The Hiring Room Podcast

The Hiring Room is a podcast about people strategy, profit, and smarter hiring systems.

Executive recruiter and host Renee Beckman sits down with real leaders for real talk about what actually works in high-stakes hiring: building stronger teams, leading with clarity, developing real bench strength, and turning people strategy into profit.

If you own the hires, the headcount, or the P&L, this room is for you.

Why Recruiting For Someone Else Is Never As Easy As It Looks!

Anita Knotts spent decades in wealth management sales before launching Lotus Women's Institute, a recruiting and coaching firm built to bring more women and underrepresented professionals into financial services. In ...this episode she and Renee talk about what changes when you're recruiting for someone else instead of yourself, why so many hiring processes fall apart in the handoff between departments, and why the industry is sitting on a massive opportunity most people are ignoring.

Topics covered:
● Recruiting for a firm versus recruiting for your own team
● What happens when a client's stated hiring criteria doesn't match what they actually want
● Why Anita left a stable wealth management career to start her own firm
● The emotional and generational baggage tied to money and financial literacy
● Draining her 401k at 29 to move to San Francisco, and what she'd tell someone doing that today
● Recruiting versus coaching, and why the coaching side of her business exists at all
● Onboarding lessons from building a team inside a mid-size wealth management division
● The biggest leadership lesson: finding out what actually motivates someone
● Why so many people get promoted into management without ever being asked if they want it
● The $34 trillion wealth transfer to women by 2030 and what it means for the industry
● Financial literacy gaps in high school and college, and why finance grads still don't understand a 401k
● Calling out unqualified financial influencers and career coaches
● The story behind the name Lotus

Timestamps:
● 00:00 Cold open
● 01:01 Recruiting for a firm versus recruiting for yourself
● 02:21 When the client's story doesn't match what they actually want
● 03:55 Why Anita left wealth management to start her own firm
● 04:27 Following the inner voice she tried to ignore for five years
● 06:02 Money, trust, and the shame most people carry around it
● 09:00 The financial literacy gap in this country
● 13:10 Draining her 401k at 29 and calling it methodical risk
● 17:50 How she never planned to become a recruiter at all
● 20:39 Recruiting versus coaching, and why she added the coaching side
● 23:23 Building leadership and hiring philosophy at her old firm
● 25:34 The interview process horror story that almost cost her a hire
● 33:04 Managing a growing team across multiple states
● 34:41 The biggest leadership lesson: find out what motivates a person
● 35:16 Why no one asks people if they actually want to lead
● 44:27 The $34 trillion wealth transfer to women by 2030
● 46:52 Financial literacy in high school and college
● 50:11 Calling out financial influencers with zero real experience
● 54:12 The story behind the name Lotus
● 57:03 Her advice for women considering this industry

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.
With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.
Learn more at:
https://www.mseedinc.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/Show More

Why Recruiting For Someone Else Is Never As Easy As It Looks!

Your Hiring Process Might Be Illegal

Is your hiring process quietly breaking the law? Renee Beckman sits down with HR consultant Cody Bengtson to unpack the compliance mistakes companies don't even know they're making, from illegal ...interview questions to job descriptions that trigger six-figure settlements. From there they get into how AI is reshaping recruiting, interviewing, performance reviews, and even the career ladder itself, plus a real-world case of a candidate whose maternity leave was miscategorized and stripped of PTO.

Topics covered:
● Why companies don't recognize they have a hiring problem
● The efficient vs. effective trap in recruiting
● AI interviews, AI-written resumes, and the resume "sameness" problem
● Whether AI is really coming for white collar jobs
● The senior talent crisis we may be building right now
● Using AI to write performance reviews (and the legal risk in doing so)
● VUCA, PIPs, and the six types of managerial power
● State-by-state leave law chaos and why benefits are a bigger deal breaker than people think
● A real case of a maternity leave being misclassified
● Why Cody left the corporate world to build his own consulting business

