Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diana Alt here. And this is Work Should Feel Good, the podcast where your career growth meets your real life. Each week I share stories, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you build a work life that works for you on your terms.

Bonnie Dilber [00:00:26]:
Meeting right at 12:30. So I'm just going to give her a heads up.

Diana Alt [00:00:29]:
Okay, well, now I have to remind myself to clip the first few seconds off because I hit record while you were doing that.

Bonnie Dilber [00:00:35]:
Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's okay.

Diana Alt [00:00:37]:
If that's my worst problem today, I'm doing pretty well. All right, here we go.

Bonnie Dilber [00:00:41]:
Hey.

Diana Alt [00:00:42]:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Alt, and today my guest Bonnie Dilber and I are going to talk about how hiring looks a little different when your org is at the cutting edge of AI on as well as what life looks like when you are a known content creator while working a corporate job. Bonnie is a teacher turned recruiter currently serving as a senior manager of talent acquisition for the AI and automation and orchestration leader Zapier. Not Zapier, guys. I'm finally wiring that into my brain. Outside her work at Zapier, she's a thought reader, thought leader, re all the things recruiting, job search candidate experience, experience and the future of work. She's built a following of over 600,000 across all her social media platforms and writes for Business Insider and as a frequent contributor to other publications like Fortune and Wall Street Journal. So she's legit.

Diana Alt [00:01:39]:
I went and got y' all a legit person to listen to today. Welcome to the party. Bonnie, how are you?

Bonnie Dilber [00:01:44]:
Thanks so much for having me.

Diana Alt [00:01:45]:
Yeah, thanks so much for coming in. I always. It's fun. Funny, because I have been a coach for a long time and a lot of my business and what I'm known for is in the job search realm, mostly around, like, meaningful job search. Not that we're pretending that you're going to get a job that is a hundred thousand dollars more in 60 days or less crap that some people do. But I just love everything about people being happy at work. And so I haven't had as many recruiters on as the people are like, why do we have more recruiters? I'm like, I want the good recruiters with a good story to tell. And I think you have one because you started as an educator.

Bonnie Dilber [00:02:24]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:02:25]:
In your career. What drew you into education?

Bonnie Dilber [00:02:28]:
You know, kind of fell into that too. I did a program called Teach for America. So I was in college And I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. I was planning to go to law school, realized that I didn't want to do more school. And so I did an internship with a financial planning firm and realized I did not want to work an office job either. And so then I found out about Teach for America, which was a program for people who necessarily intend to work in education, but was trying to, trying to bring some non traditional profiles of folks that had strong like leadership potential into education and get in low income communities, like give them kind of access to what's happening in these areas that then might inform the career choices that they made in the future. So it wasn't necessarily a goal of bringing more and more people into teaching, but it was sort of like a short term fill teacher gaps that exist across a lot of more higher poverty areas in the US and then long term, hopefully build people that might contribute to systemic solutions. So that's sort of what Teach for America is all about.

Bonnie Dilber [00:03:30]:
So I thought that sounded pretty cool. As sociology and women's studies major, I cared about like social justice issues. So applied for that. It was the only job I applied for. Well, I applied for two. I also applied to drive the wiener mobile, but that didn't work out. So you're still young,

Diana Alt [00:03:46]:
so apply to drive the wiener mobile when you retire. That would be a hell of a story.

Bonnie Dilber [00:03:52]:
So we'll see. We'll see if they would take me. It's a good thing it didn't work out. I'm a terrible driver. So. Yeah, I moved to Houston, Texas, taught for several years and then actually worked for Teach for America for many years on kind of the program management side. And, and then eventually my favorite part was always like building my own team as a manager. So that's kind of what led me into recruiting.

Diana Alt [00:04:16]:
I had a client that left. She was an assistant principal at a high school. Yeah, she exited that role and decided like she didn't want to completely not touch education anymore. And she went to work as, you know, experienced teacher and administrator for Teach for America in Kansas City, which was awesome. So what did you teach? Would you teach?

Bonnie Dilber [00:04:39]:
I taught kindergarten, I taught third grade, and then I taught eighth grade English.

Diana Alt [00:04:44]:
Which was your favorite?

Bonnie Dilber [00:04:47]:
Gosh, third grade and eighth grade English. I loved both of those for different reasons. Third grade is, you know, a great age.

Diana Alt [00:04:56]:
Like I love third graders in general.

Bonnie Dilber [00:04:59]:
The good age of. They still like you. Yeah, they still like you. They're still kids, but they have a lot of independence and you know, but eighth grade Like, I, I love reading growing up. And with eighth grade, I got to teach a lot of like my own favorite books growing up, so that was really cool too. And. Oh yeah, yeah. So they were both great.

Bonnie Dilber [00:05:20]:
Kindergarten. I was not cut out for kindergarten.

Diana Alt [00:05:23]:
Like, that takes a special person. It does. I've got to be able to have a conversation with you, and you can't with every kindergartner.

Bonnie Dilber [00:05:30]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:05:31]:
But I, I can handle almost any kindergartner and I don't have kids either, so it's like I'm auntie everywhere I go. But I can handle like one or two kindergarteners. I cannot handle a room full of 23 kindergarteners or 28 kindergartners. I think that anybody that can do that is doing God's work, for sure. Oh, yeah.

Bonnie Dilber [00:05:52]:
And I feel every. I have a five year old and he's, he's in preschool. He'll start kindergarten next year. But every time I walk in the classroom and it's impeccable. He has this Montessori and all the kids are, it's never out of control. And I'm always like, gosh, this just makes me such a terrible teacher because. How are you doing this? Because my room never on my best day looked like this. They're.

Bonnie Dilber [00:06:15]:
They're incredible. Yeah, good, good early childhood teachers.

Diana Alt [00:06:19]:
Do you have other. Do you have any other kids or. No, just the one kindergartner. Does he love school?

Bonnie Dilber [00:06:24]:
He, he does. Yeah. He really. Yeah, he's pretty. Like a focus. Like. Yeah, he kind of people pleasing tendencies. So he likes to.

Bonnie Dilber [00:06:38]:
Yeah, he likes, he likes school. Yeah, he seems to be.

Diana Alt [00:06:41]:
Yeah. I would like school too.

Bonnie Dilber [00:06:42]:
I'm hesitating because I'm like, yeah, it's still the age where it's a lot of fun. And so.

Diana Alt [00:06:47]:
Yeah, talk to me when you're like having trouble in algebra too.

Bonnie Dilber [00:06:51]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:06:53]:
So my parents were both educators. They, My dad taught for a couple years at the high school level, chemistry, and then they both were at the community college level for years and years and years. My mom taught English. My dad was an engineering person. So I marinated in higher education from the time I was a child. So you're also kind of the queen of the pivot. If we look through your career, you have had a lot of different pivots, and so I'd love if you kind of walked through some of those. One of the things that I always wonder about people's pivots is were they intentional or were they messy? Because some people do the.

Diana Alt [00:07:36]:
You know, this chapter ended or this chapter wasn't working anymore, and I didn't know what the heck to do, so I threw some jello at a wall. And other people are extremely methodical about it.

Bonnie Dilber [00:07:46]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:07:47]:
What about your pivots? Walk us through them, if you don't mind.

Bonnie Dilber [00:07:50]:
Probably more intentional, but always a little bit, like, you know, messy or not exactly like, what was. Life is messy. So, yeah, I mean, the pivot from the classroom to Teach America was, like, pretty natural because I was a part of the organization, and they reached out and were like, hey, we have this opening. We think you'd be good at it. So, you know, that came pretty naturally, I will say, like, I moved to Oklahoma kind of very out of the blue and with a lot of conflicted feelings to help, like, build up a region, because I met the executive director at a conference, and we just, like, really clicked and we talked, like, help you build your region. So that's how I landed there. Very kind of opportunistic. When I made the pivot into recruiting, I knew that at my time in Oklahoma was kind of coming to a close, and I knew I really liked recruiting, and I wanted to move into that kind of role.

