CEO: Brain eBox | Workplace Learning Solutions | Host of the HR on the Brain Podcast | CEO: Lead with Sheree | Speaker | Passionate about developing leaders | Get in touch: sheree@thebrainebox.com

You’ve built a reputation for delivering great L&amp;D work - facilitating training, designing programs, and running onboarding. People trust you to get things done.But to grow into your next role, it’s not just about great work anymore.Now, it’s about influence, alignment, and leadership.You’ve got great ideas, but they’re not always landing.You want to be seen as a strategic partner, but you’re still treated like a service provider.You’re ready to grow, but what you need isn’t tucked inside another course.You need real-world support from someone who understands what L&amp;D excellence looks like - and how to lead it.That’s where I come in.I’m Sheree Comninellis, L&amp;D Executive and mentor for emerging L&amp;D leaders.I help L&amp;D professionals like you step into leadership.If you’re ready to lead, start here:📬 Executive Moves — my 5-minute weekly leadership edge for ambitious L&amp;D professionals.Each edition gives you:📌 1 bold insight to reframe how you lead📌 1 practical move you can apply immediately📌 1 growth resource to help you go deeper➡️ Get Executive Moves here: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/589169/98676779613423573/share.💡 Want to go further?Join the waitlist for The L&amp;D Professionals Collective - a monthly membership that helps you grow your confidence, visibility, and strategic influence, so you can be recognised as ready for L&amp;D leadership.Inside, you’ll get monthly live sessions, coaching, and practical tools designed to help you bridge the gap between delivering learning and leading it.➡️ Learn more and join the waitlist here: https://leadwithsheree.com/ldprofessionalcollectivewaitinglistMore about me:I live in Cape Town with my wife and beautiful children. I love historical fiction, good coffee, and my all-time favourite series is Gilmore Girls.

Sheree Comninellis (she/her)

Dominic Joyce

Head of Talent Acquisition @ Travelex | Content Creator | Guest Speaker | Panelist | Podcast Host | Dad | Coffee Snob | Loves an Analogy | The People’s LinkedIn #TopVoice | VIEWS ARE MY OWN!

I’m a Talent Acquisition Lead who believes recruitment should be structured, scalable, and still human.

At Bauer Media Group, I lead EU-wide hiring, build TA frameworks, and partner with senior leaders on everything from ATS transformation to employer brand. My approach? Automate the mundane, humanise the experience.

Outside of Bauer, I run Maverick Otter — a consultancy helping people sharpen their CVs, stand out online, and land careers worth having. I’m also writing Parallel Pursuits: Love and Labour — a book that explores how careers and relationships share the same traps, patterns, and breakthroughs.

I’m at my best when:

⚙️ Turning complex hiring chaos into simple frameworks.
🤖 Balancing tech with the human touch.
🗣️ Speaking bluntly (with humour) about what actually works in TA.

Founder

Hey there, I'm Dominic, or Dom. Founder and Head of Talent @ Maverick Otter

I bring with me 10+ years experience in delivering recruitment and people projects within transformation, automation, integration and process improvement on a global scale across agency, RPO and in-house working with fintech, banking, financial services, online payments, and e-commerce brands from FTSE 250 companies to Start Ups and Scale Ups on a consultancy and permanent basis.

Guest Speaker & Panelist - LinkedIn Talent Connect UK | RecFest | HR Grapevine | 100+ Webinars/Live Sessions

I help companies and Founders solve recruitment and branding problems by offering services in;

🔒 Fractional Recruitment/Recruitment Projects
Looking to scale up or take on additional hires or perhaps you've recently received some funding but unsure of your hiring strategy, let me help deliver that for you.

🔒 Personal Branding
How to grow your network and followers organically through engaging and thought provoking content.

🔒 Recruitment Marketing & Content 
Are you tired of seeing “An exciting opportunity” job post but don’t know what to write? Let us help your content stand out.

🔒 Process Improvement 
Are you running legacy processes and taking months to hire people, it’s 2024 and good talent doesn’t wait around whilst you fumble through your hiring process, let us help.

🔒 Workshops 
Need targeted, hands-on training sessions to upskill your team? We offer tailored workshops in all areas of recruitment to ensure your team is on the cutting edge of recruitment practices.

🔒 Integration, AI & Recruitment Tools
Worried about the impact of AI, or you just want to set up your business for success with the latest tech and software. We got you!

🔒 EVP & Employer Branding
Very few companies communicate their EVP, display their benefits or effectively drive their employer brand on this platform.

20kg down.
39:08 on the clock.
Sub-40 finally done.

