THE APPLOI INTERVIEW: Danielle Lloyd Joins Apploi
We’re excited to introduce you to one of Apploi’s new hires — Danielle Lloyd, Head of Product. She lives in London and is a big believer in the power of meditation to help find some work/life balance. A team member had a chance to chat with Danielle by email this week to learn more about her and her role at the company.
Q: Danielle, congratulations on the new position at Apploi! Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Danielle: Thank you! It’s been a delight to get to know more of the Apploi team over the past several weeks, and I’m thrilled to be here. I have a background in social and behavioral research, which gave me the privilege of getting to work across a dozen different countries for several years, prior to eventually co-founding a B2B SaaS business in Supply Chain Transparency. It was this experience that gave me a passion for product innovation and development and kickstarted a career in consulting with both start-ups and corporates on product strategy, development, and innovation. I’ve benefited from working with a wide range of clients, from a 100+ year-old business to supporting first-time founders. Over the past several years, I’ve been fortunate to be published by an academic journal on ethical product innovation, secure several millions of ££s of funding for new product development, and work alongside some incredibly talented individuals who have taught me so much about collaboration and best practice in product delivery.
Q: We hear you are working from London, how has starting remotely at a new company been going so far? Any advice for people working remotely right now?
Danielle: I’ve been lucky enough to have prior experience with working from home, so ironically this lockdown period hasn’t required as much of a behavioral or mental shift for me in the realm of work. I have the tendency to work all hours of the day, so have developed a couple of boundaries for myself to try and live in a bit more of a measured and balanced way. That said, regarding tips, I suppose I have a few!
1. If you’re thinking about work outside of working hours, consider how long the task you’re thinking about will take. If it’ll take less than 10 minutes, just get it out of the way so you can let your brain actually rest. Sometimes “trying not to work” causes more stress than just doing what needs to be done.
2. Meditation actually helps LOADS when your day has few interruptions or diversity of activity (which we’re all facing now). I meditate every morning before work, will sometimes take 5 minutes during the day if I’m feeling overwhelmed to recenter myself, and also meditate before bed as it helps my mind switch off. The Headspace app is brilliant for meditation newbies.
3. Protect your weekends. Even though your home has essentially become your office, we all need to rest — and routinely. Henry Ford essentially invented the weekend, and saw a huge boost in productivity across his staff during the actual work week as a result! Rest is a friend of work.
Q: Can you tell us about some of your short-term goals at Apploi this year?
Danielle: One of the things I’ve been digging into over the past several weeks has been our product delivery process and how that impacts velocity. I am a huge proponent for structure and creating as much predictability in product as possible (since so much can be unpredictable!). I believe that structure provides a strong foundation for team empowerment, creativity in problem solving and speed with decision making. I’ve already been working closely with several members of the team to diagnose how we can build upon the great ‘process’ work that’s already been done in order to work even more efficiently and minimize ambiguity where possible.
Q: Following up on that, what can customers expect to see as far as new products and tools that will help them with hiring?
Danielle: There have been a lot of exciting technological developments in the area of work over the past several years. Even broader to recruitment, we’re seeing both Microsoft and Google make some incredible leaps and bounds in virtual and voice-enabled assistants. In one of my previous roles, we were working on some exciting AI and ML-enabled job matching and career development coaches, leveraging over a decade of job searching and job posting activity. In short, I think that we’ll continue to see technology support efficiency, simplicity, and more targeted personalization in work through a variety of different technological advancements — where data, of course, is playing a central role.
Q: Hiring is hard. So in what ways is Apploi making it easier?
Danielle: The thing that stands out to me most about Apploi is its audience’s familiarity with high-volume-hiring. Having been on the job-seeking side numerous times, I deeply understand how emotional and stressful the whole experience can be. I’ve had both positive and negative recruitment experiences myself, with recruiters who have supported me every step of the way, as well as ones who have dropped the ball and left me hanging. I like to think that Apploi is supporting recruiters who are juggling the varied details of many, many candidates to not only find the best people for their job vacancies, but also provide all of their applicants with a more positive experience where communication between recruiter and candidate is thoughtful, timely, informed, and simplified.
Q: Is there anything I haven’t asked that you’d like to discuss or convey?
Danielle: Getting to work with a team and for a company that is doing good is a gift, as cheesy as that might sound. Knowing that your daily tasks are ultimately making the lives of many other people better is not only refreshing, but motivating! I’m grateful to be here and look forward to getting to know the whole team better, while working with all of you to make Apploi the best it can be.
