The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Modern Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy
Welcome to The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy, a podcast for leaders building better hiring systems and stronger teams.
Hosted by James Mackey, the show features conversations with founders, CEOs, talent leaders, and recruiting experts on how great companies hire, scale, and adapt as technology changes the talent landscape.
Episodes cover talent acquisition strategy, recruiting operations, AI, automation, candidate experience, hiring analytics, and executive decision-making.
You will learn how to build scalable hiring systems, use AI and recruiting technology effectively, improve the hiring process, and make talent acquisition a competitive advantage.
Built for founders, executives, talent acquisition leaders, recruiters, and hiring teams.
Thank you to our sponsors, SecureVision and June, for making this show possible.
The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Modern Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy
EP 181: How to Win with Employer Branding and Candidate Experience
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Megan Batterbury, Senior Talent Operations Specialist at incident.io, joins us to talk about what it really means to scale hiring with heart by building efficient systems without losing the human touch. She shares how thoughtful planning, transparent employer branding, and playful team rituals shape recruiting experiences that truly connect.
Connect with host James Mackey on LinkedIn!
Thank you to our sponsor, SecureVision, for making this show possible!
Follow us:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/82436841/
SecureVision: #1 Rated Embedded Recruitment Firm on G2!
https://www.g2.com/products/securevision/reviews
Thanks for listening!
Concrete Demo Room And Office Vibes
SPEAKER_00We have Megan Batterbury here. She is the Senior Talent Operations Specialist at incident.io. Megan, thanks for joining me on the show today.
SPEAKER_01Hi. How are you?
SPEAKER_00I'm doing great. Yeah, so, anyways, the room that you're in is freaking awesome. For everybody listening on the podcast, you should actually watch the video because she's in this like little concrete cellar thing, but it has like really cool red lights and some different cool stuff. You said it's your your demo room or what?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we have two of these so that the sales team like have somewhere they can go that's like soundproof. It's like fully set up for them to like be able to do very polished demos for customers. But a lot of the product team will come in here when they're doing stuff with customers as well. We use it if we're filming like looms or like demos or stuff to go out to the business as well. We'll often be in here. Um, or if you really want to like bouge up a hiring manager interview for someone, you'll put them in here as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that sounds really nice. We were just talking about you what what book were you mentioning? There's like some book that talks about why tech companies have all this like the unfinished.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's called Careless People. It's someone's opinion of like early days of working at Facebook, basically. It's very controversial in the fact of they tried to put a gag order out on it so that she couldn't promote it. And the idea that she has and that's said a lot, even like from friends I know that have worked at Meta now, their whole narrative is they try and leave like the office exposed so not everything looks polished, neat and tidy because the product isn't fully finished yet. And that's the thing that people try and push out as a narrative with things, and it's like, no, no, no, it's just because you had enough at the final hurdle when it came to furnishing your office. Right now that's the narrative you want to spin to candidate, so it looks a bit better for you. Um, but yeah, she talks about that a lot
Startup Aesthetics And Naming Lore
SPEAKER_01of like how you know when you go into some offices and they've got the exposed wire over the top, and yeah, it's spoken about in that, which is quite funny as well. Because when you read it, as someone that's worked in startups and had friends that worked in startups, you know that there's companies that use that example as well, which is quite technically.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Like all the startup lingo. Yeah, we have the same thing in our building, so it's like yeah, it's everywhere now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. It's just like I've I think everyone goes, like one person does it, and then everyone kind of like copies it's like you know, meeting room names, their niche to a business as well, right? Like you go to LinkedIn's, and LinkedIn offices are typically each ones that called something dependent on that location office, and then our meeting rooms are named after things of the incident journey. So we have Chrome Pineapple because when the business was first started, our publicly traded name is Pineapple Technologies because we couldn't have incident IO. Um, so they bought a Chrome Pineapple, like little like statue thing. Uh, but they've smashed about three of them since the business has been going. So we don't even have the original one anymore. So there's a meeting room called Chrome Pineapple, there's a meeting room called Door to Nowhere because we were in an office that we were on the top floor, and the door opened just out to the street, so it was like a sheer drop, and it was just called the door to nowhere or the emergency exit interview, like is the other one that was like jokingly called. And then one of our old offices was in a dish used fire station, which is quite ironic given the fact that our logo's aflame as well, and we're an incident management company, so it was like quite cool to have all of that there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that sounds like a really cool story. I'm gonna have to go to the office one day.