Bonnie Dilber [00:08:43]:
Actually, my manager was the same guy I just mentioned that I, like, kind of flipped with one of my best friends in the world. We still are very close. And so I let him know I was like, hey, I'm somewhere. Probably coming to the end of my time here. Here's what I want to do next. So I want those kinds of experiences. So he actually helped me, like, sort of expand beyond what I was doing, which was very instructionally focused. So I had more experience building hiring processes.

Bonnie Dilber [00:09:09]:
I started, like, supporting the whole region with their hiring versus only hiring for my own team, so that I had some things to beef up my resume so that was competitive for those types of roles. And then that, you know, on the flip side, he got a lot of time to recognize, like, hey, who are we going to prepare for, like, Bonnie's, you know, successor? That kind of thing. So I think if you can be in situations where you have exits like that, that's ideal. And, yeah, and then I threw my hat out there for a lot of different roles and got one in. You know, I actually applied to tech at that point. Nobody in tech would even give me an interview. I applied to lots of things internally within Teach for America, and then I also app applied for some jobs externally that, again, someone actually referred me for the. The next role, where I ended up getting hired to, like, lead a talent acquisition Team for a school district.

Bonnie Dilber [00:09:59]:
I never formally like, been in a TA role, but again, they kind of got confidence that I would be a good fit and that I had built a lot of the skills. And the referral definitely helps, like, you know, a lot of people in my network and so that definitely helped. So that's how I ended up there. And then I really kind of burned out. That's probably the first time that I really left a job where I was like, I'm totally burned out. I had applied for some things. I had an offer. I knew it wasn't the right offer for me, so I kind of declined it, but said, hey, I'd be happy to come on for a few months and be ba.

Diana Alt [00:10:37]:
All right.

Bonnie Dilber [00:10:38]:
Oh, you're good.

Diana Alt [00:10:40]:
I was like trying to pull something up because I was looking at, Yeah, I told them, like, doing what we're. It's. I, I believe in high content quality, low to moderate production value.

Bonnie Dilber [00:10:51]:
So hey, that's my, my approach on content. Just talking.

Diana Alt [00:10:57]:
Don't make it hard. Don't make it hard. People think it's not genuine. So.

Bonnie Dilber [00:11:01]:
So yeah, I'm sorry, we kind of,

Diana Alt [00:11:04]:
we kind of went sideways. When you were talking about your experience with Burning Out.

Bonnie Dilber [00:11:08]:
So what do you feel the most

Diana Alt [00:11:10]:
burned out in that stage of your career?

Bonnie Dilber [00:11:12]:
So one, I had been like, go, go, go. High growth for over a decade now. You know, like in my job with Idea Public schools, I was traveling all the time. So I was pretty much every week I was somewhere else. I think I counted. I was taking like, you know, 120 flights a year or something crazy. Like it was just non stop somewhere or another. And yeah, so I was just tired and there were just things about the kind of job and like organization that no longer felt like a cultural fit for me either and probably were never the right fit.

Bonnie Dilber [00:11:49]:
But it was like enough that I could kind of like work through it. But anyway, I just felt like, hey, this just is not for me. So, yeah, I left and kind of told this company, like, hey, I'll come on and like do this job, like on a kind of short term consulting basis. And they said yes because they were desperate. And so that kind of unlocked about a year that I spent actually doing consulting work. And that was like an amazing year. And I could have focused on.

Diana Alt [00:12:14]:
When you did consulting, was it TA or was it other things?

Bonnie Dilber [00:12:17]:
Yeah, it was, it was mostly ta, but I did try to get my hands into some other things. So I helped with like building out new hire kind of onboarding processes and I helped a company through like a reorg and all the comms plans around their reorg and things like that. And I actually was just kind of like fractional. I was an interim chief people officer of about 30 hours a week for this organization in Chicago. And I got to go to Chicago. It was beautiful all summer. And so it was like great to go and spend time there, staying in hotels, eating at night.

Diana Alt [00:12:48]:
I love Chicago.

Bonnie Dilber [00:12:50]:
Yeah. Had like this great. I also did some sales, like business development for an ed tech startup that someone I had worked with previously had built. Was building just because I had this idea that I might go into tech sales. I mean I really, I was like, I don't know what's next for me. I want to get my hands into everything. And so I really like did a bunch of stuff over the course of that year.

Diana Alt [00:13:11]:
I love this though, because let me tell you what you did. I don't know if you mean you meant to do this or not, but the thing that I talk to people about a lot is like I find the over focus on title that people have to be aggravating both from just a. You know, it needs to perfectly match the people that have done stuff that was like clearly project management, for example. And then they won't even try to apply because they'll be, well, I wasn't a project manager. I'm like, I know they called you operations leader, but you really were a project manager for the last eight years. That kind of stuff is an issue.

Bonnie Dilber [00:13:44]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:13:45]:
And like half the titles didn't exist. We see all these titles that didn't exist five years ago.

Bonnie Dilber [00:13:50]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:13:50]:
You did skill acquisition though. And that's what I talk to people a lot about. Especially some of my clients that want to explore consulting. You know, they have expertise they gained in corporate. Most of the people work in tech. Of my clients, I'm like, go, go figure out what skill you need to do the next thing and then. And maybe then the next thing after that. So.

Bonnie Dilber [00:14:11]:
Yeah, I know.

Diana Alt [00:14:14]:
And my, my thing that I wish that I would have done a year, even a year or two of in a corporate setting was worked in marketing.

Bonnie Dilber [00:14:22]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:14:23]:
Because when I left and I didn't, I didn't really know that I was gonna. My exit from corporate to work full time for myself was not super planned. If it had been, I might have done something different. But I, If I was going back and doing it again, I would probably, even if I had to take a step back in a pay cut, go embed myself in a marketing team.

Bonnie Dilber [00:14:44]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:14:44]:
That's to learn stuff. Because when I was in product management, I was orbiting marketing.

Bonnie Dilber [00:14:50]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:14:51]:
And I wish that I would have gotten a little bit deeper into that because that's 80% of any business is marketing.

Bonnie Dilber [00:14:57]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:14:58]:
And when you're the Solopreneur, that means 80% of your life is marketing. Yeah.

Bonnie Dilber [00:15:02]:
And that was actually the main thing that drove me back into a full time role when one kind of like landed on my lap, but was that I was like, gosh, what am I gonna do when I want to take a vacation and suddenly I'm not getting paid and like, you know, or when this contract, like, you know, runs out, what do I have another one? And like pretty much the whole time everything was landing in my lap because I think I've just always naturally sort of built networks or kept in touch with people, that thing. So I was just sort of like, hey, I'm looking for something or you know, what are you up to? And they'd say, oh, you could be good for this. And things were kind of just landing in my lap pretty naturally. But I was like, what happens if that dries up? I don't have any sort of branding or business development plan or I don't have anything. And so that was like actually part of what landed me back in a full time role. But yeah, I think like that SDR type role there, BDR, whatever you call it, that I was doing $35 an hour, like that was significantly less than what I was making. And like, you know, my full time role or my fractional, like, you know, HR leadership type roles, but it was worth it to me because I'm like, it's not about the money, it's about now I have something I can add to my resume that says I've actually been an sdr and if I wanted to make that pivot, I now have a title I can add to my resume.

Diana Alt [00:16:21]:
Well, and the thing people don't realize

Bonnie Dilber [00:16:23]:
about recruiting, I learned to use a CRM.

Diana Alt [00:16:25]:
Like, you know, your CRM recruitment is pipeline management.

Bonnie Dilber [00:16:30]:
Yeah. You know, there's a ton of overlap but like sometimes it's also, you know, people do oriented.

Diana Alt [00:16:37]:
So it reminds me, you know Liam Darmody, right? Do you know Liam? He, you know, he's, he's done all of this personal branding, content and all this stuff on LinkedIn. And I told him a couple of years ago, like, wait, you were in sales operations? You can bring this sales ops lens to everything that you're doing and that's something special. So you as a Recruiting leader with actual SDR experience is a big deal.

Bonnie Dilber [00:17:01]:
I want to be clear. This was like for three months or something.