For nearly a year I’ve been chasing that number like it owed me money.

Every Parkrun I’d glance at my watch around the 4km mark doing the maths in my head.
“Is this the day?”
Usually… it wasn’t.

But this weekend at Woodley, it clicked.

39:08.
7:50/km.
A proper PB.

Now, I’m not saying it was the new shoes…
Or the borderline irresponsible cocktail of strong Rave Coffee and Neutonic before the start line…

But I’m also not NOT saying that.

What I do know is this:

20kg ago, sub-40 felt miles away.
Literally and mentally.

The weight loss wasn’t about aesthetics. It was about discipline.
The running wasn’t about medals. It was about momentum.

There’s something powerful about setting a target that scares you a little and then quietly working at it for months when nobody’s clapping.

No big announcement.
No dramatic transformation post every week.
Just turning up. Again. And again. And again.

And here’s the interesting bit, the breakthrough didn’t feel dramatic.
It felt earned.

That’s how most progress works in life and business.
Not a lightning bolt.
More like compound interest in effort.

You chip away long enough…
One day the clock says 39:08 instead of 40:27.
And you realise you’re not the same person who started.

Next target?
Keep building. Keep sharpening. Keep showing up.

A few 10km races and some consistent PBs and maybe a half-marathon…

No Hyrox for me, I’m insufferable enough without making the Hyrox lifestyle part of my personality too!

Because if a stubborn 5km can teach you anything, it’s this:

Consistency beats intensity.
Momentum beats motivation.
And sometimes… caffeine helps 🫡

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Something strange is happening in hiring right now.

Companies say they want:

Critical thinkers.
Growth mindset.
People who can navigate ambiguity.
Humans who can work alongside AI.

Then the interview process shows up like it’s still 2009.

“Tell me about a time you…”
“…managed a difficult stakeholder.”
“…handled conflict.”
“…worked under pressure.”

We’re evaluating people for future problems using questions about past situations that might not even exist anymore.

It’s a bit like hiring a pilot for a modern aircraft but only asking how they flew a propeller plane ten years ago.

The world of work has shifted faster in the last 24 months than it did in the previous decade.

AI tools are emerging every few months.
Entire job functions are evolving in real time.
Skills are being built while the job itself is changing.

Yet our hiring methods are still obsessed with historical storytelling.

What if we flipped it?

Instead of:
“Tell me about a time you did X.”

Try:
“How would you approach this problem today?”
“How would you use AI to solve this?”
“What would your first 30 days look like if this was your challenge?”

You don’t learn how someone narrates their past.
You learn how they think about the present.
And in a world where knowledge expires faster than ever…
Thinking might be the most valuable skill you can actually hire for.

There’s A Bias In Hiring We Don’t Like To Admit Exists.

It’s not age. (Although isn’t talked about enough in my opinion)
It’s not gender.
It’s not ethnicity.

It’s BEAUTY.

Yes. Beauty bias.

Before anyone rolls their eyes and says, “Surely not in 2026, Dom,” let’s bring some data into the room.

I’ve recently finished reading - Beauty Pays, where economist Daniel Hamermesh analysed decades of labour market data and found something deeply uncomfortable:

Attractive people earn more.
Less attractive people earn less.
Across industries. Across genders. Across time.

He estimated the “plainness penalty” can be thousands per year. Over a lifetime? That compounds into serious money.

Now pause.

Ask yourself:

How many times have you described a candidate as:

💁 “Polished”
💁🏼‍♀️ “Well-presented”
💁🏻‍♂️ “Client-facing”
💁🏼‍♀️ “Executive presence”

All legitimate things to assess.

But here’s the twist: our brains are pattern-matching machines with a factory-installed glitch called the halo effect. That’s when we assume one positive trait (appearance) signals other positive traits (competence, intelligence, trustworthiness).

It’s evolutionary psychology. We make snap judgments in milliseconds. Our ancestors needed that to avoid being eaten.

You, however, are hiring a Senior Data Engineer. Not running from a sabre-toothed tiger.

And yet…

Camera on Zoom.
Sharp jawline.
Clear skin.
Confident posture.

Your brain whispers: “Leader.”

Slightly awkward.
Not camera-savvy.
Different grooming norms.
Unconventional style.

Your brain whispers: “Maybe not.”

No malicious intent. No conspiracy. Just cognitive shortcuts.

But shortcuts shape careers.

And here’s where it gets spicy.