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the ones in San Francisco are called donut because we have the rule here if you leave your laptop unlocked, like in the office, someone will go in the Slack channel and be like, donuts on me, because obviously we're an incident management company, it's security, you shouldn't be leaving your laptop open. And it gets pretty vicious at times. Like, there is no friends with if you leave your laptop open. Um like people like one of the girls I sit next to had to write a message being like, Don't donut me. I'm trying to upload something, I need the laptop open to be able to do it. That's the lengths people will go to. Like, people will watch someone turn around and like lay wait. Okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00They'll watch, yeah, they'll watch.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So Alyssa, who is the GTM recruiter in
Donut Rule And Office Pranks
SPEAKER_01the San Francisco office, she was like, someone did her message and it was like, uh donuts and steaks on me. And she genuinely turned up in the office with donuts and steaks to like prove a point. Um, and it is like it becomes like a thing of where people are like, you know who owes donuts in the business as well. So if someone gets donutted and someone hasn't paid up for their donuts, someone will comment underneath being like, so and so still owes us their donuts. And it's like you should have donut tax on that as well.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. Like you have to do now, you have to do more, you have to bring more or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And this is the these are the benefits that you really don't get from working at home.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. This is really that's actually like that's so much fun. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you never have to worry about when you're at home locking your laptop and you know, right, worrying about maybe your cat or your dog donuting you. Like these are just things that you have to do. Donating you, okay.
SPEAKER_00You turn it into like a verb, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, in an office, it's like, oh, these are things that we consistently have to be aware of, um, yeah, and like be like mindful of. Uh, but yeah, it is quite funny. It's like the the two claim to fames that I have. I got our IT operations team member, whose literal job during onboarding is to tell people to their laptops.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's that's a right that's a tough one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and one of the founders who he was the one that told us about it. So when I got him, I've never been so proud. Like, I've I've not done anyone else since just because I feel like I'm on a high. Like I've done, like, other than getting all of the leadership team in one failed swoop, it's just not worth it anymore. Like, I've nailed it.
SPEAKER_00That would be awesome. You gotta stage a fire alarm or something to get everybody to run out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that would they don't like a fire alarm though. The irony of the logo being fire and we don't like a fire alarm.
SPEAKER_00They get a little too far.
SPEAKER_01Yes, like I feel like someone would be like, no, no, no, this is too far now if we're doing this. Um, but yeah, that's one of the weirdest things that one of our meeting rooms is named after. But it's quite good for candidates coming because we want them to ask questions like why meeting rooms are called those names, and like if a candidate's done their research, they should know why some of them are called it. There is a picture of Stephen with the door to nowhere on our candidate hub, and I've labelled it as the door to nowhere. So, like some candidates will come in an interview and they're like, Oh, is this called Door to Nowhere because of this picture? And I'm like, Yes, and you've done your research, thank you. Which is quite good as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's uh I like that. I like the the thought there. Or it says like just having a typical conference room just like conference room number two, like whatever. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we do have two rooms in London called A and B, but yeah, we were supposed to vote on what they were called, and then everyone was just like, we quite like the names room A and B, just for some level of randomness, like of why they're called that here. So they're just called A and B, and everyone gets like, when you're explaining it to candidates, you're like, Yeah, this room's called this, this room's called this. But these two rooms are just called A and B, and they're like, why? And we're like we just got to a stage where it was like, what do we want to call this? And then everyone would start arguing with people about what names were, and it's just easier just to leave it.
SPEAKER_00A it's just a offering.
SPEAKER_01Like, yeah, it's just A of B at this stage, they're the fun ones. This room's called the Flame Hole, which was a very in-depth discussion of uh when the design team rounded the logo so it wasn't as pointy, and it was like very a lot of discussions of the flame hole of the incident logo, so that became like a joke because all you heard in the office for about three weeks was flame hole, and that's why this room is called this, and then we have one that's called the neon nook because of all of the neon we have as a business, so they all flow together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it works. That's uh that's fun, and that's a nice icebreaker conversation with candidates too, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Obviously, not encompassing your entire culture, right? But like just like the fun and playful stuff, right? Like where it's you know. Um, I need to find something like don't I need to donut my team.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you introduce it and then you quickly work out actually how savage people are with it.
