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Talent Summit: How top TA leaders at Zillow & Chobani pivot fast in an unpredictable market

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SJ Niderost

Content Marketing Manager

Posted on

July 10, 2025

At Gem's recent Talent Summit, host Brandice Payne sat down with two TA leaders to tackle the moments that define recruiting in 2025: Roz Harris, VP of Talent Acquisition and Engagement & Belonging at Zillow, and Tim Brown, VP of Talent Acquisition at Chobani.

Their conversation revealed hard-earned insights about planning in chaos, implementing AI without losing the human touch, and protecting teams from burnout while doing more with less.

When business priorities shift overnight

Roz and Tim shared stories that sound familiar to anyone planning hiring strategies in today's market. 

"It was probably two announcements over a five-week period of $1.7 billion in additional capital investments to grow the business. That wasn't really part of the 2024 end-of-year 2025 planning cycle." - Tim Brown, VP of Talent Acquisition at Chobani

The result? An unexpected need to hire 1,400 more people than initially budgeted.

Roz faced similar pivots at Zillow.

"We hired these two really big leaders on our revenue function. One joined us last summer, one joined us right at January. And so even though we had our business strategy ironed out, our talent strategy started to change significantly with those new leaders." - Roz Harris, VP of Talent Acquisition and Engagement & Belonging at Zillow

The solution isn't abandoning long-term planning. It's building flexibility into your hiring strategy. Both leaders emphasized the importance of scenario planning with shorter feedback loops, moving between 30, 60, and 90-day sprints depending on business needs.

"You're going to have to have that multi-year strategic plan and vision. However, based on how business goes with revenue, hiring changes, and targets, that's gonna change, and we have to have some level of fluidity to survive in that." - Roz Harris, VP of Talent Acquisition and Engagement & Belonging at Zillow

The AI reality check

Regarding AI in recruiting, both leaders moved past the early fears of job replacement to focus on practical implementation challenges. The biggest surprise? It's not about the technology. It's about people and processes.

The human side of AI adoption

Roz identified a challenge many organizations overlook.

"I think there is still a significant amount of fear, and there's an emotional response that is still happening from recruiters. And some of it is now turned away from fear to skepticism."  - Roz Harris, VP of Talent Acquisition and Engagement & Belonging at Zillow

Her solution at Zillow was creating low-pressure environments for experimentation - AI Days, Hack Weeks, and prompt-a-thons that helped teams discover practical applications without feeling overwhelmed.

Integration is everything

Both leaders emphasized a critical point many organizations miss when evaluating AI tools. 

"AI tools that don't integrate with your workflows or your ATS are pain. If your AI tool does not integrate with your existing workflow or replace your existing workflow or integrate with your ATS, why are you doing it?"  - Roz Harris, VP of Talent Acquisition and Engagement & Belonging at Zillow

Start with your current partners

Rather than searching for new AI solutions, Roz recommends a different approach.

"Don't go look to say, okay, I need to go find AI. The first thing I think you should be doing is meeting with all of your existing product partners to say. What do you have in your road map related to AI?"  - Roz Harris, VP of Talent Acquisition and Engagement & Belonging at Zillow

Protecting teams while scaling impact

With pressure mounting to do more with less, both leaders shared strategies for preventing burnout while maintaining performance.

Tim's approach focuses on realistic resource conversations with leadership. 

"It's going back to the business leaders and saying, like, okay. These are the different solutions I can deliver. I can keep my budget flat, and this is the effect on the business goals. Or you can give me these resources." - Tim Brown, VP of Talent Acquisition at Chobani

AI use predictions for 2025-2026

The leaders shared two key predictions for the recruiting landscape:

  1. Skills-based hiring will finally go mainstream. Tim believes 2025-2026 will be when organizations "finally go all in on skills-based hiring" and drop degree requirements across industries beyond tech.

  2. Perfectionism has to go. Roz's advice for TA leadership is to let go of perfection. Curiosity and adaptability are recruiting teams’ edge. Build for resilience, not just performance.

The bottom line: Back to basics with better tools

Perhaps the most critical insight from this conversation was Tim's reminder that AI isn't a magic solution.

"If you can't get your business to give you interview feedback on a timely basis, AI is not gonna fix that. If your candidates are giving you terrifically bad net promoter scores based on their experience, that's not gonna fix it." - Tim Brown, VP of Talent Acquisition at Chobani

The key is fixing fundamentals first, then finding where AI can amplify what's already working.

Tim and Roz show that staying smart, sharp, and scrappy isn't about having a crystal ball or perfect solutions. It's about building hiring processes that can bend without breaking, giving TA teams the tools and trust they need to implement AI practically, and never losing sight of the fact that recruiting is fundamentally about people connecting with people.


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