Episode 116

Ivana Ćurić on Making Effective Hiring Strategies by Setting Clear Objectives for Interview Success

TIM: We are live on the Objective Hiring Show with Ivana. Ivana, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.

IVANA: Thank you so much, Tim. I'm really excited to join you today. Yeah,

TIM: Have you here. And I'd love to start by just hearing a little bit more about yourself, just so our audience can understand who we're listening to today.

IVANA: So, hello. I'm Ivana. I'm based in Berlin. I'm a talent experience lead, but my background is both in talent acquisition and employer branding. So far in my life, I've done more than 15,000 interviews. And I really enjoyed working with talented people and shaping talent experience. That is the reason why I'm working as a talent experience lead focused on the first steps in the talent journey, attraction, assessment, and onboarding. That is something that I'm very passionate about. What else is interesting about me? I'm very good at Wordle; that is a fun fact. I have a 97 percent success rate in Wordle. Very happy.

TIM: What's your fastest one ever? Have you ever gotten, like, a two?

IVANA: Of course, no, one, one,

TIM: You got a hole. in one.

IVANA: Yes, because I'm always using the same word, ready, because there's a lot of vocals. . So that is my strategy: always start with the same word and then, just to maximize the vocals.

TIM: Okay, that's clever.

IVANA: Yeah. And I have twins; they are almost 15 months, two boys; they're really wild. They are now climbing on the furniture. So I'm like constantly trying to save their lives. And yeah. What else? Yeah. I'm a nerd. I really like to read a lot. Yeah, that is something that could be interesting about me.

TIM: Is there a German word hole? If there is, that would be very long. Oh my god, some of those German words go on forever and ever.

IVANA: Yes. True. Yeah. There is the word compositums in

TIM: Yes. That would be a complicated game. I think. I'm glad you led with a really amazing metric because I was going to bring it up because I saw it on your LinkedIn profile. The fact that you've done 15,000 interviews. That is a serious number. That's like Bundesliga numbers. That's not any Division Four or Five stuff. This is the Premier League of interviewing. How have you done so many interviews? It's just a staggering number.

IVANA: I think a lot of TA professionals who are in the field for more than 10 years would have similar numbers. What I have as a competitive advantage is that I took some time to do this assessment. I believe in the power of numbers and metrics. And if you can illustrate your authority and your gravitas from using specific numbers, that is your advantage point. And, yeah. So every once in a while, when I was doing direct interviews, because I'm not doing it right now, I would take some time every couple of months or half a year and basically just get the information from the different applicant tracking systems in terms of. My success rates in terms of numbers of interviews in terms of pass-through rates and the qualities And just so you know, either talk with, for example, hiring managers to say, Hey, our pass-through rates are very low or very high. Shall we do something about it and improve it or just think about what our secret sauce is if something is working correctly? So I had this principle implemented very early, in 2012, when I started working in recruitment and TA, and basically that just served the purpose. So basically, the secret is just the sheer amount of time focused on that and just having the same approach from the start. So you can actually track it.

TIM: I'm not sure if you could cast your mind back to your first interview or your first few interviews and how you've developed as an interviewer. Because we're going to talk about interviewer skill later. If you were to compare yourself now to then, what would be the main differences in your approach and your skills, do you think?

IVANA: Yeah, so I was lucky that my background is psychology, and I was also doing additional education for psychotherapists. So I really like that scientific approach that you formulate a hypothesis and then you probe the hypothesis that you formulated. through the interview in order to prove that there is or there is not a specific competence that you would like to assess. And that is something that was there from the beginning because it is like something that the same way how psychotherapists would approach exploring the specific issues or specific agenda in the psychotherapeutic approach. So basically I just use that. And I would say that is the main thing that was, like, a line through, through, through my career, what has improved. And what I think is extremely important for hiring managers, interviewers, TA experts, and professionals is that you are setting the pace and the tone and the confidence of the other side in the conversation. That is your responsibility. You need to make sure that the other person in the conversation is bringing the best version of themselves. And you cannot do that if you're focusing on yourself and you're not; you cannot do that if there is any kind of even a slight trace of self-doubt, or if there is, I'm not sure what to say. I'm not then that is shining through, and that is actually decreasing the quality of the whole process. And that is something that I'm really in the interview trainings with the hiring managers and with recruiters. I'm usually saying something that, yeah, it can be a little bit strange, but I say candidates in the interview process, they behave like dogs, they can smell the fear, and then they are like getting more scared. And then you have the worst interview. Don't be scared, and you really need to emanate that kind of confidence because then the other side can show the best version of themself.