We’ve built entire professional ecosystems around appearance:

✅ Personal branding photos
✅ “How to look more confident” reels
✅ Zoom lighting setups
✅ Cosmetic dentistry marketed as “career investment”

We pretend meritocracy is purely merit.

It isn’t.

Now, does this mean appearance is irrelevant? No.

Humans are social creatures. Presentation signals effort. 
Effort signals conscientiousness. 
That’s real.

But here’s the discipline:

Are you assessing competence?
Or comfort?

Because beauty bias often disguises itself as “culture fit” or “gravitas.”

The uncomfortable truth is this:
Some people start 10 metres ahead in the race, and we call it “natural confidence.”

So what do we do about it?

👍🏼 Structured interviews.
👍🏼 Scorecards before discussion.
👍🏼 Blind screening where possible.
👍🏼 Panel diversity.
👍🏼 Actual evidence over vibes.

Merit deserves better than instinct.

The world is weird. Our brains are flawed. And pretending bias doesn’t exist doesn’t make us fair, it makes us blind.

The next evolution of hiring isn’t AI replacing humans.

It’s humans understanding themselves.

And that’s a far harder upgrade.

🚀 Week 2 at Weir… and recruitment has definitely taken off.

We are now building out a critical layer of our global S4+ Transformation Programme, and I’m actively hiring multiple SAP S/4HANA Domain Architects across:

🔹 Supply Chain
🔹 Manufacturing
🔹 Finance
🔹 Sales & Marketing
🔹 Innovation & PLM
🔹 HR & Corporate Services

This is one of the most ambitious, end‑to‑end digital transformations happening anywhere in the industry right now, touching almost every major business process across Weir’s global footprint. These roles will sit right at the center of that change.

🌍 Why These Roles Matter

We’re establishing a modern, harmonised and fit‑to‑standard S/4HANA landscape that will define how Weir operates for the next decade.

Our Domain Architects Will:

✨ Partner with Product Domain Leads as strategic co‑pilots
✨ Own end‑to‑end value streams (e.g., Source‑to‑Pay, Manufacture‑to‑Distribution, Concept‑to‑Launch, Lead‑to‑Order)
✨ Govern process, data and solution design across global templates
✨ Align cross‑domain architecture (S/4, PLM, Salesforce, EWM, TM, MES, Workday and more)
✨ Influence senior stakeholders and drive real cultural, operational and digital change
✨ Work in a highly visible programme with strong sponsorship from the very top

These are enterprise‑level design authority positions — not people management roles — but extremely influential in shaping the future of Weir.

🔧 What We’re Looking For;

We're keen to speak to senior SAP professionals who bring:

✔️ Deep S/4HANA expertise in their functional domain
✔️ Experience in global transformations (design, build, governance, template rollouts)
✔️ Strong business process ownership (E2E/value‑stream thinking)
✔️ Ability to challenge, influence and guide both technical teams & senior stakeholders
✔️ A mindset aligned to Fit‑to‑Standard, Clean Core, and global consistency
✔️ Comfort working across regions, cultures and time zones
✔️ A passion for driving meaningful business change — not just system change

If you've recently rolled off a major S/4 programme, or you're in the middle of one and looking for your next big challenge, I want to hear from you.

Weir is a truly global organisation, and we welcome applicants from the UK, US, India and other regions where Weir operates. These roles involve international travel and cross‑regional collaboration.

📩 Interested? Let’s Talk

If you're an SAP Domain Architect, Solution Architect, Enterprise Architect or a senior functional expert ready to step into a high‑impact role, please get in touch directly or drop your CV in the comments/inbox. 

As we go through the phases of this project we'll be looking for more experts within SAP across other disciplines and backgrounds so feel free to connect and register your interest

Excited for what’s ahead, and even more excited to bring world‑class talent into Weir

#WeAreWeir #SAP #S4HANA #Transformation #DigitalTransformation #Architecture #SupplyChain #Manufacturing #PLM #DomainArchitect

Sunday morning my daughter did her first ever Junior Parkrun.

Two kilometres.

Now, for context……
She spent most of it telling me she was tired.

To be fair, she also says she’s tired during the weekly food shop, so I took the feedback with a pinch of salt.

About halfway round she turned to me and said something really philosophical. The kind of deep, motivational wisdom you’d expect to hear on a leadership stage or in a business book:

“Success is born at the intersection of resilience, belief and disciplined action.”

……………..

Just kidding.

She said:

“You’ve just gotta believe in yourself.”

And honestly… that might be the better message.

Because whether you’re 8 years old running your first Junior Parkrun, or an adult trying to build a career, a business, or just improve something in your life — it usually comes down to that simple idea.