SPEAKER_00Like, yes, oh I think I think my team would be completely savage with it. I think we would just it might be like we might get a little too obsessive.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's certain people that you won't do it to. So like the VP of the VP of finance is typically like he's safe because he's in charge of the money, and like we don't want to piss him off. And then the other ones that people won't do are like the legal team because the sales team need them to sign off the contracts quickly. So, like nine times out of ten, it's the sales team being like, Oh, so and so's laptops unlocked, and we're like, Do you want to go and donut them? And then they're gonna take longer with your contract, or and they're like, We'll leave it. So it's like you have some there's some moral ground somewhere, but a lot of time it is just oh, so and so's left their laptop undone run, um, and then it's free game, and then you can't delete it either because as soon as someone sees it in the channel, everyone comments underneath it. So like you can't actually escape from it.
SPEAKER_00You're just it's out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_00You just can't take it back.
SPEAKER_01No, and rightly so. It's like shame. You should have locked your laptop. Not my problem. Um, but yeah, it's a random thing that we do that's quite entertaining. You have to prep new starters though, like you have to tell them because if they've come from an environment where they can leave their laptops open, you kind of need to make them aware that that will happen and they don't care if you're new, they will do it. You have to be like, you need to lock your laptop because they don't care. They'll wait for you to be a few days in and then they'll do it.
SPEAKER_00They'll do it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I love it. I'm excited to learn more about you and what you're up to now. But like just to take a step back first, how did you get into recruiting?
SPEAKER_01Like most people, I fell into it. I was leaving university and started interviewing for jobs, went through a rec to rec agency and interviewed for a company. And they were like, we are hiring recruiters at an agency, but we're also hiring like an internal person, which I don't think is the normal route for a lot of people. I've worked internal more than I've worked, like agency side. And I got the job there, worked internal, and then did agency for a stint, and then
Megan’s Path Into Talent
SPEAKER_01went and did like account management and then came back to talent because I think it's like you get into a world where you're like, oh yeah, I don't want to work in talent anymore, and then you leave it and you're like, actually, I'd rather go back to this, like I'd rather go back to what I know. And I think talent does have loads of different avenues that you can do in it. You don't have to, you know, just hire people, you don't have to just source and stuff like that. You can do different things within it, and I think that's what I've been really fortunate to be able to do. Like, I lived in Australia for a year where I worked in talent out there and I worked for like an amazing company that it was just like, this is everything that's broken. Please help us hire people and like run assessment centres and things like that as well. And I was really fortunate to be given that. And I loved working with the team out there as well. It was a very different way of working, and then came back to London and was like, ah, I can do this again now because like I've done it, and just stepped back into it again. And now I incident, I lead on like all of the talent op side. So I like am on everything from like a kickoff call right the way through to like maybe a candidate being debriefed. Um, and then I also kind of like lead on all of the employer branding. So from the talent perspective, from when we do like monthly filming in the office and things like that as well, it's really important for us that we have a lot of content out there. We're loud on the internet, but also as well, like we have enough content out there that someone could, someone who is interviewing can kind of get the story of incident without someone telling you the story, like the contents out there for them to find.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm uh looking forward to learning more about that. So, where do you spend most
Planning Headcount And Hiring Ops
SPEAKER_00of your time? Like, what's your top priority right now?
SPEAKER_01Um, at the moment, it's like prepping everything for 2026. So we have our headcount like ready to go. That's all preloaded into Ashby, having discussions with hiring managers of like, do you want to refresh the job advert for next year? Making sure basically everything, the train tracks are ready and laid so that when 2026 starts, nothing is gonna like break along the way. It's all just ready to go and we can run at it full force. Because I think this year we started off the year with like two, me and another talent partner was all we had in London, like in the company. Sorry. She was based in Maryland, I'm in London, and that was it. It was a lot of hiring for two people to do. Like me and my VP of engineering were in the trenches at times with hiring. And there was so much that I was like, if I do this this year, we know what the hiring game plan is. We know when things are expected, what things could be pulled forward if they're going to be pulled forward. Let's get everything ready now so that it's not firefighting in the new year, it's like ready to go and we can just run at it. So, yeah, that's what I'm working on at the moment.
SPEAKER_00Sounds like uh a lot of work. So, when you're looking at planning for next year, what are the most important elements? How do you go about doing that to make sure you're ready to go?
