HHH - David Novak
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Nicole Hammond: Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Hiring Happy Hour. If you cannot see or read my hat, I'm gonna share with you. It says good vibes, and that is what this guest has always provided to myself and anyone that crosses or is lucky enough to cross his path.
So he is a seasoned [00:01:00] builder in the world of talent acquisition technology. He spends his days helping enterprise companies figure out how to actually get value out of their hiring tech. He's built entire consulting and service programs from the ground up, true story, and grown them into real, I mean real, reoccurring revenue engines.
He's led complex tech implementation, designed service catalogs used by enterprise clients, and delivered millions in reoccurring revenue along the way. Senior Director of Strategic Customer Engagements, Dave Novak. Welcome to the show, Dave
Dave Novak: Hey, Nicole. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. I have to tell you, I, um, know, on my LinkedIn scrolling, I love when these Hiring Happy Hour clips come up. This is like top-of-feed material for me, so, uh, it, it, it's an honor to actually be in that feed now.
Nicole Hammond: Aw, and with good vibes because that's where we know you come from and that's where we know we're going, right?
How many years now have you been here?
Dave Novak: Five.
Nicole Hammond: Five. [00:02:00] In multiple roles, but, um, from day one, just knew you were a good vibe, just with the intent and the way you approach things.
Um, you're the calm, which, which I appreciate. So thank you for impacting me and all the others around us
Dave Novak: Yes, I think the feeling is definitely mutual. I came from being like basically a recruiting leader into the world of SaaS and consulting, and you were kind of my first exposure to it. So, um, it was, it was definitely very new to me when I came on board, and you were such a good introduction to all of that because of your background and everything you had been doing, um, with SmartRecruiters.
So, uh, yeah, feeling's mutual
Nicole Hammond: Aw, I love that. so we're gonna dive in to know more about you, but also the impact that you are proud of. Uh, so as you know, our first question is always what is your hiring happy hour? So Dave, as you think about your career, tell us about it, and then tell us about that moment that just really shines for you.
Dave Novak: [00:03:00] Yeah. Um, okay. So I think like a lot of people who worked in talent acquisition, when you.
ask them how they got into it, and what's the stock answer?
Nicole Hammond: Never planned.
Dave Novak: I, I did not go to college to be a recruiter. Um, but it hap- but it happened. You know what? Um, I'm good with people. Um, I needed a job. Uh, and then one thing led to another, and I started in a recruiting role. and I did that for a long time. I mean, like, you know, I'll-- not gonna get into the specifics,
you know, like, it became... You know, I, I started as a recruiter. I got into leadership roles, and it became lot of muscle memory, right? And I kinda thought, like, it, it, sometimes it got really hard, and it was like, "This is really, really hard." it led to a point where I had to do a global implementation, HRIS, ATS, CRM, um, and I thought, "Wow. Actually, no, recruiting's hard, but this is really, really hard."
Like, there's a lot that goes into this, and there's a lot of people involved, and, um, there's just so [00:04:00] many micro decisions being made in the course of any one day in an implementation like that. Um, I, I came to the conclusion that, implementing technology is actually the really, the, the hard part. And then We went live, and half the organization didn't wanna use the technology that we had spent so much painstaking time doing. the, half the organization was using it, but not using it the way we intended. hiring managers were not happy in pockets. Uh, recruiters were not doing what we expected them to do. And then I realized, okay, recruiting's hard. Implementing's really hard. what's really hard is when the, like, the technology makes contact with the organization, and you can't control it. And it's just, I mean, there's so much going on in that situation, um, that getting people to change the way that they do work and actually adopt the technology that you're trying to absorb into the, uh, [00:05:00] organization, that is where the real ambiguity is, and that's where it's really tough.
And that's... Once I came to the conclusion that this is a real, palpable, like, a problem that is just never gonna go away, it's gonna need to be solved, that's when I decided to get into consulting, uh, and join you at SmartRecruiters. I-a glutton for punishment, I don't know, but, like,
Nicole Hammond: We just wanted to do harder things.
Dave Novak: Yeah. Yeah, and it was like, so we had this, we had this, um, this idea of hiring success consulting, right, where it was, like, former change management or talent acquisition folks trying to help customers navigate this ambiguity and, and navigate all the, the challenges that happen, right?
Um, um, I learned about consulting frameworks. I learned about, um, you know, overcoming objections and, you know, all of this, like, like- proposing solutions and learning customer business, like complex business processes on the fly and recommending, um, how they might wanna pressure test or change things like that. And, uh, it was really messy and really [00:06:00] fun. Um, and I ended up moving into a role that formalized that. So, so basically, um, we-- I created me, I say me, but it was me, it was a team, as it always is, it's SmartRecruiters, a function to help customers really get the most out of the technology that have made, they've made such considerable investments on, right?
So they, they've got teams and p- people focused on this. They, you know, they spent a lot of money on it. They spent time, energy, resources, vendors, um, all, all sorts of things.
and yet they weren't always getting what they expected out of it, right? And so I stood up a function that basically helped customers turn this into something real. Um, like a whole catalog of different ways that they could engage with us to get the most. And it was-- the goal was to make it as, as, um, pragmatic as possible, right? Like, "Hey, this is actually gonna help you overcome these obstacles." And, um, yeah, I, I think that's probably the, the impact moment where I say, "Okay, we formalized this and, and built this consult-consulting function that helped [00:07:00] customers do this," and then that led me to where I am today.