Belief.

Not the loud LinkedIn version.
Not the motivational poster version.

The quiet kind.

The kind that gets you to the start line.
The kind that keeps you moving when you’re tired.
The kind that says “I can probably do this” even when you’re not totally sure.

But it also reminded me of something else.

Our behaviours shape our children’s outlook on life.

They watch what we do.
They absorb how we approach challenges.
They see whether we show up… or make excuses.

When they see us try things, push ourselves, keep going when something is hard — that becomes normal to them.

They don’t just hear what we say.

They copy what we do.

She finished the run.
Complained most of the way.
Still crossed the line.

Which, if we’re honest, is how most of us get through big things in life anyway.

A little belief.
A bit of stubbornness.
And just keeping going.

AI Has Killed the “Busy Recruiter” Persona

For years, value in recruitment was often signalled by chaos.

“Swamped.”
“Back-to-back interviews.”
“200 CVs to get through.”

Being busy became a badge of honour.

But here’s the problem.

A lot of that “busyness” was admin:

🫤 Screening
🫤 Scheduling
🫤 Chasing feedback
🫤 Rewriting job specs
🫤 Manual reporting
🫤 Sourcing at scale

🤖 AI now screens.
🤖 AI summarises.
🤖 AI schedules.
🤖 AI drafts outreach.
🤖 AI builds Boolean.
🤖 AI maps talent pools.

So if the admin goes away, then what’s left?

Not volume.
Judgement.

Not activity.
Impact.

Not “how many CVs did you review?”
But “what did you influence?”

This is the shift.

Recruiters are moving from operators → advisors.

From process runners → labour market translators.

From “I filled the role” → “I helped you design the right one.”

And that’s where it gets interesting.

Because some people built careers around being indispensable due to workload.

AI removes artificial scarcity.

Now your value sits in:

✅ Relationship intelligence
✅ Stakeholder credibility
✅ Workforce planning insight
✅ Data fluency
✅ Commercial thinking

The recruiter who understands supply curves, compensation strategy, skills adjacency, and hiring risk will thrive.

The recruiter who only knows how to push CVs through a funnel will struggle.

This isn’t AI replacing recruiters.

It’s AI stress-testing the profession.

And honestly? That’s healthy.

Recruitment has always had two types of people:
Those who move paper.
Those who move businesses.

AI just made the difference visible.

⸻

Zoom out for a second.

Every profession goes through this phase when automation strips away the mechanical layer. Accountants did. Marketers did. Engineers did.

The first reaction is fear.

The second reaction is reinvention.

Recruitment is entering phase two.

And the smart ones aren’t asking “Will AI replace me?”

They’re asking, “What do I need to become now that it won’t?”

That’s where the real leverage sits. 🫡

London, that’s a wrap. 🇬🇧

Roundtable number two with Personio. and just like Dublin last week, the conversation didn’t disappoint.

Different industries. Different roles. Different organisational challenges.

Same underlying tension:

AI is accelerating change faster than most workforce strategies are designed for.

What I love about these rooms is the honesty. No hype. No panic. Just smart HR and TA leaders wrestling with the real questions:

❓What do we automate?
❓What do we protect?
❓What do we elevate?

One question kept surfacing for me, especially for TA & HR functions:

If we genuinely want to future-proof our employees in the wake of AI…
how do we upskill them fast enough to stay sharp and relevant,
while treating them well enough that once we’ve effectively “weaponised” them with all these new capabilities… they don’t want to leave?

Because there’s a paradox here.

We’re investing heavily in agility, critical thinking, learning velocity.

But if culture, leadership and opportunity don’t evolve alongside those skills, we simply make people more marketable for someone else.

Future-proofing talent isn’t just about development budgets.
It’s about trust, autonomy, growth pathways and meaningful work.

And one more challenge for TA while we’re here…..

If we say we’re hiring for growth mindset and critical thinking, let’s stop anchoring interviews in backward-looking competency questions.

Past experience matters, but so does how someone thinks about modern problems.

Instead of:
“Tell me about a time you did X five years ago.”

What if we asked:
“How would you approach solving this today?”

The market is evolving in real time.
Our hiring questions should too.

Two cities. Two brilliant rooms.
And a lot of thinking still to do.

The future of work isn’t theoretical anymore, it’s sitting in our hiring pipelines and performance conversations right now.

Thank you to Celina Ploskonka for hosting a great event. 👏🏼

Next stop… 👀 

USA 🇺🇸 or Dubai 🇦🇪 wouldn’t be a bad shout 😏 but I’ll settle for somewhere like Amsterdam 🇳🇱

Recruiting in 2026 feels a bit like trying to drink from a firehose.

