Hiring Excellence with Johnny Campbell

Skills-First in Practice with Wesley Connor & Maria Trivellato

Hiring Excellence with Johnny Campbell

Show Notes

Skills-first is everywhere but is anyone actually doing it? Johnny digs into new research arguing the gap between “skills-first” talk and real adoption is huge. Wesley Connor (Mastercard) and Maria Trivellato (Criteo) share what skills-first looks like beyond hiring: talent marketplaces, internal mobility, role clarity, learning tied to business needs, and the change management required to get hiring managers, and employees, on board.

More from Hiring Excellence with Johnny Campbell

Oct 21, 2026

HSBC hires 40,000 to 50,000 people a year. So how do you bring AI into that without losing what matters most? In this conversation from our recent SocialTalent Live webinar, Johnny sits down with Noel Brown, Global Head of Enterprise Talent at HSBC, to unpack their guiding principle: don’t automate trust. Noel shares how HSBC uses an AI interviewer to understand the career goals of its own workforce, why the “no” experience matters as much as the “yes”, and why every dollar spent on tech needs $3–4 more in change to land.

Oct 14, 2026

Johnny sits down with Nick Vitale, Head of Global Talent Acquisition and Mobile Strategy at Kenvue, the consumer health company spun out of Johnson & Johnson. Nick walks through standing up a global TA function from a near-blank sheet: staying lean on tech at day one, using RPO for flexibility, and fixing people and process before technology. He also covers building recruiter capacity for real talent advisory work, and why agentic AI needs intent, not just enthusiasm.

Oct 7, 2026

Most TA teams are using AI to cope with more volume. Fewer are asking where it belongs. This episode replays AI Native, Still Human, a conversation from our SocialTalent Live webinar in September. Johnny talks to Kyle, Director of Talent Acquisition at Grindr, and Mick, co-founder of Smart Jobs. Kyle explains how an AI chief of staff built by his own recruiters takes a role from kickoff to launch in five minutes. Mick brings a sales lens: not every candidate is equal, because of how they found you.

Sep 30, 2026

Most employer brand teams are small and stretched. Hannah King, Head of Employer Brand and Recruitment Operations at Straumann Group, joins Johnny to share what drives results without a big budget. They cover measuring impact beyond vanity metrics, why recycling content beats chasing new ideas, and how one recruiter with a phone turned employee stories into higher reach and engagement. A practical listen for anyone who needs to prove employer brand isn't fluff.

Sep 23, 2026

Most companies keep their high-potential lists and succession plans well away from recruiters. Merck opened both.

See all episodes →