Timestamps:
00:00 — Introduction
00:39 — How much hiring involvement consultants really have
01:07 — Posing as a candidate to test a company's hiring process
01:55 — The biggest things companies get wrong in hiring
04:09 — Why companies don't think they have a hiring problem
04:23 — Efficient vs. effective decision making
06:04 — How AI is changing who gets hired
06:18 — The "black box" AI tools recruiters are afraid of
07:37 — What it's actually like to take an AI interview
08:46 — The self-recorded video interview experiment that went sideways
09:22 — Layoffs, AI hiring sprees, and what they really mean
10:04 — Is AI actually coming for white collar jobs?
10:29 — The industries AI won't touch anytime soon
11:37 — The job description mistake that cost a company six figures
12:02 — Which jobs are genuinely at risk from AI
13:26 — Why we may be building a senior talent crisis
15:36 — Ken Griffin's AI reversal in under five months
16:13 — Why smaller companies may be the safer bet right now
17:01 — AI creeping into compensation and job architecture
19:22 — AI-written resumes, and HR dinging candidates for using AI
20:45 — Reference checks and work samples make a comeback
22:04 — Grad school, AI, and the value of struggling to learn
23:08 — What the research says about AI and your brain
25:31 — How to actually use AI to learn instead of coast
27:31 — Why Cody left the corporate world to start his own business
28:53 — What VUCA means and why it matters right now
30:37 — Are PIPs still a thing?
33:16 — The legal risk of letting AI write performance reviews
34:21 — The court case that proves why you don't ask AI for legal advice
36:13 — Why employees get blamed and managers rarely do
38:47 — The six types of power every manager should know
40:50 — Title vs. influence: which one actually matters
40:57 — The state-by-state leave law mess no one talks about
42:02 — How to actually communicate your benefits
44:20 — The real reason employees leave over a dollar an hour
46:47 — A real case: maternity leave miscategorized as FMLA
50:59 — Why "maternity leave" is the wrong term to use in 2026
52:27 — Remote work, return to office, and who's really deciding
53:55 — What surprised Cody most about being an entrepreneur
57:07 — Where to find Cody and his work

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.

With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.

Learn more at:
https://www.mseedinc.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/Show More

AI Agents Are Already Recruiting. Are You Ready?

AI agents are already handling candidate calls, pre-screening interviews, and mining old databases for forgotten candidates. Steve Zipparro spent over 20 years in staffing before moving to the tech side, ...and he's watching the shift happen in real time from inside a software company building these tools right now.

Renee and Steve get into why staffing hasn't changed much in decades until now, what AI agents can actually do today versus what's still hype, and why the human element in recruiting probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon, especially on the executive search side.

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and the story behind the name Acord
02:40 Why Renee is "obsessed" with AI right now
04:00 What's actually changed in staffing tech in 20 years
07:00 The real game changer: AI agents
08:30 Inside the agents: receptionist, recruiter, pre-screener
11:00 Would an executive candidate accept an AI recruiter?
15:00 How AI credits and token costs actually work
16:30 Why the human element isn't disappearing
18:00 AI bias and the compliance risk nobody's talking about
20:00 Are companies running leaner teams because of AI
23:00 Training recruiters: the lost art
25:00 The Brilliant story: the training system that built client trust
27:00 What actually predicts a good recruiter hire
31:00 Finding deal breakers early to prevent fall-offs
34:00 The "marathon interview" method for hiring internally
37:00 Would clients care if AI sourced their candidate?
42:00 The generational divide on AI adoption
44:00 Curating your LinkedIn algorithm
46:00 How they tripled sales during the 2008-2009 recession
51:00 LinkedIn's real impact on cold outreach
54:00 Closing thoughts

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.
With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.

Learn more at:
https://www.mseedinc.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/

#hiringroom #aiinterviews #recruitmentShow More

AI Isn't Taking Your Job. It's Exposing Whether You Can Think.

Devin Johnson spent 7 years at Amazon sitting at the intersection of employee experience and AI workforce development. Now he's bringing that lens to retail at Nordstrom — and he's ...got some bold opinions about what's coming.

This week on The Hiring Room, Renee and Devin get into the jobs AI is reshaping first, why critical thinking is becoming the most in-demand skill no one is training for, what the gap between corporations, schools, and recent grads actually looks like from the inside, and why the fear narrative around AI and unemployment is doing more damage than the technology itself.

They also get into the candidate experience breakdown happening in high-volume retail hiring, what job seekers need to do differently right now, and why Devin thinks the pendulum will swing back — even if most companies aren't ready for it.

If you're hiring, job seeking, or trying to figure out how to prepare your team for what's next, this one is worth your time.

