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.

Monday Musings; Some People Haven’t Had A Job Search In 5–10 Years And It Shows.

They’ve been in the same role, same title, same system, same tech stack, same boss, same yearly pay review, same “development conversation” that results in absolutely zero development.

That’s not loyalty.
That’s career muscle atrophy.

Then the big corporate plot twist lands, restructuring, cost savings, transformation, “new operating model”, whatever euphemism HR is soft-launching this quarter, and suddenly they’re on the market for the first time since David Cameron was still at number 10.

And the shock is unreal.

They can’t believe how hard it is.
They can’t believe how different it is.
They can’t believe how competitive it is.
They can’t believe they’re now one of thousands.

Spoiler: The market didn’t change overnight.
They just weren’t paying attention.

Comfort is great….. until it isn’t.

The job market is unforgiving to people who assumed they’d never need it again.
Companies don’t hand out pensions for loyalty anymore, they hand out Headcount Reduction Notices and PR statements about “strategic alignment”.

And here’s the actual punchline:

Most people only realise they should’ve built a network, updated their CV, tracked achievements, built a reputation, or learned how hiring works after they’ve already been benched.

That’s like learning to swim after the boat sinks.

So if you’re reading this from your comfy swivel chair thinking “that won’t happen to me”, cool. That’s exactly what the last guy said before IT revoked his access and security walked him out with a cardboard box.

Blunt, yes.
But here’s the helpful bit, because I don’t just do carnage:

🔥 1. Maintain your career like an athlete, not like a houseplant.
Training beats hoping.

🔥 2. Network when you don’t need anything.
If you only call people when you’re drowning, you’re not networking — you’re begging for a lifeboat.

🔥 3. Track outputs, not years.
Ten years of tenure means nothing without proof of value.

🔥 4. Stay visible.
Professionally invisible people do not magically reappear when they need a job.

🔥 5. Build multiple options.
Because one payroll is not a strategy.

The job market isn’t scary.
Being unprepared for it is.

Loyalty is cute.
Optionality is survival.

Fractional Talent Acquisition Lead & Founder @ Maverick Otter | LinkedIn Top Voice - Job Search & Career Advice | Editorial Advisory Board Member @ HR Grapevine | Panelist & Speaker | Top 0.1% LinkedIn Content Creator

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Uncomfortable Job Market Truths

Some truths people only learn once they’re unemployed (aka when it’s too late):

Truth #1:
Job security is a feeling, not a fact.

Truth #2:
Your network becomes very responsive once you don’t need it.
Less so when you do.

Truth #3:
Being “good at your job” isn’t the same as being visible, competitive, or hireable.

Truth #4:
Companies play the future game.
Candidates play the nostalgia game.

Truth #5:
Ten years in the same role can either mean mastery…….
or repetition.

Truth #6:
Redundancy doesn’t make you less valuable — it just reveals how prepared (or unprepared) you were.

Uncomfortable?
Sure.
But better to learn this during a good chapter than during a plot twist.

Have I missed any?

Friday Thought: Your Network Is Your Unfair Advantage.

Not in a cheesy “collect business cards like Pokémon” way — but in a “doors open faster for people you already know” way.

This week I attended two TA events, had two coffee chats with Recruitment Leaders, secured new speaking gigs in Dublin and London in March, and ended up in three conversations that had nothing to do with recruitment per se, and everything to do with opportunities and insights.

That’s the thing about industry events (virtual or in-person):

You don’t always walk out with something immediately tangible, but you always leave with more surface area for luck.

A new connection.
A new idea.
A new introduction.
A new lens on how fast an industry is changing.
Sometimes even a new problem you didn’t realise was emerging.

And if you’re currently job seeking, transitioning, hiring, building, or quietly plotting your next chapter (we all are, let’s be honest), the network you’ve nurtured long before you “needed” it becomes the difference between:

🅰️ Competing through a noisy application funnel vs.
🅱️ Being tapped on the shoulder because someone already rates you.

Most careers are compounding assets, we just treat them like linear ladders.

Events, communities, roundtables, panels, and informal catch-ups are the compounding bits.
They’re the places where credibility, curiosity, reputation and serendipity all overlap.

So as we wrap the week:

→ Don’t just work in your career.
→ Work on your network.

It’s not optional anymore. It’s professional infrastructure.

Happy Friday 🫡 Now go plant seeds your future self will thank you for.

Shoutout to Daisy Ilaria for hosting an awesome event Google HQ in London, and for Kayla Ricketts & Eli Duane for hosting us at the lovely slap up meal at Bocconcino Restaurants in Soho! 

