Don’t Get Played is a bi-weekly podcast from Cisive about trust at work in the age of AI, remote hiring, and evolving workplace risk.
Hosted by Sarah O’Melia, Matt Jaye, and Carlo Solórzano, the show goes beyond background checks to explore the bigger questions facing talent acquisition and people leaders today: Who can you trust? How do you protect your organization without undermining culture? And what does leadership judgment look like in a world where credibility can be manufactured?
If you’re responsible for hiring, leading, or safeguarding a workforce, these conversations matter.
How Skills-Based Hiring Proves a Candidate Can Do the Job
Dr. Michael A. Campbell wrote resumes at a typewriter in the nineties. Now anyone can produce one in seconds, and hiring managers tell him they would rather leave a seat empty than fill it with the wrong person.
In this episode of Don’t Get Played, Sarah O’Melia sits down with Michael, Founder and CEO of SignalVerified, to make the case for skills-based hiring that runs on evidence. They get into the credibility tax a bad hire puts on a manager and the three-question audit any hiring leader can run on their last hire.
6 Oct 2026
Why Truck Driver Retention Belongs on Dispatch's Scorecard
A driver on the road in California learns he has lost his son, and his dispatcher stays on the phone with him for eight hours while he drives home to North Carolina. It's the kind of story drivers tell when asked why they stay with a carrier.
Scott Rea is President of AvatarFleet and a self-described recovering recruiter. He joins host Carlo Solórzano to explain why freight keeps moving even in a tight driver market, and why the dispatcher-driver relationship decides which drivers stay.
In this conversation:
- Why Scott reads the current driver market as supply and demand at work, and what the return of the sign-on bonus signals
- How hiring to insurer minimums feeds a churn circle that shows up in accident data
- What one bad day in a manual driver file process can cost a carrier during an audit or after an accident
- How a "wall of documentation" helps carriers push back on billboard attorneys before a claim ever reaches court
- Why orientation time is better spent with dispatch, and how purple cow promises and dispatch KPIs make retention stick
22 Sept 2026
Why Clinical Programs Need a Succession Planning Framework
A clinical director gets let go the day before an accreditation site visit, and takes the program's compliance documentation with them, scattering it across a highway in Texas. When the site visitors show up, there's nothing left to hand them.
Brian Bright is CEO of Trajecsys, a clinical documentation platform for allied health and nursing education, in the space since 2013. He joins host Matt Jaye to trace what actually failed that day, and why the same failure shows up far more often through nothing more dramatic than a retirement or a promotion.
In this conversation:
- Why a compliance record that only one person understands was never really a safeguard
- How turnover, not paperwork, is the compliance blind spot most programs never plan for
- What COVID changed for programs that had been putting off going digital for years
- Where AI actually helps in clinical documentation, and where the people still have to lead
8 Sept 2026
The Operational Risk Hiding in Your Clinical Placement Data
A student can be fully enrolled, fully paid up, and still get turned away at the clinical site door, not because of anything they did, but because their records were scattered across four different systems that never talked to each other.
Kunal Vaishnav is Chief Operating Officer at Exxat, an education management platform used by more than 1,600 health science programs. From that vantage point, he's seen this exact scenario repeat again and again.
He joins host Matt Jaye to explain why the failure almost never starts at the clinical site, and why programs that treat it as a scheduling problem keep missing the actual fix.
In this conversation:
- Why a canceled rotation can set a student back an entire semester
- How a "diligent" spreadsheet coordinator becomes a hidden liability
- What separates programs that catch compliance gaps early from the ones an audit catches first
- Why a full records overhaul takes 12 to 18 months, and what a program actually ends up with once it's done
As Kunal puts it: the platform is necessary, but it's never sufficient on its own.
25 Aug 2026
Speed to Lead in Trucking: The 24-Hour Rule That Stops Candidate Drop-Off
Francisco Lopez Roualdes has watched fleets win the first call and still lose the driver, because the systems behind that first call never talk to each other.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Carlo Solórzano sits down with Francisco, Co-Founder and CEO of Double Nickel, to talk about where drivers actually fall out of the hiring funnel, and why the breakdown rarely happens where fleets assume it does.