So like I'm now doing that, but in a different point in time for customers where they are now migrating. I'm gonna use the, the air quotes for migrating. They're going from SuccessFactors Recruit. Yeah, they've made the decision, "Hey, um, gonna, we're gonna transform. We're gonna go onto SmartRecruiters." And had the opportunity to take everything I've learned as a practitioner, as a consultant, um, as a program manager, and pull that into, um, this really challenging environment where we need customer-- we need to help customers navigate these murky waters. So that's, that's kinda leads us to, to where we are today.
And, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of new, but I can tell it's gonna be more of the same fun,
Nicole Hammond: Hard fun is how we're gonna categorize this, right?
Dave Novak: Yeah. Tough fun. Yeah. I need to get a hat that says tough fun. Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: So Dave, you are being modest because [00:08:00] you are the man for this job, right? Like, I think to have our CEO, um, come out and establish this group knowing that we care so much about our customers through this transformation, I'm going to say, right? Migration, transformation, not a lift and shift. We're gonna get all the words out there,
um,
Dave Novak: yeah
Nicole Hammond: is huge.
But you are the perfect person to help because of this kind of path that you never planned that you've taken, um, and just the experiences that you've had. So I'm gonna back up first and then we'll come back to the current, because I think for our listeners or our watchers or anyone that's listening in any facet of this, it's important because change management is never going away, right?
We all know this, and you can call it whatever you want, transformation, change management. Um, you know, we called it hiring success. And there is a method to the madness, but also there is now a world where people are more open to it, right? Like back in the day, we had to [00:09:00] convince them, like, "If you don't do this, here's what's gonna happen and here's what it's gonna cost you."
Now I think change management is a row in everyone's project plan when they come up around implementing any technology. So speak to those days of like just the basics, right? Like if someone's listening and they're just starting and change management is new to their organization, what are the fundamentals?
Dave Novak: Yeah. Um, so I, I totally agree with you that it is-- I think it's pretty well accepted in most leading organizations, I mean, at least in theory, um, that change management is a real thing. The people element of this, getting people to change the way that they do business, um, is a real, uh, hurdle that needs to be cleared.
Um, and, you know, I, I think with technology implementations, a lot of times th- there's so many, not only process issues, but psychological. I mean, like, think about it. You're a leader at an or- organization, right? You have, you have a solution you've been working with [00:10:00] for five years, ten years. You have spent so much blood, sweat, and tears building up this You know, uh, whether it be evolving the technology, writing process maps, building teams, um, selecting... You know, try- trying to get certain skills, get better. Every day we need to get better. We need to improve. We need to iterate, da, da, da. And then all of a sudden, a technology vendor comes along and says, um, "Th- We're gonna go through this implementation, and you're gonna have to change the way that you do everything.
All that blood, sweat, and tears you did o- over the y- that you shed over the last ten years, gonna have to tear it down and rebuild it." And that-- Those are the people who are principally responsible for the change. Those, those a lot of ti- Those people a lot of times have a hard time with it.
Then you have Total
who, who are, like, you know, three or four levels away from the change, who just, like, maybe a hiring manager who has to hire once a quarter or something like that. So they are not even invested in it, and they have to change the way that they're gonna be doing, [00:11:00] um, business, you know, whether it be approving a, you know, a job opening or, you know, selecting, you know, who to interview or what have you. Um, so it's always been a thing, and it's always been super important.
Um, the challenge is just, it's such a cliché, and I almost hate saying it, but it's like the old, "We need to do it this way because we've always done it that way." It's, it's breaking out of that mindset, right? And we, we face that all the time. I'm still
Nicole Hammond: Yes
Dave Novak: it today. But, um, I, I think the good news, like you said, is customers are open to the fact that this is a real phenomenon that needs to be planned for carefully, resourced. And, um, you know, it doesn't stop either. Like, it's not just something when you go live, the change management. Like, it, it's, it's ongoing,
Nicole Hammond: Yep. Yep. So then that gets me into my next piece, right? Like you have optimization. You have a world where you are then looking at the data, seeing where your success in change management and implementation and go live has, [00:12:00] has worked,
um, and seeing where there's areas of opportunity, right? Maybe hiring manage- manager engagement is low, possibly recruiters doing things differently than you idealistically wanted them to.
Then we go into a world where there might be gaps, and we talk about services, right? You don't have to do this alone. Now you have a world where we can provide you support with X, Y, and Z. Speak to the common areas that we found that may be relevant to our audience to think about that they may not even know they have support.
Dave Novak: Yeah. Um, so, so the biggest thing to me is, is the foundational piece, whi- which is when you think about an ATS, um, yes, you will get more capabilities with certain technologies. You'll, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll inject more intelligence, um, whether it be AI or just basic this then that automation. Um, you, you're trying to make life better for your recruiters and your, the people that are using, right? Um At the end of [00:13:00] the day, ATS needs to be a reflection of all of your business processes, right? Because that's what gives you the insight into how effective of a hiring organization you are. almost like a recording device or a mirror. So like, you know, you go-- you, you have recruiters out there in the wild.
They're, you know, they're, they're finding candidates. They're, you know, they're pipelining, they're screening, they're scheduling interviews. They're, doing-- They're making recommendations. They're consolidating feedback. They're doing all these things, how do you know they're doing all these things?
Your ATS. Your ATS is your, is, is your hiring source of truth, right?
Nicole Hammond: Yeah
Dave Novak: When it, when it comes to optimization, the most glaring need and the most foundational one is usually that that recording device, that mirror, is misaligned to reality. So, so customers don't see exactly what is going on, where they're hiring.
