Recruiting Leader @ Zapier | Former Educator | Advocate for job seekers, humanizing recruiting, and making the workplace more equitable for everyone!!

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A bit about me: I'm a former educator and dog/toddler mom who is passionate about equity in the workplace. I love to be outdoors except when it's super hot, I'm a foodie who hates cheese, and I like cooking, politics, and travel. I have a full time job managing the GTM/Ops recruiting team at Zapier, and also love creating content on recruiting, workplace culture and trends, and career development. There's a lot of misinformation and I try to combat it as much as I can! 

My goal is to educate and bring transparency to recruiting and hiring processes - I hope my content helps you understand why things play out the way they do. That doesn't mean I always like or agree with the realities of being a part of the working world in 2025, but I think we're all better off when we understand the rules of the game we're playing. 

All opinions are my own and do not reflect those of my employer! If you'd like to work at Zapier, please apply directly on our jobs page. 

I do not have the capacity to respond to DMs or answer one-off questions but DO answer reader questions and offer free 1:1 chats via my newsletter on beehiiv - your best bet is to submit it there!
You can access all of my resources here: https://linktr.ee/bonniedilber

Bonnie Dilber

If I were looking for a job in 2026, I'd:
- build an agent on Zapier that understands my skills, values, and goals and delivers 10 newly posted roles that are a good match to my inbox every day.
- use Anthropic Claude to review those job descriptions and pull additional company insights to help me shape my application, networking strategy, and interview prep.
- use Lovable to build a portfolio website that shows (not tells, but SHOWS) my achievements, results, testimonials from former colleagues, or even individualized landing pages to make my case for why I'm the right fit for a specific role. 
- use Gamma to build executive-friendly slides for presentation stages.
- use Cursor to prototype a tool that shows my approach to solving problems. 

And there are two reasons I'd do this:

1. I think it would make my job search easier and more efficient then scrolling through 20 job boards every day trying to figure out what to apply for.

2. It would show actual AI fluency - something a lot of companies (at least in tech!) want - in a far more meaningful way than things like: 
- an AI-generated resume 
- copy-pasting AI-generated copy into an application
- reading from an AI assistant in interviews
- saying, "I use chatGPT for everything" in interviews with no meaningful evidence of impact

The bar for AI fluency for non-technical folks like me is evolving.
In 2023, it was, "I have a ChatGPT account."
In 2024, it was, "I use an AI assistant to think through problems. 
In 2025, it was, "I'm using a variety of AI tools in my work." 
And in 2026, it's, "I'm using AI to build solutions that help me deliver stronger results by making me better, faster, and more strategic."

Recruiting Leader @ Zapier | Former Educator | I’m a fan of transparency in recruiting, leveraging AI to make work more efficient and human, and workplaces that work for everyone.

Just some quick reminders that in the US:

1. Employers shouldn't be asking you for your current salary. 

It's illegal in some states. And  even where it's not illegal, it's wrong.
Your previous earnings are irrelevant to your future earnings, and companies should be setting your compensation based on their salary ranges and compensation philosophy, not on what you've earned in the past.

If asked, you could respond with something like, "My current salary isn't relevant, I'm currently interviewing for roles in the $200-230k range, but ultimately I'll consider the total package when making my decision here." 

2. Employers shouldn't ask you to do an unpaid work trial. 

A small project in the interview process or even a few hours of co-working as part of the interview process is fine.

But being asked to do a week long unpaid work trial violates FLSA protections. 
If this is asked of you, you could note, "I'm happy to demonstrate my skills through the interview process, but a week-long unpaid trial isn't something I'm able to commit to. I'd love to find another way to show you what I can do." or even, "Extended unpaid work trials aren't compliant with FLSA protections. I'd be glad to do a paid trial or a shorter skills assessment instead."

3. Required onboarding and training should be compensated.

The FLSA also clearly notes that any sort of training that's mandated for your job should be compensated. 

Of course, this doesn't apply to things that you seek out and choose to attend for your own development. Your employer does not need to pay you if you attend a conference that they did not ask you to attend.  but anything at their request or encouragement should be compensated.

If you're asked to do onboarding before your start date, you could say, "I'm happy to work on this, should we adjust my start date accordingly?" or "I won't have the capacity to work on this until my official start date, but look forward to prioritizing it on day one." 

I genuinely believe that most employers want to do right by their employees  and if they are making these sorts of requests, it probably has more to do with not understanding the policies than it does intentionally causing harm. 

Often these sorts of things happen as a result of an eager but uninformed manager or recruiter vs a company policy to take advantage of workers. So I think you should feel perfectly confident speaking up when there's misalignment - most people will appreciate the redirection.