TIM: Yes. As if an interview isn't hard enough as a candidate with their own worries. The last thing they need to be worrying about is the interviewer who's also struggling. Is that a common thing? Is that a problem among, let's say, fresh interviewers when you're first becoming, like, a manager and you're having your first few?

IVANA: Yes. And I think that it's usually when somebody is extremely diligent and when somebody is very passionate about the topics of fairness, about topics of making sure that the decision that is the outcome of the interview is justified. Then it gets even harder in a way, because you really want to make sure that everything that you're saying on every question, every topic that is covered, is like leading towards a fair decision. And of course, this overthinking can cause insecurity and visible stress. Yeah. So the ultimate goal is always to be prepared because, of course, it is a desired goal to strive for fairness and justifiable outcomes. That is something that should not ever be negotiable, that is non-negotiable at all, which you need to prevent the insecurity or this doubt, self-doubt by extensive preparation.

TIM: When you'd mentioned, yeah, the interviewer being a little bit doubtful or hesitant. I didn't really think of that before, and so as you were discussing that, I was trying to think back to the first interviews I did as an interviewer, which would have been pretty much 10 years ago exactly. And yeah, I'm struggling to remember the details, but I'm sure I would have been more.

IVANA: Yeah.

TIM: Be now for sure. Was it the case for you as well? Can you cast your mind back to when you were first starting? Is that one of the main differences between then and now that you maybe didn't quite have that experience to fall back on?

IVANA: I need to think about that. Of course we always, like, are assessing reality based on the information that we have. And there is this Dunning-Kruger symptom with, basically, we were extremely confident at the beginning. We think, yeah, like we, we know this stuff, so it's a bit hard for me to step back and. think how I thought back then. Yes, it is, but the good thing is, and I think what is the great stuff about interviewing and working with talent in general, is that constant need for improvement and for adding new knowledge and new context and assessing reality from different perspectives. For example, right now we, there is a like strong reliance on, on, for example, AI for, like note taking and and something like that when I started, I knew as well, Tim had the notes taking was like a big part of either interview training or how we actually approached it, is it going to be visible? It's going to be distracting. You should use a computer. Shall I write it down? And that is something that right now with the AI note-taking tools is completely out of the question. We are not even asking these questions anymore and changing very quickly.

TIM: To take notes, look at your questions. Listen to what the candidate is saying, judge their body language and other nonverbal cues, and somehow do all of that and keep on time. Oh my God, like, that's a very cognitively difficult task. So thank God the AI note takers have taken one of those things off our plate.

IVANA: Yes, exactly.

TIM: for hiring managers and the fact that it's not that common to receive training on how to hire. Actually, in general, training for hiring is very rare. Maybe training for interviewing is not quite as rare. Apart from new or hiring managers maybe being a little bit anxious and that rubbing off on the candidate in a negative way, are there any other things that they need to do better? Any other kind of common mistakes or shortcomings that new interviewers might have?