Diana Alt [00:17:03]:
I don't care. Three months. But when you're trying to, when you're trying to kill something and bring it home, even if it's just for three months, the whole mindset behind that is so different than a lot of the roles that most people that get into the recruiting field are in. Because they're in operations, they're in hr, they're barely, you know, they're not even in the computer. The bonus comp program in a lot of companies. Yeah. So that's very cool. So Kelly Rivnack, our mutual friend, told me that when we're talking about pivots, I should ask you about your take on people trying to make pivots in the job market of the year of our Lord 2026.

Diana Alt [00:17:46]:
Yeah, so. And I know you've done some content about that. What do you think people should keep in mind if they are contemplating a pivot right now?

Bonnie Dilber [00:17:56]:
Yeah, I, so I am of the, my, I'm not of like the shoot your shot mindset or, you know, I am very much like a realist about these things. And so I tried, I think I mentioned a little while ago, like, I started trying to apply for jobs in Tech in 2012. Nobody interviewed me. I got my first tech interview around 2017. Finalist, no offer. Like again, 2019, I got a job in 2021. I got two offers in 2021 from TEC. Perfectly coincided with when tech companies were aggressively hiring.

Bonnie Dilber [00:18:28]:
Like a lot of this stuff is more flexible about pivots when they need more people. Right now is not the time to pivot into tech. Like a lot of people have been laid off. There's minimal job creation happening. So companies have their pick of top talent with a lot of really good experience. So it is less likely that they're going to consider someone who's trying to make a pivot. Whereas there are fields where job creation is happening, like teaching. I always tell people, someone who spent a long time and built a good career and made good money in education, like most people could go and get a classroom teaching job, certainly as a sub, they could get that within the next week and they could be, you know, move into a full time role even without certification with like an alternative program in most states, within a few months, they might just have to take a class.

Bonnie Dilber [00:19:13]:
They may just have to enroll in a program. So that's a field worth pivoting into things in health care construction. Right. Now I believe is like, you know, still hiring various social assistants, like nonprofits, like areas like that. So there are places where job creation is happening. And I just. My recommendation to people is if you want to make a career pivot, it should more be into the fields where people are, where they need more talent than they have. Not into fields that, you know, certainly do not look for remote jobs like remote companies have their pick of people across an entire country or globally.

Bonnie Dilber [00:19:51]:
Look in your local community. And if a job has to be in your area, then they're more likely to be flexible because they're limited by the people who live in your community.

Diana Alt [00:19:59]:
You also have more of an opportunity to actually get in a room with somebody.

Bonnie Dilber [00:20:03]:
Right.

Diana Alt [00:20:03]:
Whether it's that you invite them to coffee because someone introduced you, or you just happen to sit next to, you know, an assistant principal at your kid's seventh grade soccer game or something like that. There's, there's more opportunity for that. My, my take is not terribly different than yours.

Bonnie Dilber [00:20:22]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:20:22]:
So I think I feel like in. When I talk to people about their job search strategy, a lot of times I talk to them about A, B and C opportunity. I'm like, take any opportunity you're looking at and kind of tier them for the most part, C opportunities you don't even want to go for. Like you're. That's the thing that like maybe if you have to eat and live indoors and that's the only way, but most people are going to have. This is the primo dream thing that I want to do. Kind of like applying to Harvard if you're a high school senior.

Bonnie Dilber [00:20:51]:
I use that same analogy. It's the same have.

Diana Alt [00:20:55]:
And then you have the, the, the be still good. They're still good. You know, if somebody thinks I want to go work and it's anthropic or bust, I think Claude's like all that is the best. But maybe my second tier is a consultancy that's focused on AI orchestration or you know, whatever that is. Implementation of tools in the related area. I think that that's fine. That's part of a sensible multi pronged strategy and you maybe put more effort in to the A opportunities or the A companies. That's kind of my take.

Diana Alt [00:21:30]:
I also think, I think pivots, people forget that a pivot involves. If you think about basketball, which I was terrible at, I was terrible at pretty much all sports. But when you are pivoting on a basketball court, you have one foot still stuck to the ground. That's the definition Of a pivot.

Bonnie Dilber [00:21:50]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:21:51]:
So what a lot of people, when they're talking about a pivot that they want to make, I try to figure out, are you talking about a pivot or are you talking about a completely different change? Because if you're doing a true pivot, there should be an anchor. Your anchor is you have operational savvy and you want to switch industries or your anchor is something else. So that's kind of my take.

Bonnie Dilber [00:22:13]:
Very similar. I love the. The basketball analogy. I will, like, use that somewhere.

Diana Alt [00:22:18]:
Basketball in colleges.

Bonnie Dilber [00:22:20]:
It's great. Like, I've often. Yeah, I said, like, for a pivot, you get to change one thing. Like you can change either your industry or your function or your role. But, like, you're not going to move from, you know, sales at a manufacturing company into marketing at a tech company. You're just not. Like, those are. You have no relevant experience there.

Bonnie Dilber [00:22:41]:
That's going to drive. You might be able to move into sales for a tech company or you might be able to move into marketing within your manufacturing, you know, where you have some, like, expertise. Yeah. So I just, I feel very strongly, like, I say the same thing. Like, I don't think I'd be working in recruiting for a tech company if I hadn't first worked in recruiting and education. And people often write me, I saw you pivoted from education. And I'm a teacher and I would love to come. Like, yeah, I didn't come from, like, my classroom into a tech company classroom into, like, you know, building the relevant functional expertise that then allowed me to transition industries.

Diana Alt [00:23:20]:
Thank you for saying that. Because I remember whenever this was in, you know, pandemic times, as it were, like 2021, I remember in particular, I got in a little glut of talking to a lot of instructional designers and L and D people. And I still do have, like, a weird side specialty that I work with a lot of people in L and D, when most of my stuff had been product program management, like, kind of adjacent to what I actually did when I was in corporate. But what drove me crazy is the teachers. This was not all teachers. Don't come at me in the comments. Teachers. But there were a lot of them that thought that they should immediately be able to slide from the classroom into senior instructional design roles.

Diana Alt [00:24:04]:
Yeah. In corporate.

Bonnie Dilber [00:24:06]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:24:06]:
At a time when they were actually getting pinched.

Bonnie Dilber [00:24:09]:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Diana Alt [00:24:11]:
They were actually getting pinched because the L and D marketing training pinches always start earlier. In any weird market, you can't do that any more than the senior instructional Designer can turn around and walk into your classroom.

Bonnie Dilber [00:24:24]:
Yeah. Designing for kids is a very different thing from designing for adults.

Diana Alt [00:24:29]:
Yes. And being real about how close your skills actually are is very important.

Bonnie Dilber [00:24:35]:
So I think a lot of people are honestly unrealistic. And that's like, somewhere that I've suggested people use AI because if you prompt AI to be like very highly critical and discerning, it will give you really honest feedback. It will default. Oh, I can totally see how a teacher can be a senior instructional coach. But if you ask it to, like, be extremely picky, they're only hiring the top 1% of people, then it's going to, like, let you know, hey, here's all the stuff.

Diana Alt [00:24:59]:
Is that your app you Vibe coded?

Bonnie Dilber [00:25:02]:
I did. Vibe code one that does that. Yeah. Okay.

Diana Alt [00:25:06]:
I was stalking your tick tock earlier today.

Bonnie Dilber [00:25:08]:
Oh, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:25:10]:
And I was like, I want to try that.

Bonnie Dilber [00:25:13]:
Yeah. You don't have to have like an app for. You can literally just put a prompt. And I've shared the prompt as well that you can use. But I mean, it's not even that hard. Literally, just tell it like, I want YouTube.

Diana Alt [00:25:22]:
I want to meet worlds like recruiter.

Bonnie Dilber [00:25:25]:
Tear apart, like my qualifications for this role and give me really honest feedback.