Subscribe and follow The Hiring Room for new episodes every week.
http://www.youtube.com/@MSeed-Inc

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 — What companies will be hiring for in 5 years
01:30 — Devin's 7 years in AI workforce development at Amazon
02:17 — How companies are swapping headcount budgets for data center costs
03:31 — A bold take: why the pendulum will swing back
04:27 — The critical thinking gap no one is solving for
06:05 — Career laddering, early career talent, and the skills architecture problem
07:00 — Why job study analysis is making a comeback
08:49 — Apprenticeship models and AI simulation for developing real skills
10:36 — The shift toward consultative, ambiguous work
11:26 — Fear-based AI messaging and why adoption is stalling
13:46 — The three-way disconnect between companies, schools, and grads
15:14 — 75 million jobs AI is estimated to create. Who is preparing?
15:39 — What Devin would tell a CEO to do right now
17:09 — Communication and persuasion as the new core skills
19:33 — How big companies should be thinking about new markets
22:30 — Why small businesses stay stuck and what the slow-down-to-go-fast approach looks like
24:00 — LinkedIn is turning into Facebook and everyone is an AI expert
29:07 — What is actually happening with AI video interviewing in retail
30:56 — Ghost job postings, Wall Street optics, and what candidates should do about it
32:52 — Post and pray is dead. What a real job search strategy looks like now
38:44 — Candidate experience as a competitive issue in retail hiring
42:45 — Is the 20% unemployment Armageddon narrative real?
46:52 — What responsible AI implementation actually requires
52:23 — Why people resist AI (fear, identity, ethics, and surveillance)
54:40 — Data centers, environmental impact, and the communities no one is protecting
56:00 — Federal guardrails, civic responsibility, and what comes next

#AIWorkforce #FutureOfWork #HiringStrategy #AIJobs #TheHiringRoom #WorkforceDevelopment #JobSearchTips #RecruitingStrategy #AIAdoption #TalentStrategy

ABOUT THE HOST

Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.

With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.

Learn more at:
https://www.mseedinc.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/Show More

Why People Follow This CFO From Company to Company

Becky Norris is the CFO of North Star Aerospace, now a GE Aerospace company. She has spent over two decades in finance and operations, working her way from senior accountant ...to divisional CFO across three private equity backed companies, all of which were eventually acquired or sold.

In this episode, Renee and Becky talk about why people follow Becky from job to job, what actually makes a leader someone people trust, and why she interviews for culture fit over skill set. Becky also breaks down the difference between private equity ownership models, what changes when a company gets absorbed into a corporation the size of GE, and why she thinks AI gets blamed for layoffs that are really just cost cutting.
If you lead a team, hire for a living, or are trying to figure out what kind of leader you want to be, this one is full of real, unscripted advice.

What we cover:
• Why employees follow certain leaders from company to company
• The difference between managing people the same way and managing them right
• Why real time communication beats scheduled one on ones
• Becky’s Gallup StrengthsFinder profile and how it shaped her leadership style
• The three types of private equity ownership and how each one operates differently
• What changes when a private equity backed company gets acquired by a public company like GE
• Why Becky interviews for culture fit, not just skill set
• Why sending one job to five recruiters at once hurts the hiring process
• What internal recruiters need to do to be treated as real hiring partners
• Why employees resist new systems and processes, and how to get them on board
• Why “working yourself out of a job” through process improvement is actually job security
• Whether AI is really replacing people, or just getting blamed for layoffs

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and Becky’s background
00:46 CFO of North Star Aerospace, now part of GE
01:20 From restaurant owner to corporate finance
02:06 Career path at UPM, senior accountant to divisional CFO
08:50 Why people follow Becky from job to job
09:42 Building a fulfilling 40 hour work week for her team
10:24 What actually makes someone a good leader
12:08 Protecting your people and avoiding office politics
12:23 Why you can’t manage everyone the same way
16:54 Real time communication versus scheduled one on ones
18:19 Positive and negative feedback, and why timing matters
23:05 Where Becky’s leadership style actually came from
29:41 Her Gallup StrengthsFinder results explained
37:14 Career recap: UPM, Spartan, WasteBuilt, North Star
42:05 The three types of private equity ownership
44:32 Moving from a PE backed company to a GE owned company
53:49 Why she hires for culture fit over skill set
55:14 Why sending a job to five recruiters at once backfires
56:56 What internal recruiters need to do differently
1:01:04 Why telling candidates the truth upfront builds trust
1:08:08 Why employees resist new systems and process change
1:12:34 Her best advice for young leaders
1:13:25 Is AI really replacing jobs, or is it an excuse

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.

