Lindsay Stuiber, VP of Global Talent for Change.org- Intentionally Defining Talent

Lindsay Stuiber is the VP of Global Talent for Change.org, where she leads a high-performing team focused on building equitable hiring systems. She began her career in talent acquisition in 2013 and has built her practice around partnering with leaders to attract diverse talent. On Reimagining Company Culture, she joined us to talk about intentionally defining talent.

Her view is that the word talent is doing a lot of unexamined work in most hiring systems. Without explicit definitions, talent becomes a code word for fit, which becomes a code word for sameness. The companies that intentionally define what talent means for each role end up with stronger hires and more equitable outcomes.

Why Vague Talent Definitions Produce Inequitable Hiring

Most hiring loops operate on implicit talent definitions. The hiring manager has a picture in their head, the recruiter has a different picture, and the interviewers all default to gut feel. Pew Research on workplace DEI found that 61 percent of workers say their company has fairness policies, but smaller shares see them actually enforced. Vague talent definitions are part of why.

Lindsay described the trap clearly. A role goes open, the team wants someone soon, and the hiring loop runs without anyone agreeing on what success looks like in the role. The result is a candidate selection that depends on whoever spoke loudest in the debrief.

Her framing is that talent acquisition becomes equitable when the definition of talent is explicit, written, and shared before the loop runs. That single move changes the conversation and the outcomes.

What also matters is updating the definition over time. Roles evolve, businesses change, and the talent definition that worked two years ago may no longer fit. Strong programs review and update talent definitions on a regular cadence.

How Do You Build Intentional Talent Definitions?

What is the structure of a strong talent definition?

Lindsay's structure has four parts. What outcomes will this person own, what skills are required, what skills are nice-to-have, and what behaviors do we expect on the team. Each part is written down before the loop runs. The discipline forces the team to align on what they actually need.

How do you handle disagreement between hiring managers and recruiters?

By treating the disagreement as a productive conversation, not a delay. Recruiters often see broader market signal that hiring managers miss. Change management research shows that the strongest decisions usually emerge from honest debate, not consensus. Strong hiring processes welcome that debate.

What Actually Works in Defining Talent

Write the definition before opening the role

The strongest hiring loops start with a written talent definition. Roles posted without one tend to attract candidates that the team cannot evaluate consistently.

Calibrate interviewers explicitly

Even with a strong definition, different interviewers apply it differently. Calibration sessions where interviewers walk through real candidate examples build shared standards over time.

Audit hiring outcomes by demographic

Strong talent definitions plus calibrated interviewers can still produce inequitable outcomes if upstream sourcing is biased. Annual audits that look at outcomes by demographic catch problems that process improvements miss.

Where Employee Relations Fits

ER systems support hiring equity by surfacing concerns about hiring decisions. AllVoices' DEI solution and our HR case management product give HR a clear way to surface and resolve concerns about fairness in hiring outcomes.

How does ER data improve hiring equity?

It catches patterns that aggregate hiring data misses. Concerns about specific hiring loops, individual managers, or perceived bias in selection can be tracked and connected to broader trends. That data informs both individual cases and the upstream changes that prevent future ones.

Frequently Asked Questions About Defining Talent and Equitable Hiring

What does intentionally defining talent mean?

It is the practice of writing down explicitly what talent looks like for a specific role before the hiring loop runs. The definition includes outcomes, required skills, nice-to-have skills, and team behaviors.

Why do most hiring loops operate without explicit definitions?

Because the urgency of filling a role overrides the discipline of defining it. Strong hiring programs treat the definition as a non-negotiable input, not a nice-to-have.

How does this connect to equitable hiring outcomes?

Vague definitions produce decisions that default to gut feel, which often correlates with sameness. Explicit definitions force the team to evaluate candidates against a known standard, which produces more equitable outcomes over time.

What metrics should hiring teams track?

Time-to-fill by role, offer-acceptance rate, candidate experience scores, hiring outcomes by demographic at each stage of the funnel, and retention of new hires at one and two years.

How often should talent definitions be updated?

At least annually. Strong programs review definitions whenever a role gets posted to reconfirm that the definition still fits the current business needs.

Who should own talent definitions?

The hiring manager owns the definition with input from the recruiter and the broader team. HR convenes the process and ensures consistency across roles. Strong programs treat the definition as a shared artifact, not a hiring manager solo project.

The Bottom Line for HR Leaders

Lindsay's framing is a useful corrective for any hiring program that has been running on implicit assumptions about what talent means. Defining talent explicitly is one of the highest-impact disciplines a hiring team can adopt.

The leaders who get this right share a few habits. They write the definition before opening the role. They calibrate interviewers explicitly. They audit hiring outcomes by demographic. And they update definitions on a regular cadence as business needs evolve.

Companies that build this discipline see stronger hires, faster ramp times, and more equitable outcomes over years. The investment compounds because each cycle of explicit definition makes the next cycle easier and clearer.

Across the conversation, the throughline was that hiring is a system. The system that produces who gets hired, how they ramp, and whether they stay is the result of dozens of small decisions, starting with how talent gets defined.

Companies that handle this work well also tend to develop a strong recruiting reputation in their markets. Candidates pick up on whether a company has thought carefully about its hiring process within the first interview. The strongest candidates seek out companies that operate this way.

Industry research keeps reinforcing this view. Catalyst research found that 76 percent of employees, and 86 percent of Gen Z workers, are more likely to stay with a company that supports DEI. Equitable hiring is the upstream investment that produces this retention outcome.

Companies that invest in this discipline also build internal hiring expertise that pays back across years. The recruiters and hiring managers who develop the muscle of intentional talent definition become the most valuable people in any HR function.

The throughline across the conversation was that hiring is a discipline, not an event. Companies that invest in the discipline through every cycle end up with workforces that match their stated values and outperform their peers on retention.

Strong definitions also help with candidate experience. Candidates who understand what success looks like in a role can self-select more honestly, which raises the quality of the funnel without HR doing more work.

Strong programs also see patterns over time. Roles that consistently fail to meet definitions reveal themselves as either misframed or impossible to staff with the current strategy. Either signal is valuable.

See how AllVoices supports HR teams building equitable hiring practices.