IVANA: Yeah, as you noticed, I'm really passionate about the numbers, and I really like to showcase that to the hiring managers. So basically, if you say there is this research from Gallup that says that in 82 percent, for example, if you're in the interview for the future managers, the decision is. wrong. It is made with the wrong decision in the interview process. Showcase that and use that as, like, the starting point in the thinking process. It really focuses the hiring team, hiring managers, and interviewers to actually assess it. And I really like how you make a distinction between training for hiring and training for interviewing. And I think that we should, of course, make that distinction, and I really love that because it's really interviewing is just one part of the method of successful hiring, but the method that can and should be used to make your decision effectively. So you can all, you should always have in mind, for example, hiring managers. Like, how do you make decisions? What criteria are you using? And what would you like to achieve? Sometimes, we are doing stuff because that is either how it was done or like we think that it is supposed to be done, but it is not quite clear what we would like to achieve. In the interview process, for example, what is the main goal for the interview? And that is when I do interview training with a new interviewer or hiring manager. That is, for me, the most important thing is to actually have the hiring manager establish the goal for each interview. so they know what the outcome is, what they would like to assess, and how they would know that they managed to do that, like, how do they know, after the interview, that this was, I don't know, a half an hour well spent? I learned something about this particular person that can help me make a better hiring decision. Because if we don't have that, then something that is usually happening is that, especially, you usually have more than one person assessing. And then there is that prevalence of, like, one person having an opinion that is a little bit, maybe, louder or more expressed, and then it's. It's painting over and overcoming the overall impression of the candidates. I didn't like that that particular candidate was late or something like that, and that's painting over all the impression of the candidate, but it usually won't happen that much if you have that kind of a set goal.

TIM: Yes. And back to your point before around hypotheses and whatnot, if you don't have a hypothesis to begin with, if you don't have a goal to try to hit, then you just Flapping in the wind. Yes. Yes. and it's so easy. I also noticed something similar to what you're saying for hiring processes to derail what I would call the moving the goalposts problem. Some new interviewer comes in, and they have their opinion view over what a good analyst is, and then suddenly you're evaluating for things that hold on, we didn't do this at the start of the process. Why are we doing it now? And a lot of the time, I think the difficulty is these opinions or views are legitimate and fine. It's not outrageous. It's Oh, I didn't think they were a team player. They wouldn't get on in that environment as X, Y, Z. But if the initial criteria don't have that, then why are we now suddenly evaluating it?

IVANA: Yes,

TIM: We need to keep people on the same page, don't we?

IVANA: Exactly. That is, this reminds me of what you were saying about this famous experiment—not an experiment, but the study from Daniel Kahneman—that having the same criteria, even if the criteria are completely preposterous, is better than constantly moving criteria of assessment. I think that it was about choosing a secretary or something like this a bit, like it was the 60s or 50s, so it's a bit sexist like that, like that, like that, what would be the characteristics of the best secretary, but I remember that it was like that, like you choose one criterion and, like, constantly have the same, it's better than just moving around,

TIM: Yes. And speaking of Daniel Kahneman, I feel like one thing that's probably changed over the past ten years or so in hiring is an acknowledgment of biases. We haven't fixed them, but at least you'd be hard-pressed to find someone working in hiring or a senior hiring manager who hasn't at least thought, Oh, you know what? I might have biases against certain types of people. How about yourself? Have you ever reflected on your typical biases of candidates? I just always love this type of candidate or something like that.

IVANA: Yeah. Yeah, I must say that, of course, I like having biases; it's a very human thing. Like, we are all influenced by our system one thinking, just you making shortcuts and then hallucinating why we are thinking, why we think of I actually. My master's thesis was related to the specific biases and the development of the biases, like how they are evolving in childhood and after that in adulthood. And then usually we it was focused on appearance and how we are actually attributing the most valued valued characteristics of one's society to the people that are being perceived as as attractive and investor cultures, the most attractive characteristics are intelligence and extroversion or, like just being so yeah, I would say that yeah, I really need to make sure that, and sometimes I, when I was doing interviews, I really wanted to, for example, not do the, video call at the beginning, just to, to prevent myself from the biases that, that I know that I have, that I was actually investigating in the past, that the people that we think that are, like representative, that they would be more intelligent and subsequently more adequate for some job.

