The Talent Signal Recruiters Often Miss (S2E13)

Anita Chauhan

Hi everyone and welcome to one of the first editions of the Looks Good on Paper podcast for 2026. I can't believe the year 2025 is already done. I know a lot of us are really grateful for that. We're at the start of the year and I'm so excited to have Shanal Kazi on board with us today. She's a manager of engagement and inclusion talent management at Samsung Electronics. She has 14 years of experience leading organizational development culture. enterprise change in complex global environments. Thank you so much for being here with us. I'd love to hear about how you got to where you are in your career today.

Shanal Kazi

Thanks, Anita. So basically my career doesn't make any sense on paper at all. So when I was growing up, my dad was a diplomat, so we kind of like, kind of like living all over the world every three, four years, kind of moved to a different country, aligned with a new international school, make new friends, you know, just everything new. But I really enjoyed that renewal and that rebuilding and that ability to have like a blank canvas everywhere I went. Of course, I didn't lose out on the past, kept in touch with everybody. I graduated with a law degree, which again, doesn't make any sense because I didn't desire to be a lawyer at all. I actually grew up when I was younger wanting to be an astronaut. Then I wanted to be an architect. I knew I wanted to do something in the creative side, but I think, you know, coming from a family of people in the legal profession, you know, they kind of saw that in then I moved, you know, My first job was actually at a museum. I was curating one of the biggest retrospective exhibitions for one of the leading South Asian artists called Rashid Rana. He's a contemporary artist and I don't know how that happened but you know I figured that this is kind of like my thing before I get into real life stuff because I wasn't getting hired. The hiring market was terrible in Pakistan for legal associates and there was this really weird shrewd bias about females who did not want to hire.

Anita Chauhan

Really?

Shanal Kazi

lawyers at that point at all. They would tell you your face, be like, oh I thought your resume, your name sounded like a boy's name. So we called the interview, but at the end of the interview saying, hey we're actually looking for a male associate. Things have changed though. There's been lots of female lawyers and lots of advocates for a better environment, better

Anita Chauhan

Ugh.

Shanal Kazi

culture, better positions, ⁓ more diversity. And then my real big job was in a corporation in human resources. So it's just been a mix of things. But I think that working in different industries, working with different kind of people, semi-government, even public. I really am obsessed with how people grow and how I can be part of that, even if I'm not directly part of it. But I want to see that happen.

Anita Chauhan

Yeah.

Shanal Kazi

I've seen, you know, myself, my own journey coming to Canada about like three and a half years ago after living here for a year earlier and kind of rebuilding everything from scratch. My career, finding people, friends, everything. So that immigrant journey, really later on in my life, not really born and brought up and seeing my parents go through that, but having to live that on my own and, you know, keep reinventing myself.

Anita Chauhan

Hmm. Yeah.

Shanal Kazi

And I think those techniques are something that like resumes and you know introductions and things like that that they don't really capture and I've always been like I'm a big advocate of like give people who you don't think could on paper even be great give them an opportunity to make that impression to you in real life. I've always done that for people and I think that that's always whoever I've mentored or whoever's worked with me kind of knows and has that in their mind. what did I learn? What could I do better? Always. You know?

Anita Chauhan

Yeah. I love that. Obviously we love talking about situations where someone always maybe transcends our initial belief or judgment of them. And that's what the whole idea of this podcast is. Its like, someone that looked good on paper, didn't turn out to be or vice versa. It feels like an entirely new landscape of hiring, just given what's happening with AI, ATS, tech, also just overall just the job market, right? I'm glad to hear you say that off the bat. Why don't we jump in? ⁓ You know the drill. Three questions, speed dating style and one wild card. And first and foremost, question number one: What's the biggest hiring mistake that companies keep making even though it's clearly not

Shanal Kazi

Companies they hire for comfort and not really like capability. So it's about the big names, it's about what they've done, it's about what the candidate has sort of like... ⁓

Anita Chauhan

Hmm

Shanal Kazi

punched in in terms of catchy phrases ⁓ and it's not necessarily the correct fit for the company they're going into. But actually, if someone is or not a cultural fit, it has an impact

Anita Chauhan

Hmm

Shanal Kazi

directly on the business, right? Like you know you'll have more turnover you have like lesser retention you will you just not be able to train and develop them and steer their career they're not wanting to be steered if they don't feel that culture fit. So I think that when they hire for just they've worked in these organizations with a big brand names is great they did this this this, but it's like, truly if they've worked in those areas what moved them to ⁓ make these decisions in life to come to you? I think these are just words that they kind of throw around. Confusing like polish with potential. And I feel like that's not... and it goes both ways, it can work negatively as well. Sometimes I'll have these, you know, sort of ⁓ previous experiences and past experiences professionally that would seem like a golden fit but maybe they're not being honest about the whole potential of the role and maybe it's more execution based and less strategy.

