How a Whole Human Talent Strategy Can Make You a Hiring Hero
A million fewer people *every year* are enrolling for 2- or 4-year degrees than were 5 years ago—so if, as an HR leader, you’re not expanding how you’re assessing talent and aptitude, you’re falling behind. And who wants that? In this session, hear about new research on the advantage of looking past degrees to assess whether someone will thrive in a job, and walk through solid case studies of how HR leaders in small, midsize, and large companies are pivot to embrace Whole Human Hiring—looking not only at degrees, but skilled credentials, aptitude testing, inherent talent and interests, and more—and how they’re benefitting as a result. There is no talent shortage, if you change the way you’re assessing prospective talent, so join us to see how you can become a hiring hero, take charge of the shifting educational landscape, and get and keep the talent you need!
Learning Objectives:
Hear why and how employers are embracing a whole human hiring frame. Explore strategies, from easy to advanced, you can implement to access more talent and keep your company ahead of the curve. Learn about new research, emerging technologies, and solid techniques you’ll need to become a hiring hero. Take home specific, immediate actions you can use to change how you find, assess, and keep talent in your company.
In-person session offerings are on a first-come, first-served basis.
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Clayton Lord
Clayton Lord (Clay, he/him) oversees strategy, planning, program delivery, and program evaluation for the SHRM Foundation, the 501(c)3 nonprofit arm of SHRM, which focuses on widening pathways to work and helping every worker and workplace thrive by empowering HR leaders to be forces for social good. He is a social impact executive who has spent his career driving systemic change in the world of work. Clay is also a writer, painter, and quilter, as well as a travel fanatic, and holds a B.A. in English and Psychology from Georgetown University. He lives with his husband and daughter in Maryland.
Alexander Alonso, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP
Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Data & Insights Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.
During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).
Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.
Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.
Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.
Cara Chennault-Reid
Cara Chennault-Reid is Koch Industries’ corporate human resource director, based at the global headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. In her role, Cara leads the human resource capability with over 700 HR professionals supporting 125,000 employees worldwide. She helps advance business vision and strategies through talent management while accelerating the application of Koch’s framework, Principle Based ManagementTM.
Cara and her team focus on helping employees who are contribution motivated achieve their full potential.
In 2006, Cara began her career at INVISTA, a Koch company, leading several global human resource and talent acquisition teams. In 2017, she became the chief operating officer at Koch Global Services, driving a vision for the delivery of shared services within the human resources, facilities, and real estate services.
Prior to joining Koch, Cara spent 12 years with a global consumer products company in various human resource and operations leadership roles.
Cara holds a Bachelor of Science in communications and organizational psychology from the University of Tennessee. She and her husband John live in Wichita, KS and have two daughters.
Kate Smalkin
Kate currently serves as the SVP of Partnerships for Climb Hire. Most recently, Kate served as Global Talent Lead for Public.com, a venture-backed high-growth retail investment startup based in New York. This is actually Kate’s second stint at Climb Hire - from 2019-2022 she built Climb Hire’s employer partnerships function from scratch, having built 60+ partnerships with companies like Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, Discord, IBM, Gusto, and more. Prior to Climb Hire, she was an Associate Partner with Arete Partners, a boutique SF-based executive search firm, where she ran VP+ level searches in Engineering, Product Marketing, Product Management, and more for Seed-Series A startups globally. Previously, Kate held leadership roles in sales & recruiting at Frederickson Partners in Menlo Park, where she oversaw business development, co-led the consulting & contracting practice, and ran C-level HR searches for marquee companies nationwide. Kate holds an M.A. in Philosophy of Religion from Yale University and a B.A. in French from the University of Redlands. She's thrilled to continue pushing the envelope on systems-level change with Climb Hire, helping companies think more broadly and creatively about entry-level hiring.