TIM: I spoke to someone this morning, actually, and I'd love to share. Like they're hiring philosophy with you to get your thoughts on it. They said that basically for their whole career, for decades, their main hiring strategy was to find the diamonds in the rough, the candidates that they thought were systematically undervalued in some way. And for him, because he works in data science, it was mainly candidates who were a bit introverted, quite shy, undersold themselves, and maybe sometimes a bit on the spectrum. didn't like interviewing. They just interviewing itself did not suit their skills. They were an amazingly smart people, very technically gifted, but didn't want to get up in front of a room full of people and sell themselves. They just don't like it. And so he'd made a lot of amazing hires by tapping into this and almost dismissing the common things that we would normally select for, which is this really communicative, smiley, friendly, extroverted person, HHH. How do we overcome this bias? Because it's like hiring is almost inherently a bit biased against introverted, quiet, shy people. Is there a case of Yeah"? How do we, how do you, think about that problem?

IVANA: Yeah, it is a very interesting topic. And then, I think my main thought on this topic is accessibility and that you need to adapt the process to the specific group. So really think about the limitations that your current system is having and, in the process, how it is affecting the specific group that you would like to. whose presence you would like to make more prominent and also, like, just in terms of presence. And I, usually, when you can, start with asking either, Do you need some specific context or specific support during the interview? and then actually accommodate the candidate. That is one way of dealing with the situation. And the second is also to, also in the parallel, you need to inform the hiring team on, on, on basically how they need to, how they need to behave and be prepared. Yeah, I need to think a little bit more about this because this is a topic that is very dear, and I think it's extremely important right now, but I haven't found a systematic study that can give me the exact formula that I can just implement in the best way. And I would really like to find something that could be relevant here. I, like from my experience, would know if somebody is a little bit more introverted or somebody who is neurodivergent; they probably won't like the stressful environment with a time set limit when you need to, like, stress test in terms of thinking when there is, like, a really huge discrepancy of power between interviewer and interviewee, where it is, like, one interview and then three or, like, a panel of people writing something without expressions. But just giving that power to the other side, saying, Hey, what would make you shine the best way possible? is sometimes, Yeah, Maybe the best way. And that's why, just bring it back to this if you need anything special to make you shine; please let us know, and then really be committed to making that happen.

TIM: I can share one interesting example of some experimentation that Canva, the Australian tech products did. This was quite a number of years ago, and this would be maybe seven or eight years ago, when they were first scaling up their software engineering team. And they noticed that they had, and I can't remember which one it was, either had a whiteboarding coding session as a step or had a take-home project as a step. I can't remember which one it was, and the problem they were trying to solve for was not actually making the process more fair. The problem they're trying to solve for was a big drop-off. So at one of these stages, they were noticing a big drop-off. They then did something quite interesting. They gave the candidates the option of saying, If you like to do a live coding session, you're an extrovert; you've only got half an hour. You just want to get in and do it, do the whiteboarding session. If you really would rather pull your teeth out than start coding in front of people, which is very anxiety-inducing, then that's fine. Do the take-home assessment. It's going to take you more time, but you can do it in the comfort of your home. And by giving the candidates the option, they got the drop-off to zero. Everyone ended up going through that gate. So that's an interesting way around it, which, yeah, could help not accidentally deter either extroverts who just want to get on with it or introverts who want to do it quietly. But I guess it also adds a lot of complication because then you've got two different stages at the same time; how do you compare the performance? It becomes practically difficult, doesn't it?

IVANA: Yeah, it is. Yeah, but it can probably be standardized. And when you were talking, I was thinking, yeah, that's a question of control. If the candidate or interviewer, or interviewee, has the perception that they are, like, masters of their destiny, that something that they are doing can actually cause them to present themselves in the best way possible. Then, of course, everybody's more, more willing to actually do it. And you have that kind of like external locus of control when you are basically just, oh, I don't know. I'm a straw, wind is blowing around me, then of course you are then not that, that keen on, on behaving in your best interest. So yeah, it makes sense. But I'm just thinking how, in terms of how to standardize those, the outcome needs to be standardized. You need to have the specific outcome that is standardized and then use that as an assessment point.