Anita Chauhan

Yeah? Yeah.

Shanal Kazi

So I think they need to look at it from a perspective of does this person fit what we are giving them? I understand they don't really have that altruistic motive where they're like, okay, we'll look out for this person and their career at that point, but even looking out for the company's... ⁓

Anita Chauhan

Mmm.

Shanal Kazi

know, good interest, best interest, however you want to put it. ⁓ So that's the big one.

Anita Chauhan

Yeah, So what I hear as well there is just like a lot of clarity coming from the company side about what they actually do need, right? And I think the bigger the company size, what I've seen, is the harder it gets to be very clear from the top line all the way down to the hiring manager who needs it for their team. Have you seen any of that sort of stuff with Samsung?

Shanal Kazi

Yeah. So I'd say like, you know, it's a mix because we are a global tech company and obviously because our presence all over the world there is there is obviously ⁓ different facets of cultural where we are versus where the company was. So it's a Korean company and there are certain ways of being and there are certain work patterns and certain things that it came to be founded on. As those change in different geographies, I would say like one thing that, you know, the company does kind of administer and really focus on, which I really like from the get-go is does this person seem like they are well suited for a fast-paced environment, but really actually, you know, sort of breaking it down. They give you a whole picture of what, how the business is doing and how, what are the needs and problems, and if they don't, I always ask, but ⁓ that kind of, you know, ⁓ are the company or the organization is plagued with right now? What are the gaps they're looking to fill with this position? Honesty is really important. I think so far it's been great because I think that, ⁓ you know, that is something that. the company prides ⁓ on. It's differences of culture. But yes, one thing is for sure. We just want people that are a mix of execution and strategy. It's not just sitting there and sort of, you're kind of doing the whole job. You're project managers, but at times you'll have to do administrative stuff, and times you'll have to do financial stuff. And that's OK. And I think that's amazing, because it gives me a whole 360 degree kind of look out into a project itself.

Anita Chauhan

Yeah. Absolutely. we have a mix of different companies and talent professionals who come on this.

Shanal Kazi

Yeah.

Anita Chauhan

and uh... you know, Samsung's a very big organization, you're going to be hiring a lot of people. You said people, like people who can kind of work on the execution side, also the strategic side. How do you actually assess for that?

Shanal Kazi

Yeah, so it's basically like I think we don't just look at certain work experiences, we also look at what keeps them busy. What kind of learnings have they done besides their actual jobs? Those kind of initiatives, even like do you have a business on the side? Do you do any teaching? Are you like a side hustle preneur? Not always like people who are working and like to work like

Anita Chauhan

Yeah.

Shanal Kazi

They don't stop. They just, have this kind of momentum and I think we do have a culture that's work-life balance, work-life integration, but it also says, okay, we kind of want a jack-of-all-trades person who is going to definitely understand that this is a large company. So the big one is if you have worked at a startup and you felt like this is my thing, this is like I would say

Anita Chauhan

Yeah.

Shanal Kazi

genuine candidness that this is not going to like appease you. However, if you're actually a person who enjoys sort of talking to marketing, communications, HR, finance, all of those parts of the business on a daily to sort of understand things, you might be surprised. So I think that's the filter. And like I said, I will not hire an over qualified individual in the sense of

Anita Chauhan

Thank you.

Anita Chauhan

Yeah.

Shanal Kazi

they're not going to fit where we have them on the company. So it's not always that the person needs to be great for us. They have to be in accordance with sort of what we can give them.

Anita Chauhan

Yeah. Absolutely. agreed. And I think like there's no accounting for things like passion and like taking initiative. And I think that the desire to like learn about different parts of the business or understand how things work is actually such a good signal towards someone who would help drive that company, you know, growth in that way.

Shanal Kazi

Yeah.

Anita Chauhan

How do you distill that desire cross-functional like desire to collaborate cross-functionally into something how do you identify those skills? The cv is not a good indicator of what someone's potentially good at and I think about the bias that you brought up which is really true and I'm similar to you I have a very non-linear path in my

Shanal Kazi

Yeah. Yep.