With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.

Learn more at: https://www.mseedinc.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/
#TheHiringRoom #Leadership #Hiring #CFO #ExecutiveSearch #PrivateEquity #CareerAdviceShow More

Why Business Owners Are Underestimating AI's Impact — And What It Means for Hiring.

Renee Beckman sits down with Ganesh Krishnan, Founder of AI Hello, to break down what business owners are getting wrong about the pace of AI adoption right now.

Ganesh has been ...working in machine learning since the early 2000s — at eBay and IBM — long before ChatGPT made AI a household word. He brings a no-drama perspective to a topic that tends to attract a lot of it.

They cover what's driving AI fear inside companies, why some of your most experienced people are refusing to touch it, and what Ganesh does in job interviews that most hiring managers never think to try. They also get into the hallucination problem, who really controls AI right now, and what skill is going to matter most as the tools keep improving.

If you run a company, hire people, or are just trying to figure out where you stand in all of this — this conversation is worth your time.

Topics Covered
• What business owners are underestimating about AI right now
• Why AI has always been here, and what actually changed with LLMs
• The hallucination problem and why it matters for enterprise use
• How Ganesh interviews candidates using ChatGPT — live, in the room
• Why some high performers are refusing to adopt AI (and what that tells you)
• The career ladder and what happens to entry-level roles
• Which human skills are going to hold their value
• The AI oligarchs, who controls the models, and why that matters
• DeepSeek, Alibaba, and the case for downloadable open-source models
• What Ganesh is building next with Hal0, a zero-hallucination AI model
• AI guardrails — who they actually protect and who they don't

Timestamps
– 00:00 Welcome and intro: what are business owners underestimating about AI?
– 01:00 Amazon, automation, and the robot economy
– 01:33 Blade Runner, slave labor, and the stakes of getting AI right
– 02:16 How Ganesh got into machine learning before it was a trend
– 03:16 AI in hospitals, Google Maps, and cancer detection — it was always there
– 04:16 The difference between old ML and today's LLMs
– 05:33 What AI Hello does: Amazon ad optimization and the e-commerce problem
– 06:12 Introducing Hal0: the zero-hallucination model
– 07:16 Why hallucination is a real problem for businesses (not just annoying)
– 08:38 How Ganesh's model approaches the hallucination fix
– 09:38 Can public companies actually rely on AI for financial analysis?
– 10:17 AI doomsdayers, 20% unemployment fears, and how to think about it
– 11:09 Google DeepMind vs. Alibaba's Qwen: two very different motivations
– 13:26 Who is behind Qwen and what they say their goal is
– 14:04 China, data, and the case that cheap AI might not be free
– 16:41 Why downloadable models keep your data off the cloud
– 18:36 How AI is already changing Ganesh's own team of 28
– 19:50 Vibe coding: what it is and why it matters for non-technical founders
– 21:16 Renee's own app-building story and what it would cost to build today
– 23:33 Five years out: what changes, what stays, and what gets harder
– 26:38 Hal0's first release: a personal assistant that reads your email and knows context
– 27:33 Automated recruiting outreach and what Renee is building
– 30:22 What human skills hold up as AI gets more capable
– 31:01 The career ladder and entry-level roles: hype or real threat?
– 31:10 How Ganesh uses ChatGPT in live interviews — and what he's actually testing
– 33:17 The case study he gives candidates and what separates the good answers
– 36:44 AI adoption inside companies: why only 6% of AI budgets go to training people
– 37:28 The airport story: why people avoid AI even when it's obviously better
– 39:09 Fear of accountability as a blocker to adoption
– 40:29 The AI oligarchs: what Ganesh actually thinks of their rhetoric
– 41:26 UBI, kings, and peasants: where the power conversation really leads
– 42:46 AI guardrails in Illinois and whether they protect the right people
– 44:38 Facebook banned Ganesh's account by accident — and no one could fix it
– 47:25 Why distributed AI matters more than regulated AI
– 49:24 Soft skills, the career ladder, and what kids growing up behind screens are missing
– 51:06 Wrap-up and the case for a Part Two on the post-AI worldShow More

He Was Inside Coinbase During the IPO. Here Is What He Learned About Culture.

Dr. Adam Link was inside Coinbase when it was still under a thousand people. He watched it grow to over five thousand, survived the IPO, and then made a decision ...most people in his position never make. He walked away on purpose.