TIM: Someone I was speaking to this morning, again, someone different. This is part of the great thing about doing what I do. I learned from all these amazing, smart people like yourself that they'd mentioned something subtle, which I hadn't thought of, probably because I've been doing a remote-first company for six years, so I've forgotten what it was like to be in offices. I haven't had an interview myself for 10 years, so I've forgotten a little bit, but the difference between. Doing an interview in the comfort of your home office or bedroom versus going into an office and dealing with all of that stuff. And as my guest described, sometimes the offices, especially in large corporations, are quite clinical. He said it almost reminds him of going to the doctor, which is the last thing you'd ever want. Not many people like that. And so I wonder if even something as simple as you can do it from home; you can do it in the office. Maybe that could almost help those particularly anxious candidates if that's what they're

IVANA: Yeah. To have the sense of control. Yeah. And sometimes, people are using, of course, probably more extroverted, oh, I'm going to dress up nicely and show that I really care. Of course that can, it can also be the strategy. Yeah. I'm very curious how this change in terms of the market is changing and how. How much it would influence because last time when we had this employer-driven market was before these big changes in AI, the whole push for diversity and inclusion, and the whole enlightenment of our own intrinsic biases. That was basically everything that happened in this candidate-driven market. And I'm very curious how this is going to spill because, like, you cannot put the squeezed toothpaste into a tube when it's already, when you know that you are biased, because when you know the importance and you're intrinsically believing that, like, in the more just world, how can we, like, just meet with a more employer-driven market that is happening right now? Thank you.

TIM: Yeah, I get the sense that fairness and running, yeah, running the fairest process possible is probably not a top priority for most companies at the moment. That's my perception. Probably because of the fact that they have the balance of power now because they're getting inundated with candidates. And if anything, I feel like there's increasing distrust. on both sides because companies are complaining a lot about the AI-generated CVs, all the resumes are bullshit, and all the candidates aren't going through the process. So there's a bit of distrust. That's my perception. How do you

IVANA: Maybe, yeah, I just think that there are a lot of changes, and I think that we are in this turbulent phase, and there is a lot of, like, this just storming of criteria. So I'm really curious how that's going to pan out. Yeah. I think that, yeah, absolutely true and related to the usage of AI from one side, from the other side, in terms of actually meeting that fairness, is actually providing the best that there is, no difference between just and productive. That basically it should be equal and not you're making a concession for production to make, to be more just. It's not like that. And it should not be like that. And it was never like that.

TIM: So speaking of bias, we can recognize our own biases. That's fine. Some of them we understand, some of them we don't ever really know about, and we can control it. At least if we're conscious of it, then we could start to control it. But are there other ways that we can help reduce bias in hiring?

IVANA: There is, there was one very interesting study published in Harvard Business Review that most of the unconscious bias trainings, I think, I cannot remember the exact statistic, but it was like 60 or 70%, something like a huge number. And I was really thinking about that and what could be the probable cause. And, I just think that sometimes, like there is this vicarious expectation effect in cognitive sciences that basically, when you think that you have done something or that basically you're thinking about something or you're already done, it's basically a done deal. You don't need to deal with that anymore. And I think that is the most important takeaway here. There is no one training that you can pass, and then you're done with your unconscious biases. This is a constant process that you really need to reevaluate throughout your career. There's no one solution that is hitting all of your blind spots, and then you are safe without biases. You're making the best decision possible. No, you constantly need to keep pushing and keep evaluating. You like how you're making decisions and also making sure that you're, like, shedding light through your own blind spots. So I think that is the reason, and that is the main thing. And how can you do that? My approach here is to actually decrease the friction points as much as possible. So basically, systems of reminders basically over-communicate through the automated messages in every touchpoint from the hiring team; the hiring manager message needs to be very clear. Have you considered your own biases? Do you know what like is, and also a really short description of the potential with the in, in the form of a question? Is there one particular characteristic that's actually overshadowing everything else in the dark because the twine is overshadowed? Yeah. Like my brain. And in other questions, is your opinion of this candidate influenced by some similar characteristic that you perceive to be clustered together or a similar thing? Just to constantly have a serious series of notifications and a serious series of touchpoints that are focused on decreasing bias. Because if bias is forming and systematically influencing our thinking, we need to be smart. And then. We have this whole system in terms of our correspondence and communication integrated.