SPEAKER_01It's looking at like the jobs that we will have open at that time. So, how many like you know, your green field roles you have open at that time, and what's the split between the talent partners as well? But also additionally, what are the more niche roles that you're gonna have open at that time as well? Because you know, your green field roles are really easy to fill, but your niche roles that you have to like typically go and hunt for and source for are gonna take more time because the talent partners are having to learn the roles and stuff like that as well and get ready with it. Um, so it's like looking at things like that. And our hiring managers are great, they'll very much be like, we know that this role is gonna take a little bit longer, maybe. Let's start this now so that they buy themselves time. So we've got hiring managers at the moment that are messaging the team being like, Oh, can we open this job? Because we want to get it ready for January so that it's ready to go. And we can come back in Jan, have a group of like candidates ready to go for like hiring manager interviews and just like basically push people through. Also, the difference between London and the US is the notice periods. So within engineering in the UK, you're typically working with a three-month notice period, which is wild. Like when you tell US people, they're like, What? Our hiring managers in the US, when they were hiring people, they were like, Oh, that this person's on a I was like, Yeah, you know, like notice periods in the UK are like one month for people. And they were like, for sales. And I was like, Yeah, everyone's on a month. And they were like, What? Like, for them they just couldn't comprehend it. They were like, Well, why are we two weeks? Everything here is two weeks, and you have to like that fate that kind of like builds into a plan as well of when do we open the UK job versus when do we open the SF roles for us? Um, also things that we have to discuss with hiring managers and contend with. And then you also have things of like interviewer load. So it's knowing how many people are at each stage, what else they're working on, um, have we got not enough people at this stage, then we need to train people up, or have we got too many, that we need to like make sure we're spreading e interviews better. And then it's also looking at like, you know, when these roles are going to open as well. So you want to open a lot of roles at the beginning of a quarter or the end of a quarter. You kind of have to work with the sales team on that. I have like a gentleman's agreement with the sales team that I won't like book in a lot of interviews towards the end of the quarter or end of a month. Uh, because
Notice Periods And Global Timing
SPEAKER_01obviously they're quite trying to close deals and they're trying to like push things over the line. And I don't want a candidate to turn up for an interview and feel like they're not getting their role from an interview because they know that they're trying to work on a deal at the same time. So yeah, it's a lot to it's a lot of moving plates at once that people I feel like some people just you don't think about until they're like in the mix of it.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I think what stood out to me too is getting ahead, potentially even several quarters out on the interview load for the team and ensuring that they actually have the capacity and giving thought to that like proactively during the hiring plan, yeah, uh planning for the next year. Not even just on a quarterly basis, right? And particularly when you're working across multiple time zones and multiple teams, you have to be really organized.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and as well, like we've got, you know, we've got team members that have told us that they're expecting next year. So you have to like factor things like that in. You also factor things in like the UK has a lot of bank holidays, and what does that look like? When's our off-site? When's RKO? When's like the product kickoff at the beginning of the year? And it's things like that that you factor in into the whole year of a plan to be like, does this make sense? Because this year there was, I think it was in May, we didn't get a full working week incident because we had bank holidays, then there was federal holidays, then it was like we also get first Friday of the month off, and then it was like, oh, and then we had our offsite. So we had the whole of May with no full working week, and then it was like, then everyone was out for a week because we were at our offsite in Greece, which I'm never gonna complain about as a free holiday. Um, but it was also like you're telling candidates, by the way, this interview isn't really gonna happen until like mid-June, and then you've then got people on annual leave, candidates on annual leave. So we try and really get ahead with things like this. The EA who works with the founders is incredible. She is consistently providing us updates of founders' whereabouts for like at least three months out because we know where they're gonna be. That's gonna only change fractionally and letting us know where they're gonna be. But also, it's like my job to tell the talent team by the way, you can expect this is gonna slow down because they're all gonna be here for this date. So there's gonna be no interviewing, and then it's things of the offsite is in a month. We need to start telling candidates now just to prepare them of like just a heads up. We're we're going on our off-site on this date. We're gonna try and move you through the process as quickly as possible as we have you wrapped up before we go. But please bear in mind like if you're not completed by this date, there'll be a week lull. And you want to give candidates more information than not enough, and then they feel like they're left in the dark while we're all sitting on a beach in Greece type thing.
SPEAKER_00I guess you could invite them if you really like them, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so this year we had a plane to fill, and me and the uh people obsolete were had like we knew that like we had X amount of seats on the London flight and the San Francisco flight, and any candidates that were coming into office like at least three weeks before the office. I was like, what's your notice period? And they were like, Oh, you know, it's like this amount. I was like, Oh, that's a real shame because we're all going to Greece on this place. If you could finish earlier, like you can come with us, and it's like a week, a week holiday, like everyone you'll get, and uh like you really sell it to them, you're like, this is the one opportunity where everyone in the business is together. We do one work in session, like these are the activities we've got. You would be shocked the amount of people we got like signed over the line.
