Shannon Smedstad, engagement director and principal employer brand strategist, offers clients nearly twenty years of talent acquisition, employer brand, and employee communications experience. Working with both U.S. and global organizations, her exaqueo experience includes consulting clients in the non-profit, pharmaceutical, luxury hospitality, insurance, and tech industries.
Before joining our team in 2016, Shannon was the Employment Brand Director at CEB (now Gartner). There, she collaborated closely with Global Talent Acquisition, Digital Marketing, and Diversity and Inclusion. Prior to CEB, Shannon led employer branding, and built campus and social recruiting initiatives at GEICO, the second largest auto insurer in the U.S. Under her leadership, GEICO’s career site and online talent communications were ranked among the best in the country by an international research firm.
Over the course of her career, Shannon has worked as an agency and corporate recruiter, directed more than twenty-five employer brand videos, managed the Career Services department for a non-profit, and trained recruiting teams. She has a deep understanding of career sites, university recruitment, employee referral programs, and social media, and has led large-scale HR technology implementations (HireVue, Taleo Social Sourcing, and TalentReef).
Her work has received awards from Graphic Design USA, Potentialpark Group, and Glassdoor. She has been named a Top Employer Brand Influencer, quoted in Misplaced Talent (2015, Wiley), and featured by the Society for Human Resource Management, Cornerstone, and Business Insider.
Shannon graduated with honors and a B.A. in Speech Communication from Shippensburg University. She enjoys writing and volunteering, and lives in Pennsylvania, USA with her husband, two daughters, and a dog named Taco.