TIM: Yes, Exactly. And. We're talking about the hiring context, but we make hundreds of decisions a day. We need to be conscious of it for everything because otherwise we're making worse decisions. Maybe that's where the penny needs to drop. Like you are making worse decisions because of the biases. Whereas I feel, I don't

IVANA: Exactly.

TIM: I have internalized that maybe.

IVANA: Yes, exactly. Very well said. Exactly. You're making worse decisions because of the virus, not

TIM: Yes. Bias discussion is, I think, in some sense, it. Papers over overt discrimination in the sense that we've almost said, Oh, this is, I've just got some unconscious biases there in my brain. I can't control. It's nothing to do with me, but at the end of the day, there's still racism. There are still sexists who are explicitly racist or sexist. I'll give you an interesting example. I'm sure you've seen these studies, and that's probably been the equivalent one in Germany. One was done in Australia a couple of years ago by the University of Sydney. They study. Yeah. got tens of thousands of resumes, split them into three groups. The first group had an English first and last name. The second group had an English first name and a Chinese last name. name. The third group had a Chinese first and last name. The sets of CVS were otherwise the same. They then applied to thousands of jobs in Sydney and Melbourne, different domains, different industries, marketing, sales, cleaning, everything. And then they measured how many callbacks they got. And the rate of those callbacks, and to cut a long story short, the first group, which had an English first and last name, got a 12 percent callback rate. The third group, which had a Chinese first and last name, got a 4 percent callback. So all else equal, if you apply to a job in Australia with a Chinese name, you have one-third the chance for a callback as with an English name, holding everything else constant. It's like a really nice experiment to prove systemic racism. We can talk about unconscious bias as much as we like, and maybe some of this is unconscious, but there's

IVANA: Exactly. Yeah, there is a similar study in Germany, for it was also very interesting. They also, because I, in Australia, here in Germany, it's very popular to have a picture on your resume. So it was focused on the Turkish minority. And then if you have a female candidate with a headscarf and they also had a Turkish-sounding versus a German-sounding name. And I would say that the results are comparable. I can dig up the exact study, but it's very comparable. Yeah. I just think that we all believe that we are good humans, and even people who are behaving badly, they, they have the way of describing the world in a way that shows them as a good human being. They, I don't think that there is a, not a human in the world that thinks otherwise. Actually, exposing this dichotomy, exposing this constantly, is what is important. Exposing these results is something that is important. So basically, maybe in every beginning of the interview, in like the stage of setting up the hiring panel, and just repeating that one more time, and basically making sure the same way how when you're on the flight, you're like, even though you're a frequent flyer, you still need to save the instructions the same way here. Even if you're doing the interview constantly, you still need to be reminded. What if, for example, in the specific culture, they are like systemic prejudice and obstacles that the groups need to overcome? And what does that mean for the business? Also always connect to the business because of this new context when we have this schism between justice and productivity, which is completely like not real and should be completely abandoned as a topic. Okay. Thank you.

TIM: The thing, which is there are, similar to a bias, but not quite. It's some criteria that you might have for a role. That are just quite subjective, and I'll give you one great example: communication skills. What someone classifies as good or not good communication skills must vary a lot. And I could easily imagine how if an Australian was interviewing the average Dutch person. The average Dutch person is a lot more direct than the average Australian, who's very indirect. So they might come across as rude to us. We might come across as fluffy and flowery to them, and they're like, Can you just tell me what you think? So one's not necessarily right or wrong, but I could easily imagine how, as a candidate going into either of those markets, you would fall by the wayside very quickly. So is it also just thinking about our broader subjective thoughts over some of these things as well?

