How to Build and Identify Talent - Paige Chilson

Paige Chilson joins Check In to Check Out days after a layoff and refuses to spin it. She talks about stepping back to remember who you are outside the dashboard, why e-commerce feels like you’re “in trouble” 24 hours a day, and the simple superpower most leaders ignore: knowing your limits and hiring around them. We get into funnel-based org design, the line between agency and in-house, the interview red flag nobody mentions, a painful failure story that changed how she escalates risk, and a clear-eyed take on where the next 6 to 12 months are headed with social selling and buying inside AI assistants. If you lead revenue online, this one will feel uncomfortably familiar in the best way. What you’ll learn A practical way to spot team gaps by mapping skills to your funnel When agencies outperform in-house and when they absolutely don’t How to hire in the age of AI-polished resumes The interview red flag that separates learners from passengers How to communicate risk without becoming an alarmist Why social selling is still early and how AI will reward brands with clean data Chapters (00:00:00) - E-Commerce Growth Podcast(00:01:06) - How to Plan Your Next Step After Getting Layoff(00:04:28) - Not Wrapping Your Identity Up in Your Job(00:06:48) - How to Find the Best Talent in E-Commerce(00:08:45) - The Need to Identify Leaks in Your Team(00:12:47) - The Search for the AI-Inspired Talent(00:17:11) - In the Elevator With Michael Dell(00:20:32) - Have E-Commerce Directors Learned to Be More Risk Averse?(00:24:39) - Amazon's Risk-Aware Future(00:26:01) - Looking for the Next Role in AI(00:28:35) - E-commerce: Growth opportunities(00:32:34) - E-Commerce Conference 2018: Taking a Break