Like, they might say like, you know, um, "It takes us too long to review resumes," or something like that. But if you don't have the data points to [00:14:00] be able to point that out,
Nicole Hammond: Hmm
Dave Novak: it makes it very challenging. So optimization starts reviewing your business processes and making sure that your system design is reflective of how you actually hire at your organization, because that's when the fun starts. But, but that is the, the, like, the square one optimization. Like, you need a good Like right now, if, if your system is not-- If you've got, you know, the wrong hir-hiring process workflow, if you have the wrong scheduling mechanism, if you have, you know, the, the wrong fields or values or any of that, you have like a fun house mirror, right?
Like you don't have a clear understanding of what's really happening, and it's hard to do initiatives that make impactful change when you don't really know what's going on. Um, so optimization starts with aligning your system design with the reality of how you hire.
Nicole Hammond: I like that
Dave Novak: Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's the foundational piece.
And then you get into capabilities, right? So then you get into things like automation. [00:15:00] Um, I I will try to keep the use-- the term AI to a, a minimal use, but I'm sure it's gonna come up. Um, um, intelligence, um, re- like true reporting that actually tells you what you need to improve not, not only your hiring, but your business strategy in general. That's when you get into next level capabilities and really get into a point where you can optimize your system so you're actually better at hiring, you're more impactful to the leaders in your organization. And, you know, SmartRecruiters is a great with a lot of good capabilities, but how do you unlock those and really get the, you know, the users in your organization to adopt them? That's, that's what we get into after we get past that foundation.
Nicole Hammond: I love that. By the way, I've heard there is a group that listens to this that now has a drinking game with every time we say AI, so you can feed them as many as you want.
Dave Novak: I'm not gonna s- I'm not gonna talk about AI unless you prompt me to do
Nicole Hammond: Okay.
Dave Novak: How about that?
Nicole Hammond: Fair enough. I'll save them a [00:16:00] few cocktails. Uh, so I want to get into now the meat and potatoes, and we are celebrating our one year. If, if you haven't had this moment of recollection, I had it this weekend.
Um, I got it.
September 11th, a year ago, we were acquired by SAP. Here we are, one year. And a lot has gone on. We won't get into it. We won't take everybody down that memory lane. But let's get them to the important piece that you started us with about migrating customers. This is a huge topic. We are getting questions from every single direction about what good looks like in this regard, and how are we supporting our customers, right?
I think one credible piece for us is that we've always cared about our customers post go live, right? There is continuous improvement, optimization, hence a lot of the organizations that you've driven. But now we're in a world where we are scaling rapidly, and people are wanting to migrate quickly. Good news is, right, it's, it can be a shorter implementation if we're comparing it to SF Recruit, but there's a lot that comes with it, and transparently, um, we don't [00:17:00] have control of every partner that's implementing.
So share more around what your team, um, is doing and how they can help with scale to ensure that we are supporting partners out there and implementations out there to, one, feel comfortable migrating, and two, have successful, happy customers.
Dave Novak: Yeah
Yeah
absolutely. So I think first and foremost, so it starts at the beginning, right? Like when a customer decides they're going to make a change, so SmartRecruiters was acquired by SAP or by SuccessFactors and, um, a customer has a choice to make so they can migrate to SmartRecruiters from SuccessFactors Recruit Customers need to understand what that means when they make that decision, right?
It is not, it's not a migration from a standpoint of, hey, you're gonna do everything that you did in SuccessFactors Recruit, um, except for it's going to be now with SmartRecruiters. Um, it is actually an, uh, buzzword alert, but [00:18:00] it is a transformation. And so what that means is it's a totally different platform.
It was not architected the same way as SuccessFactors Recruit. And a lot of times these customers, like I was talking about before, they spent years designing a customizable system to fit their business process, um, you know, um, and really bolted it together to fit exactly what they wanted to do. And now they've made this decision to move on to a more cutting-edge, um, applicant tracking system, talent acquisition suite, um, the rubber's gonna meet the road somewhere, right?
And they're, they're gonna have to realize that, um, every process or sub-process that they do today is gonna have to be reimagined. Uh, so we try to take them back first and foremost once, once they come to this realization that, okay, wait a minute, we do this today, and you're telling me we can't do it exactly like this today We've got to bring them back to why they wanted to make the change in the first place, and it's about capabilities, right?
So bring us back to our old school hiring success days. [00:19:00] So empowered recruiters, engaged hiring managers, and compelling candidate experience. these things important to you? as a-- uh, any organization will tell you that is their pantheon of like, yes, we need our candidates to have a good experience.
We want our recruiters to not be bogged down by administrative stuff. We want a good user interface for the recruiters, and we want the hiring managers to actually be engaged with the hiring process and not be, you know, roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders when recruiters ask them to log into the system and fill out a, a scorecard.
No, it should be really easy and intuitive, right? are like, this is the pantheon. This is SmartRecruiters in a nutshell, right? This is what w- what we do. We gotta bring, not just with these migrations, but with any customer, bring them back to why they made the decision to
Nicole Hammond: Yeah
Dave Novak: Because they want those things first and foremost. So we try to get them to keep their eye on the prize with those things. Um, and then, and then the, you know, so-- and that is a big part of the hard part, and then it's overcoming letting go of some of the things that they wanna [00:20:00] continue doing, but they won't be able to because they are moving on to a brand-new platform.
Not
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Dave Novak: And shift.
Nicole Hammond: Yep
Dave Novak: you said before, this is a tear down and rebuild. We try to make that as painless as possible, right? In SmartRecruiters, it's pretty intuitive. It's pretty configurable. It's not super customizable. Um, so we make it pretty painless, but decisions have to be made. what my team is really trying to do is help customers make the most informed decision they can and have all the tools and, and available information about the product, the roadmap, um, the options if they don't wanna, you know, wait for a roadmap decision or something like that and, and, and move things forward.
