It was quite annoying because I say Haramasure tag me, I never know about it, I missed it, and then I to prevent it, I needed to go through all the candidates and see did anything happen. So I trained Claude to catch text, and uh, it's like it just gives me an overview of new text uh with hyperlinks to candidates. So, as my next steps, I want to automate offers because I'm a little bit tired of doing them, like to fill out this information manually. I think it can be done better. And uh also we have different salary ranges for different locations. It's mostly because of the additional social costs, like you pay, let's say, more pension, Spain or whatever, so it's like not a direct conversion. So I build the whole calculator, but also I wanted to also map it out with the seniority level we have for different departments, so I don't need to go through different shits and like trying to understand what's happening and where. So a lot of things I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Yeah, it sounds like it. It's um it sounds like it's like very TA ops heavy.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Like it is very much true.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

That's really cool. Well, yeah, I mean, also like with your logic background that sort of tracks, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah, that's what's why I like it.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah, no, I can see it. So I can see that's like and that's like I feel like such an incredibly important skill set to develop in town acquisition, especially now like executives really kind of expect people in town acquisition to be very savvy to know how to appropriately implement AI and automation throughout a process, leave alleviate bottlenecks and increase productivity, not only know where to use it, but know where not to, and know where like recruiters' time should be spent when you automate and and leverage AI as appropriately. Like, well, what does that mean for recruiters where when they get these productivity gains back? Like, how are they investing that um to move faster? And um, so it's I think it's like more and more like table stakes. So and you sound ahead of the curve, it sounds like you really are pushing quite aggressively in appropriate ways to implement like some pretty positive change. So kudos to you. Um just to zoom out a little bit, I would love to talk to you about your top takeaways at this point in your career in talent acquisition, like just high level for folks tuning in, kind of any kind of advice or feedback on what you feel like is most important to run running uh or being you know and being part of a TA program. Like what advice would you give folks tuning in?

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Um quite the contrary of AI topic, I would like to give an advice of building like very human-shaped relationships with your candidates as well as hiring managers. I'm always trying to show to my candidates that I'm also a human being and not living in this uh distant castle, making strict decisions. I'm trying to understand them better. I'm trying to build a very safe environment for them to express themselves because I honestly believe that if you have this environment, you can showcase some skills that can be really valuable, but you can just not notice them because the candidate will be shaking, and this is very much understandable. And this is something I'm also spreading to my team and to the hiring managers, and I just want everybody to have a good time in the best way possible. Of course, it still should be an interview and still should still should evaluate skills, but there are so many different approaches to do so. And if something I would choose a conversational one and very human-based one. But also now thinking about that, uh, I think as a talent acquisition, you also need to be very open to new technologies and new ways of working. This is kind of um joke when you're in the middle on in so many things in so many departments. If you want to hire best tech talents, you need to speak the same language as your engineering team. Uh, as uh you're working with commercial, you need to understand like how revenue is growing in your company and what is basically the mindset. So I think stay curious and uh be a human.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Yeah, I love that. There you go, like never losing sight of the human element, right? Yeah. I and that's like we when we think about like our technology stack, we should be thinking about how to improve those human experiences, like the human interaction. As I see more of like how we're figuring out how to leverage AI and automation for because I mean there really hasn't ever been a better time to like significantly increase productivity. Like there are some ways to really improve uh productivity and and move faster. But there's also it's like again, so what what now? Like, how do we how do we optimize for the human elements of it? And there's also never been an opportunity to do better opportunity to do that. Like recruiters aren't going anywhere, like that's not what this technology is doing. But what it is doing is it's an opportunity, right? Like to really drive like relationships and to be smarter with our time and to be more strategic with our time. So I think it's like it's really cool. It's really cool. I like I like the emphasis you put on that.

Danish Communication And Work-Life Balance

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Thank you so much. Um, but I also think we really need to think more of like how we are doing things, right? How we can scale, uh, what uh what is the culture, how do we evaluate candidates, like what are the really important things? Because especially in the huge organizations, when you need to hire like, I don't know, a big amount of people, you're like like uh hiring, hiring, hiring, hiring, and even if you're trying to do your like very best, sometimes something's just missing because everybody are so busy. It's so important sometimes just to you know take a pause and really discuss with teams and with everybody included what is like what is it that is so important for us. And I think this is the question that uh AI cannot uh answer you because AI is not working in your company. It's uh great, mate, but it's not your colleague, it's not something that lives by the culture of your company, which is very fair. I don't want to be uh killed by robots in the future, so please AI, don't don't remember me saying uh uh good, all good with your friends, but these are the things that cannot be like taken, and uh we need to concentrate on them. But of course, if you can schedule interviews in five seconds, not ten minutes, even you should go for that.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, makes sense. Uh so I you know when you think about your own development as a recruiter and town acquisition professional, like what what are you focused on in your career at this point? Like, where do you really want to focus on developing and improving?

