Hiring Excellence with Johnny Campbell

We talk a lot about the “hiring promise” but how often do we actually deliver on it?

In this episode of the Hiring Excellence podcast, Johnny sits down with Jackie Lowery, former VP of Talent Management at Southwire, to explore how better onboarding drives retention, engagement, and performance.

From fixing broken day-one basics to building executive-sponsored cohorts, Jackie shares practical steps that reduced early attrition and rebuilt cultural connection.

If you want hiring to stick, this one’s for you.

Hiring hasn’t got easier, it’s just got noisier.

In this episode of the Hiring Excellence podcast, Johnny is joined by Robert Whitehouse, Chief People Officer at MiQ, to talk about what’s really breaking hiring today and why the fix isn’t another shiny tool.

They explore:
• Why in-person connection still matters in a digital-first world
• What “good interviewing” actually looks like (and why most managers aren’t taught it)
• How better alignment between recruiters and hiring managers improves quality, speed, and confidence

If hiring feels harder than it should, this conversation will feel very familiar.

What does “TA transformation” look like when the business is scaling, integrating, and changing leadership… fast? Johnny is joined by Laura Le Masurier, a TA leader who moved from agency exec search into building and reshaping in-house TA in the satellite/space sector. They unpack how she mapped stakeholders, reduced admin drag, standardized hiring, and cut time-to-hire from 175 days to 54—without simply throwing budget at the problem.

TA tech transformation isn’t just “pick a new ATS.” In this episode, Johnny sits down with Seth Wear, VP of Talent Acquisition at Wabtec, to unpack a real-world move off Workday Recruiting and into a new ecosystem with SmartRecruiters. They cover the why (speed, automation, recruiter experience), the how (value-stream mapping, standardizing interviews), and the funding (self-funding by cutting “iPhones” to buy “bread and milk”).

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.