How the USPS Recruits and Develops a Workforce of 640,000

How the USPS Recruits and Develops a Workforce of 640,000

The USPS delivers to 167 million addresses almost every day. That takes 640,000 employees, 30,000 post offices, 250 processing facilities, and one of the largest HR operations in the country. Jenny Utterback, VP of Organization Development at the United States Postal Service, is the person responsible for the people side of all of it. She came in through recruiting nearly 20 years ago and never left, because the problems kept getting harder and more interesting. Today, she leads workforce development, succession planning, and a full modernization of HR infrastructure for an organization that competes with FedEx and UPS while also guaranteeing delivery to every address in America, every week, no exceptions. In this episode, she gets into how you upskill a workforce where 35 to 40-year tenures are still common, how she thinks about internal versus external hiring decisions, and what it actually takes to lead people through change when the change isn't stopping. You'll also hear: * How USPS rebuilt its recruiting and HR systems from the ground up * Why connecting with employees on a human level is the only way change management actually works * How she develops internal candidates for leadership roles before the seat is ever vacant * The framework she uses to cut through competing priorities when everything feels urgent Connect with Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyutterback [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyutterback]  Learn more about USPS: www.usps.com [http://www.usps.com] Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/] 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/] 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter [https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter] 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   [https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter] Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

The Cannabis Company With Nearly 5,000 Employees and 12 Recruiters

Most companies with nearly 5,000 employees have a recruiting army. Green Thumb Industries has 12 people, a network of cannabis dispensaries spanning the country, and Joey Niemczyk, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition, figuring out how to make it work. Joey started her career watching her immigrant parents build something from nothing, and that shaped everything about how she thinks about people and opportunity. She learned to recruit at staffing agencies, sharpened her instincts at a boutique firm serving high-growth tech companies, and eventually landed at one of the most unusual talent challenges in the industry: building a TA function for a cannabis company that's growing faster than most teams can hire. Today, she shares how she leads a lean team without losing the human element, why she thinks the best hires rarely come through the traditional funnel, and what she told her team to do differently once AI started rewriting every resume in the pile. You'll also hear: * Why she intentionally built a tough interview process * How saying "I don't know" out loud became the fastest way to solve hard problems * What she measures beyond time-to-fill and why the qualitative side matters just as much * The skill she says every TA partner needs more of as a business scales Connect with Joey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-niemczyk [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-niemczyk] Learn more about Green Thumb Industries: www.gtigrows.com [http://www.gtigrows.com] Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/] 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/] 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter [https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter] 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   [https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter] Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

The Warehouse Automation Giant That Treats Every Hire as a Business Decision

Every product you order online passes through a warehouse. Someone decided how that warehouse runs. Dematic builds the systems that make it happen, and when you're operating at that scale, the difference between the right hire and the wrong one isn't just an HR problem — it's a business problem. Jenny Ferrell knows this better than most. She started her career recruiting engineers for a small, privately held firm in Phoenix, competing for talent against companies with bigger brands, bigger budgets, and bigger offices. She figured out how to find the right person for a business that couldn't afford to get it wrong, and that ability followed her all the way to Senior VP of HR at one of the world's leading supply chain automation companies. Today, she shares the framework she uses to turn talent acquisition from a transactional function into a strategic driver of business results and the hard lesson she learned when she skipped the process and went straight to the solution. You'll also hear:  * Why recruiting stops being strategic the moment you "throw it over the wall"  * How Dematic interviews candidates who've already rehearsed every answer * The two things Dematic's CEO actually wants to measure in HR right now  * Why hiring for an A-player résumé can be the most expensive mistake you make  Connect with Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-ferrell-53b832a5 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-ferrell-53b832a5] Learn more about Dematic: www.dematic.com [http://www.dematic.com] Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/] 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/] 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter [https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter] 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   [https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter] Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

Why Bally's VP of Talent Says "Rigid Flexibility" Is the Best Way to Scale

Hiring thousands of employees for a new casino resort launch is a high-stakes race against time. You are operating in an unfamiliar city without established market dominance, all while under the constant scrutiny of industry regulators. Jenn Reagan has done it multiple times. As VP of Talent Learning and Development at Bally's Corporation, she's figured out how to walk into a brand new community, earn their trust, and build a workforce from scratch without blowing the whole thing up in the process. Her secret? Rigid flexibility. Know exactly what you're doing and expect none of it to go your way. You'll also hear: * Why the moment you start copying and pasting from your last property is the moment you lose the community * How Bally's earns trust in a new city before a single brick gets laid * The two numbers she'd give a CEO in a 60-second elevator ride to prove her team is working * Why she thinks "learning and development" is almost a four-letter word in hospitality Connect with Jenn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-reagan-7b910241 [http://linkedin.com/in/jennifer-reagan-7b910241] Learn more about Bally's: www.ballys.com [http://www.ballys.com] Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/] 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/] 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter [https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter] 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   [https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter] Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.

How Bimbo Bakeries USA Sells a Great Culture Before Candidates Are Even in the Door

Most large companies don't build their recruiting function intentionally. It grows organically, gets patched when something breaks, and ends up inconsistent across teams and regions. Lori Vickery inherited exactly that situation when she joined Bimbo Bakeries USA in 2016, and spent the next decade fixing it. Today, as Director of Talent Attraction, she leads a full end-to-end recruiting function covering frontline bakers, delivery drivers, and merchandisers all the way up to the C-suite, across one of the largest baked goods companies in the country. In this episode of Talent All Stars, Lori walks through how she diagnosed what was broken, where she started, and how she built something that works at scale without losing the human element. You'll also hear: * How eight and a half years managing a Starbucks store shaped everything about how she thinks about talent * Why she stopped assuming hiring managers knew how to interview and what she built instead * How she uses data to bring senior leaders along before pitching any new process * Why she measures quality of hire in years, not days Connect with Lori: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-thompson-vickery-cdr-2ab13051/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-thompson-vickery-cdr-2ab13051/] Learn more about Bimbo Bakeries USA: www.bimbobakeriesusa.com [http://www.bimbobakeriesusa.com] Connect with us: 💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/] 💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/] 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter [https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter] 🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter   [https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter] Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.