It doesn't matter if the real reason companies are laying off thousands of people at a time is because AI is increasing productivity or because they over hired or because their shareholders need a short-term win even if it means a long-term loss or because they're about to be acquired or because they simply aren't making enough money to pay everyone.

What matters is that thousands more people find themselves unemployed today.

Here's some advice I will share:
1. Take a beat to be angry and scared and bitter and relieved and whatever other emotions you're feeling.
You have no obligation to write a post thanking your former employer today (or ever), and it's also perfectly great if you want to do so because you had a great run and your last day doesn't erase that, or because you want to play the game as you navigate an unexpected job search.
There is no right or wrong way to respond to traumatic experiences.

2. Don't let the negativity on social media get you down.
There are a small number of loud voices that get disproportionate attention with narratives of doom and gloom.
Often, their poor outcomes are often a result applying for jobs they simply aren't competitive for, submitting high numbers of low quality applications, unrealistic expectations for remote work, etc. 
People who apply for jobs they are extremely well-qualified for, leverage their networks effectively, and manage their expectations around things like location and industry are for the most part doing OK out there. 
I promise - lots of great companies are still hiring great talent every day - Zapier is one of them!!

3. Use this time to upskill with AI.
Y'all the bar is rising rapidly and an advantage those who are currently unemployed have the opportunity to invest in building these skills rapidly. 
Challenge yourself to build real solutions - things you could use you in your role, or that accelerate your job search. 
And share these online. I promise, if you're applying to AI-forward companies, this will be a huge competitive advantage. 

4. Build something on the side.
I firmly believe everyone should have a side business in 2026. 
Job searches often take 6+ months these days, so this gives you a source of income, expands your network, and gives you a way to keep your skills current. 
We're increasingly seeing that employers are no longer loyal to their workforce, and you can be cut loose at any time so we need things to fall back on. 
Those who talk about the future of work are increasingly talking about how workplaces will consist of fewer full-time employees with a rotating group of experts that bring in niche skills as needed. That means more of us need to build the skill of jumping in and quickly adding value, and contract work does that. 
And sometimes, those side businesses or short-term contracts can pave the way to a long-term opportunity. 

Hopefully this helps someone out there, and I'll drop some resources in comments!

There are a wide range of people who can do a job, but often we default to the "usual suspects" - people who enter a field and have a natural upward trajectory. 

Last year, we had a conversation with our sales leadership team around broadening our candidate pool beyond "the usual suspects" - those who had grown up in tech sales. One profile that came up was consultants with strong technical backgrounds. 

The issue is that this is a really hard profile to attract since many of these folks aren't necessarily looking for sales roles. 

So we made a post about this profile as one that could be a great match for sales. And within a few minutes Adrian Obleton saw my post and applied (using my referral link which you'll find in comments cause no gatekeeping over here!)

What stood out: Adrian has several years of consulting experience with exposure to GTM across many companies, he's a founder himself which suggested he'd be comfortable with our current stage where we're still in building mode, and he even studied computer science in undergrad which gave us confidence he could talk the talk with technical buyers. It was clear from our first conversation he could easily build the selling skills as he had everything else we'd want in a strong seller.

Adrian is currently doing a series of blog posts on his transition from consulting into sales (gonna drop that below too!) 

One thing Adrian talks about in his post is how consulting trains you to diagnose problems before jumping to solutions which translates well to discovery in sales, and they typically have strong business acumen since they're navigating complex organizations. But check out his post for more of the transferable skills between consulting and sales!

Couple of takeaways I hope y'all will have from this post:
1. If you're currently hiring, think about other experiences that may have built the skills you need on your team to help you expand your profile. 
2. If you're open to those unique profiles, just put it out in the world with a post like I did - you may just get the perfect applicant!
3. And most importantly, if you're someone who sees some of yourself in Adrian's journey, then check it out and apply for an AE role at Zapier!

Avocor

-Innovative Product Marketing Leadership: Established Avocor's inaugural product marketing framework, incorporating market research, segmentation, and go-to-market strategies, setting the stage for scalable growth and a revenue increase in subsequent quarters.
-Strategic Brand Evolution: Revitalized Avocor's brand narrative, aligning with key collaboration partners like Microsoft, Zoom, and Google, to strengthen the company's position in the collaboration space, enhancing market appeal and partner relationships.
-Portfolio Expansion and Market Penetration: Launched 5 new products across two new categories, diversifying Avocor's portfolio and revenue increase, coupled with a pipeline growth through strategic repositioning and enhanced market penetration efforts.
-High-Impact Partnership and Business Development: Forged and deepened strategic partnerships with industry leaders, securing significant enterprise accounts (PepsiCo, Chevron, Toyota, Lyft, Google), and seamlessly integrating product messaging for increased visibility and market reach.
-Cross-Functional Team Leadership: Built and led a product marketing team from the ground up, while fostering cross-functional collaboration across sales, engineering, and marketing, optimizing go-to-market processes, sales training, and product launch efficiency.
-Customer-Centric Marketing Strategy: Conducted comprehensive market research to develop targeted customer personas, refining marketing strategies for improved customer acquisition, retention, and a culture of continuous innovation within the organization.