SPEAKER_00 43:15

As a professional, I still didn't decide. Uh, I think there is a career track uh in the management field. And uh when I was younger, I thought that it is definitely not for me. Uh but now I'm thinking that maybe it is for me, and uh I will do my best to be a good uh manager for my future student assistant and let's see how it's going. But at the same time, I of course lean a lot to uh technical stuff, and I really like to build this operational flow or maybe strategies to kind of be more like a business partner in a way. So I think this is at least for now, my dream to become this strategic partner for business and uh really emphasize to the fact that talent acquisition is uh you know not a service, it is a partner, and uh it is for the best interest to everybody involved because talent acquisition um is someone who will help you to build your team, and your team will either lead you to the success or not. Uh so yeah, but on a person more personal matter, I would say that I'm quite uh an introverted person, unfortunately. This is how it is. I would like, I guess, to gain more confidence and what do I know uh and uh be more vocal about it. And I think this particular moment with this podcast is one one of my steps to do so. So let's see, maybe next year I will be on every billboard in the world. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? Please invite me.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's um well yeah, good for you, right? I mean, like you're really investing in like rounding out your skill set and yeah forward thinking. I what do you think changed? Like you going from maybe not seeing yourself as like initially earlier in your career the manager or leader to now deciding, hey, that's something really interesting that I want to consider pursuing. Like what do you think shifted for you?

SPEAKER_00 45:30

I think it helps me to oversee processes for more from more holistic level, right? Because when you are doing your everyday tasks, it's easy to kind of log in on them and be like my main goal let's say is to hire this person to this team, which is completely fair. But at the same time being a talent acquisition or actually whoever in the company is being the part of the business model, right? So I think they tell this allows me to oversee it more like more questioning why. Like why do we need it, how it will affect the business, uh what goals we are trying to achieve. And I find it quite amusing because it's like a new level of understanding. It's a new connection. Luckily at my job I currently collaborate with C level quite a lot. And I think uh listening to their perspective is also quite interesting because sometimes I definitely feel that I'm a little bit stuck in my own head. And then you see the underlaying reasoning and everything starts to make sense. That's cool. Everything's connected.

Rolling Out AI Across Monta

Practical AI Automations In TA Ops

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Everything's connected yeah I love that like the the whole more holistic view it's it's like kind of elevating your ability to problem solve and build like a cohesive talent acquisition motion. And you touched on this too like taking the conversation a little bit more to like a personal or holistic level in terms of like just like your life you've already touched on this a little bit but like what does the next best version of yourself look like like holistically as a person who who are you becoming who do you want to become who am I becoming I know this like as a philosophy major this question is like I don't know I don't know I honestly I won't I don't think it maybe not sound professional at all but please bear with me about I think my best version of myself will be very much relaxing most of the time because I think with bigger responsibility comes a bigger anxiety and at some point you find yourself ruminating on things a little bit too much or maybe you know thinking about your tasks and maybe dreaming about your task at night which is not healthy and actually affects your productivity in a worse way but I would like to find my peace and uh be this cool chill you know professional who is coming to the office brighten everybody's day and uh you know just going with the flow other than trying to fight with fires every time so yeah this is uh the best version of me in the future I love it yeah it sounds like achieving a balance to some extent right yeah yeah that's that's awesome well Paulina this has been so much fun it's been so great getting to know you and I really appreciate just everything your perspective your background uh everything that you've learned like just and and your like just desire to be well rounded like you're it in every way it's like that like and it goes back to like everything from like your education to the different professional experiences and different cultures that you've experienced and how you're thinking about building out TA programs and like having that technical kind of bias towards being objective and logical in terms of your approach but then also being not like now thinking about like the human element and the interpersonal elements and in the leadership elements of building a cohesive unit. It's like it's all very logical and it exhibits a lot of like self-awareness to think about like how to become like this well-rounded leader. So I think you have definitely something very special uh about you um and I just I'm grateful that you're you came on to contribute to the show today. So thank you for for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Oh yeah I'm not good at taking compliments but uh I really enjoyed it too. So yeah thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Yeah yeah thank you and for everybody tuning in thanks for joining us and we'll talk to you soon