Diana Alt [00:25:29]:
I love that. And I, I think it's so much of a better use of AI for people in a job search. And I would. I really want to share that with some people because I. I just did a, like a 45 minute webinar a few weeks ago on. I called it AI the right way for your job search. And I kind of debunked a lot of the let's make the bad louder and more that a lot of people are doing because they don't know better. So I might have to get that from you and share it with my people because I think that's really important.

Diana Alt [00:26:03]:
And ripping apart your qualifications is important because people think the worst is when people are so good and they think they've got it on paper and they don't. You don't realize that it didn't make it clearly to the paper. So. All right, folks, well, I'll try to get. I'll try to get that from Bonnie so I can send it out. You guys, I want to kind of pivot next to AI in hiring. Like, we could talk about generalities in hiring. I do have a couple of general questions because some of the people in my community, when I said I was interviewing you today, had a couple things.

Diana Alt [00:26:36]:
But one of the reasons I invited you on is because Zapier is known for transparency in hiring and you are known for transparency online about what is real in a non doom and gloom way. So I want to talk about a few things related to that. One of my first questions is I want to talk first kind of Zapier and then sort of go into like the broader market and what you see as an expert. How is AI showing up? Can you just kind of what. Let's, let's say I apply. Tell me a role that you hire at Zapier where somebody might have to collab with AI during the hiring cycle. Yeah, give me an example of a role.

Bonnie Dilber [00:27:17]:
I mean any of our roles they actually will. In some they're doing that. So AI assessment as part of any role.

Diana Alt [00:27:24]:
Okay, so you don't you work with ops?

Bonnie Dilber [00:27:29]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:27:29]:
Oh, like an operations leader.

Bonnie Dilber [00:27:31]:
Yeah. Or like currently I'm wrapping up offers for my senior recruiter roles. So my senior recruiter candidates. Yeah, I can walk through.

Diana Alt [00:27:38]:
Perfect. Let's talk recruiter then, since that's on your brain. So from the time that a role is a twinkle in your eye or a twinkle in your boss's eye, whoever is making that decision, to the time an offer happens, can you quickly walk us through some of the points where AI shows up and I'm interested in for your workflow and also what the candidate sees.

Bonnie Dilber [00:28:01]:
Yeah. So for, for us like behind the scenes, we might use AI. I'm saying might because it just kind of depends on like the role in the hiring manager. But AI is probably used at some point in the creation of, you know, the job description and questions like whether it's doing. We have like a one that checks for biased language and adjusts those, you know, so things like that. It might recommend. We have one built that will like recommend application questions and interview questions based on the job description and what the hiring team is looking for. So there's AI and in those places.

Bonnie Dilber [00:28:36]:
And then we also have a lot of automation and agents behind the scenes that, you know, that role got approved. Now it's hey, hiring manager, it's out in the world. Yeah. So even behind the scenes it's sort of like helping just trigger the opening of the role. Once the role is posted, there won't necessarily be an AI interaction on the, in the application, but people will have to speak to their like AI experience on the, on their application. And then for some of our roles, including the recruiter role I recently hired, I used an agentic recruiter screen that we're screener that we're piloting and you know, got like pretty good feedback. Most people enjoy the experience. I think it's something people are really afraid of.

Bonnie Dilber [00:29:17]:
And I was transparent, was like, I'm asking you to do this because it's a technology that we have and I want you to like have exposure to it. Because if you were to work here, like you might be using this tool.

Diana Alt [00:29:30]:
I want you to know what it is.

Bonnie Dilber [00:29:32]:
And so anyway, yeah, so they, you know, not every applicant, but maybe about 10%.

Diana Alt [00:29:40]:
I was just going to ask you, how did that screener, how is that changing how many people end up having that first contact with your company?

Bonnie Dilber [00:29:50]:
So I mean certainly more because like on my recruiter app I had over a thousand applications and roughly 10% of them were invited to do that screener, which normally I would have probably prioritized 10 max to talk to live. But instead I was able to get that additional information and it definitely changed some of the people that I ended up like moving forward. Like I 100% can point to people that I was really excited about on paper that, oh, once they spoke I was like, oh actually this is, you know, maybe not as strong as I would have expected. And then other people who maybe I, I, you know, would have thought were like not the strongest candidates in the mix for some, you know, maybe the kind of company they worked for, how long they'd been recruiting, that kind of thing ended up being really strong.

Diana Alt [00:30:36]:
So for that screener, were they doing like, were they doing an interview with an avatar? Were they just answering questions?

Bonnie Dilber [00:30:45]:
It asks questions and you know, and does probing questions. It's a pretty cool experience, honestly. They ask like really good follow up questions. I would say better than most human recruiters if I'm being honest. Like the things they probe into and really gets like good information. So great.

Diana Alt [00:31:00]:
So what happens then? Let's say I passed that.

Bonnie Dilber [00:31:02]:
Yeah. Then there's not any major points that they're going to interact with AI after that in the hiring process other than there's always like an AI skills assessment at some point where they're going to be answering questions about their AI use. They might be presenting something they've done with AI, that kind of thing. Behind the scenes we don't have any sort of like AI that reviews resumes. And again I hear a lot about this but like now, now, now I don't know what technology people are using when they claim this is happening. I just can't point to a tool.

Diana Alt [00:31:34]:
But I do have, yeah, 80% of people are never seen by a human. Bonnie. That is A

Bonnie Dilber [00:31:42]:
haven't seen it yet, but I know we do have like an AI powered search, so you can basically tell it in natural language. Can you pull out the people who have five plus years of experience and who have worked at least three years at a tech company or that have been in a marketing role or whatever? You can kind of natural language and it will search that pipeline and bring those candidates. The thing is that we all know that it's not like perfectly accurate. And that's why I wouldn't say, oh, okay, great, let's like.

Diana Alt [00:32:14]:
But that step's not fundamentally different than what you've been doing since. For many years with Boolean.

Bonnie Dilber [00:32:19]:
Right, Exactly. It's literally the exact same thing.

Diana Alt [00:32:22]:
Easier.

Bonnie Dilber [00:32:22]:
Okay. It's just natural language instead of setting up a Boolean search string. Okay. And it, what it's doing on the back end is setting up a Boolean search string.

Diana Alt [00:32:30]:
Are you guys, are you excluding anybody from View with your AI?

Bonnie Dilber [00:32:37]:
So a human, I don't have a way to do that.

Diana Alt [00:32:41]:
Okay. A human is looking at every resume

Bonnie Dilber [00:32:46]:
for AI tools or for the AI search capability to reject people or take any action within Ashby.

Diana Alt [00:32:53]:
So what about knockouts? If people knock out a knockout, does a human still look to make sure that wasn't messed up or do you actually close that?

Bonnie Dilber [00:33:02]:
No, that is the one place, I mean, you can see them, but that is the one place I don't check because the only knockouts on most questions are work authorization. So and that's not an AI thing, that's just like a normal automation. So if someone checked, you know. No, I have on occasion had people message me and say, hey, I must have picked the wrong box. And I go and look and it's always that they pick the wrong box. It's not that they, you know, the automation misfired.

Diana Alt [00:33:29]:
Yeah, they answered the question incorrectly.

Bonnie Dilber [00:33:31]:
Yes. Like they said, I don't have work, you know, or I need sponsorship when they don't. So anyway, I've had that happen a handful of times, but for the most part I don't look at the knockouts. But it's also a very tiny number of people, so.

Diana Alt [00:33:45]:
Okay, cool. Do you have anything. So we talked about, you go through from the time they get really into the, the regular interviewing cycle. The only touch with AI is your skills assessment. What about after that? So when they're getting into final round, you know, they've kind of, they've jumped over the I know enough AI that I'm still under consideration hurdle. Is there anything on the back end where you're using AI?

Bonnie Dilber [00:34:14]:
No, I'm trying to think. I mean some, some recruiters might be using AI to help like draft communications or something. I don't know.

Diana Alt [00:34:22]:
I mean that's like we're all due, we're drafting our grocery list. Yeah.

Bonnie Dilber [00:34:25]:
And I mean to me I'm like, I have templates for everything so I'm not like drafting fresh communication so I don't need AI for that. But I'm trying to think behind the scenes. We're piloting something that our team built for reference checks right now that will kind of go through all the notes and surface things to ask in the reference check process. So you know, there's things like that that we have, but yeah, it's not anything.

