Leon Bezdikian

"An organization's ability to excel is solely based on the ability of the employees to get it there."

What to do when every single req you're trying to fill looks like a purple squirrel? This is Jeremy Eskenazi, Managing Principal at Riviera Advisors. Our guest today on Insights: Amplified is Leon Bezdikian, VP Human Resources at Inphi, a Silicon Valley based manufacturer.

Leon has extensive domestic and international Human Resources experience - primarily with high-tech companies.

Now, why did we want to interview Leon for the Insights: Amplified series? With a 25-year-plus career in HR, Leon's expertise includes executive coaching, management training, organizational development, talent acquisition and team building. His insights' regarding HR leadership extend to teaching Human Resources at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Extension Program. I'm sure you'll gain a good deal of actionable information from our interview today!

Inphi, founded in 2000, is a fabless provider of high-speed analog semiconductor solutions for the communications and computing markets, providing high signal integrity at leading-edge data speeds that are designed to address bandwidth bottlenecks in networks, minimize latency in computing environments and enable the rollout of next generation communications infrastructure.

The company has 40 open reqs for engineers with titles like "Sr. Staff ATE Validation Engineer" with qualifications that include, "lead and execute PHY SERDES device validation on ATE platform."

Paul King

Welcome to Insights: Amplified a monthly podcast featuring interviews with the movers and innovators in talent acquisition, staffing, and corporate human resources.

Insights: Amplified is a production of Riviera Advisors, helping organizations improve, enhance, and optimize their corporate recruiting and staffing capabilities through sophisticated levels of expertise in tactical and strategic global talent acquisition; and by TotalPicture Radio - the voice of career and leadership acceleration.

On this edition of Insights: Amplified, we welcome Paul King, Corporate Director of Talent at Caesars Entertainment. Prior to joining Caesars, Paul was executive recruiter at Oracle Corporation. He ran his own executive search firm, and was Client Partner with Korn/Ferry International.

Now, why did we want to interview Paul? Well, many leaders in HR and talent acquisition are facing strong headwinds today due to the economy, but the gaming industry, as we all know, has been especially hard-hit. Just look at Las Vegas, which has gone from "having the lowest unemployment in the nation at 4 per cent to the highest," according to a recent article in The Financial Times. Quoting Brian Burton, president of Three Square, the Nevada-based non-profit food bank. "We are number one in foreclosures, number one in bankruptcies, number one in unemployment and [unemployment] in some parts of Las Vegas is running at more than 20%."

Melissa McMahon

Welcome to Insights: Amplified a monthly podcast featuring interviews with the movers and innovators in talent acquisition, staffing, and corporate human resources.

Insights: Amplified is a production of Riviera Advisors, helping organizations improve, enhance, and optimize their corporate recruiting and staffing capabilities through sophisticated levels of expertise in tactical and strategic global talent acquisition; and by TotalPicture Radio – the voice of career and leadership acceleration.

CDW Corporation is growing and expanding into new markets. Melissa McMahon is a results driven Talent Acquisition leader with over 20 years of experience and a proven track record of successfully leading, building and re-engineering recruiting functions from entry-level through executive level.

Melissa's challenges include a recent acquisition, a hyper-competitive industry and talent pool; building high performing teams and delivering against aggressive talent demands. Melissa leads the company’s employment branding and communications initiatives. Additionally, Melissa is the 2010 Staffing Management Association of greater Chicago Staffing Professional of the Year, and CDW received a 2011 CEO Diversity Leadership award.

Frak McKay

"One of the things that I have to say about recruiting and in particular recruiting metrics is that whenever I come up with a theory about something and start making measurements... I get a big surprise." Frank McKay

Welcome to Insights: Amplified, a monthly podcast featuring interviews with the movers and innovators in talent acquisition, staffing and corporate human resources. This is Peter Clayton reporting. Joining me today is Frank McKay, Recruiting and University Relations Manager, North America, for Schlumberger Limited. Before he became a recruiter, Frank Spent 30 years as a working engineer and takes a very analytical view of what he does. Schlumberger employs over 108,000 people of more than 140 nationalities working in approximately 80 countries

Insights Amplified is a co-production of Riviera Advisors, helping organizations improve, enhance and optimize their corporate recruiting and staffing capabilities through sophisticated levels of expertise in tactical and strategic global talent acquisition and by TotalPicture Radio.

Schlumberger Limited is a global oil field services company supplying technology, information solutions and integrated project management that optimize reservoir performance for customers working in the oil and gas industries. In his current role, Frank directs a campus recruiting organization that is responsible for all of Schlumberger's on-campus recruiting activities in North America. His organization regularly hires over 1,000 engineering and technical graduates per year.

Riviera Advisors Team

We are happy to announce a new podcast channel on TotalPicture Radio: Insights: Amplified; a monthly podcast that will feature interviews with the movers and innovators in talent acquisition, staffing, and corporate human resources.

Insights Amplified is a co-production of Riviera Advisors, a longtime friend and sponsor of TotalPicture Radio. For several years, Riviera Advisors has sponsored our podcasts from numerous HR and recruiting events, including ERE, IACPR, and SHRM.

In January, I was fortunate to attend Riviera Advisors' 10th Anniversary celebration in Long Beach, California. Meeting with Jeremy Eskenazi, Managing Principal,Diana Meisenhelter, Principal, Dan Kilgore, Principal, and Donna Thomas,Events and Administration Manager; we discussed the idea of a monthly program featuring leaders in HR, recruiting and staffing. At ERE Spring we further developed the concept for Insights: Amplified.