Um, all without sacrificing any outcomes, which are what we just talked about, compelling candidate experience, um, and a successful hiring organization. we try to do that and, um, you know, it gets very messy, and it's not always as easy as, you know, talking, um, you know, about hiring success, uh, [00:21:00] and getting on that, um, soapbox.
But, um, that's the crux of it.
Nicole Hammond: I think that you explained that very well, and I think for anyone listening that whether you are a partner that may consider implementing or you are a customer that has or is considering migrating or transforming, there's a lot of value in Dave's messaging, right? Not a lift and shift, starting over.
But you have to look at this as a healthy start over, right? Not thinking it's like, "Oh, the chores I have to do every week," but more just like a transformation of a room in your house where you get to start from scratch, you get that creativity board going of what does great look like, and then you start to work with that.
But the key I want to focus on, and I want us to touch on this a little more, is it's not customized, right? A lot of customers that we run into are used to developers building anything they need to support the hiring process they have in place. And this is not that. I will say it again. This is not [00:22:00] that, right?
This is where you may get to the same end goal or outcome, but it's done at scale. It's done with something that may be simpler or a different approach than what you had envisioned. How do you help those customers drive a different behavior, right? Like this is a different type of implementation. This is more functional consulting versus telling a developer what you want them to create
Dave Novak: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it's, um, it's definitely an important aspect of this, right? Because in the heat of the moment when you're, when you're de- when you're go of a highly customized solution that fits exactly what you wanna do as an organization, not an easy message to say, "Look, we're configurable, we're not customizable."
But you have to let them look at the future. You know, have to help them give a glimpse into the future, right? Like, what happens when your business changes? What happens when you acquire a new brand? What happens when you expand into, um, Asia? Um, customizable processes are harder to back [00:23:00] out of and harder to evolve, right?
Because you now find yourself going back to the product organization and say, "Hey, well now can we do, can we a- can we need to add something else to the product roadmap?" And you don't know if you're gonna get that. So if you design a process, uh, or a platform around a configurable system, you're gonna get less of the nuanced customizations, um, that fit exactly what you wanna do. But if you bring your people and process up to meet the, the SmartRecruiters platform where it is a little bit... Look, everybody has to move a little bit,
Nicole Hammond: Yeah
Dave Novak: but process and people have to move a little bit too. That's gonna give you the scalability and the ability to roll and be flexible when we release something cool every month, right?
So like a, a brand new feature, right? You don't have to, you don't have to reconfigure or, you know, think about how, how are we gonna back out of all these customized processes to absorb this release. No. You [00:24:00] could just absorb it and change some configuration. Doesn't mean there won't be change management, doesn't mean there won't be training, doesn't mean there won't be documentation, but the, the amount of development work and, um, technical work that's gonna need to be done to absorb it is gonna be much more scalable and feasible. And you wanna be able to do that frequently, right?
Nicole Hammond: Yeah
Dave Novak: a fast moving-- Like we-- Hiring evolves super fast, right? Like the, the amount of things that are coming out on a quarterly basis, I mean, we release things every single month. And so lends itself to absorbing those new cool capabilities to scaling better. Um, it might seem like it's a limitation in the heat of the moment when you're giving up a highly bespoke process, but look forward and think about how you can reshape your talent function, um, with that kind of flexibility
Nicole Hammond: I love this. So we've talked about how it's transformation, right? So all of you considering, think about this, right? Do your mini projects, your cleanup now [00:25:00] to make sure future state and this transformation is set up for success. We've talked about the type of resources to implement and changing the behavior of how you get to that good or great state.
Uh, let's talk about release management, right? Like this is a new concept for our customers that may be coming off SF Recruit. As we release monthly, they release twice a year. I mean, I run into it daily, right? There's expectations of what we provide, when we provide it, but with monthly release, it, it's much more fluid.
How have you and your team helped some of these customers to embrace or understand it? Or what are the things that they should consider, um, to set themselves up for success in the future?
Dave Novak: Yeah
Um, so, I mean, the first thing is governance, right? So we talk about this all the time with, um, our consultant. Like, like, who, who owns... At, at each customer, you know, you, you feel like you need to identify who's responsible for monitoring releases and working with SmartRecruiters Consulting, [00:26:00] whether it's my team or customer success or professional services, whoever it is. Who is the person that's going to determine does this release, is it relevant for us, and how are we going to absorb it as an organization? How are we going to roll it out, right? So the governance piece, like have it 'cause if everybody owns it, nobody does, you know the old adage. Um, so you really have to determine, like, who, who's, like, are we gonna do this?
'Cause, uh, month- on a monthly basis, you know, there's a lot of small things that might not take a huge change management effort, and then there's some things where you go, "If we did this, um, the way we do background checks would be so much more efficient, and I think we should spend some time on this," right? Like, you need to have somebody who's making that call on the customer side, and then ideally you've got a partner at, you know, at the, at SmartRecruiters to be able to say, I-- A lot of times we will come to you and say, "Hey, you know, we just-- we're releasing agentic CRM," or whatever it is. Um, your, your hospitality use case is perfect [00:27:00] for this.
Let me tell you why. Let's set up a call, and we can talk about, um, you know, how we can start socializing this within your business. Um, so it, if you ha- you know, a lot of times consulting, like, like, uh, like I would advise my consultants to reach out and basically set a time or a cadence, um, sort of a notification, if you will, to customers about, about release.