Diana Alt [00:34:53]:
What are you liking most about it and disliking most about like because you, you've been at Zapier long enough that you 2021, like you've, you've watched the explosion. Right. So what are some of the things that you are liking the most and the most frustrated by about AI? About your hiring process that has leveraged now AI and automations. I'm using that interchangeably even though we shouldn't.

Bonnie Dilber [00:35:26]:
I, I, we've, we've had historically I think a hiring process that I generally like. So and I don't know that I can say that AI has like significantly solved for anything one way or another. I do think it will. I actually am of the mindset that once we do have these, like once we do have strong AI features to review resumes, surface applications, like I honestly think that is going to be better for people. I think AI is better and has the potential to be less biased than humans and certainly to get through a much larger volume more efficiently so that every applicant gets equal consideration. Because the reality is like if you're for a lot of processes, if you're applicant 800, you just may miss out only because you were applicant number 800 instead of applicant number eight. And so they're like, we've got enough people to interview. I don't need to talk to this person.

Bonnie Dilber [00:36:18]:
And I think those are the kinds of problems that AI can actually solve for recruiting teams. So I'm excited about that. We're not there yet, but I am excited for the day we get there.

Diana Alt [00:36:28]:
I think that one of the things I find myself wondering if it's going to happen as you know, you having been in the academic world.

Bonnie Dilber [00:36:36]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:36:37]:
And then also in government world, there's a lot of. And we're opening the applications on this day, and we're closing the applications on this day, whereas the private sector mostly doesn't do that. I find myself wondering if the private sector should consider that.

Bonnie Dilber [00:36:53]:
And that is actually how I did my recruiter process. Because, yeah, I knew I was going to get a lot of applications, like, you know, just because recruiter jobs are pretty hot, like, especially remote recruiter jobs. So it's like, I know I'm going to have crazy app volume here. So I said, I'm only. I'm leaving this application from this date to this date. I will be reviewing them between these days and then you will. I let them know about that agentic screener. And I was like, you know, people who meet all the qualifications are going to be invited to do the screener to add extra information to their application, and you'll get a status update by this date.

Bonnie Dilber [00:37:27]:
Like, I mapped that out. That was in the application. And I did that specifically because I did not want to do the thing where the earliest applicants got an advantage.

Diana Alt [00:37:38]:
The latest.

Bonnie Dilber [00:37:39]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:37:39]:
Or the latest.

Bonnie Dilber [00:37:40]:
Or the latest is. Yeah, if you have a set where those are the ones that pop up. Or I. I don't know. So I was just like, you can submit it anytime in this window. But that was how I did mine. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:37:54]:
Thank you for sharing that. So, you guys, everybody knows who your company is, whether they use it or not. So you are like a hot. You might not be Meta or Google, but you're a pretty hot known brand. Have you found that you need to put friction at the front of the process? Like, there's a lot of conversation about that online. We get 2,000. We need to put some friction on the front of the process. What have y' all done with that?

Bonnie Dilber [00:38:24]:
Well, what's interesting is Zapier has always done, like, application questions. That's nothing new. When I applied application questions, I had to do, like, a little mini skill for certain roles. We're like, hey, build a zap. Like any. Or, you know, just build a zap that does this simple thing, show us, like, some level of skill for this role. So that is not anything new for us. We've continued to do that.

Bonnie Dilber [00:38:47]:
We do have a handful of roles where they've been testing out, like, asking people to record a short video responding to a question. Part of that's been in response to fraudulent stuff. A lot of people don't do it. They're not disqualifying, but it's sort of like, if people do it, it kind of helps. Like, but, you know, there's a Lot of different mixed feelings on that. I think that's an area where the agent screeners really help because at least it's a little more structured than a random, you know, do your own video at home type thing. So anyway, there's different things that people are testing because we do still get the high app volume. But at least the questions give us a little bit more to narrow the field by then.

Bonnie Dilber [00:39:25]:
Only, you know, resumes.

Diana Alt [00:39:27]:
Yeah, that's. It's such an interesting thing thinking about the friction at the front because there are one of the things that I. I have a couple of family members with autism and so like the neuro. The neurospiciness and some of the things that people think are either good friction or like a lot of the different asynchronous interview tools have been incredibly problematic for people that are in those communities. You know, they're. They are the neuro spicy or English as a second language is another issue as well. To what I assume that you guys are really looking hard at that whenever you are building these tools. How is that impacted what you're doing in developing hiring processes?

Bonnie Dilber [00:40:18]:
You know, I mean, one of the things is like, people can request accommodations and also all of these things right now are optional and we don't hold them against people. So it's been like, hey, if you're not able to do this or you prefer not to, like, then we'll set you up with like a human recruiter or you know, if like your application meets like certain criteria or whatever. So I think those things give some flexibility. I honestly am not clear what is different between like the agentic recruiter screen and the alive zoom screen. I don't know, like how that is different, a different experience for people. If anything, I would imagine the agentic one because you're not having to deal with like the, the facial like, interactions, especially the ones that are voice only. In my mind, maybe that's for me at least that would be like not having to worry about how I look or how I look.

Diana Alt [00:41:13]:
One of the biggest things that I've heard about, probably the biggest thing that I've heard other than just like general or why if they want to talk to me, they should give me a person like that, that thing right there. One of the biggest things I've heard people say is incredibly difficult for them is that there's often really short time windows to answer questions on some of the asynchronous, you know, pro. I don't know what your agencic one does, but that's a concern.

Bonnie Dilber [00:41:43]:
It actually gives.

Diana Alt [00:41:44]:
Yeah, world. What'd you say?

Bonnie Dilber [00:41:46]:
It gives them all the time in the world.

Diana Alt [00:41:48]:
Good. That's actually wonderful because you know, you got to compose yourself.

Bonnie Dilber [00:41:52]:
So there's people on the same interview that their total interview time will be 45 minutes and there's people who, it'll be like eight minutes. So you know, responding because some people just hammer through the questions and it's straight out to talk a lot more because they can and the screener will sometimes, you know, redirect or you know, ask follow ups and things. But ultimately if someone wants to keep going, they can just be like, I'm not done yet and keep talking. So.

Diana Alt [00:42:16]:
Okay, here we go. Great. What are you seeing more broadly in the market? What are the, you know, it feels like at least because you're transparent online about what your company is doing, it feels like you're on the front end of some of the better processes for this that actually serve a good candidate experience. What else are you seeing in the market? You know, what are people, what are candidates fearing?

Bonnie Dilber [00:42:44]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:42:44]:
That they should not be fearing.

Bonnie Dilber [00:42:46]:
Yeah. I think part of it is that people continually, with all of these things they think that it's like my options are I could have been talking to a human but instead I'm talking to this like AI or I'm doing this one way interview and that's not right. I should have gotten to talk to a person. The reality is that the choice on them was probably a rejection or an opportunity to sell themselves because you know, candidates like for most processes it's not like every candidate has to go through the agentic screener. It's like a, some candidates are going to go through a normal process, talk to the recruiter and then it might be like, hey, we've got these other like 20 people who normally we would have rejected but probably have some potential. Let's learn a little bit more and see what's there. It's like that sort of thing. But I think what a lot of people feel is that they're being like a human has chosen not to like engage with them and instead is asking a machine.

Bonnie Dilber [00:43:47]:
And I. That feels like more offensive. Whereas I wish that it was like clearer to people. Often it's like you could have been rejected but they thought let's give them a shot.

Diana Alt [00:43:56]:
Well, you just said you and you, you screened 10x the people that you would have five years ago.

Bonnie Dilber [00:44:00]:
Yeah. And on mine I had everyone do it, not just the people, not I didn't have just like because Again, I wanted that exposure for people since I know it's a newer technology. Like I didn't do the top people are going to talk to me. And the second tier.

Diana Alt [00:44:14]:
Yeah, you just did the second step for everybody. Is the screener okay?