IVANA: Yeah, very good point. Yeah, I also think that I really, really love this book of Culture Map. It is exploring different differences between cultures and how we are expressing ourselves, and I would say this is the same thing about the most valuable characteristics. And also it's about the stories we are telling ourselves as, for example, members of specific nations. I remember when I moved to Germany because I'm originally from the Balkan region, and you can actually, I guess, see that from my name and surname. My Mediterranean Slavic culture was clashing with the German culture, which is more like a bigger distance between authorities and also much more direct. So for me, that was a bit, wow, like, why do we always start with negatives? Why are we like, can we, first, warm up a little bit? That, for me, was like, wow, what? Yeah, but same for the other biases; I really think that if you are in the market that historically, or right now, I think that there's no market that doesn't have overlapping and other inputs, because this is what we are aiming for with the globalization. I think that just being mindful and having a specific focus and interest in the topic of cultural difference is extremely valuable. And also maybe having the assessment—not assessment, but basically understanding the cultural difference—is a part of your interviewing and training.

TIM: Yes, and I would have thought it especially important in Europe. You have so many neighbors with very different cultures from each other. We're on an island in the middle of nowhere. So maybe it's slightly different. But also an opportunity maybe because I know lots of Europeans speak several languages, the average. English speakers, as a first language, tend to speak fewer languages. So I feel like we miss out on a little bit of sharing other people's cultures because we don't know as many languages. That's my view. And so yeah, maybe learn a language, learn more about other cultures, and then you might generally be more receptive to thinking about other people perhaps.

IVANA: Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. The way I think is that the languages that we are speaking are shaping the way we think. I was always, for example, like in Serbo-Croatian or in Spanish or in Italian. People are talking over each other. For example, in German, there's, like, really full pie. You, you don't do that. And I was always thinking, why is that? And then one time I was discussing with some friend of mine, and then we discovered that verb in German is at the end of the sentence. You, so you really need to wait for the person to finish the sentence to understand the context. 'Cause usually war is a, is like a barrier of the context. Of course, and if you have the languages where the verbs are, look at a second or first place or just moving around, then of course you can, ah, I'm jumping over you and proving the point that I'm engaged. Of course I'm not a linguist, but I think that that could be an interesting point because if you know the language, the way the language is used, it's shaping your, it's shaping your thinking.

TIM: Yes. And while you, do you speak Serbo-Croatian, English, German, or anything else?

IVANA: A little bit of French

TIM: Wow. Amazing. There you go. Oh, God. I love Europeans. So many languages. Do you, does your personality change when you change language?

IVANA: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I tend to like, because my language is pretty small, so I tend to speak with my children in Serbo-Croatian. And then my partner usually would say, You sound completely different. And also I would say that there is different usage of the imperative; for example, the usage of the imperative in Slavic languages is not that uncommon. For example, imperative" in German is extremely rude.

TIM: Yes. You have to adjust it. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Similar in Spanish. They use a bit more. of the imperative than they do in English

IVANA: Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I remember usually I, when I want to be very cordial with somebody, would tell, because it's like a different translation in my mind. When I'm not adapted or when I'm very tired, I would say, Tell me, and that sounds, that can sound very rude to somebody from English or German.

TIM: It's only in Spanish. If you've never heard of it, you'll love it.

IVANA: tummy.

TIM: Tell me, Ivana, if you could ask our next guest one question about hiring, what question would you ask them?

IVANA: Yeah, how to effectively use AI and, like, a whole new paradigm shift in making the process just an objective.

TIM: That is a question I will level at our next guest. And yeah, I'm interested to hear the answer as well. I personally am quite optimistic about AI being able to, if implemented correctly, make a big dent in some of those issues we were talking about before the bias. the discrimination. It could be more objective; it could be more consistent, hopefully. implemented that way.

IVANA: Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. My, yeah, my only, only, I would say, dilemma, or like, thinking point here is the topic of responsibility. Because if you have a human who is making a decision, the human is. It's a matter of responsibility for that decision, but if you have AI, this responsibility is dispersed. And I think that should be really addressed very carefully.

TIM: Yes, Exactly, if the AI makes a mistake, who Who owns that mistake? Yep, that's a big problem; I agree.

IVANA: Yeah.

TIM: Thank you. It's been a great conversation, and I really enjoyed it. Flowing easily, we could have gone for hours. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing all the insights with our audience.

IVANA: Thank you. It was really amazing. I really appreciate this opportunity to talk with you, and it was just a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you.