Customers need to have a governance in place and be prepared to be flexible, right? Like, we're gonna change-- You know, we're gonna add cool things, you know, every, if not every month, maybe, maybe if that's too much, every quarter. And the great thing about SmartRecruiters, and I hope this doesn't feel like too much of a sales pitch, but we make it really easy.
Like, we have Smart-- Like, we, we, you can try before you buy, right? Like, you can switch it on, or you can leave it off. We're not gonna force you to swallow any, any release at any given time, right? Like, you're gonna be able to try it in your sandbox, figure it out, how is this gonna be worked into all of our process flows and, [00:28:00] um, our hiring process and all that. And then you can do it in bite-sized chunks. You can try it, you know, just with, um, maybe just one region or one business unit, um, pilot it, and really be intentional about how you absorb the, the change. But, um, I think it takes... It, it's a team effort. You need to have the right governance in place. And good consultants will bring the opportunities to you instead of, uh, waiting to go, "Hey, what happened with that release in, uh,
Nicole Hammond: Yeah
Dave Novak: twenty twenty-five?
I didn't-- I had no idea that, um, you know, automated self-scheduling was, uh, released, uh, last year." You know, you don't wanna be in that
Nicole Hammond: Hello?
I love this, and I'm gonna add one more before I set you up with a final question, which I'll tell you now so you can think about it. I want a success story from your team to date.
Dave Novak: Yep. Yep
Nicole Hammond: but the other piece of governance is AI, and here we go drinking game crew, but this is where we are an AI-forward company.
We are part of autonomous enterprise, which has agentic and AI written all [00:29:00] over it. And so now we're in a world where part of our consulting, part of our best practices is AI governance, right? You think about all aspects of your company, your company objectives, your department objectives, and how AI fits into that, and knowing
Dave Novak: Yeah
Nicole Hammond: is out there, making sure it's governed, making sure it's not disparate, right?
Um, how has that come into your conversations?
Dave Novak: Yeah.
Um, well, this one is definitely takes a village, um, to support these conversations, right? Because there are, you know, obviously there are legal ramifications, um, depending on how you're using leveraging AI, uh, in the hiring process, and you, you wanna keep it fairly separate from your decision-making process and, you know, keep, keep a human in the loop when it comes to deciding who's gonna get an interview, who's gonna get hired, um, et cetera. So there's that piece. Um, there's the data source piece, right? So like AI can use any number of different sources to help make you more effective in any kind [00:30:00] of decision-making or, um, you know, process management perspective. So you need to understand where it's drawing from and how is that data governed, and is it, is it, um, up to date and, um, is it relevant for the decisions that it's gonna be making?
And obviously then you have, you know, bias in decisions. So if it's drawing off of data that could potentially be used or had been used previously in hiring decisions by who are not trained in objective or structured interview selection or, you know, other kind of bias type things, then your AI's gonna be biased as well. There's much more that goes into it, but all of these factors, you know, I think right now companies wanna know that they're, they're using AI in a very infect- effective and impactful way without breaching any of those, you know, like good data, governance, good, good, um, you know, operating within their local or [00:31:00] federal laws. Um, and then just doing the right thing as hiring organizations and being good people of like, hey, this is still, like we don't fully understand AI, but we know that it's gonna be pretty object-- like pretty objective and it's deci- Like once it's knows its mandate, it's gonna be pretty objective. But if the data that they're using to be objective is not, if that's subjective or biased data, then you're gonna get biased outputs.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Dave Novak: there's, there's a lot there. Those are the three big, big areas, but there's so much more. I mean, product, um, accessibility, um, um, and then of course you have, you know, everybody else who's customer facing.
Um, it takes a village to get that point across and make sure a customer feels comfortable with, uh, all the different use cases that are possible.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. Great, great points and great highlights. Uh, I have found more customers I'm speaking with are starting to have an AI governance committee internally, which makes my heart happy, right? We're [00:32:00] starting on this journey together, and the village is not just customer versus vendor and vice versa. It's a partnership.
So that is great to see. Okay. Rounding this out, success story. Um, give us that impactful moment that this team-- I mean, it, it's just begun, but I know that they've had sweet success already. They are superheroes in their own right. Um, but task one, to provide assurance to our customers, um, that we're coming up with those Ws.
Dave Novak: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and we absolutely are. I mean, you know what? They, they, they do show up, and you have to, you have to document them and celebrate them, um, because it is, it is a challenging environment, but there's a lot of good happening right now. And what I said earlier is if I could, if I could like distill down the one thing that my team is trying to do, it's trying to help customers make informed decisions about designing their hiring processes and their, their platform, right? Um, and so we've had multiple occasions. This was... So [00:33:00] w- we're starting to get migrating customers go live. We have our early access customers who have been the first ones to raise their hand, and they're going live. Yes.
Nicole Hammond: Woo-hoo!
Dave Novak: and we have... Yeah. And, and, and a lot of these customers were well underway before we even got started.
So I, I will say that we've had some really good successes so far with some highly complex global, um, organizations that have, um, overcome all the things that we talked about earlier on from a change management perspective and, you know, g- coming onto a brand-new type of hiring platform and have, uh, gone live. But we're trying to make customers, help customers make informed decisions about how to design their processes and their hiring, um, within their organization. And it shows up every, every time we join an implementation, and we help the customer understand, "Here's the product roadmap.
Nicole Hammond: Mm-hmm.
Dave Novak: Here's the business process you wanna do. Here's what's possible today. Here are your options to close that gap. [00:34:00] You can reimagine your business process. You can wait for the product roadmap to hit and have s- a temporary measure in place, or you can do something supplemental that will help you do execute your critical process." So there's... The more that we-- The more data that comes in from these implementations that we have, the more we can inform the customer exactly what their best solution is. And we've seen like really, really high visibility, um, super challenging, complex implementations get unblocked through giving them the information that they need to make the right decision to move forward.
