Johanna Molina is a social & HR Edtech entrepreneur, investor, and mentor. She is the Co-Founder and Head of Impact at Talanta, an ed-tech platform creating a borderless world for talent.
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[00:00:05] Welcome to the High Volume Hiring Podcast. I'm Stephen Rothberg, the founder of Job Search Site College Recruiter.
[00:00:19] We believe that every student in recent grad deserves a great career.
[00:00:24] This podcast features news, tips, case studies and interviews with the world's leading experts
[00:00:30] about the good, the bad, amy ugly when it comes to high volume hiring.
[00:00:36] Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:41] Today's guest is Johanna Molina, the co-founder and head of impact for Talanta.
[00:00:46] Formerly known as the intern group. It's an EdTech platform creating a borderless world for talent.
[00:00:52] She's also a social and HR EdTech entrepreneur, investor and mentor.
[00:00:59] Johanna, welcome to the show.
[00:01:01] Thank you very much, Stephen. He's a pleasure to be here with you today.
[00:01:05] In a minute or two, maybe you can tell the listeners a little bit about Johanna.
[00:01:10] Like who are you? What do you like to do?
[00:01:13] Yes, in addition to being the co-founder and head of impact, I was born and raised in Colombia.
[00:01:19] I've lived in the UK for a few years.
[00:01:22] That's actually where I go to discover that talent is everywhere,
[00:01:27] but opportunities are necessarily everywhere because my career in Colombia was in finance.
[00:01:34] I went there to further my career in finance.
[00:01:37] And guess what, Stephen, I didn't have any opportunities to actually get my career in finance.
[00:01:43] This is a while back around 12 years ago.
[00:01:47] That's where I met my co-founder David. He was in finance in London.
[00:01:52] Then we realized that we have the opportunity to open it up the doors
[00:01:58] for people without the right contacts, without but with the talent to be able to access opportunities.
[00:02:04] So I've been a passionate and I believe you are also passionate about providing opportunities for people
[00:02:11] and thus at the core of what I do every single day.
[00:02:14] That is awesome.
[00:02:16] And one of the things that I've just loved about your organization,
[00:02:20] right from the first time we were able to work together,
[00:02:25] is exactly what you said.
[00:02:27] It is designed from the bottom up to be inclusive,
[00:02:31] to help people who maybe didn't have,
[00:02:35] weren't fortunate enough to come from a family where they could go to work for their,
[00:02:39] you know, their uncle or their sister or maybe they don't have like a,
[00:02:44] maybe their first generation with a university degree.
[00:02:48] And they just don't have those connections that are so vital.
[00:02:52] And you guys really, I mean forget about a glass ceiling.
[00:02:55] You've you bust that wide open for them, which is just fantastic.
[00:03:00] So, you know, talking, you talked a little bit a second ago about some of your background.
[00:03:06] And one of the things that I was really excited to talk to you about is the changes that you've seen.
[00:03:13] And especially when it comes to the early level talent and say the past decade,
[00:03:19] more and more people are talking about early careers,
[00:03:22] but you know, call it early careers, call it early talent, call it entry level.
[00:03:27] What changes have you seen in the last decade?
[00:03:30] Steven, one of the biggest changes I guess we've seen in the last decade is,
[00:03:35] it's not a hypothesis.
[00:03:37] It's actually a cool conviction that talent is absolutely everywhere.
[00:03:42] I just told you a little bit about my personal experience,
[00:03:45] but if you speak with my business partner, he's going to tell you,
[00:03:49] and he's crazy about sports, particularly football.
[00:03:52] He's going to tell you how much he has evolved in terms of talented football players,
[00:04:00] that were recruited amongst the same city and even same neighborhood.
[00:04:05] A few decades ago, and now the best teams around the world actually have the best players
[00:04:10] from all over the world.
[00:04:12] I believe we are in that opportunity, like it's a crucial moment,
[00:04:16] for companies to be able to access those best players from all over the world.
[00:04:22] No matter where they are located, when nationality will pass, they have.
[00:04:25] And similarly, for the talent to be able to access those opportunities without any borders.