Hung Lee always a pleasure; and good to see my old Klarna colleague Paul Finan  

Done being a social butterfly for the week and looking forward to having some daddy/daugther time at the weekend😌

One of the best posts I’ve seen recently came from Dani Unsworth  👏

She broke down how none of her roles came from a conventional application.

Not one “submit CV here.”
Not one “thanks, we’ll be in touch.”
Not one “our ATS will now ghost you for 3–5 business years.”

Her roles came from:

🔹 Careers events
🔹 Warm intros
🔹 Slack communities
🔹 DM’ing hiring managers
🔹 Referrals
🔹 Curiosity
🔹 Being in the right rooms (digital or otherwise)

Her point was simple but powerful:

Careers aren’t built through applications alone, they’re built through people, curiosity, and visibility.

And I couldn’t agree more.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth from a TA perspective:
A huge percentage of roles never hit LinkedIn.
They’re filled through networks, referrals, investors, internal mobility, industry groups, and good old fashioned “You should meet X.”

Applications are the last stage of the funnel, not the first.

So if you’re job searching in 2026, a few reminders:

🔥 Networks compound. The more people you know and help, the more interesting doors quietly swing open later.

🔥 Referrals matter. Companies trust warm intros more than cold PDFs.

🔥 Stay in the conversation. Most people only show up when they need something. The magic happens when you’re visible before you need the favour.

🔥 Don’t wait for the posting. If a role is live and public, you’re already competing with 200 others and an ATS that is one rejection filter away from telling you your CV “wasn’t a match” despite you being born for the role.

And for the job seekers who feel visibility = vanity:
It’s not.
Visibility = serendipity on demand.

If the last two years taught us anything:
applying gets you in the system, networking gets you in the room.

Credit again to Dani for the reminder.
More people need to think this way.

#talent #careers #recruitment #jobsearch #networking #opportunities

Thursday Thoughts;

Is this the only social media platform where you can tell someone that you’ve never spoken to before that you’ve been following them for years, and it come across as complimentary rather than creepy.. 😬😬😬

I’ve cut candidate drop-off by over 40% by fixing one boring thing: RESPONSE SPEED

Recruitment doesn’t fail because talent isn’t there.
It fails because communication is slow.

Candidates don’t reject jobs; they ghost processes that take too long to respond to.

And interview no-shows?
That’s usually just a scheduling problem in disguise.

So instead of chasing more candidates or rewriting job ads, we fixed the basics:

Automated confirmations

💡 Pre-interview nudges
💡 Post-interview follow-ups
💡 Short, clear messages — sent where people actually reply

What changed?

📈 Interviews became more predictable.
📈 Candidates moved through the funnel faster.
📈 Time-to-hire dropped.
📈 Drop-off fell.
📈 Stakeholders finally felt momentum again.

Nothing fancy.

Just better communication at the right moments.

If you work in TA and want to see the exact setup we used:

👉 Comment TOOL and I’ll send it.

Brand partnership • Fractional Talent Acquisition Lead & Founder @ Maverick Otter | LinkedIn Top Voice - Job Search & Career Advice | Editorial Advisory Board Member @ HR Grapevine | Panelist & Speaker | Top 0.1% LinkedIn Content Creator

The Uncomfortable Truth About Job Postings (and why lots hiring happens before they exist)

Loved seeing Dani Unsworth’s post yesterday about careers being built in conversations, not inboxes.

Here’s the Talent Acquisition perspective on it 👇

Most people think the funnel starts with a job ad.
It doesn’t. It ends there.

Before we ever hit “Post role on LinkedIn,” we’ve already done:

✔ Referral sweep
✔ Internal mobility check
✔ Founder / Investor networks
✔ Talent communities
✔ CRM + Warm pipeline
✔ “Who did we meet last quarter?”
✔ “Who’s interesting but unavailable… yet?”

At least, that’s what any recruiter worth their salt will do.

Now the nuance:
Not every recruiter works this way. Some are overloaded with req loads and physically cannot do upstream talent scouting. Others simply… never learnt how.

Those are two different problems.

And for the avoidance of doubt, YES, great candidates absolutely do land roles through applications. This isn’t a “networking or bust” sermon.
But having both channels working for you is how you de-risk your career.

So why does upstream hiring exist in the first place?

Because job ads are the overflow valve, the thing we do when every warm channel has been exhausted and urgency outweighs optionality.