What followed was three startup exits, a mobile app studio, a development team in Eastern Europe, and eventually a licensed fiduciary wealth management firm he built from scratch. Every move was smaller and more intentional than the last.

In this episode Renee sits down with Adam to talk about what hypergrowth actually does to a company's culture, what he looks for when he builds a small team, and why he thinks the abundance mindset is the single hardest thing to hire for. They also get into the real cost of bad retirement planning, what a fiduciary advisor does differently, and why the first few years of retirement are often the most important spending years of your life.
Adam also breaks down the AI marketing agent he built himself to replace an outside agency, and why he thinks small businesses will feel the impact of AI differently than anyone is predicting.
If you have ever wondered what it looks like to walk away from something big and build something better, this one is for you.

Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and guest background
01:00 What Coinbase looked like from the inside before it was a household name
01:44 Being there for the IPO
02:28 How a computer science PhD also became a finance guy
03:40 Spending a decade in tech as the unofficial financial advisor for his coworkers
05:36 First exit: the lock screen quiz app and how luck played a bigger role than strategy
08:58 What happened after the sale and what he learned inside a VC operating firm
11:35 Getting mentored by a good CTO and seeing how deals actually come together
13:41 Catching the startup bug again and parting ways
14:37 Second startup: turning an idle screen into a monetizable billboard
17:17 How an accidental bug became the whole business idea
18:12 Second exit, the earn-out that did not fully pay out, and the Eastern Europe chapter
19:35 Why some people are built for startup life and some are not
19:51 Starting Fireweed Capital as a side project with a very specific vision
21:07 What a fiduciary financial advisor actually does and why it matters
22:14 How fiduciary advisors get paid and what that means for the client
23:10 Being honest with clients about when not to move their money
24:11 The problem with telling people to just keep working until 75
25:24 Outliving your money: the single biggest retirement risk nobody talks about enough
27:03 The three stages of retirement: go, slow go, no go
28:27 Why having $20 million at 95 is not as useful as it sounds
30:03 How your spending needs and priorities shift as you age
31:29 Why you should leave your positions alone during a market downturn
32:28 The Dalbar study: why the average investor underperforms the index
33:22 When you actually need a financial advisor and when you probably do not
34:57 Why Adam got into financial planning and what he gets out of it
36:27 Why real business experience makes a better advisor than credentials alone
37:51 Why the word fine means something completely different to every client
39:19 Building culture at Fireweed Capital deliberately and without rushing
40:38 What he looks for when hiring: willingness to work, not just raw talent
41:33 The one question he asks every candidate that has nothing to do with skills
42:31 Why he wants to keep the team between five and ten people and no larger
42:55 Why hiring for abundance mindset is the hardest thing to get right in a sales culture
44:15 How Fireweed Capital acquires clients and why digital advertising became the focus
44:29 The AI marketing agent he built himself to replace an outside agency
45:20 Why multiple still photos of a real person build more trust online than anything else
46:08 The AI doomsday question and why Renee is in the right industry to be asking it
47:23 What AI is actually going to do to small businesses and solo operators
48:30 The unique competitive advantage question every working person needs to answer now
49:37 Why people still want people and what that means for hiring
50:46 Why small business AI adoption is slower than the headlines suggest
51:18 Why the energy grid might be what limits AI growth before anything else does
52:25 Closing thoughts

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.

With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.
Learn more at:
https://www.mseedinc.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/Show More

Why the Pause Is the Leadership Skill Nobody Teaches with Dr. Chris Johnson

n this episode of The Hiring Room, Renee sits down with Dr. Chris Johnson, licensed psychologist, executive coach, and author of Leadership Pause, for a conversation that covers what it ...actually takes to lead well under pressure.
Dr. Johnson shares how her background in trauma treatment, addiction, and mindfulness shaped her approach to working with executives, and why she believes the single most important thing a leader can do is learn to pause. Not as a soft skill, but as a biological necessity. When leaders cannot regulate their own nervous systems, it shows up in their teams, their decisions, and their culture.
They also get into the real state of psychological safety in organizations today, what Google's Project Aristotle found about high performing teams, and why so many leaders are promoted for technical skill but never prepared for the actual work of leading people.
Then the conversation turns to AI. Both Renee and Dr. Johnson are direct about what they are seeing: hiring decisions are getting delayed, entry-level roles are being eliminated before younger workers ever get a chance to develop, and fear is driving a lot of organizational silence. Dr. Johnson also shares findings from her recent listening tour of leaders, available on her website under the title Still In It.
Her companion workbook to Leadership Pause is out now and includes audio access via QR code.