Anita Chauhan

⁓ in my whole professional career. But you think about that, it's like, if you can't even get through the door, if they can't even see, like, how can a hiring manager say, like, this person would be good if they're like, this person jumped around a lot, like, what are they doing in like HR, comms, and then suddenly in marketing and some suddenly accounting, right? Like, they can't even get through the door. So that's that's why we're really excited to have these conversations Let's talk to the people in the space and talk about how we can actually make this better, right?

Shanal Kazi

Yeah. Yeah.

Anita Chauhan

All right, so third question of the day. If you were to suddenly remove CVs or resumes from the hiring process, what would that look like?

Shanal Kazi

Just like you meet good collaborators based on how they speak to you based on an elevator pitch, which is not really like scripted elevator pitch with their practice or whatever, but something that they can kind of tell me in that moment in time that is relevant. Self-awareness is really important for me. Think that is a huge one. What have you taught yourself? How have you outgrown certain things? What is the point that you knew that you outgrew things? What tendencies do you have in terms of problem solving? The resume was never my preference of my first preference. I think if I've hired people I probably not even looked at their resume. Like, to be really honest with you.

Anita Chauhan

No.

Shanal Kazi

You know, just been more development in question. Where do you see this going? How do you want to develop and how do you think that that development is going to lead to a successful sort of tenure here? I like people who definitely have more of a vision than just what the nine to five is bringing or what my job is bringing. But I want them to think of the job as, yes, definitely. It doesn't encompass your whole life. It's not your whole life story, but it's definitely like a stepping stone in your growth and in your journey personally and professionally, because that's what it's done to me too. You know, I've had lots of evolution in professional experience. And that may not be like, this particular project I did or this particular training I attended or this particular boss that I had.

Anita Chauhan

Sure.

Shanal Kazi

Young people these days have really managed quite a bit more than we have or they enter the professional domain. I think I think they're very mature. I think there's a lot of talk about Gen Z being sort of laissez faire. I don't think that's the case. I think they've really worked on themselves. And I think when they do, they already come with a self like with

Anita Chauhan

Yeah. Awareness.

Shanal Kazi

I think that's very strong. think I

Anita Chauhan

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Shanal Kazi

really love personalities like that.

Anita Chauhan

What you're saying is if we like instead of having like a cv-based hiring process an opportunity to get to know the person understand mindset. Experiential absolutely and I think that like that's kind of what a lot of people see is the value and and you know What you're not the first person to say and me too ⁓ sometimes like we just hire based off gut and it's not necessarily that person and I've also been the recipient of that, you know, i've met one person

Shanal Kazi

experiential, yeah, if it would be. Yeah. Yeah.

Anita Chauhan

that's opened up a door for me, they liked me, I've gotten an opportunity. And this is the way the world works in some cases, but I think like the question I'm so interested in, and I know a lot of us now in talent are thinking this, like how can we use that model to get more hires in a smarter way or upend some of the systems that have been doing us really no good and actually build for the future to be able to identify those good hires, right? ⁓ So our

Shanal Kazi

Yeah. Yeah.

Anita Chauhan

wildcard question for today, real final question. What do you think is the biggest and most important hiring trend of 2026? Or do you have any opinions on what we should be focusing on this year?

Shanal Kazi

I think one of the most important hiring trends is definitely the inclusion of AI. A lot of the laws that trickle down in Ontario earlier this year and were effective this year where there's more pay transparency, there's more about if AI is used in any process of the hiring or the recruitment. And that may be all great, but at the end of the day, like, how are you ascertaining that you kind of have a diverse pool of employees? I think that should be the trend that you're looking at 2026. When I say diverse, that doesn't necessarily mean culturally, but it also

Anita Chauhan

Yes.

Shanal Kazi

means tenure, it also means taking age into mind, know, if they're older than usual, there are return to work sort of programs in some companies and some and some individuals have taken you know sort of sabbaticals in their lives for various reasons, professional, personal, whatever it is, education. So kind of keeping that in mind and like I think diversity of thought. But I think what I would definitely like to look at is diversity in industry. If you've worked in education, ⁓ in recruitment or marketing or whatever. Plurality of perspectives is really important. Should be an up and coming trend given how much technical skills and how much technicality word by word is being grabbed on by the AI trend that's gonna be branded to come in. It's been coming in for many years, but it's more branded to come in this year. I think this is what should counter it. Definitely see that.

Anita Chauhan

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us on one of our first episodes of 2026. I'm so excited to share this with the world and your thoughts. Thank you so much and yeah, excited to talk again soon.

Shanal Kazi

Perfect. Thank you Anita. Thank you for your