They cover:
- What happens when a driver file passes through three or four different hands
- Why silence gets mistaken for ghosting when no one has shared visibility
- What separates fleets posting contact rates 10 to 20 points higher than average
- Why integration has to get settled before a vendor is chosen, not after
Francisco's read is simple: the seams between systems are what's costing carriers the driver.
11 Aug 2026
The Driver Hiring Process Problem Speed Alone Can't Fix
Carriers obsess over speed in driver hiring. Christy Choice and Amanda Worthen have watched carriers lose drivers anyway, because the tools recruiters depend on don't talk to each other.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Carlo Solórzano sits down with Christy, a Professional Services Consultant at Tenstreet, and Amanda, Director of Driver Employment at Roehl Transport, to talk about what actually separates a hiring stack that holds together from one that quietly falls apart.
They cover:
• Why fragmented tech between background screening, ATS, and onboarding functions as a hidden recruiting tax
• How manual workarounds that feel fast in the moment quietly cost carriers time and trust
• Why integration decisions have to happen before a vendor is chosen, not after
• What good vendor support looks like when something breaks and a carrier needs an answer fast
Carriers who keep winning drivers aren't running the fastest process on paper. They're the ones who never let their systems drift out of sync.
28 Jul 2026
The Provider Credentialing Gap That's Breaking Your Revenue Cycle
Most healthcare organizations treat credentialing as paperwork that happens after a hire is made. Brianna Peoples says that assumption is exactly what's costing them.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Matt Jaye sits down with Brianna, AVP of credentialing and provider enrollment at Privia Health, to talk about what it actually takes to run credentialing at scale, and why getting the sequencing right matters more than most organizations realize.
They cover:
- Why credentialing functions as operational risk management, not paperwork
- How the manual workarounds and hero instincts that work for a small team become liabilities at scale
- Why credentialing needs a seat at the table before recruitment starts, not after
- Where AI actually helps in credentialing, and where it can't replace judgment
Brianna's case: the organizations that get this right stop depending on any one person being the hero and start building a system that holds.
14 Jul 2026
Why ‘More Tech’ Isn't a Good Talent Acquisition Strategy
Most organizations have invested heavily in hiring technology and don't have much to show for it. Linda Brenner says the software was never the problem.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Sarah O'Melia sits down with Linda Brenner, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Talent Growth Advisors, to talk about what's actually broken inside enterprise talent acquisition functions and what it takes to build a strategy that holds.
They cover:
- Why implementing hiring technology without a defined strategy almost always leads to the same result
- How hiring manager autonomy is quietly degrading the ability of organizations to function
- What it takes to get the CHRO and executive leadership to own the problem instead of leaving it with HR
- Why the real cost of broken hiring is almost always far larger than anyone has calculated
Most organizations keep iterating on the wrong things. Here's what needs to change first.
30 Jun 2026
How to Build a Trucking Culture Drivers Line Up to Join
Some carriers spend their time chasing recruits to drive their fleet. R.E. Garrison Trucking has a waiting list. Tracy Rushing says the recruiting conversation is the easy part. What drivers find when they show up is what actually keeps them.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Carlo Solórzano sits down with Tracy, Executive Director of Safety and Recruiting, to talk about how R.E. Garrison built a culture drivers actually line up to join and what most fleets are getting wrong in the meantime.
They cover:
- How the shift from seeking candidates to candidates seeking them started, and what made it stick
- Why the Crown Driver Program leads with expectations instead of benefits, and how that changes the relationship from day one
- What kept promises indicators, and how they transfer ownership of success to the driver
- How Garrison cut its per-million-mile accident ratio from 0.48 to 0.29, and what that number reflects about culture
If your drivers are leaving, the problem probably started before they ever got behind the wheel.