[00:04:31] Like what we are creating at Alanta is precisely that borderless world for talent.
[00:04:38] Our work on top talent can really connect either,
[00:04:42] I don't know, promote or hybrid through opportunities that can lead into full-time jobs.
[00:04:49] So I think that's one of the key changes that we have seen,
[00:04:53] especially in the last three, four years.
[00:04:56] It was very, very important for us in how do we attract talent and also how do we maintain and retain that talent.
[00:05:06] And on that same topic, we actually drawn a study with MIT at the end of 2021.
[00:05:13] Precisely to understand how companies are recruiting, how companies are attracting that talent.
[00:05:19] Where are they attracting them from?
[00:05:21] And it was quite shocking that there is also our paper because we realized that most of the Fortune 500 companies are hiring
[00:05:29] mainly from the US and Europe, which combine is 14% of the world's population.
[00:05:36] So where are the opportunities for the remaining 86%, but more than that,
[00:05:43] it's a massive, massive opportunity for companies to look outside of like the regular haystacks,
[00:05:49] let's say you can actually see that there is a world of amazing, as I said,
[00:05:54] that I'm talent for them to attract, retain, motivate into their cultures.
[00:06:00] And everything that comes with it, like all the true diversity of what I would love to call as well,
[00:06:09] excellent diversity where people can actually come out value to the creation of products and services
[00:06:17] that are for the world, therefore they need to be built by people that reflect the world.
[00:06:23] So this is, I believe, one of the most important trends that we have seen is that true embrasement of,
[00:06:30] okay now we have an opportunity to see talent from all over the world,
[00:06:34] how do we really embrace diversity, equity and inclusion in organizations.
[00:06:39] And that comes as well with a very big trend of flexible work,
[00:06:44] and so we can talk about yes, many people we were just saying before starting record in how much you travel,
[00:06:51] and that suits our lifestyles is not probably for every single role,
[00:06:56] it's not for every person but a company.
[00:06:59] But the flexibility is something that is really important for people nowadays,
[00:07:04] how they can either do hybrid work or in person if necessary,
[00:07:10] or fully remote, it really depends mostly on the needs of the organization,
[00:07:16] marching the needs and expectations from the talent.
[00:07:19] Yeah, no doubt organizations have some of them have been forced kicking and screaming into this new world
[00:07:27] because of COVID it certainly accelerated the requirement that employers look beyond their neighborhoods
[00:07:35] and through their state's provinces countries globally.
[00:07:40] And I think that's a great thing, has more and more people work with more and more people worldwide.
[00:07:46] I think we're going to have fewer problems.
[00:07:48] If you have friends, family, coworkers in another country, you're much less likely to fear that country.
[00:07:57] And also for the organizations, they're able to tap into so much better talent.
[00:08:02] I mean, forget the, as nice as the, we want to do the right thing,
[00:08:06] we want to do good is how important that is.
[00:08:09] The reality is the C-suite is generally going to be focused on the bottom line.
[00:08:14] So if you can do good and also improve your profitability, then win, win for everybody.
[00:08:20] So some of the listeners probably aren't going to be familiar with,
[00:08:25] with your organization tell them if you would kind of like a little bit more about what it is that you do,
[00:08:32] what kind of who core your clients, how do you help them?
[00:08:36] Yes, absolutely so at talent, our purpose is to create a portal as word for talent.
[00:08:41] It's very, very ambitious and we can't do it alone.
[00:08:45] Organizations such as yours, our host organizations, all our partner universities from all over the world.
[00:08:52] We're going to have 150.
[00:08:54] And how do we do that is by providing talent to an, and tap talent especially to remote to hybrid internship opportunities
[00:09:05] that can lead into full time jobs.
[00:09:08] We have a platform that connects both education and technology,
[00:09:12] and we incorporate into the platform bias reassessments.
[00:09:16] So that's how we recruit the candidates from different universities as I just mentioned.
[00:09:22] And we also focus a lot on training our interns and also managers.
[00:09:28] So training is at the core of what we do as well.
[00:09:31] We have a world training curriculum.
[00:09:33] We also have been working with our curriculum partner MIT Open Learning to also provide MIT curriculum.