SPEAKER_00I'm not that shocked, actually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we had like two or We had new starters. Like we had someone that started on the Monday when we flew to Greece. She'd never met any of the team before in person. Everything was done remotely. She came for her interview. She just turned up at the airport, and there was
Interviewer Load And Calendar Realities
SPEAKER_01like 60 of us getting ready to go on this plane. She'd never met anyone, and we were like, hey. And that's like possibly the most terrifying way to meet everyone in a business at once. It's like be like trapped on a plane, on a holiday with everyone when you really don't know, like you've got nothing around you that's like normal for you. Um, and then we had a someone who came along who hadn't even started yet. He was like on break in between jobs. And we were like, Do you want to come? And he was like, Yeah, I'll come. So he came for like three days um before his kids finished school for the summer to spend time with us. Then he started on his first day, and his cohort of new starters that he started with were like, How do you know everyone already? Did you work with people before? And he was like, No, I went to the office site. And it's like things like that that I think are just so niche that a lot of companies would do, but as well, like a lot of candidates would like my my anxiety and nerves could never, I could never go somewhere where I wasn't aware of who everyone was, what it was gonna be like. And it's basically like jumping into the frying pan, effectively, day one on and off site with like everyone together.
SPEAKER_00It feels pretty natural though, in a way, right? Like, meaning it's focusing on just a normal human interaction. You get to know someone, you're like, oh hey, we're gonna go do this thing, like come along. Versus more like it's it's yes, we're in business, and yes, there's process and structure, but we can't optimize relationships, nor should we try. And it just feels a lot more natural, like, hey, let's just have a human-to-human interaction. We like you, obviously, we're hiring you, or we want to hire you. Like, just come along versus yeah, it's gotta be like step by step by step. You have to be here for X amount of time, that kind of thing, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and as well, like our um CEO Stephen is very big for the off-site of being like, you know, this is this was the fourth year we've done it this year. Next year will be the fifth year that we go for one. We're going to Washington, but not like Washington, DC, the one near Seattle, which I'm probably gonna get absolutely butchered when everyone listens to this. We're going there. The founders are very big on being the fact of like we ask you for one working session at the off site, the rest of the time we want you to spend, like, not with people that you're in the London office, not with people that you're in the San Francisco office with like go and spend time with each other. So you'll often find like a group of people around the pool just chatting to each other. Like, we were really lucky this year, we were really close to like the beach and the pool. So like people were split across. You don't feel awkward walking up to someone and being like, hey, can I sit here? Like, and people also just start like chatting away with you. And I think that's really nice and niche. Our VP of Finance also organizes a company football game every year where he gets like everyone in teams, they all play each other. Normally, this has happened like off site, so like where we've had the off-site, but this year they did it where the hotel was, which was quite enjoyable because like everyone got to sit and watch and basically just be like a sideline coach and offer tips of being like, Do you think like this is working? Um, which was quite fun. And then it's just like really nice to like be with people, like especially for me. Like, I'm based in London, I haven't been out to the SF office. There's team members out there that I haven't met yet that I've only ever spoken to on like email or Slack. So to get to spend time with them is really, really nice. Um, and I think that just makes it a lot nicer. Like the feedback we consistently get from like we took our um employer branding videographers out with us this year, and they were like, if you told us that you all weren't in the same office, we don't think we would believe you. You would think that we all worked together by how well everyone got on. No one was left out, everyone was mingling together. It wasn't obvious that this was the London office and this was the New York office, and this was the San Francisco office. Everyone very much was like sat together, chatting, playing games, being mental type of thing as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I love that. That's awesome. And and this is uh I so you're you're doing a lot of the employer branding, which in a sense it's like really it's just an amplification of what we're talking about now, like from the culture and how your team interacts. When you think about employer branding, what do you feel like is most important for a company to get across
Off-Sites As Recruiting Advantage
SPEAKER_00to candidates to help them feel confident in the decision they're making?