Nicole Hammond: Love it.
Dave Novak: that, that's resulting in go lives. So I, I think that's what we're most proud of.
It's still an early effort, um, but we have the right people. Like I'm, I'm still building this team. We have, um, super experienced consultants, talent acquisition professionals, um, SaaS, you know, lifelong SAF- SaaS, um, s- who are helping to [00:35:00] unblock these customers, and it's pretty cool to see like these roads open up, and, you know, you can see, uh, at the end of the tunnel.
And so I'm excited. Uh, we're really just getting started, but, um, it's been, uh, a lot of challenges but a lot of wins so far.
Nicole Hammond: Doing the hard fun. Well, please make sure in your next team meeting you give them the praise that we are hearing about from them. Um, it's, it does not go unnoticed, and it is helping to ensure that others, maybe someone listening, feels comfortable with this transformation. Um, all right. We're switching gears, Dave.
Let's get to the not hard fun, but the fun stuff, and learn more about you. Um, what is your personal happy hour? What brings you joy outside of this hard fun, tough fun job?
Dave Novak: all right, so I'm gonna... So I, to say, I'm gonna tell you something personal about me, but then I am gonna tie it back to my career, too. So because I, I, I, I do think the, the two [00:36:00] are related, like how I've chosen my career is related to what I do in my personal time, too. So,
Nicole Hammond: Okay
Dave Novak: um, I grew up in cities.
So I grew up in Minneapolis, I've lived in Boston, I've lived in Philadelphia. I'm fairly urban. Um, but about 10 years ago, I started doing backcountry, um, mountaineering. Um, so it started in Montana, um, and then it moved into Alaska. Um, I have a friend that's really into it, and he invited me, um, and then it's really grown from there.
Um,
Nicole Hammond: Wow
Dave Novak: backcountry, I mean, there are-- there's no people. Like, it is re- as remote wilderness as you can get. And so you have a backpack, you're gone for days. You're, you're hiking miles at really high altitudes, um, grizzly bears, the whole thing,
Nicole Hammond: Oh my God
Dave Novak: Th- this, this is not who I am, right? Like I, like, like I am not, like I am not that person, but I do it anyway because it is the most [00:37:00] transformational thing that I've done in my life where it gives me such a jolt. Like while, while I'm doing it, I'm like, "This sucks." Like, why am I-- why are we doing this? Like, why? Like, I literally am sleeping next to a pile of like bear scat, right? Like right next to me. Like, why am I here right now? Like, I should be at home watching football on my couch. Um, but then you finish it, and you're like, oh my...
Like, the euphoria that happens once you go through something with that much friction and that much fear, h- honestly, just fear sometimes. Like, I've had times where I really was questioning whether I was gonna make it at the top of a mountain peak.
Nicole Hammond: God
Dave Novak: Um, but when you're done, you come out of it, your system gets a jolt, and you're like I am so happy I did this because like I, I really believe is another cliche, but I really believe that the, the, the most growth comes through friction
Nicole Hammond: Oh, yeah.
Dave Novak: Pain,
Nicole Hammond: Oh, yeah
Dave Novak: so for I come out of that going, let's just a renewed [00:38:00] perspective. So then I get, I come back to work and I clock in, you know, the next Monday um, you know, I encounter some friction, right? And it's like, it, it just helps put it all in perspective, right? Like life is in danger.
Um, and I've seen this before and I know that sometimes this is really hard and people are not happy with certain aspects of it, but everybody's gonna be, everybody's gonna grow from this in some way, shape, or form, but you have to endure the friction first. Um, so I just find that sometimes that kind of jolt is how I...
And I've had some really good happy hours, I have to say after like a 20-mile hike through the Alaskan wilderness. Um, that first happy hour is
Nicole Hammond: happier.
Dave Novak: So
Nicole Hammond: Oh my gosh. Wow. So humbling. And, uh, I don't know if you're watching the new "Ted Lasso" season, but you know I'm a big fan, and the goalie doesn't wear gloves. And they're like,
Dave Novak: Yes.
Nicole Hammond: why don't you?" And she's like, "Because I wanna feel that pain. I wanna feel that pain so I [00:39:00] get that reward of through that pain, you know, understanding how to feel and how to recognize this accomplishment."
And so I equate that to what you're talking about. Your poor wife,
Dave Novak: she will not... Yeah, she's not y- like, I don't, I wouldn't say she doesn't wanna grow personally, but not through that method, I don't think. I,
Nicole Hammond: yeah
Dave Novak: picks on... She also, she like does, she does yoga classes. You know, some of those stretches are pretty painful,
Nicole Hammond: Yeah, totally. But, uh, to each their own, and I love how you bring it back to work and, um, that's awesome. That's awesome.
Dave Novak: Yeah
Nicole Hammond: all right, now we're not gonna go through a painful exercise, but we're gonna play a fun game of this or that. Um, you are familiar with this. Pick one, pick both, pick neither, explain, don't explain.
I've got a bunch for you. You ready?
Dave Novak: Yeah, let's do it
Nicole Hammond: Okay. Uh, perfect implementation or perfect adoption?
Dave Novak: perfect adoption, uh, every time. Um, it, first, first of all, implementation is never perfect, and [00:40:00] I've learned from experience that you can go through a perfect implementation, and then all the people that made those decisions in the implementation might not be there six months from now. So the, the adoption journey is more of a lasting one, and so I would, I would, I would go to adoption every time, although implementation can help with adoption.