Bonnie Dilber [00:44:19]:
Yeah. But for a lot of roles and a lot of companies it's more of like your top tier. No brainers are just going to go to the recruiter. But your next group where it's like I might have gotten in the past, it might have been like if none of this first group pans out, I'll go to this next group. Now they'll say this next group can go to the AI and then the AI will like give me some feedback or insight on them that will help me decide who to prioritize now. So that's one thing I would say. I think people also have this like belief that these systems are going to make process processes like more biased or work against them. And you know, I think there's just a lot of like not really understanding how like agentic, you know, and generative AI works, which is actually that it can cut through a lot more.

Bonnie Dilber [00:45:00]:
Like a human recruiter who has 8 seconds or 10 seconds for each resume when they've got a thousand apps is just going to be like, is the, is the title and the company matching what I'm looking for? And if the answer is no, if it's a little bit of a non traditional profile, they're just going to reject and move on because they just don't have time to process all the information AI does. Like AI can actually look across and say the titles don't match up. This person's been an operations coordinator. But when I look at everything they've done, these projects really line up with this job description. Let me move them forward. Even if the title doesn't match up. And I've tested this with so many like resumes like you know, just because

Diana Alt [00:45:36]:
I'm always curious, you know, that it's actually working.

Bonnie Dilber [00:45:38]:
Yes, I've like done this and I watch AI be like, actually this could be a really great candidate. And I'm like really? I would have rejected them.

Diana Alt [00:45:43]:
But thank you for letting me know. I appreciate that.

Bonnie Dilber [00:45:46]:
So, yeah, so like, yeah, so I honestly do believe that like AI is going to bring a lot more, give a lot more opportunity and broaden pools more than it is going to narrow. But I think the fear is the opposite.

Diana Alt [00:45:59]:
I know that a lot of people when they say that they're concerned about bias, that the thing is, well These humans programmed it. Plus there's the black box aspect.

Bonnie Dilber [00:46:11]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:46:12]:
So how can I trust that the biased humans that made a black box that I can't see inside are not creating something biased?

Bonnie Dilber [00:46:20]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:46:20]:
And I mean, that's going to be the question.

Bonnie Dilber [00:46:22]:
Really legitimate. I mean, yes, AI is absolutely going to inherit the biases of the humans that code it. I think what AI can do a little bit better is like, if you ask AI, like what biases it has, it like is much more self aware than a human. Like, wait, these are my. Like when it drew me as a man, I asked it to draw a picture of me and it drew a man. And I was. But even though I knew that it knew that I'm a woman. And when I asked it, it was like, oh yeah.

Bonnie Dilber [00:46:46]:
I think about people who work in tech as like men. Of course I know you're a woman. And it like redrew me, but it was just like, you know, it's like, what?

Diana Alt [00:46:53]:
Yep.

Bonnie Dilber [00:46:54]:
Yes. The biases are in there and like, at least you can guard against them. And you, you know, you can't go.

Diana Alt [00:47:00]:
It's a lot harder to look the senior vice president or the, it's, it's harder for you to look the COO in the face and say, are you sure that you're not being biased when you're choosing your finalists for this SVP role where you can, you can ask your LLM of choice some of those questions. A little bit more of a general question, not specifically about AI, that came up when I asked the Internet, what should I ask? Bonnie is actually around referrals. Yeah. So there's, I, there's all this narrative around, well, you just need to network more and you just need to get a referral. And I have so many feelings about it in part because I'm part of the Women in Product Facebook group, which is a great group. You know, I spent years in product management. Now I sometimes coach product managers and people will literally post an anonymous message in this group of like 38,000 people saying, can I get a referral into Zapier? Google refer me to Zapier. I'm like, you could be an ax murderer.

Diana Alt [00:48:04]:
Like, I'm not referring you anywhere. So I think people just don't think about referrals. Right. What's the right way, what is the right way to think about getting attention via an effective referral and also getting attention if you don't have a close relationship with someone inside the company?

Bonnie Dilber [00:48:25]:
Yeah, I mean one, I think referrals are really meaningful. But I think a lot of recruiting teams have put guardrails in place because of that. Like, we don't treat all referrals the same.

Diana Alt [00:48:35]:
Nor should you.

Bonnie Dilber [00:48:36]:
Exactly. Like, if you'd never worked with this person, or you're like, I just met with them on LinkedIn and they seemed cool that that's a random applicant that you're just trying to get paid for.

Diana Alt [00:48:45]:
You know, you're trying to get paid $2,500.

Bonnie Dilber [00:48:48]:
And it's so great that you brought them to the table. It's still good for us to know they came through your network. Like, like, I drive a crazy number of referrals to Zapier. And I do use like a referral link that shows they came through my

Diana Alt [00:48:58]:
network on link tree.

Bonnie Dilber [00:48:59]:
It's on your right. Exactly. But it doesn't mean we look at it internally as like Bonnie's referral. That must mean Bonnie's vouching for them. We have a separate form you have to fill out if you're actually like vouching for someone. And I think a lot of companies have things like that or they give people, you can do 10 referrals a year, that sort of thing. So that it's really like, you have to be limited in when you're putting your name behind someone. And all referrals are not created equal.

Bonnie Dilber [00:49:28]:
I do think people should, their first move should be tapping actual, like their real networks. People they've worked with, like, people they know through school, through networking groups, like people they have real interactions with. Then your next tier is like, where can you build relationships through? I think at the beginning of this, you might have said something about like going to a coffee shop. Or it might be like you said, start going to co working spaces or people from companies you're interested in.

Diana Alt [00:49:53]:
Leave your house, put on pants, go

Bonnie Dilber [00:49:55]:
start working from a coffee shop in your neighborhood, or go drive to a neighborhood where there's a lot of like, companies you might want to work for and like work from those areas. So you start meeting people and that kind of stuff. Like. But you have to like, actually build the networks in meaningful ways. Having a link that you apply through, that's not going to really mean anything to a company. I had people contact me saying I was a referral. I didn't get an interview. No one said referrals.

Bonnie Dilber [00:50:22]:
Like, we get thousands of referrals. Like, you know, because referrals are more about, like, marketing the role right at this point than they are, like, it's

Diana Alt [00:50:29]:
more about figuring out what channel that they should spend time posting things to and whatnot. So let's say you don't have a referral and you're this person and you're staring, staring at this operations coordinator role or whatever it is. I, I think I have the talent and I think I have the experience to work at zapier. I know nobody, 783 people are going to apply for this job. What is the best way other than not having. Other than having a resume that's clear?

Bonnie Dilber [00:50:56]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:50:57]:
What, if anything, is the best way to improve your chances?

Bonnie Dilber [00:51:02]:
I think realistically you need to go like, really above and beyond what the typical person is doing. And what most people will do at most is like they'll contact a hiring manager or recruiter and say, I'll just apply to this role. It interests me because it's at the intersection of pro of operations and projects. You know, something like that you might need to do. You know, I'm just gonna like, throw out examples I know these people don't like, but like, record a video where you're talking through. This is what I saw. Here's like, what I've done. Here's why it's like such a perfect fit for me that shows, like, I've really researched the company.

Bonnie Dilber [00:51:37]:
Go build something on Zapier and say, like. And I built those that like this Asian on Zapier that I would use if I were in this role. This is an example of the kinds of things I would use in order to, you know, scale our, our project management practices or make this, like, more efficient or be able to speed up our, our.

Diana Alt [00:51:56]:
You know, I'm a small

Bonnie Dilber [00:51:59]:
business owner

Diana Alt [00:52:00]:
and I made this for myself using Zapier and I would love to be part of your team. Okay.

Bonnie Dilber [00:52:06]:
I've seen people do this and have it be successful. And so when I'm saying it, I'm not just like throwing out things like that sound good, but I've seen this, like, work for people, but consistently it's like they are doing something the majority of people aren't and they are showing their skills because those skills are not as obvious on paper.