SPEAKER_01It's kind of like when you watch an episode of The Office and like one of them looks directly into the camera, you kind of need to break the fourth wall of like what life is like here, what the culture's like here, what the people are like, and I think that's really important as well. So for us, it's always been like be loud on the internet. Like you can post pictures, you can talk about an incident and stuff that you've worked on, and like that type of thing as well. I think it's really, really nice. Um, our C he's now called the field CTO Chris. He relocated from London to our San Francisco office. He documented his entire like relocation process, not because he was trying to, you know, be like, Woo, look at me, I'm even to San Francisco. In a way, yes, but also the fact of just being like, listen to how hard it was, you know, to get my driver's licence or like get this set up and things like that as well, that other people who have done the same move can relate to, but also just show that the founders are like real people and it's normal the leadership team will sit on most interviews anywhere, you're gonna get a chance to speak with them. You can ask them questions about what made them join here, what makes them stay, and that type of thing as well, and they'll answer it for you. Um, and just showing like you're asking people to work in an office and you want people to enjoy what they do. We spend the most amount of time at work than we do at home with like friends and family, so it's important that what you're putting out there is true and gives people an insight on what they're signing up to. The thing that I say to people a lot is is like we're now getting into a an age where the people that are going to start coming through for interviews have been online since they were born, and you're gonna get a generation that comes through. We all spend hours researching the newest phone to buy and like what model to buy and what colour and what you know size of like space we want on a phone. If you think candidates aren't making the same judgment call when they're interviewing and doing deep dives using Chat GPT to find out information about a company, using Reddit, looking at TikTok, Instagram, everything like that, you're gravely mistaken. They're making a lot more informed decisions about where they're going to work because the information's out there. And if they can access it, they'll access it. And you want to make sure that your information that's out there is better than the other company they're interviewing at.
SPEAKER_00How do you through content really ensure you're connecting with people, right? I mean, you have your interviews, right? Like the direct human-to-human like interaction, which is probably the most important. But then also it's like you're you're trying to not just share facts, right, about a culture, like, hey, this is this is where our office is, this is our off-site, but how do you try to create that kind of connection and relatability with people through?
SPEAKER_01I I get very I'll take like an unhinged idea and throw it through and be like, here is something that I've seen on Instagram reel that is someone doing something weird, and I'm like, here's how we can spin this V here. So the one that I've just done in the last week, it's like people do it at weddings where they write on the sunglasses, and then you take the same picture of everyone with the same pair of sunglasses on and you add it into a reel. I did that for our Christmas party for London and San Francisco, and I've made a reel, and it will go out being like, here's the Christmas holiday, here's the incident holiday party for this year. And it's not something that a normal company would do where they're like, here is the lovely picture of the table setup we had, and here's like a really cute group picture of everyone looking really happy. This is like authentic, it's something that's unusual, and people will look at it and be like, oh, I'll remember that because it's not someone doing a thing of here's my day in the life of me going to work, and like here's my nine to five type thing. Um, and that's really important for me. The other thing, as well, is just like using things that we say in conversation here and the cultural things that we do. So, like, we have a unhinged Slack channel called Cold Case Mysteries, which is um everyone sent in a picture of their fridge to one of the engineers, and she will randomly post a picture of someone's fridge with like a clue, and chaos descends into the offices
Cross-Office Bonding And Culture
SPEAKER_01for about 45 minutes while everyone investigates whose fridge it is. So, like you'll walk through the office and you'll see someone's got their second screen like really zoomed in on an item on the fridge, trying to work out like where it's from, is it from London or the US? Where would you buy it? Who's most likely to buy it as well? Everyone will look into like deep things and then everyone basically like votes on it, and then we get told whose fridge it is, and then everyone's like, no way that's so and so's fridge. That's insane. And it's things like that that happen that you can just use for content and reshare. It doesn't have to be like you can filter it in with things about jobs and like hiring and stuff like that as well, but you have to break it up and keep the formula like fresh all the time.