[00:09:40] And it's really important for us creating those communities of learning,
[00:09:45] we're both in-tons and managers can not only just learn from our curriculum but also benefit from the power of peer learning.
[00:09:54] When you are working alongside all the managers from other industries across the world.
[00:09:59] And so that's how we basically, in terms of how we help our companies well by providing them and
[00:10:06] tap talent that is prevented, that is trained.
[00:10:08] And allowing them to spend time, no screening but deepening the connections with the candidates
[00:10:16] and really creating a big experience for them.
[00:10:19] We'll be back right after this break.
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[00:10:46] Welcome back to the High Volume Hiring Podcast.
[00:10:52] So the employer would come to a member of your team and basically say, you know, we're looking for
[00:11:00] 12 interns with the this background marketing business development facilities management whatever it might be.
[00:11:09] And then you would then work with your partners whether that's a job board like college or
[00:11:16] recruiter whether that's a university could reserve us office sites, whatever.
[00:11:20] But you would then sort of source that talent and then do the screening and selection.
[00:11:25] And I would do didn't present to the employer a list of finalists.
[00:11:30] You know, if they're looking for 12 people, do you come to them with, you know, three dozen candidates?
[00:11:36] And then they choose the 12 is that how that last that last piece is made.
[00:11:41] That's precisely what it is because we we don't want them to have to go through hundreds of different candidates once we know.
[00:11:51] And we can match those criteria to give them a pre selected list of candidates that they can will save time as well.
[00:12:00] And as I said, they decay time in actually creating a good experience for the candidate with our support as well throughout because as mentioned with the training that is for the company manager.
[00:12:10] And for the interns, we are always providing that support throughout which for us is key in the conversion into full time hires.
[00:12:20] Yeah and you're getting into exactly what I wanted to get into next because they don't okay, great.
[00:12:25] So you source the candidates you do some screening you present us with a final slate.
[00:12:30] We pick then what because I think a huge part of the value add is it's helping with the onboarding.
[00:12:39] It's helping with the training with the ultimate goal that if the employer likes the candidate and the candidate likes the employer that there is a permanent match there, right?
[00:12:50] I don't think any promises up front.
[00:12:53] But hey, it's kind of attempt to perm relationship, right?
[00:12:57] So how what's involved in the onboarding, the training for an employer that wants to take, whether it's an intern that you help them find or send a message.
[00:13:08] And you can find or send an intern on their own. How do you recommend they successfully onboard and train them so that they can essentially retain them over over long period of time?
[00:13:19] Absolutely, so we want to make it very easy for our partners to come to us with a job description.
[00:13:27] So we onboard them into our platform. We help them create a job description. We then give them the candidates that are pre-bred and pre-selected for them.
[00:13:35] So once candidates get to our partners, they have already started going through our training because that's also very key.
[00:13:44] When you look at interns, yes, just entry level talent, dressing grads, it's very difficult.
[00:13:53] I don't know if you remember your first time that you had an interview but it was for me, it was really panicking.
[00:13:59] It's always scary isn't it? And you don't necessarily have all the skills set required to go through that process and really display your strengths, really display who you are right there.
[00:14:16] And so we support them so that when they get there, they have already gone through different modules in how do you prepare for an interview. So they already have our support even before starting with the organizations.
[00:14:28] And also for managers, we support them in how do you really understand that this is the right talent for you.
[00:14:36] Especially if it's going to be in a remote environment, if it's from a different culture so that they can get the best out of it.
[00:14:45] So once we have a match and they start the internship, we have regular sessions so our curriculum is both asynchronous, probably our audiences here in us right now.
[00:14:57] We are with you right now but you are here in us and synchronous as you and I are here speaking at the same time.
[00:15:03] And so these creates a good balance between real time interaction and also do it in your own time, like different podcasts, different breathing, different forms of learning for them.
[00:15:19] One of the key things that we have seen for companies to actually be able to convert into full time hires in addition to the training is also having a very purpose, driven culture because talking especially about the entry level talent nowadays, gen sets, millennials.
[00:15:40] They really want to contribute to something bigger and build something good for the world as you just mentioned earlier.
[00:15:47] In our personal experience, it's our purpose that has been helping us attract them really good talent into the company so that's one of the key things.
[00:15:57] And how do you connect them and make them feel that they are part of the purpose from an intern or entry level position?
[00:16:05] Sometimes it's hard for them to understand how do I, in a position that is entry level, contribute to the wider purpose of the organization and it's very critical for them to feel that they are actually contributing in how they can see themselves reflected long term in the organization.
[00:16:24] Another thing that we have seen is by providing flexible work and that not only means, from a work or hybrid but also how do you think about them in the way like the future of work is the future of living.
[00:16:40] How do they see themselves living in the near future?
[00:16:44] And when we think about that, it's humanizing more the future of work is how do I pretend to retain this talent that is probably going to be living in a different way that I want them to believe in.
[00:16:56] And so we become a lot more creative when we think about this as the future of living which is constantly changing for us and providing a trust in environment.
[00:17:07] So this has been a really great challenge for a lot of managers especially when you went from full in person to fully remote overnight and is how do you actually create a trust in environment.
[00:17:19] And that is essential to create that kind of culture, infacilitate all the tools and empower the people in your teams so that they can have clear and transparent communication.
[00:17:31] How do you create like all these asynchronous environments? How do you, I don't know, managers really need to learn how to communicate very well and adapt to this like low context communication both managers and also interns.
[00:17:49] And a very critical point we were discussing recently is emotional intelligence and that goes for every participant in the process.
[00:18:00] It's very we actually did recently as study with more than 500 people participating.
[00:18:07] To identify that these are key opportunities for growth both for managers to actually merge the team members feel more included and also for younger generations to be able to progress in their career better is one topic that we were in necessarily told at university, but more and more people are talking about.
[00:18:27] Emotional intelligence is a superpower and people really stay for the managers or they're reciting quit because of the managers so we need to put a very strong effort into giving the support to those managers that maybe they even necessarily have the right training to be so, right like a lot of managers learn by managing other people.
[00:18:51] No necessarily by a lot of methodology is going into it. So this is basically how we ensure and how we put in a no-fattention that both parties managers and interns feel completely supported throughout the process and then converting to food time hires.
[00:19:10] We even had a case I wanted to mention this we had Maria from Mexico and she was in turning in at a tech company in the US.
[00:19:19] And the internship was going absolutely amazing and then I had one on one coaching session with her I said okay Maria so tell me.
[00:19:26] Have you asked the question about food time higher and she was can I ask that question? I mean I feel bad like why would they hire me and so it was very interesting for us to work together and realize that.
[00:19:39] You need to provide the students with like the enough confidence a lot of this comes down to self confidence as well in how do you present yourself.
[00:19:50] How do you ask the question in this case it was super interesting because she created a presentation on everything she's learned during the experience.
[00:20:01] How had strengths aligned with the company's goals and how she sees contributing to achieving those goals and by the end of that presentation she got a good job.
[00:20:14] I do all of it.
[00:20:15] Oh that is awesome we're not we're not born knowing this stuff of course known right because you know when you're 19 20 21 you know stereotypical intern loads of them are older but generally early 20.
[00:20:30] Early 20s kind of time right probably your first professional position and we think a lot of the students who are working with you.
[00:20:40] They're the first ones in their families to have an internship like like like you described and I think a lot of them are under this misconception that they're that they have this internship because this company is just merely trying to give back.
[00:20:58] And so it's kind of like a charity thing well if it's charity how do you then go to your manager and say I think you should hire me permanently because then you're asking for lifelong charity.
[00:21:11] It sounds to me like like this young woman from Mexico that you helped to understand hey this is not charity.
[00:21:19] You're you're helping them accomplish their mission and let me help you see that and then communicate that.
[00:21:29] It's just it's just not a skill that we're born with and we have no it's a you know you know I hired you to be a software engineer I didn't hire you to be really good at interviewing.
[00:21:39] I also didn't hire you to be really good in a performance review where you're giving me as the manager feedback and do you want to stay here or not it's like this is not part of the job description but it's really important people.
[00:21:54] What one more thing and then I have another question before we'd be for me to lead off leave off is and just a lot of what you were describing it reminded me of the saying that that people come to work.
[00:22:05] For an organization for the role and for the pay.
[00:22:10] They stay because of the people.
[00:22:14] And so for the organizations the employers that are listening to this if you've got a really high turnover rate in your internship class if if 80% of them are not converting into full time and permanent employees.
[00:22:28] The problem is it's unlikely that it's related to the work they were doing it's unlikely that it was related to the compensation.
[00:22:35] It's probably about the people and it might simply boil down to a lack of communication they don't know what you're looking for you don't know what they're looking for so.
[00:22:47] It's great that you really help both sides open up with that.
[00:22:51] So one last question before we need to leave off and that is before we jumped on I was talking with you.
[00:23:00] I think by email about some horror stories and you had a you had a fun one that you wanted to share or that you were willing to share anyway that had to do with New Zealand so what what's horrible about about New Zealand.
[00:23:17] I'm not sure if it's horrible.
[00:23:19] No thank horrible.
[00:23:21] I must say is one of my favorite countries in the world I did skydiving 19 feet 19 thousand.
[00:23:27] Oh that's all the.
[00:23:29] No that's perfectly good airplane do not jump out of it.
[00:23:33] No I though it was it was and and I'm joking about New Zealand being a horrible place I will haven't been there I will get there it looks full it looks fantastic but there was something related to employment.
[00:23:47] I know I know so basically Steven a few years back we launched a program that was focused on attracting Maori and Pacific students in New Zealand.
[00:23:58] And after a couple of days of promotion we noticed that there weren't any applications it wasn't necessarily performing us we wanted.
[00:24:08] And so really quickly with the couple of focus groups with more in Pacific students and we understand why and then we improved the campaign and basically what we noticed from this exercise is that our language and also our promotion were not necessarily resonating or representing them.
[00:24:28] So very quickly we changed that really quickly we iterated but why did I want to share this story which was initially horror but then it's.
[00:24:38] It was a very big learning lesson for us is because.
[00:24:41] We feel that like as back then necessarily like today a lot of companies when they want to focus on like diversity or there is still not necessarily speaking the language of these groups you know and it is an extra argument as well to the importance of diversity in teams when you are building campaigns to actually reflect.
[00:25:04] And so that diversity through the products through the technology through the services that we are creating today that is shaping the future.
[00:25:12] And so yeah basically from this experience we learned importance of having the user as the center and always focusing on that for our strategy for marketing campaigns for any new feature that we have.
[00:25:25] And so that's a very important thing to do.
[00:25:28] So we have to do that from is really important to constantly also iterate based on the users feedback.
[00:25:31] That's awesome and as more organizations hire more people globally more going to run into this problem.
[00:25:37] So I think you definitely help some out.
[00:25:39] So Joanna before we leave off the listeners that want to reach out to you to.
[00:25:46] To find out more how should you how should they do that?
[00:25:48] Absolutely well you can find us on.
[00:25:51] We are talenta in lintin you can find us as talenta and you can find me as Joanna Molina.
[00:25:58] J. O. H. A. Dolan A. Molina.
[00:26:01] M. O. M. O. M. O. L. A.
[00:26:05] You have a list of the most important things.
[00:26:08] And I thought my last name was hard to spell.
[00:26:12] Well fantastic and I really appreciate sharing some of the goods and the quasi or story.
[00:26:20] With our listeners. Have a good rest of your day Joanna.
[00:26:23] You too Stephen take care of everybody here.
[00:26:26] Thanks for joining us today on the high volume hiring podcast.
[00:26:29] I'm your host Stephen Rothberg of Job Surf site college recruiter.
[00:26:33] Each year we help more than 12 million candidates find great new jobs.
[00:26:38] Our customers are primarily fortunate 1000 companies, government agencies and other employers who hire at scale
[00:26:46] and advertise their jobs with us.
[00:26:49] You can reach me at Stephenat College recruiter.com.
[00:26:53] The high volume hiring podcast is a co-production of evergreen podcasts and college recruiter.
[00:26:59] Please subscribe for free on your favorite app.
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