Diana Alt [00:52:26]:
Let me throw an idea. So I, I threw this idea at some people recently and I want your take on whether I was off or not. Okay. So we're run everybody. Ha. Everybody's working at companies that have different levels of adoption. A lot of people, one of the reasons they want to make a move is my company is making me risk being out of date on skill because they're not getting with the program.

Bonnie Dilber [00:52:51]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:52:52]:
So they'll do self study, they'll build their own what's the baseball schedule for the little league team or what the heck ever. Yeah, I've suggested that they should put that on their resume and talk about it on LinkedIn. What they have done with AI and I have had pushback from people, I think people that don't want to go that far probably. Well, that's what it is.

Bonnie Dilber [00:53:14]:
A lot of people are like, I shouldn't have to do that, I shouldn't have to create content. And it's like, well then don't but someone else can.

Diana Alt [00:53:22]:
I get salty about that. I feel the same way about that as I do about the people that work in non client facing roles. They get mad because they're like, this isn't just about who has the best skill, it's who's the best Internet interviewer.

Bonnie Dilber [00:53:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:53:37]:
And the I, I cannot think of a single role that I've ever seen publicized in my entire career where you didn't have to talk to a human at some point and help them understand something. So yes, interviewing the ability to express yourself.

Bonnie Dilber [00:53:56]:
There are real transferable skills that you have to share, like communicating. Understanding is important.

Diana Alt [00:54:02]:
And my take for that is that make yourself like a little AI learning, professional development, more robust than I got this, that and the other certifications say what you did to apply it. And then if your projects directly relate to the role and industry you're going for, put it closer to the top of your resume. If it's more like personal projects, put it down by where you put all that, like volunteer stuff and whatnot. Okay, cool. I'm glad I was not crazy.

Bonnie Dilber [00:54:30]:
Whenever I suggested that, I totally agree. And I get like kind of the same reaction from people where they, you know, and then I'm like, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. Like it's just idea. So do what works for you.

Diana Alt [00:54:42]:
Right. I, I know we're going a little long, but I really want to talk to you for a little bit about your content creator life because this isn't, you know, one of the top things you hear when you're a career coach is I'm afraid to do anything online. My boss is going to fire me or think I'm disloyal or what is I'm going to get canceled, like all of that kind of stuff. And you have half million almost people that are following you on LinkedIn. You have ninety thousand or a hundred thousand, something like that on TikTok. And I hate instagram But I actually went over there and looked, and you have like 20,000 over there. So that is a massive presence. What I want to go into how you built it, but what is the reaction from your colleagues? Been here in management at this organization, and you don't just say everything that people want to hear.

Diana Alt [00:55:35]:
Like, I'm sure you got haters in those DMS that you're ignoring.

Bonnie Dilber [00:55:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:55:38]:
So what is that like for you? And how does your company react to it?

Bonnie Dilber [00:55:42]:
Yeah, I mean, so I started it when I was at, like, I didn't start until I was already at Zapier, so.

Diana Alt [00:55:48]:
Oh, wow, well done.

Bonnie Dilber [00:55:50]:
Like, when I was new here, partially because I was in a new industry and was like, let me start talking about the roles I'm hiring for so I can get people to apply. So that's like, where it started. Was just naturally trying to, like, do my job. For the most part, they've been really supportive. I think there's been, like, good benefits for the company. Like, the company page gained a lot of followers, you know, as a result of me talking a lot about it. I do talk a lot about my work and the things we're doing and, you know, promote the company. And I've had people contact me and then, you know, that I can connect to the sales team.

Bonnie Dilber [00:56:20]:
So I think there's, like, real benefits for the company of having people who are visible. There's also, of course, been, like, friction times. I've said things that probably go against what people would agree with and that kind of thing. So. So we have those conversations or adjust the social media policy. There's I do brand, you know, partnerships. I work with a variety of brands. There's times I, you know, can't work with every product.

Bonnie Dilber [00:56:41]:
I might like to because it conflicts in some way or it's a competitor and, you know, those sorts of things. And so, like, just kind of have to, like, have those conversations. But I would say, I guess they've decided. I mean, they actually, I think, like, in large part because of the success that, like, I was having and how I was, like, benefiting the company actually worked to build, like, an advertisement advocacy program internally and help other people start getting more. And so it's really been encouraged. And there's a whole strategy around, like, creating some, like, intern, you know, influencers that talk about the product and their work. And so I think that the company has, like, embraced. But I do think that's been a little bit unique.

Bonnie Dilber [00:57:20]:
And it's a question, like, I would ask if I were, you Know, transitioning to a new job before I accepted an offer, I would make sure that they were comfortable with it because some companies aren't. And if they see that as a negative, I mean, that would. That impacts, like, my income potential and things like that. So I would definitely want to understand that.

Diana Alt [00:57:36]:
Yeah, I. That, you know, I don't think it's ethical for any company to insist that their employees, that they could lay off at the drop of a hat, only have a single source of income. That's just not.

Bonnie Dilber [00:57:49]:
That's just not very strongly. I talk about that a lot too. I feel strongly about it. I have a little group here in that the company is aware of, supports me having, where we get together and talk about our side hustles and what we need. And so I think Zapier is, like, pretty supportive. We do have policies around what you can and can't do, but like, yeah,

Diana Alt [00:58:09]:
what are some of the. You basically, is it mostly you can't do anything competitive, or are there other guidelines?

Bonnie Dilber [00:58:16]:
You know, there's stuff like certain topics that we should kind of talk about or not talk about, like politics or legality of certain, you know, thing. I mean, just minor.

Diana Alt [00:58:30]:
Don't pretend you're a lawyer when you're not a lawyer.

Bonnie Dilber [00:58:32]:
That sort of thing. Like. Yeah, I mean, that kind of stuff. Like, you know, to just be, like, careful around those things. Don't, like, promote or speak negatively about competitor products. Stuff. That's probably, like, mostly common sense, honestly.

Diana Alt [00:58:47]:
Okay, that's great. What did you. When did you first realize, oh, my God, I have a lot of people. Like, people are starting to notice what I'm doing.

Bonnie Dilber [00:58:58]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:58:59]:
Maybe the real question is, when did you start getting haters in the inbox?

Bonnie Dilber [00:59:04]:
I don't get as many as you would think, honestly. I get very few, like once every other month or something or congratulations things. It's honest.

Diana Alt [00:59:15]:
I don't either. But I also have.

Bonnie Dilber [00:59:17]:
Maybe there's more that I'm not seeing. Maybe, you know, filters, they go into the other inbox. I don't know. So I don't get too much negative, honestly, you know, comments and posts, but I, I think anyone that does social media stuff needs to have a thick skin. Or I am like, not only do I have a thick skin or I'm unbothered, but I actually find it, like, funny and slightly enjoyable.

Diana Alt [00:59:39]:
I had a.

Bonnie Dilber [00:59:40]:
Like, I. I would love to just argue with trolls all day. I get a lot of, like, joy from that. But I'm sure this is an unhealthy thing. I think I'm, like, built for that life.

Diana Alt [00:59:51]:
I. I had about. It was like three years ago or so, I had a post on LinkedIn that actually I had posted two or three other times. I just repeated it and tweaked it a little bit, like six or 12 months apart. And I posted it automatically using a scheduler, even. And then I was in a car driving to nap from Kansas City to Nashville for a conference, and I stop in the middle of the nowhere to pee, and I look at my phone and there's a bazillion notifications on LinkedIn. And basically the post was, in a nutshell, the recruiter doesn't work for you. Talking about agency recruiters.

Diana Alt [01:00:27]:
And it's the money trail. Right. I've posted this before and got 600 views on it, or, you know, 1500 views, something like that. I have like 12k on LinkedIn now, and I had less than. But that was enlightening because it got like five or six hundred thousand views. It's the biggest post I've ever had there. About 30% of the people in the comments didn't like it. And I spent a lot of time responding.

Bonnie Dilber [01:00:53]:
Just don't like the truth. Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:00:54]:
But when I was driving across the country, I was like, oh, my. There was one area. I'm like, what have I done to myself? I'm about to go speak at a conference. But by the time I got to Nashville and I was going to an entrepreneurs conference and I told them about it, you're like, man, if anybody's hateful in the comments, somebody said, if anybody's hateful in the comments, just thank them for the engagement.