16 Jun 2026
Your Employees Are Worried About AI Replacing Jobs. Here's What to Tell Them.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Sarah O'Melia sits down with Margaret Keane, CEO of Cisive, to talk about what employees actually need from leadership right now and why silence is the worst response to a moment this uncertain. Margaret says that the disruption AI is bringing to the future of work is real, but it is not the whole story.
Jobs will change. New ones will be created. And the leaders who say that out loud, clearly and honestly, are the ones whose teams will be positioned to move through it. The ones who say nothing are making a choice too, and their employees notice.
They cover:
• Why the noise around AI replacing jobs is getting louder while leaders stay quiet
• How transparency and follow-through build the trust teams need to move through change
• What the future of work actually looks like when leaders frame it around growth instead of cost-cutting
• Why the hires you make right now have to be evaluated against a job that is already changing
The conversation your employees need is the one most leaders are avoiding. Here's how to start it.
2 Jun 2026
What Healthcare Executive Recruitment Gets Wrong (And How to Fix It)
Executive healthcare recruitment looks straightforward on paper. In practice, it's one of the highest-stakes processes a healthcare organization runs.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Matt Jaye sits down with Melissa Wheeler, Manager of Leadership Recruitment at Community Health Network and President of NAHCR, to talk about why executive healthcare recruitment is so different from frontline hiring and where organizations consistently get it wrong.
They cover:
- Why rushing to fill executive roles almost always backfires
- How the staffing shortage shows up differently at the leadership level
- What AI can and can't do in the executive recruitment process
- How recruiters earn a strategic seat at the table
The right hire takes time. Here's how to use it well.
19 May 2026
Marijuana Rescheduling: What Employers Must Do Now
The federal government moved marijuana to Schedule III. Many employers read that headline and assumed nothing changed. They're partially right. The rest is liability.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Sarah O'Melia sits down with Nick Hartman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at the Drug Screening Compliance Institute, to cut through the noise and explain what the reclassification actually means for workplace drug testing programs.
They cover:
• What rescheduling did and didn't change for employers
• Why a single national zero-tolerance policy is no longer viable
• Where medical marijuana accommodation is creating the biggest litigation exposure
• What a modern, defensible drug testing program looks like in 2026
The law is moving fast. Your policy needs to keep up.
5 May 2026
‘AI Told Me to Do It’ Is Not a Defense
AI is changing how hiring decisions get made — but not who’s accountable for them.
In this episode of Don’t Get Played, Sarah O’Melia sits down with Kevin Coy, Privacy Law Partner at Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, to break down where legal risk actually lives in AI-driven hiring.
They cover:
• Why “AI told us to” won’t hold up legally
• The new risks at play in vendor contracts
• What effective AI governance looks like
• How to prepare for scrutiny
The tools may evolve. Employer responsibility doesn’t.
21 Apr 2026
Why Transportation Has a Trust Problem, Not a Driver Shortage
Background checks are a starting point. What they cannot tell you is whether a candidate trusts the company calling them enough to show up on day one. In an industry where the so-called driver shortage is really a retention and reputation problem, that gap is where carriers are losing.
In this episode of Don't Get Played, Carlo Solórzano sits down with Tommy Valenzuela, Director of Recruiting at Hansen & Adkins Auto Transport, to make the case that process discipline and candidate respect are what actually fill seats. The only question is whether recruiting teams are willing to hold the standard when the pressure is highest.
The conversation covers what a process built on accountability looks like, where carriers tend to cut corners, and why the human element in driver recruiting is irreplaceable:
- Leaders who optimize for numbers instead of trust have a process that's broken before it starts.
- A candidate sitting in review for two or three days is not waiting. They are moving on.
- Technology makes recruiting faster and more efficient. It does not make the decision.
The drivers are already out there. The question is whether your process is worth their trust.
7 Apr 2026
Scrolling for Risk: The New Rules of Social Media Screening
Criminal background checks are scientific and binary. Social media screening is different. It surfaces values, patterns, and character in ways no formal document ever could. In a world where AI has made every resume look polished, that gap matters more than ever.