SPEAKER_00I think so. I'm I'm in tech too, right? Like I've been in tech for over a decade, and I've worked with a ton of startups and growth stage companies as well as built my own company. And one thing that I'm sure we can relate on is just how competitive and challenging it can be to work in tech. Like we're in the most competitive industry in the world. There's the most opportunity, and it's hard, right? And you have to be on your game almost completely year-round in order to compete and win and build category leading companies and grow at the pace that we have to grow to win, right? And I think maybe that's why doing things like this is so important, like having ways to engage in a lighthearted, fun way as a team to kind of counterbalance, like, hey, like we're all here working really hard towards this like awesome goal, but we need balance. Like, there has to be a balance between the hard work and everything that goes into building an incredible company. But we're humans, like we need, we need like there needs to be fun in that culture too. And I wonder if like that's like part of why you think this is so important to do things like this as a company.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't think I've worked at a company where I've laughed as much as I have done. A cultural video, when we got the first view back of it, one of the pieces of feedback we got was like, do you think there's just too much like B-roll of people like laughing in this? Because genuinely, we all spend so much time together that you know everything about each other. You can just laugh about things. We laugh at the most insane things as well. It's probably one of the most unhinged companies I work for as well. There's things here that if I like when I say it to people outside of who work here, they're like, What? Like, why do you like what? If you explain to someone, like, oh yeah, by the way, we have a channel where we post someone's fridge, like the inside of their fridge, and we all try and guess whose fridge it is. Out of context, that sounds wild, but like internally, it's hilarious because at first it was just like we were just doing it in the London office, and then I was like, this is too easy, we need other fridges in to spice it up a bit. Um, and I think things like that is just like really weird. It's also things of like when Spotify Rapp comes out, everyone is in a thread posting what they got, their age, who their top artist was, how many hours we listened to. And it's things like that. We can laugh a lot about things, but we all work exceptionally hard. And I've never worked somewhere where I laugh as much as I do, but I've never heard anyone incident go, that's not my job. Like, I can't do that, that's not my job. I can't help you with this. And I think that's also the other balance of it as well, that makes it so much nicer to be here. And I think it's what makes the like content authentic. Like, I don't prep anyone to be like, you're gonna say this on camera, and it's gonna be really funny. Sometimes I just throw a camera at someone and just hope for the best some days of like the things that come out, and sometimes it works well, and other times it's it stays in a gag rail, basically.
SPEAKER_00Well, what's really cool about your role, the more that I'm talking to you, is it it sounds like yes, you're doing employer branding, but also you're setting the culture for the organization because you're not only capturing these moments, but you're creating them, right? You're putting in place opportunities for people to have these experiences too.
SPEAKER_01And it's also as well, like making sure new starters and people coming in
Employer Branding That Breaks The Fourth Wall
SPEAKER_01are part of the inside joke, and they don't feel like you know, when you start a new job and everyone, someone says something and a group of people laugh at it and they're like, oh, we can't explain it to you because you know this happened then. That's not what we want here. We're very big. So, like when you start here, you have an onboarding buddy that's a part of your team, but you also get a culture buddy. And the idea of the culture buddy is that can explain to you things of like, by the way, here are some niche things that are very like incidental, like they're things that we do that other companies don't, that you kind of want to be aware of so you don't feel left out. And it's like that person becomes your kind of like guide and guru when you're new to be like, if you see something in a Slack channel, you're like, what is that? Why is that there? This makes sense of like, you know, we all everyone's got emojis of themselves, and they're like sometimes they're not flattering a lot of them. Some of them are unhinged, which is a theme here. Um, there's things that are really niche for incident as well, like in emojis, and it's like you want to be able to explain to someone about it. We use gaveled a lot, like a judge's gavel type thing. Um, and you'll see things of like you'll ask a question about something and want to get someone's opinion, and someone will just be like gaveled emoji, and that's someone being like, yep, fine, do it. When you first get it, you're like, what the hell does that mean? Why has someone like I are you're not gonna reply yes or no? And you have to kind of explain that to people. Um, we are very much a Slack first company, obviously. Like our product is first and foremost Slack, but everything also as well lives on Notion. So a lot of time you have to tell people coming in, like, if you can't find something, look in Notion as well, because it might be there. And just making sure that someone doesn't feel left out when they join. Like they're not part of the inside joke as well.
SPEAKER_00So you clearly have a strong aptitude for this and just a strong level of awareness and how to build culture and amplify it. Where do you think you got that from?
