22: Overcoming Design Bias with Jenny Cotie Kangas and Craig Fisher Inside Talent

Inside Talent with Craig Fisher

In this episode Craig talks with Jenny Cotie Kangas, Director of Digital Experience for Talent Acquisition at Regis Corporation - the largest hair salon chain in the world which owns brands like Supercuts, SmartStyle, Cost Cutters, First Choice Haircutters, Roosters, and many more.
Jenny is a rare hybrid in the recruiting world. She describes herself like this: "My professional tool belt doesn't look like many others. It's comprised of a variety of tools, added and sharpened through years as a Project Consultant. I'm a Program Manager but by all other standards, I’m a builder.
As a kid, learning came hard for me. To understand what came easy to my peers I would identify patterns and reverse engineer. This helped my “faster than normal” brain understand and learn. From an early age, I viewed the world through systems. Having this mindset resulted in me being able to move learning to mastery quickly.
I became known as the girl in the project world you’d call if you didn’t have a person with the necessary skill set for a role. “She’s the Purple- Sparkly-Unicorn-Utility Tool and sharp as a tack,” a former Recruiter explained to a hiring manager, “She might not have the background today, but she will learn it and quick.”
In October 2019 I was challenged to apply my systems brain to a new world. My insurance company had not given me enough money post water damage to finish my home. I had a couple of options - pay the extra money to finish the house or sell as-is. I went with option three and picked up an actual tool-belt. Single mom with three kids - I learned construction and personally rebuilt my house from the studs out.
These days you’ll find me during the week focused on building frictionless processes and systems. Outside of work, you'll find me in an actual tool-belt, finishing my house and helping others to learn the trades."

Jenny and Craig discuss

-designing outcomes with your audience in mind

-Store-level hiring

-Franchisees and how to get them to understand hiring, what's the story for that?

-Failing fast and failing forward

-Design bias, when you go into a situation to help but those you are helping are pre-disposed to think anyone from "corporate" isn't helpful.

-Solving hard, non-linear problems

-The concept of the mirror and window in hiring

-How to avoid basing recruiting on what we've traditionally done

-How to avoid shrinking your guardrails

-How to condense user adoption from 3 days to 15 minutes

-The power of a "what if?"

It's always fun when Jenny and Craig get together for a chat. This is a good one.