Nicole Hammond: Very true.
Dave Novak: Yeah
Nicole Hammond: go live on time or go live with confidence
Dave Novak: Uh, not even close. Uh, go live go live with confidence
Um, know, timing is often self-imposed by organizations, right? So they'll say, We have to go by li- we have to go live by November 1st."
Nicole Hammond: We love these.
Dave Novak: it, it do- right? But it doesn't, it, I mean, it doesn't always make sense to strictly adhere to that, right?
Because sometimes decisions throw companies for loops. Sometimes you... Well, every time you encounter, you know, um, some, some, um, some hiccups, and you've gotta work through those things. You wanna be, you [00:41:00] wanna do what's right for the organization. Um, pushing a go live when you're not ready is never right.
I'm
Nicole Hammond: Yep.
Dave Novak: It's not.
Nicole Hammond: Yep
Dave Novak: I would always say the confidence would be my, my choice there.
Nicole Hammond: Good answer. Implement AI or AI to assist implementation
Dave Novak: I have a lot of those vendors, um, knocking at my door right now
Nicole Hammond: I'm sure you do.
Dave Novak: Like, "Are you fill- are you filling out configuration workbooks manually still? Use our AI bot to fill out your configuration workbook." Um, so I don't think we're... Yeah, I think you can use parts of A- you can use AI for parts of your implementation, but I think generally speaking, the decision-making, um, needs to be done with humans right now. Uh, and I would, I would say, um, right now probably lean towards implement AI and then I, I'm not sure that we're there yet to use AI to do.
the implementation, but I think eventually AI for everything.
Nicole Hammond: [00:42:00] Yeah.
Dave Novak: now,
Nicole Hammond: Yeah.
Dave Novak: AI
Nicole Hammond: Yeah. I, I would agree. All right. Um, meet the customer where they are or push them towards best practice. Maybe influence towards best practice. I don't know if push is the right word
Dave Novak: yeah. I mean, it's both, right? Because, uh, it, it's, that one's a hard this or that because, like, if you don't understand hiring, like the customer's true hiring processes and their true pain, and you can't put themselves in the shoe-- You can't put yourself in the shoes of that recruiting coordinator.
Um, you have to meet them where they are, right? but you has- also have to get them, help them step outside of their own bodies and realize there's, like, another view that you can look at the way things are, are being done right now, and you can push at that, and you have to have, um, you know, kind of the-- I think you have to have the first [00:43:00] one.
You have to be able to them fully and have to have met them where they are to be able to push them. You need credibility to push, by the way. You can't just come in right away and say, "Oh, why, why are you doing it that way? Oh, c-" Like no, you actually have to speak their language, understand, show them that you understand how their candidates behave, right?
Show them how you under- understand why their coordinators are so frustrated or why their recruiters can't find any talent, and where they're, where they're living today to be able to push, you know, kind of push them toward evolving the way they do business. So both.
Nicole Hammond: Good. Good.
Dave Novak: Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Build around exceptions or design for the 80%
Dave Novak: design for the 80%
I think more oftentimes than not, you know, you, you have those edge cases where you, you know, you, you draw a line in the sand. You say, "We, know, we can't go live and we can't do this if we can't, if we can't account for this one bespoke process." then I find that, like, y- you design around it and you, you, you, you omit that [00:44:00] 20%, wherever that is somewhere, and it just kind of goes away, right?
Your, your, your process evolves. We go through release cycles. Your business changes. And once you've accepted that this is the way that we recruit and hire now, those concerns that were so important during implementation become Totally. morphed into something different, right? And so it's just, it's all about timing and perspective because when you're in it, it feels like the biggest rock to move. And then six months, 12 months from now, once you've adopted your new platform and people are finally starting to come around, it becomes a distant memory.
Nicole Hammond: Totally.
Dave Novak: 80%
Nicole Hammond: Love it. Customer happiness or customer outcomes
Dave Novak: outcomes
right? And like, l- like if you have the outcomes you want, you should be happy, right? I mean, look, it's like it never stops. You never stop improving, right? Like, the outcomes are never good enough.
you can get, you can get to a point where, yeah, like, you know, you can celebrate wins and you can see how things have improved and like that, but does that mean you [00:45:00] stop trying to hire faster?
Does that mean you stop trying to... Right? So, so you, should never be fully satisfied. Um, but I think if you're getting the outcomes you want, you should be, you know... You, you should take pride in that, right? That,
Nicole Hammond: Sure, for sure.
Dave Novak: Of the day, this is why we're doing it,
Nicole Hammond: Yep
Dave Novak: it because you wanna get better at hiring.
Nicole Hammond: Yeah
Dave Novak: get better at finding talent. You wanna get better at assessing talent. You wanna get better at closing talent and onboarding talent. And, um, if you're doing those things, like all the stuff that happens in between, you can, um, you know, y- y- you can say with confidence, like it's not always perfect, but we're getting the outcomes we want.
I think that's, that's the most important thing
Nicole Hammond: For sure. And consultants thrive in that, right? Nothing's ever good enough. There's always work to be done
Dave Novak: Yeah, exactly. That's why we all have jobs still. Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: Uh, reward or recognition
Dave Novak: I think recognition. You know, I, I'm a big, um, yeah, I'm a big, uh, like put your head down, [00:46:00] just make the impact and everything else will work out, like work itself out, right? And I think you, you know, you, you build, uh, credibility, um, and recognition
through competence, um, making an impact, um, collaborating, bringing people in, together, and then like you'll be recognized for that, right?
Uh, like That's that's more intrinsic to me. Of course, rewards are great, but I think the rewards kind of come you're recognized and you've earned the recognition. So I would probably start with recognition
Nicole Hammond: That's why you're here, David. You made the impact. You always do.
Um, all right, we're gonna switch to fun ones. Sunrise or sunset? Now that you've gone rogue on trips, you've probably seen both.
Dave Novak: . So I have a very, uh, recency bias on this one. Um,
Nicole Hammond: Okay
Dave Novak: so I recently went on one of my trips to the, uh, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, which is a remote federally protected, um, like 1,800 square miles on the Minnesota-Canada border. It's [00:47:00] all lakes.
Nicole Hammond: Okay
Dave Novak: all like, like it's, it's thousands of lakes all interconnected.
Nicole Hammond: Wow
Dave Novak: motors, no plumbing, no electricity. You... Nothing, right? So you go in there, it is pristine. I mean, like so nice. But you set up your camp spot, you're on a nice lake, you go swimming throughout the day. You know, um, you cook dinner, and then the sun starts to set, and you hear this high-pitched dzzz. A, a cloud the size of an actual cloud of mosquitoes descends on you at sunset, like as the sun, like at dusk. And I realized that that is the worst. Like, even where I live in Philly, like around dusk is the worst time for bugs.
Nicole Hammond: True
Dave Novak: are so-- The mosquitoes are so bad at dusk. Um, so I'm gonna go with sunrise because there's no there's no problems with bugs at sunrise. It's
Nicole Hammond: Right.
Dave Novak: You, you and the, the naked morning.
Nicole Hammond: You're gonna hate my California answer, but mosquitoes this summer were the worst, which is probably not even bad compared to rest of the [00:48:00] world, but it was horrible.
Dave Novak: In Minnesota, they are like bird sized.
Nicole Hammond: Oh. Oh.
Dave Novak: Yeah
Nicole Hammond: No. No, thank you. All right. Well, onto the next fun one. Vacation or staycation? Let's not consider these like... Do you consider those a vacation?
Dave Novak: Yeah, I do, I do. Like, I, I think, um, yeah, but, like, so much of enjoying a vacation, especially with kids, as you know, is the l- is the looking back on it and reflecting of it, right? 'Cause like sometimes, sometimes when you're in it, you're like, "Is this fun?
I don't... Somebody remind me. Is this..." Like, "Am I having fun right now?" Um, then you look back on it, and you go, "Those are memories I'm never gonna lose." Like, I... And like that was so... Like, when we, you know, when we got stuck on that train, and, yeah, ended up, you know, going, you know, 30 miles out of our way and everybody was frustrated, like, these are, like, it's, it's almost, like, reflective looking back and going, "Gosh, that was an amazing vacation with my family." Um, you don't get those kinds of... You don't get the friction, and you don't [00:49:00] get the memories from staying home as much, right? And so I do, I do like putting y- y- not only myself but my family in these tough situations sometimes where we, um, we, we take a crazy... Like, we took a three-year-old on a European cruise, um, where it was like, I mean, there were times on it I'm like, "Why? Can we... We're, like, turn the ship around. We're going home. Like, I, like, I can't do this." Um, but then you look back on it, you're like, you look at the pictures, you're like, "I'm so glad we did that." You know? Um, so vacation for sure
Nicole Hammond: So yeah. It's experiences, right? I should replace this with experiences because we did one to the East Coast this summer, and it's also funny to hear your kids describe the trip because what we... I don't even know if they wanna call it a highlight or a lowlight, but they're like, "Yeah, Mom and Dad got a hotel.
There was only one king bed, and with three children, two of them had to sleep on the floor." They loved it. They made like a makeshift with all these blankets, and they, they did just fine.
Dave Novak: it's an adventure for them. They're so much more resilient [00:50:00] than we are, right? Like, every little inconvenience perturbs us, and we're like... But they are, they're there for it. Like, they're just
Nicole Hammond: Totally.
We should have all of them implement SaaS for us. We'll be just fine.
Dave Novak: seriously, yes.
Nicole Hammond: All right. Um, yes, good vibes. Coffee or tea?
Dave Novak: Coffee.
Nicole Hammond: Okay.
Dave Novak: Yep, yep. I, what else? Do, is there anything else that needs to be said for that one? Yeah.
Nicole Hammond: no. And then our favorite question, beer, wine, or cocktail? What's at the end of these adventures?
Dave Novak: Um, so it's really hard to bring beer with you on those adventures?
So it's usually a good s- yeah, so it's usually a good scotch. Um, so we'll bring it in like a, you know, a travel-friendly kind of like plastic or something, which, um, so... And it lasts you longer, right? Like, you could be on like a, you know, a week-long thing and, and just with one bottle and you could be okay, potentially.
Um, if I'm just relaxing after mowing the lawn or something, I, I worked in the beer business for like 10 years. Um, and so I do have a, [00:51:00] a really strong affinity for beer. Um, and I, just one beer on a hot day at the right moment when you, when you barbecue or something like that, I think I wouldn't trade that for anything, so
Nicole Hammond: You're speaking my language. Well,
Dave Novak: Yeah
Nicole Hammond: you and I get to see each other in less than a month, and so we will have that proper cheers in person.
Dave Novak: Nice. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that
Nicole Hammond: but thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your insight. Um, everyone listening, I hope you took away something or many things from this, and share this with your friends, whether they may be considering any sort of transformation.
Um, Dave is a wealth of knowledge and, uh, we are so thankful to have you on the show. Um, thanks everyone, and, uh, we will see you again shortly
Dave Novak: Thanks for having me, Nicole. Cheers
Nicole Hammond: Cheers
[00:52:00]