Ep. 251 The Real Reason Candidates Turn Down Jobs (and How Leaders Can Fix It)

In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Elise Marquis of Chameleon Collective, a non-traditional agency that delivers fractional growth leadership and recruiting services to direct-to-consumer brands in the beauty, apparel, and fragrance spaces. With nearly nine years at the collective and a career built on reading between the lines, Elise brings a rare dual perspective: she serves both the brands hiring top talent and the candidates seeking their next chapter.Elise unpacks why customer experience now sits at the center of every growth decision, how the pandemic and AI accelerated the shift toward hyper-personalization, and why the pace of change in e-commerce keeps her fascinated after a decade in the field. She shares how Chameleon Collective helped a public apparel company navigate its full digital transformation and how a privately owned fragrance brand scaled from zero to one hundred ten million dollars over seven years.The conversation moves into hiring, where Elise makes the case that a bad hire is a culture killer no algorithm can prevent. AI can save an e-commerce leader a full day each week on analytics, but it cannot read the cultural fit between a candidate and an organization. She explains why recruiters are between-the-lines readers, why candidates today want a family and a life rather than just a paycheck, and why leaders must hire for who a person can become over the next five years rather than the skills they hold todayTo connect with our guest, click on the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-de-st-didier-digital-recruiter/ Website:  Chameleon Collective: Transformation experts. Lead, deliver, recruit. Connect with me:LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint 🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow