On the latest episode of The Debrief, Amy Schultz, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Canva, joins our Co-Founder Teddy Chestnut to chat about her experience scaling a global team at Canva.
In the episode, Amy and Teddy discuss:
- Amy’s career journey and what led her to Canva
- Her top priorities when joining Canva
- Amy’s perspective on the future of recruiting
- The importance of internal mobility programs
- Amy’s reflections on building global teams
Check out our highlights from the conversation:
Amy’s favorite interview question. Amy’s go-to interview question is “Tell me about the days where you have heaps of energy – what have you been doing? And conversely, tell me about those days where you feel really drained – what have you been doing?” Amy says these questions tell her a lot about what motivates and drains the candidate, and if the role would actually bring out their energy or demotivate them.
Amy’s top priorities when joining Canva. When Amy joined Canva in 2020, she had a few priorities she was focused on out of the gate:
- Creating a unified global team
- Figuring out what’s working today and how to scale those best practices
- Building out the recruiting team to support scaling operations
Amy’s perspective on the future of recruiting. Amy believes the core skills of a recruiter today are the same – like curiosity and adaptability. But with the rise of AI, Amy believes recruiters can experiment and find ways to use AI to allow them to spend more time on “high-quality human stuff, like influencing, advising, and partnering” with hiring managers.
The importance of internal mobility. Amy recently made a small update to her vision for TA at Canva, changing it from “grow the world’s best team” to “grow and mobilize the world’s best teams.” Amy says, “Even though we’re still growing at Canva, it’s making sure that we’ve got the right people with the right skills on the right goals at the right time. And sometimes those right people with those right skills exist internally, but you don’t know where they are.”
To overcome that obstacle, Amy has been working on getting visibility into the skills and capacities that exist internally to better match up employee aspirations with the business’s needs.
Amy’s reflections on building global teams. Every new role she’s started has required Amy to go through some “unlearning and relearning.” Especially as it relates to hiring globally. Amy says it’s not about doing what’s best practice – it’s about doing what’s right for your particular organization.
Amy says, “After recruiting in different sectors and in different countries, I have now built up a pretty healthy amount of adaptability, but l I don’t think that there’s a quota. It requires curiosity and a learner’s mindset.”
Listen to Amy’s podcast episode or watch the entire conversation below:
