Build - How to Hire for People Ops as a Product: Jessica Zwaan (Author, Built for People)

Jessica Zwaan joined us again on The Modern People Leader to break down how to hire for a people ops as a product team.

She shared the 5 core skillsets needed, the importance of t-shaped talent, and how to use case studies to spot product thinking in HR Candidates.

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(04:37) What We’re Talking About – Hiring for PeopleOps as a Product teams

(05:07) Core Skill Sets Breakdown – Planning, testing, research, building, human ops

(07:35) Most Underrated Skill – Why planning is a secret weapon

(09:14) Testing vs. Research – Bias, data, and design decisions

(10:19) Jessica’s Strengths – Building and testing as her personal edge

(14:07) Hiring Strategy – What to prioritize if you can only hire one

(16:45) Dropbox’s Top Talent Traits – Anti-admin, pro-outcome problem-solvers

(20:26) “Spike” Explained – Understanding T-shaped superpowers

(21:03) The Shift in HR – From compliance-heavy to problem-solving ops

(23:59) Outdated Metrics – Why perfect completion isn’t the goal

(25:46) Case Study Interviews – New hiring methods for a new model

(27:31) Good Case Study Topics – Onboarding, promotions, ambiguity

(29:22) Test Structure – Paid projects, presentation flexibility, feedback dynamics

(31:00) Nuanced Case Study Design – Testing ambiguity tolerance

(33:02) Screening Interviews – Signals to look for and questions to ask

(36:08) Guide Overview – Scorecards, templates, and examples included

(37:05) The One-Year Outlook – What your team should look like after hiring this way

(38:01) Biggest Myth – Great talent is already in traditional HR

(39:25) Early Mistakes – The case study drop-off and misaligned recruiting

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Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.