SPEAKER_01I think it's working in jobs when you turn up and you feel like the new kid on day one. And it's a bit awkward going to lunch because you don't really know who to go with. You don't know if you should bring your own lunch with you, or like, you know, you're gonna be taken out for lunch, or what the deal is with lunch. And I think it's just making sure no one has that experience. Even when someone's interviewing, right? Like I want to make sure they have the best experience. I make interview prep guides for every single role that we have here at Incident that walks someone through from an introduction call with a recruiter right the way through to a final interview, and even gives them the address of the office, a picture of the outside of the office to make sure that people like know the building to go to as well. It's just things like that that I just think are the additional nice touches that candidates will remember, people will remember when they're interviewing. And a lot of the people that we're interviewing would buy our product, and we want to make sure that those people also have a great experience so that if they're not right for us or it's not the right opportunity for them, they enjoy the process enough that they feel like they could go and kind of like sell the product into where they go to next, and your candidates become your customers as well, is a really big thing that I'm very passionate about. Um, but yeah, it is just making sure that no one feels like that new kid on day one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I get that. And I wonder where that comes from. Like the ability to anticipate little anxieties and ability to anticipate opportunities to help somebody feel comfortable or confident. I think it's we see it in in different parts of an organization as well. Like I see it on when you're onboarding new customers as well, right? Like it's about building trust, anticipating needs. Even if it's you quote unquote know the way that it should work, or if things are on track, it's well the customer may not know. There isn't trust yet. There isn't whatever. So it's like we have to proactively build a process and a system around ensuring that we're sharing what we need to, giving the transparency, giving guidance, overcommunicating. And it's something that I don't think everybody has maybe the same level of aptitude. I think everybody understands the importance of it, but there are certain people that just are really good at anticipating those types of needs and and creating those types of experiences. I'm always curious, I wonder what makes somebody able to do that, right? I I have some folks here that at secure vision of my company that are like really good at it, but it's special, like it's not something that you you always see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's like many years of working in retail and hospitality
Content That Feels Human And Weird
SPEAKER_01that will do it to you sometimes as well. Like it's just ingrained in you to be like, oh, this is like you, you know, you can be like that type of way as well. Um, but yeah, I think I think as well it's like, you know, when you've interviewed somewhere bad, the process has been awful, or you've worked at a company and you've been like, my God, I've been duped into this job. It's things like that that I look at and I'm like, I don't want I don't want someone else to feel this way. What can I learn from that that I can implement in this job so that someone doesn't like feel like they've made that decision in a way? Um it's as well. I think it is just like it's having that like you know, EQ balance in you to be like, why don't we have this for other people coming in? A lot of times when I did things when I first started, I would speak to my boss at the time, Danny, who was the head of talent here, and I would be like, here's what I've made. I want these to go out as part of the interview process. And she was like, Yep, great, like we'll get found to sign off just to make sure that they're aware that we are giving out this information. And I remember them saying to us, but why do we want to do this? No one else does this. And I was like, Exactly, no one else does it. That's why we should be doing it. Just because someone doesn't do it doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing it. It's the reason why we shouldn't. If you're not going to have that mentality, why have you started a business in a way? It's why there's so many startups, it's why people get these ideas because they've done, they've had like a product or something that's not worked, and they've been like, I can build that better. And that's where it comes from as well. It's like you think of candidates like the on the experience from like when someone applies right the way through to when they leave the business. If you look at it in that time frame of it away, that helps as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. Really finding ways to stand out from other companies in the interview process. It's like you can never be like too helpful, right? Like when it comes to helping candidates navigate a massive life decision. I think that that's something that maybe it can be easy to forget, even for those of us in talent acquisition sometimes, really understanding how huge of a decision it is for somebody to come to an organization, right? To leave a current job to go to a new one, to take a bet, particularly on maybe a startup or gross stage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think I've heard of it. Yeah, and as well, it's other factors as well. Like I remember after COVID, people being like, I'm not moving because I've just got this job, like it's taken me so long to get it. And because of so many people being laid off, people were a bit more apprehensive of jumping ship in a job because they felt such like gratitude to a company when they got a job after being made redundant and things like that as well. And then I think there was a shift in like everyone was trying to move because they were like, oh, I've been here for X amount of time, nothing's changed. And now it's the shift of we've got it in London where so many companies are doing like return to work. So like they're mandating how many days you have to be in the office, what days you have to be in, and things like that as well. And I think that's gonna massively change the talent market as well for where people are looking for and the types of roles people are looking for, and what they're looking for and valuing within companies as well. And they're not gonna move off those type of opinions and things. Like if you've had someone that's worked from home for six, seven years plus now, it's gonna be hard to try and get them back into an office like four days a week. They've built a routine, you can't try and break that and change it is a lot, like you've kind of got to go in with a very good sale to get them in.
SPEAKER_00Agreed. Yeah, I I totally agree. Well, Megan, look, this has been an amazing conversation. I wanted to say thank you so much for joining
Culture Creation And Onboarding Buddies
SPEAKER_00us today. Thank you. And sharing your experiences. I've had a lot of fun speaking with you. Um, so yeah, thanks.
SPEAKER_01Perfect, thank you.
