In this episode, host Angela sits down with Isabel Strijland—recently stepped into her first founder role at Satellite Talent—to unpack what drew her to launch an embedded recruitment firm in today’s fast-moving startup world. They explore how Isabel’s passion for tackling new challenges, then handing them off to scale, shaped Satellite Talent’s unique model, and why truly becoming part of a team is the key to sustainable hiring. Plus, Isabel shares what continues to excite her about elevating talent acquisition from a transactional step to a strategic growth lever.
Angela (00:00)
Hello, Isabel How are you doing today?
Isabel Strijland (00:03)
Yeah,
Doing good, Angie. Great to see you again.
Angela (00:05)
Right. I'm also excited to kick off this conversation with you because I think A lot of people have been seeing Satellite Talent, wondering what is this? What is Isabel up to? What are we doing as a company? So I'm also curious because you stepping into a
founder role. I know it's a big step for you, especially in such an industry that's always changing. What actually inspired you to take on this role? Cause it's not easy.
Isabel Strijland (00:28)
Yeah, I think I can answer that question two-sided. One is the personal side of me that really loves to also work with other startup founders and believes that with our embedded recruitment model, we can really give something to these founders that is different than what is offered in the talent space. But to bring the answer a bit more closer to myself, being a founder means you are involved in a lot of different topics at the same time. And the idea is once you're good at a topic and know how to do it, you can also hand it over
to other people right that's how your business scales - I realized I really like to be on that beginning of the funnel of a process so I like to figure out and learn something new and and try a few things but then when I go too deep into a topic I love to also give it over to to the next person so I think that foundership or however you call it really fits my personality very well and then Satellite Talent is in the talent space so that's a combination of business and also people
found that sweet spot between still dealing with a lot of interesting people with great ideas, this can be candidates and clients, but then on the other end also thinking along on how business should scale their team and how they can actually make an impact on the world.
Angela (01:33)
Yeah, I love that. And I can attest to that, especially given that we've worked together for, I think over six years now, And I've seen you evolve in your role. And I know growth is something you're really good at, conceptualization, something you're really good at. So it's nice to see that you're able to also delegate some things to the team. Cause as a founder, it's easy to want to control, do everything. But I think having a strong team is really, really important. You spoke about the embedded model. So I know this is something that's new to a lot of people or not new, but confusing.
Is it an agency? Is it a recruiter? What does it actually look like as an embedded recruiter?
Isabel Strijland (02:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I think companies that really respect their recruitment know they need an embedded model and that means that a recruiter actually comes into the company and embeds fully so they don't only take care of one part or two parts of the recruitment process. They take care of the whole recruitment process where it goes from finding the candidates up to also hiring them and dealing with the stakeholders in between. You see a trend going on at the moment. Many companies stepping into this embedded model.
Many agency recruiters stepping into it this embedded model, which maybe means you get an embedded recruiter from an agency in your team. They will still act like an agency recruiter. Right. And what we do different with our team is that we truly care about setting up sustainable hiring. It is about every step in the process to make a successful hire. And our recruiters go to all kinds of different projects to learn from there and then take that knowledge into a new company. This can be an early stage company can be a scale- up as well. And the idea there is that.
we set recruitment up for the long term. So we don't just hire the people, that's definitely part of it, but we also set up the processes, teach the hiring managers how to evaluate candidates and then make sure we find the right fit for the long term. And even after we leave, somebody else can take over that recruiting process.
Angela (03:17)
Yeah, I like that. And I think from also my experience being an embedded talent Partner think one of also the best parts is you really get to be part of that team as well. Like I do remember being able to even go for company offsites, understand their culture and really embed. So by the time you're hiring people and selling the company, you also understand their values. Right. And I think that's really key and a differentiator between, you know, a regular agency that's just, you know, sending you profiles lastly, but not least.
Isabel Strijland (03:43)
Yeah.
Angela (03:45)
I'm very curious to know what currently inspires you for the future. What is exciting for you right now about the future?
Isabel Strijland (03:52)
Yeah, I love that question as well. think everybody answered this question with something in AI. So I won't say AI in this answer. But what I'm really excited about for me includes the embedded recruiting model. And that is that more and more companies seem to really care about how recruitment is done and attracting the best talent as the key to success. And the more we do at Satellite Talent, the more projects our talent partners do, the more knowledge we gain, the more we can help these early stage founders or
later stage companies as well to set up and to scale their recruitment. Every founder is reinventing the wheel on itself and I really want them to stop reinventing the wheel on hiring and just work with Satellite Talent in order to give talent acquisition the respect it sort of deserves to scale your business.
Angela (04:36)
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I think really seeing talent acquisition as a partner rather than, okay, this is a, recruiter here to like just help us hire, but like looking at them as growth enablers for your business. think that's really important. Awesome. So yeah, before I let you go, I just want to say, by the way, I love the logo of our new
Isabel Strijland (04:54)
Yeah