Every role attracts hundreds of CVs.

Some are AI-written.
Some are mass applications.
Some look brilliant… until you ask one technical question.

So recruiters end up spending hours doing something that frankly shouldn’t be the job anymore:

Reading documents and trying to guess who’s capable.

But the real question in hiring isn’t:

“Who wrote the best CV?”

It’s:

“Who can actually do the work?”

That’s why platforms like Canditech caught my attention.

Instead of screening CVs endlessly, candidates complete realistic job simulations and skill-based tasks that mirror the role itself.

Things like:

✅ Solving an actual work problem
✅ Responding to real scenarios
✅ Demonstrating skills in context — including how they use AI to get the job done

Suddenly the signal gets much clearer.

Recruiters can see who can perform, not just who can format a résumé nicely.

Which means less time buried in CVs.

And more time spent on what great recruiters actually do best:

Building relationships.
Understanding talent.
Making confident hiring decisions.

Because hiring shouldn’t feel like document review.

It should feel like talent discovery.

If you’re curious how this approach works in practice, take a look at what the team at Canditech are building. It’s a refreshing shift toward hiring based on skills, not guesswork.

We’re Hiring: Finance Domain Architect – SAP S/4HANA Transformation 

Huge momentum across our organisation right now as we advance through one of the most ambitious SAP S/4HANA transformations in our history, reshaping processes, elevating data, and building a truly global digital core.
To help shape this journey, we’re looking for an exceptional Finance Domain Architect to join our architecture community.

Why this role matters?

This role sits at the heart of our global Finance transformation. You’ll define and steer the end‑to‑end Finance architecture across S/4HANA and integrated platforms, ensuring the future landscape is unified, scalable, and aligned to global design principles.

You’ll work closely with enterprise architecture, functional leaders, and global process owners to define how Finance capabilities evolve across Record‑to‑Report, Order‑to‑Cash, Plan‑to‑Perform, Treasury, Tax, and other critical domains.

Who this role is perfect for?

We’re looking for someone who brings genuine global exposure — someone who has led, influenced, and shaped Finance processes at scale. If you've held roles such as:

Global Process Owner
Global Process Expert
Global Process Lead
Domain Process Lead
Functional Domain Lead
Functional Domain Owner

…you’re likely to have the strategic mindset and cross‑functional leadership needed to excel here.

What we’re looking for

💡 Deep expertise in SAP S/4HANA Finance
💡 Proven experience operating in global, complex, multi‑region environments
💡 Strong influencing skills and executive‑ready communication
💡 Ability to simplify complexity and drive clear architectural direction
💡 A collaborative, forward‑thinking approach to shaping modern Finance capabilities

This is a remote role, but given the scope of the role and project travel will be around 40% - The role is posted in Glasgow but I'm not precious on the location and can flex to the right person.

Why join us?

This is a defining moment, your work will directly shape the Finance landscape for the next decade and beyond. You’ll partner with senior leaders across business and technology, contribute to global standards, and play a key role in embedding modern, efficient, end‑to‑end processes worldwide.

👉 Interested, or know someone who is?

Feel free to reach out directly or apply through the link below.

Let’s build the future of Finance together. 🚀 I’m #hiring. 
Know anyone who might be interested?

#SAP #S/4HANA #S4HANA #Transformation #FinanceJobs #Weir #WeAreWeir

Everyone is talking about how AI will change hiring.

But the more interesting question is what it should change inside companies.

In this clip from my interview with Personio, I talk about a shift I think we’ll see a lot more of this year:

Using AI to unlock the potential already sitting inside your organisation.

For years the default response to a skills gap was:
“Let’s hire externally.”

But if AI removes huge chunks of admin work across teams, something else appears:

Time.

And that time can be invested in upskilling the people you already have.

The real opportunity for HR and Talent teams isn’t just hiring faster.

It’s helping organisations build more fluid workforces, where employees can evolve their skills, move across functions, and grow alongside the business.

The interesting paradox?

You should upskill people so well that other companies would want to hire them, but, and here’s the kicker….treat them well enough that they never want to leave.

I’ll be unpacking this conversation further with Suzie Rogers, Teresa R. and Debora Gallo at Personio’s “Making AI Work — LIVE” virtual summit on March 19th.

If you work in HR, Talent, or People leadership, this is a discussion worth joining.

Register here: https://lnkd.in/e4w5jHd6

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