Welcome to Behind the Flame, a series created to showcase our incidentios.
Meet Dani Unsworth, Head of Talent here at incident.io.
Q: What has been your favorite incident.io memory so far?
It's hard to pick one favorite memory, as Iâve had so many amazing moments over the past two and a half years. Seeing the team scale has been incredible and being able to celebrate that growth at our off-sites has always been a moment of reflection. So far weâve been to Lisbon, Barcelona and most recently Marseille. There were 20 people in Lisbon, 50 in Barcelona, and most recently nearly 80 in Marseille. (Try and work out where weâre going next: đȘšđŹïžđâš)
Q: What is the value that most resonates with you?
It would have to be âFind a Wayâ, when working in Talent, you have to embody this value. Whether youâre finding creative ways to source candidates, changing processes to make them more streamlined, partnering with hiring managers, through to successfully closing candidates. Every day, weâre finding new ways to successfully scale the company.
Q: What is your favorite benefit?
Our subsidized ClassPass combined with flexible working, it means I can go to Pilates without rushing in the mornings. Itâs great having a benefit that focuses on health and well-being and having those extra credits.
Q: What is your favorite Slack channel?
I'm going to choose two channels. I'm going to say #random just because I can't believe how random it truly is. The messages that go in there, you're never prepared when you get a new notification. The other is our private #talent-team channel because the chat that happens in there is always so much fun, it's just like working with a bunch of friends.
Q: What is one piece of advice you would give yourself on your first day?
I would recommend taking time for yourself. Starting a new job can be incredibly overwhelming and stressful. Youâre absorbing a tonne of information, meeting lots of new people, and learning new platforms and processes. Give yourself the chance to have moments to take it all in, enjoy yourself, and prepare yourself for the next few months.
Q: What advice would you give to candidates interviewing?
There is a lot of information available online, from videos, blog posts, to our Candidate Hub which houses insights into how we work and what we value. Taking time to do research is the best way to prepare for our interviews and shows the interviewers your level of interest. In addition, the Talent team will always provide you with feedback at each stage of and offer prep calls, I highly recommend taking advantage of these.
Q: What three words would you use to describe the culture?
I find this question funny as I asked this question to every employee when I first joined, and the most frequently used word was âchaosâ, weâve come a long way since then! My three words would be driven, transparent, and kind.
Q: What incident.io employee would you like to be stuck in a lift with?
Do I have to give an honest answer? Because the honest answer would be getting stuck with the office dogs. If I had to choose someone, it would be Meg Batterbury, my partner in crime. The amount of time we spent together anyway, it would be a real laugh, sheâd probably have a nap, or we'd have a book on us and then we would just talk about the latest TV shows weâre watching. It would be great!
Q: What does the last Friday of the month mean to you?
I absolutely love the last Friday of the month and really think more companies should consider doing something similar. It's one of the best perks that we have to offer. Getting 12 extra days of holiday gives you time to relax, have an admin day, or explore on the weekends. A lot of the time I'll schedule a holiday around the last Friday of the month.
Q: What are you most looking forward to at incident.io, this year and beyond?
We went through a hiring pause at the start of 2024, which meant our goals and plans as a Talent team needed to evolve. As a result, our focus moved to employer branding, candidate experience, process improvement, and data & reporting. What's super exciting, is hiring has recommenced in Sales and weâre looking to expand across the US. As a Talent team, weâre now getting to see everything that we've worked on over the last few months in practice and actually come to fruition.
Q: What is something you're excited or proud to have worked on?
There are two things that I'm super proud to have worked on during my time here at incident.io. The first is scaling our amazing Product Development team, growing from about 5 employees to nearly 40. I love walking around the London office, seeing the team weâve built operating day to day and the mixture of personalities weâve hired. Secondly, I am proud of the work Iâve done to level up our Talent data & reporting. I had the pleasure of working closely with Navo, one of our Data Analysts, to learn how to create reports and dashboards from scratch. Five core dashboards have been created for different stakeholders with key recruitment metrics. I could only have dreamed of having this level of visibility into data at my previous companies.
Q: What is it like being part of the Talent team?
I joined back in 2022 as a Talent team of one! We are now a fabulous team of 3, myself, Meg [Batterbury], and Katie [Pirone]. It has been really rewarding being a part of the Talent team, and seeing the company scale to 80 people across London, New York, and remotely in US states. We've worked on and delivered some incredible projects from our Talent roadmap from candidate experience, data and reporting, and branding through to overhauling our interview process and rolling out training. The Talent team is driven, supportive and dependable and they are the reason I love coming to work every day.
Q: How does Talent collaborate with other departments in the business?
Talent collaborates with absolutely every department across the organization at some point for hiring and employer branding. We've seen every department scale, up-skilled the majority of employees to be approved interviewers, worked with Founders on our hiring strategy, and included people into our employer branding work, to showcase our incidentios.
Q: What is something that surprised you when you joined?
I think a lot of companies talk about having a really transparent culture, but rarely does it live up to it, this is something that makes us stand out. Everyone is on the same page, aware of our journey and the key decisions being made; itâs been incredible to see the true benefits of this.
Q: If you were to work on another team for the day, what team would you join and why?
If you haven't already realized with a lot of my answers, I absolutely love all things data. So it would have to be the Data team. I'd be really fascinated to partner with them to understand our different departments from a metrics perspective and whatâs important to them.
Q: Why do you think companies need a reliable incident management tool?
I have been a Technical Recruiter now for nearly 7+ years and the one thing that I've witnessed in every company I've worked at was the pains of an incident for an Engineering team. What we are looking to do is transform the world of incident management and incorporate all the tools youâd need into one, from response, to status pages, to on-call, plus creating insights and utilizing AI. A tool such as incident.io allows Engineering teams to become more informed about their incidents, learn from them, and help in setting teams up for success.
Q; How would you describe the day-to-day as the Head of Talent?
It's really hard to give a simple answer, as every day looks incredibly unique and different for me, which is exactly why I love what I do. Sometimes it can be helping Katie and Meg on all things hiring across the GTM world, occasionally it's working with Founders on leadership hiring and then it can also be a lot of project work. I work on a lot of things behind the scenes that look at improving our processes.
Q: How does incident.io recognize and celebrate employee achievements and milestones?
There are a number of different ways, we use Slack channels #gratitude and #compliments to thank our colleagues and showcase what our customers have to say. We also have our Value awards, to celebrate the employees most embodying our values. Finally, when it's someone's anniversary, we attach balloons to their chairs, give them a neon flame for their home set-ups, and finally a new addition, commemorative coins that our Design team has created, to collect over the years.