Timestamps:
00:10 - Introducing Dr. Chris Johnson
01:27 - From clinical social work and addiction to executive coaching
03:48 - How family trauma shaped her focus on mindfulness and leadership
07:26 - What is ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) and why it works for leaders
09:46 - The leadership skill nobody teaches: the power of pause
12:32 - The pushback leaders give and how Dr. Johnson handles it
15:45 - What real results look like: sleep, focus, and better decisions
18:48 - How leaders develop and why some stop
22:40 - Success stories: seeing transformation in executive teams
26:12 - Where to start: leader first or team first
27:28 - Psychological safety and vulnerability as the real drivers of performance
29:36 - The legacy of separating business from personal and why it does not work

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.
With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.
Learn more at:
https://www.mseedinc.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/Show More

No One Solved This HR Problem… Until Now

What if one of HR’s biggest problems was never really solved… until now?
In this episode of The Hiring Room, Renee sits down with Kasey Devine, Founder of Entravia and former ...ADP and TriNet leader, to talk about the outdated systems behind HR outsourcing, PEOs, payroll, benefits, and why businesses still struggle to navigate one of the most confusing parts of workforce management.

Kasey shares how he went from industry executive to startup founder, how he raised funding, built an MVP using AI tools without a technical background, and why deep industry expertise still matters in a rapidly changing AI world.

The conversation also dives into leadership, founder mindset, company culture, hiring the right people, and what it takes to build something no one else has been willing to tackle.

If you’re a founder, HR leader, recruiter, operator, or business owner trying to build better systems and make smarter people decisions, this episode is packed with practical insight.

In this episode:
✅ Why the PEO process is still confusing for businesses
✅ The HR problem nobody seemed to solve
✅ How Kasey built an MVP without knowing how to code
✅ Raising funding and launching a startup in HR tech
✅ Why industry expertise matters more than ever in AI
✅ Building a people-first culture as a founder
✅ Hiring lessons for scaling companies
✅ Why leaders need to manage people differently
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to The Hiring Room
00:45 The real story behind the name Entravia
03:30 Raising startup funding and pitching investors
06:00 Why industry expertise matters in AI
07:00 Building an MVP without a technical background
09:30 Hiring someone to replace yourself as a founder
12:30 Why timing mattered for growth
16:00 The HR problem Casey is solving
20:00 Why choosing the right PEO is so difficult
23:00 Bringing transparency to HR outsourcing
27:00 AI, hiring, and fixing broken systems
30:00 Building a people-first culture
33:00 Leadership, proximity, and company growth
35:00 Managing people based on strengths
40:00 Hiring behind the work, not hype
42:00 The emotional side of hiring decisions
45:00 Casey’s vision for improving work through technology

About the Guest
Kasey Devine is the Founder of Entravia and a former leader in the PEO and HR outsourcing space, with experience at ADP and TriNet. He is building technology designed to modernize how businesses evaluate and implement HR outsourcing solutions.

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.
With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.
Learn more at:
MSeed
Renee Beckman on LinkedInShow More

How an FBI Analyst Uses Intuition in Career Decisions

Roughly 70% of professionals say they’ve ignored their gut at some point in their career and regretted it.

But what if intuition isn’t just a feeling?

In this episode of The Hiring ...Room, I sit down with former FBI intelligence analyst turned career coach, Adam Dickinson, to discuss the intersection of logic, intuition, and career decisions.

Adam spent more than 15 years in the FBI analyzing information and making high-stakes decisions. Today, he helps professionals navigate career pivots by combining structured thinking with what he calls an “internal GPS.”

We discuss:
• How intuition and logic work together
• Why fear influences career decisions
• What “gut instinct” really means
• Meditation, self-awareness, and career alignment
• The role AI may play in human decision-making
• Why so many professionals feel disconnected from work

Whether you’re considering a career change, feeling stuck, or questioning your next move, this conversation offers a different perspective on how we make decisions.

⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – What are Akashic Records?
02:35 – How heartbreak changed Adam’s path
05:00 – FBI myths vs reality
08:00 – Meditation, Joe Dispenza & spirituality
16:00 – Healing, intuition, and self-awareness
25:00 – How Adam became an Akashic Records practitioner
29:00 – Career coaching for former federal employees
31:00 – Adam’s “Interlogic” framework
41:00 – AI, intuition, and the future of humanity
46:00 – Hiring, gut instinct & decision-making
58:00 – Fear, intuition, and career choices
1:07:00 – Final thoughts on trusting yourself

About the Host
Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.

With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance.

Learn more at:
http://www.mseed.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/Show More

HR Leader: Why You Don’t Know What’s Happening On Your Team

Why are leaders constantly surprised when employees disengage or leave?

In this episode of The Hiring Room, Renee sits down with Pooja Bhatt, a former enterprise HR leader, to break down ...one of the biggest blindspots in leadership. Leaders think they understand their team when they do not.

After 20 years in talent strategy and leadership development, Pooja shares what actually happens inside organizations when managers rely on assumptions instead of consistent communication, feedback, and structured hiring processes.

This conversation shows where things break down, starting with the interview process and continuing into performance management. It also explains why most leaders miss the signals that are right in front of them.

They discuss:

Why leaders do not actually know what is happening on their team
How poor hiring processes create long term retention problems
Why performance management fails in most organizations
The difference between managing and coaching
How lack of feedback loops leads to disengagement
Where AI can help surface what leaders miss

If you have ever been surprised by an employee leaving or performance issues appearing out of nowhere, this episode explains why.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro and how Renee met Pooja
02:00 20 years at IBM and career transition
05:00 Coaching versus managing in large organizations
07:30 AI in performance management
10:30 Why performance reviews do not work
13:00 The leadership blindspot
15:30 Hiring and retention connection
18:00 Metrics leaders rely on and what they miss
21:00 Leadership behaviors that impact teams
24:00 Why managers miss what is happening
28:00 Generational dynamics at work
32:00 Coaching early career professionals
36:00 Broken hiring processes
40:00 Candidate versus company disconnect
45:00 Career pivots and wine venture
52:00 Advice for HR leaders
56:00 Why hiring is broken
59:00 Retention starts at the interview
01:03:00 Final thoughts

About the Host

Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth stage and mid market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.

With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long term performance.

Learn more at:
http://www.mseed.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckmanShow More

How He Built and Exited 2 Staffing Firms

What does it really take to build a company, scale teams, and exit successfully more than once?

In this episode of The Hiring Room, Renee Beckman sits down with longtime mentor ...David “DJ” Jackson to discuss building two successful staffing companies, leading large sales teams, and why he eventually chose to leave the industry after decades of success.

They also discuss what separates great managers from average ones, why most companies promote the wrong people, the lost art of recruiting, AI in staffing, and what founders get wrong when scaling teams.

If you’re a founder, leader, recruiter, sales manager, or entrepreneur, this episode is packed with practical lessons.

What You’ll Learn
How DJ helped build and sell two companies
Why some founders leave after success
What great managers do differently
Why top producers often fail as leaders
The lost art of recruiting and hiring
Why accountability drives performance
How AI is changing staffing and recruiting
What founders miss when scaling teams
Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:12 Building two successful exits
00:43 How DJ got into staffing accidentally
03:31 Why staffing was such a grind
04:18 Building a fast-growing company
09:31 Why startup environments are special
12:38 Why DJ left staffing after success
13:20 Why relationships still win business
15:35 Why recruiting is broken today
18:16 Why corporate hiring feels broken
22:20 The lost art of training recruiters
27:24 Why founders struggle to scale sales
28:41 Why firms don’t train people anymore
29:41 Order takers vs order makers
30:22 AI in recruiting and hiring
38:40 Why Monster never replaced recruiters
45:25 DJ’s leadership reputation
47:15 Why one-size-fits-all management fails
49:34 Toughest people to manage
50:18 How great leaders adapt to each person
53:25 Why accountability matters
56:13 Why top producers fail in management
59:52 If he started a staffing firm today
1:00:40 Biggest software competitors today
1:01:25 Final thoughts

About the Host

Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she helps growth-stage and mid-market companies build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems.

With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and improve long-term performance.

Learn more at:
http://www.mseed.com
linkedin.com/in/renee-beckmanShow More

The Hiring Room Podcast

Why Recruiting For Someone Else Is Never As Easy As It Looks!

Subscribe Our Newsletter