Director of Product Marketing

RingCentral

-Develop a global roadmap of software and hardware for RingCentral Rooms, which resulted in 20+ hardware products launching across 6 hardware partners for our Rooms software.
-Evaluate end-to-end customer subscription to grow opportunities to upsell and build campaigns that would generate a 20% growth of ROI
- Built a GTM plan and new purchasing path for software and partner hardware with a 14% increase in revenue within the portfolio 

"I've had the amazing fortune of working closely with you twice in my career... let's shoot for a third in the future! Thank you for being a light to the product marketing org... you were a culture champion, you got "Scrappy like MacGyver", and always "Woke up and chose GOOD VIBES" - it's just who you are as a human. Any product marketing org would be so lucky to have you my friend." 

- Esther Yoon, VP of Product and Industry Marketing at RingCentral

"I worked closely with Jeffrey Boggess for the past year and have learned so much from his expertise in copy, visual and video storytelling. He inspired the team with his scrappy creativeness, no budget needed and Jeffrey Boggess could make your product look like AI generated next gen magic ✨ glowing recommendations for Jeffrey Boggess from me, he's passionate, motivated, extremely talented in storytelling and video/visual creativeness and was the heart and soul of our team." 

- Ashima Bhatt, Director of Product Marketing

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Logitech

"Jeff is a culture enhancer! I had the pleasure of working with him for a few years and he's all about the team and making everyone around him better. He's got tons of creativity and is an engaging storyteller. He is terrific in all marketing and partnership roles. But with all the creativity and focus on team, it he never fails to just get stuff done! It's always a privilege and joy to work with Jeff!"

Jason Moss, Head of Go-To-Market & Alliances, Video Collaboration

Global Partner Product Marketing Manager

Stanford Health Care

Coordinates all departmental projects and ensures company resources are utilized appropriately. Compiles project status reports, coordinates project schedules, and manages project meetings while overseeing attached financial management of these responsibilities.

Business Operations Manager

Apple

Apple Solutions Consultant

The Walt Disney Company

Responsible for the pre-arrival planning and on site contact for VIP guests, including: Fortune 500 business executives, Professional Athletes, World Famous Celebrities and Musicians, Make-A-Wish guests.

VIP Guest Servies Coordinator

Manage the front desk operation and its cast members which includes; scheduling, room rate variances and continually finding opportunities to go over and beyond to deliver the Disney experience.

Front Desk Supervisor

Kamehameha Schools

-Coach students in the art of performance and communication
-Review scripts and edit as seemed necessary
-Work on delivery of speeches
-Creatively navigate performances to produce best possible outcome for audience enjoyment

Speaking Coach Consultant

Johnny Cupcakes

One of the funnest jobs I ever had. Ask me about it.

Johnny Cupcakes Cake Dealer

Creativity has always been a passion of mine. Merging personal passions with the professional world is something I never want to lose sight of. My goal in everything is to deliver thoughtful experiences. Creative content is what keeps me up at night and what wakes me up in the morning. 

Specialties: Demonstrated ability to lead and inspire teams. Contribute to creative collaborations. Building strong relationships and internal networks to gain market share. Organize work flow and identify opportunities to positively affect process. Consistently look for innovative ways to enhance the experience of end users.

Program knowledge: Microsoft Suite, Concur, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Visio, Zoom, Blue Jeans, WebEx, knowledgable in both PC and Macintosh platforms.

Jeffrey Boggess

One of the best parts of working at Checkr, Inc. has been the people I get to learn from.

Carl Majette is one of those leaders for me.

From day one he’s pushed me to think bigger, move faster, and not settle for the easy answer. He leads with a calm confidence that makes you want to raise your own bar. The way he shows up for his team — giving ownership, trusting people to run, and challenging them to grow — is something I’ve really come to respect.

So I asked him to sit down/walk around SF for a conversation.

I wanted to pick his brain on leadership. 

How he thinks about building teams, pushing through hard moments, and creating the kind of environment where people actually do their best work.

If you’re someone who cares about leadership, culture, or just learning from great operators, I think you’ll enjoy this one.

Full conversation in the comments 👇

I’m so blessed to work for Checkr, Inc. ! 

People first always and love that I work for a company who is designing product for impact in today’s  ever changing world! 🌎

Senior Product Marketing Manager Jeffrey Boggess shares a slice of life at Checkr. #PeopleofCheckr

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