Greenhouse Open 2016 speaker Spotlight—Stacy Zapar, founder of Tenfold

4 mins, 42 secs read time

We are excited to welcome Stacy Zapar, Founder of Tenfold and world-renowned employer branding, social recruiting, and sourcing strategist, as a speaker at Greenhouse Open. Our annual summit and networking event for those in the Talent Acquisition, People Ops, and HR space takes place this May in San Francisco! (For more information, click here).

All about Stacy

Stacy is a 19-year recruiting veteran turned recruiting strategist, trainer, and advisor. Founder of Tenfold, a boutique recruitment consultancy leading employer branding, social recruiting, and sourcing initiatives at great employers including Zappos, TripAdvisor, Greenhouse, and others. Stacy’s strategies focus on targeted, proactive approaches that build ongoing relationships with candidates and get meaningful, measurable results.

Q&A

We recently chatted with Stacy to get to know her better, the person behind the speaker! We were most intrigued by her quick rise to success in the recruiting space. Here’s a snippet of our engaging interview:

1. Let’s take a walk down memory lane. How did you get into the talent/HR space?

I started in a staffing agency in South Carolina back in 1997, mostly recruiting for Y2K programmers. I was really reluctant to take the role initially (the recruiters all seemed so stressed!) but I’m glad I did in the end because I absolutely loved it. From day one, recruiting became a passion for me. I made my monthly quota in the first week, and I made my quarterly quota in the first three weeks. The rest is history! :-)

2. It’s time to brag! What are some of your favorite professional accomplishments in the talent/HR space?

I'm really proud of the innovative work we did to create the Zappos Insider program. It was a lot of fun to break the mold, try new things, engage with candidates in fun, innovative ways, and be proactive in our sourcing and pipelining. It was great to see the results of our efforts and know that the program worked how we hoped it would.

Of course, I'm also really proud of the recent work we did to launch Greenhouse's employer brand presence (Grow at Greenhouse) and am excited to tell our story at Greenhouse Open!

3. What are your go-to resources for staying on top of talent/HR news? How do you continue your learning, ensuring you evolve as a talent/HR professional?

My top resource, hands down, is Facebook groups. They're my new LinkedIn when it comes to networking, resources, knowledge sharing, crowdsourcing, etc. I'm a member of several groups—I have found them all to be invaluable!

Here are my 5 favorite groups:

Sourcing:

SourceCon

Secret Sourcing Group

Recruiting tools & technologies:

Talent Product Plays

Recruiters Online

Employer branding:

The Employment Branding Forum

4. A hot topic in the talent/HR space has been improving the candidate experience. Do you have any thoughts or insights on how to best approach this?

I could go on all day about this! But here are my top three tips:

1. Communication: Make sure to send weekly updates to all candidates in the pipeline, whether you have any news for them or not. I always block Friday afternoons to send updates so my candidates never go into the weekend without knowing exactly where they stand.
2. Closure: Sign off every candidate who applies, whether they get an interview or not. Everyone wants closure and feedback. You can even take it one step further and offer to connect with your applicants, stay in touch, and help them network. I always do this, and it's helped me grow my network and give back.
3. The Magic Question: Always ask every candidate at the end of every interview, “Is there anything additional you'd like to share that would be helpful for us to know?” This not only serves as a catch-all for any relevant info that may not have come up in the interview questions, but it also enables the candidate to feel like they really got an opportunity to shine and sell themselves fully. Even if they don't get the job, they can at least walk away feeling like they were able to put their best foot forward and not leave anything unsaid.

5. It seems like you have done it all—recruiting, consulting, owning a business, speaking around the world, etc. What is next for you? Which other area do you want to conquer?

Gosh…I don't know! All I know is that I like new challenges, building things, trying things I've never tried before, and stretching myself in new ways. I’m not sure yet how that will manifest itself but you can be sure that every new project or venture I take on will incorporate as many of those elements as possible! :-)

6. May is just around the corner. What are you most excited about for Greenhouse Open?

I'm definitely excited for Greenhouse Open. After attending the Greenhouse Summit (and a roadshow event) last year, I can attest to the fact that it's always a top-notch event in a beautiful venue with great content and inspirational speakers. The enthusiasm of the attendees is always high, so it’s an all-around can't-miss in my book!

Engage with Stacy and other professionals in the talent and HR space at Greenhouse Open, May 25-27th in San Francisco. It’s where all the People-People are going to be!