Bonnie Dilber [01:01:17]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:01:17]:
And I was like, all right, that is a reframe beyond all reframes. There was one area where. Yeah, yeah. There was an area that I communicated poorly. So I made, like, a thing the next week to address it.

Bonnie Dilber [01:01:31]:
It.

Diana Alt [01:01:31]:
And people still hated it because they disagreed. But that was fine because by then I'm just thanking them for their engagement. But it's. It's very interesting to go viral. I don't recommend it. I don't love it.

Bonnie Dilber [01:01:43]:
It's funny that the. What I like. My two thoughts on it are like, yeah, one, yeah, it's engagement. And often it just sort of like, confirms. Mike, my friend, Mike Pedito, who I'm guessing you know. Yeah, he has something. Oh, you don't know him.

Diana Alt [01:02:01]:
Kelly introduced me, but we haven't been able to connect properly.

Bonnie Dilber [01:02:04]:
Well, he says something sometimes. He says, these people are not my problem. And I Like, I love that I remind myself of that. Generally the people who are like disagreeing or upset are probably not someone you would ever hire. They're not someone who would ever be in your network. Like, there's some, you know, there's someone who's in a totally different part of, you know, where, you know, oh, I shouldn't have to like do more than one interview to land a job. That's fine. You're probably not looking for jobs my company hires for or I talk about.

Bonnie Dilber [01:02:29]:
So like this is not for you. Move on. Like find someone in your field that

Diana Alt [01:02:33]:
you should never have more than three. And I'm like, I worked in product management. That is the center of a very complex. Spoke of stakeholders. Yeah, I want to talk to somebody from all.

Bonnie Dilber [01:02:43]:
I want to talk to them too. As a candidate.

Diana Alt [01:02:46]:
Yeah, as a candidate I went to. When did you start monetizing? How did that happen? Did you. Because I know that you do brand deals because I stocked your link tree and you just mentioned it. Like, what has the evolution of that been?

Bonnie Dilber [01:03:00]:
So yeah, I, I started doing them because a company reached out to me and was like, hey, we're, we work with, you know, creators. Are you interested in? I was like, sure. So that, that was the first one I did. And I think like once you do one more companies start realizing like, oh, that's something that you could do. Or I had other, you know, started like connecting with other creators that kind of worked with brands and we'd like recommend each other to companies, that kind of thing. So. And then I found like there's a couple of different platforms, but the one I use is like passion fruit where you can make a little profile and then companies in their network can come look for you, that kind of thing. And then the more you do them, then the more like people.

Diana Alt [01:03:45]:
It was really like,

Bonnie Dilber [01:03:48]:
because it's all been inbound. I've literally really haven't had to do any like outbound or work to like get them. If I were unemployed I would. But like, I just don't have, for

Diana Alt [01:03:57]:
whatever reason recently and I, I think it's because brands are really looking for UGC or user generated content for those not familiar with the term from people that are 50 plus and I'm 51, so like you know, six or nine. When, when my FYP figured out that I was over 50, I started seeing more about UGC. And so that's one of the reasons why I went down your rabbit hole. Because I'm like, I don't want to like hawk Post it notes and cakes like Nip slip, whatever those are. But I do like the idea of products that I would actually use or am actually using. So that's why I climbed all over your passion fruit. Is that what you said?

Bonnie Dilber [01:04:39]:
Yeah, it's like the platform that I'm on where, yeah, look at this great

Diana Alt [01:04:44]:
profile that I can model if I decide I want to go down that path. So. But it's a real thing that people, you know, based on your audience size and engagement, you can offer to do a thing and charge money for the thing.

Bonnie Dilber [01:04:57]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:04:58]:
So your biggest following is on LinkedIn and what I saw is that that is the highest price for a brand deal. And then your lower ones, of course you charge less for the platforms where you have less.

Bonnie Dilber [01:05:10]:
Yeah, forgot that I had prices on there. I should go check them.

Diana Alt [01:05:13]:
You do, you do check and update

Bonnie Dilber [01:05:17]:
them because I probably haven't changed them.

Diana Alt [01:05:18]:
You probably. Well, you have more. Your, your followers are out of date. I, I, your follower numbers are out of date. I noticed that when I was looking last night. So go get that money.

Bonnie Dilber [01:05:30]:
I'm terrible at updating these things, so

Diana Alt [01:05:32]:
I understand you don't need it. It's nice to have money. It's basically nice to have money. Have you been, do you do YouTube? Are you.

Bonnie Dilber [01:05:41]:
No, I actually did make a YouTube and every now and then I would put like things on shorts from just, yeah, my Tick tocks.

Diana Alt [01:05:48]:
I've been, yeah, I've been doing that. I, I've started the podcast production quality

Bonnie Dilber [01:05:53]:
than what I'm willing to do right

Diana Alt [01:05:55]:
now for really, what is actually very interesting is I rejected the idea of doing more with YouTube a while ago just because it seemed like it needed more production value. And now lower production value is playing better on YouTube than it was three years ago. Yes. Because it's because a lot of the people that are doing AI videos are making them look super produced and when you and I just go and talk, it looks more authentic.

Bonnie Dilber [01:06:21]:
Basically I just have to do the same content but like long ways instead of short ways.

Diana Alt [01:06:25]:
Just go do what Amy Miller's doing.

Bonnie Dilber [01:06:27]:
I haven't even looked at what she doing.

Diana Alt [01:06:29]:
Amy basically just gets on YouTube, does a 10 minute video about something and she'll draw on a whiteboard and it's just her sitting in her office and you know, is she Mr. Beast? No, but she does really high quality content. So. Yeah, that's another one. Thank you so much. There's one other, there's one other question I had that I ask everybody, which is what is the worst career advice you've ever received?

Bonnie Dilber [01:06:56]:
Received? That's a good question. Yeah, it's like to never, ever always make sure you're, like, moving up. Like, it always has to be a promotion. It always has to be more money.

Diana Alt [01:07:07]:
Yeah.

Bonnie Dilber [01:07:08]:
I think that's terrible advice. Careers are just not, like, linear like that. And I think you probably limit yourself in a lot of ways. And I actually took a small pay cut when I came to Zapier, because I came into Zapier from, like, leading a recruiting team to an ic, My first, like, IC role, honestly, in, like, since I've been a teacher. Yeah. And so it was about a lateral pay move, I guess. Not more. You know, there was, like, bonus and stuff.

Bonnie Dilber [01:07:33]:
So I guess on it would have total rewards been more. But my manager left six weeks in and I got her job. So I got a giant raise shortly after joining. And had I not been willing to take, like, a $3,000 pay cut on my base salary or whatever it was, I wouldn't have gotten. I wouldn't be like, where I am today. Right. And so, you know, that kind of stuff. I just, I think people limit themselves.

Bonnie Dilber [01:07:57]:
If, like, you feel like your next move always has to be something bigger. There's a lot of different ways to find growth.

Diana Alt [01:08:03]:
Well, you are helping an insane number of people both at your day job, leading your team, working with candidates, creating a good process. And you're helping even more by being transparent about hiring. Bonnie, thank you so much for coming on. This was amazing. Bonnie has a newsletter that you can follow and all her socials and everything will be in the show. Notes for the episode on YouTube or Spotify, Apple, all the places. So have a great day, everyone.

Bonnie Dilber [01:08:34]:
You too.

Diana Alt [01:08:35]:
Thanks. Want some more career goodness between episodes? Head on over to DianaAlt.com and smash the big green let's connect button to sign up for my newsletter. Let's make work feel good together. And that's it for this episode of Work should feel good. If something made you laugh, think, cry, or just want to yell yes at your phone, send it to a friend, hit follow, hit subscribe, do all the things. And even better, leave a review if you've got a sec. I'm not going to tell you to give it five stars. You get to decide if I earned them.

Diana Alt [01:09:11]:
Work should feel good. Let's make that your reality.