In this episode of Don’t Get Played, Sarah O'Melia sits down with Jaime Frankos, a social media screening expert, to make the case that what candidates post publicly already tells a story. The only question is whether hiring teams are paying attention before something goes wrong.
The conversation covers what a compliant process looks like, where organizations tend to stumble, and how AI paired with human analysts keeps reports fair:
- Organizations that take a reactive approach are the ones that end up in trouble.
- FCRA compliance is the floor, not the ceiling. A thorough internal policy is what makes the process defensible.
- AI classifiers and human analysts working together keep reports from drifting into bias.
The digital footprint already exists. The hiring process should account for it.
24 Mar 2026
The Placement Gap: Getting Students from Campus to Clinic Is Harder Than It Looks
In this episode of Don’t Get Played, we explore one of the most overlooked choke points in healthcare workforce development: clinical placements and the clearance process that determines whether students can actually begin them.
Matt Jaye sits down with Heather Pierce, Director of Rotations at the Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine, to unpack why the campus-to-clinic pipeline is breaking down. It’s not because students aren’t ready, but because the systems meant to clear them are fragmented, slow, and operationally brutal.
Grounded in Cisive’s StudentCheck Benchmark Report ("Where Are All the Nurses?"), the conversation highlights what administrators and students are saying loud and clear:
- Clinical placements are the No. 1 operational inefficiency.
- Nearly nine in 10 students hit onboarding challenges.
- Everyone wants fewer systems, clearer requirements, and less chaos.
The bottom line: Time, talent, and trust are being lost in the handoff between school and clinic — but it’s fixable.
READ THE REPORT: To see the full Cisive PreCheck research report, visit the Cisive website:
https://www2.cisive.com/clinical-placement-report-studentcheck
10 Mar 2026
How Verifiable Credentials Are Rewriting the Rules of Hiring Trust
What if the documents used to verify candidates were never designed to be trustworthy in the first place?
In this episode of Don’t Get Played, Sarah O’Melia sits down with Zach Daigle, Chief Strategy and Customer Officer at Cisive, and Etan Bernstein, Head of Ecosystem at the Velocity Network Foundation, to explore how verifiable credentials are reshaping hiring trust.
Zach and Etan explain why modern hiring still relies on self-reported resumes and PDFs, forcing employers and background screeners to spend days verifying information that candidates already claim is accurate. As Etan explains, “Every fact needs to be checked because there's no way to trust the source.”
They unpack how cryptographically secure credentials allow degrees, licenses, and work history to prove themselves instantly, reducing verification timelines from days to hours and giving individuals ownership of their career data through portable digital wallets.
24 Feb 2026
The Screening Gap: Why Clean Records Don’t Make Safe Drivers
Why do transportation companies with clean records and perfect compliance still end up with accidents, lawsuits, and headline-making failures?
In this episode of Cisive’s Don’t Get Played, Carlo Solorzano sits down with Mitch Ashby, VP of Talent Management at Andrews Logistics, and Jared Alexander of Cisive Driver iQ to unpack why background checks create false certainty in safety-critical hiring.
Mitch draws on 15 years spanning safety and talent to explain how Andrews built a hiring system that layers judgment on top of screening, why clean MVRs don’t predict behavior under pressure, and how desperation to fill seats quietly increases operational risk.
They also dig into urgency as a warning signal, how recent incidents slip past even robust screening systems, and why the discipline to slow down hiring decisions is often the difference between a near miss and a catastrophe.
18 Feb 2026
Welcome to the Don’t Get Played Podcast
Don’t Get Played is a bi-weekly podcast from Cisive about trust at work in the age of AI, remote hiring, and evolving workplace risk.
Hosted by Sarah O’Melia, Matt Jaye, and Carlo Solórzano, the show goes beyond background checks to explore the bigger questions facing talent acquisition and people leaders today: Who can you trust? How do you protect your organization without undermining culture? And what does leadership judgment look like in a world where credibility can be manufactured?
If you’re responsible for hiring, leading, or safeguarding a workforce, these conversations matter.
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