And here’s the part nobody teaches at school, university or career services:

The real job market operates upstream.
Job postings are downstream.

Here’s how candidates get pulled into that upstream market:

1️⃣ Visibility → Findability → Opportunity
If we can’t see you, we can’t consider you.
Posting, speaking, learning, commenting = surface area.
Visibility is nice.
Findability gets you hired.

2️⃣ Optionality beats urgency
If you only show up when you need a job, you’re already late.
People who show up consistently get mentally bookmarked months before roles exist.

3️⃣ Referrals are risk transfer
Hiring isn’t just selection — it’s risk management.
A warm intro replaces 3 rounds of “prove you’re not a mistake.”
People trust people, not PDFs.

4️⃣ Roles hire early
Funding rounds, enterprise wins, leadership swaps, transformations, expansions.
Bench conversations happen quietly and early.

5️⃣ Networks compound
Not instantly. Not overnight. But relentlessly.
The best opportunities feel random… until you realise they were whispered months in advance.

If you rely solely on applications, you’re competing at the noisiest part of the funnel against hundreds of people you’ll never meet.

If you’re visible, findable, networked, bookmarked and referred — you’re playing the game before it even starts.

Careers aren’t transactional.
Careers are conversational.

And the best jobs rarely make noise.
By the time they’re public, the shortlist is private.

Hope you enjoyed the Dom x Dani collab 🫡

🚀 Cold emails, AI agents & the future of how companies learn…..

Synthesia just announced $200M in Series E funding at a $4B valuation — but the part that interests me most isn’t the number, it’s why this moment is happening now.

We’ve hit a breaking point in the way organisations share knowledge, upskill and train people.

Employees don’t need more PDFs, onboarding docs, SOPs, LMS modules or 247-page “How To Be Good At Work” decks.

They need answers.
In context.
At the moment they’re stuck.

That’s where AI learning models and conversational agents are getting genuinely exciting, it shifts work from:

🧱 Static → Dynamic
✍️ Read → Interact
📚 Know → Apply

Synthesia started with AI video, a smarter way to communicate internally at scale.
Now they’re moving into conversational AI agents for enterprise learning, which is where the future of upskilling, enablement and TA/HR capability actually lives.

Because in 2026, the competitive moat isn’t headcount.
It’s rate of learning.

And if you’re in Talent, L&D, People, Product or Ops, that matters way more than a funding round.

Big congrats to the team at @Synthesia on the raise and the $4B milestone.
Huge signal for where AI at work is heading next.

Lots of growth and opportunities happening currently, be sure to take a look at their careers page. Now is definitely the time to join before the rocket take off!

https://lnkd.in/effqgZXs

#MadeWithSynthesia

Mark Cuban - Synthesia Story

When a productivity drink becomes a start-up story worth watching 👀 

Not a paid post.
Not a collab.
Not a discount code in sight.

Just a shout-out to a product and a group of founders doing something interesting in a cluttered space.

Most energy & focus drinks have the same playbook:

📈 Too much sugar
📈 Too many chemicals you can’t pronounce
📈 Brand built on gym bros and extreme sports

Neutonic (👋 Chris Williamson, Luke Betts  & James Smith ) went another direction entirely,  positioning around cognition, clarity and sustainable productivity with actual nootropics and clean ingredients.

It’s smart for two reasons:

1️⃣ Consumer shift: the market is moving from “smash your system and crash at 4pm” to “support my focus, mood & working brain.”

Think Monzo → Revolut vibes, but for beverages.

2️⃣ Audience expansion: students, knowledge workers, founders, ADHD’ers, creators, operators, the LinkedIn gremlins who live off caffeine and ambition (we are legion).

I love seeing start-ups tell a better story than incumbents, and then actually build a product that holds up.

I follow them on social media and James is that confident in his product he even offers to refund you if you don’t like them, and is true to his word. 

That’s smart marketing and brand confidence there in itself.

Also… their 12-can mixed flavours pack is currently on offer (£28.99 down from £36.94), and the flavours bang.

🔹 Tropical Ice
🔹 Orange Sunrise
🔹 Strawberry Lemonade
🔹 Blue Raspberry (my fave) 

Again, no affiliation here. I just love seeing interesting challenger brands get traction and would like them to win.

If we want better products in the world, we have to support the companies actually building them instead of complaining everything’s boring and corporate.

Big respect to Chris, Luke and James — more of this energy in 2026 please. 👏

Any challenger brands you’re a customer or follower of that you’ve seen disrupting other industries?

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The Battle

Sheree Comninellis (she/her)

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