The State of Engagement: Elena Martín, Veriff
For Elena Martín, Senior Technical Recruiter at Veriff, attracting talent is about far more than filling vacancies. Throughout our conversation, one theme kept coming back: people remember how you make them feel.
In an era where AI is transforming recruitment, Elena believes the human side of hiring has never been more important. Candidate experience isn’t simply another HR process. It’s about ensuring every person feels respected, valued and genuinely seen, regardless of the outcome.
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What engages employees?
“For me, it all comes down to one thing: feeling like you matter.”
Elena believes engagement starts long before someone’s first day. People are most engaged when they feel trusted and supported, know their work has real purpose, and feel comfortable being themselves and sharing their opinions without fear.
She also believes recruiters have a responsibility to begin creating that experience from the very first conversation. “I try to make every candidate feel respected, valued and heard.
When candidates feel cared for throughout the hiring process,” Elena says “they’re more likely to perform at their best during interviews and arrive on day one genuinely excited about joining.
It’s not about perks. It’s about how you make people feel every day.”
- People feel trusted and supported
- They know their work has a real purpose
- They feel comfortable being themselves and share their opinions without fear
In your experience, what are employees looking for?
At Veriff, Elena’s every interview starts with the same question:
“What are you looking for right now, as a person?”
She says the answers are remarkably consistent.
People want somewhere they can be themselves, where they feel seen and valued, where their work has meaning, and where they can enjoy genuine work-life balance. Interestingly, Elena has noticed work-life balance becoming even more important than salary for many candidates.
“What I am hearing in interviews is that more and more candidates tell me that work-life balance matters even more to them than salary itself.” She also notes that as some organisations move away from remote working, candidates are paying closer attention to how companies support balance outside of work.
“In my opinion, the companies that understand this are the ones attracting the best people right now.”
Which part of EVP matters most to you personally?
EVP, or Employee Value Proposition, is the balance of what people give and what they get back. I like to break it down into seven pillars:
Brand & Purpose, Culture, Environment, Monetary, Prospects, Relationships, and Wellbeing.
For Elena, there’s no hesitation. “Culture, without any doubts.”
She believes culture forms the foundation for everything else. “When you do it right, people are proud to work there. They support each other. They feel safe and valued. They help each other grow.”
When culture is wrong, however, none of the other pillars can compensate. “When candidates tell me why they’re leaving their current job, it’s almost never about money. It’s about culture.”
Elena doesn’t believe culture starts on an employee’s first day, she believe it starts from the very first conversation in the hiring process. Like many guests on this blog before, she explains that culture isn’t a values poster on the wall or a paragraph in an employee handbook. It’s reflected in the tone of a recruiter’s first message, how interviews are run, and even the feedback candidates receive when they aren’t successful.
“Every touchpoint builds trust, or not.”
What do you see are the biggest people challenges businesses are facing right now?
There are two major challenges currently facing recruitment teams, according to Elena. The first is fraud – fake candidates are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with AI-generated CVs, altered voices during interviews, synthetic video identities, and even candidates who struggle to pronounce their own names.
What concerns her most isn’t simply the fraud itself. “The real victims are the honest candidates.”
People who invest time preparing properly are now competing against applicants who aren’t even who they claim to be.
But the second challenge, which I can see is a big challenge in getting culture right, is Elena’s second challenge. Volume. Where recruiters once worked hard to attract enough applicants, Elena now regularly sees thousands of applications arrive within days.
While that may sound positive from the outside, she believes it’s making candidate experience significantly harder to deliver. “The Easy Apply effect on LinkedIn has changed the dynamic.”
Recruiters spend more time filtering applications than giving genuine attention to candidates who have carefully prepared and are truly interested in the opportunity – which is a loss to building engagement.
Candidate experience is not a process. It’s a feeling.
I wanted to share Elena’s final thoughts verbatim.
“Candidates won’t remember the exact questions we asked during the interview but they will remember how we made them feel during the process: respected, like a real person, not just a CV. Every candidate who goes through a hiring process is putting themselves out there sharing their story, their ambitions and their self-confidence in so many cases…. They deserve real attention whatever the outcome is and this is not because it looks good for the company, it is about respect and because it is the right thing to do.
We all have the power to make that experience a little more human. And sometimes, that’s exactly what makes the difference”
I couldn’t agree more.
Connect with Elena on Linkedin
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