279: The Corporate Recruiter’s Playbook with Carmen Hudson

[00:00:00] The classic way to interview people is to a stop before you interview them and understand what you're looking for

[00:00:06] so people spend so much time thinking about the questions and developing questions, and they have question banks and

[00:00:14] that's the first kind of

[00:00:17] Work that we get asked to do at recruiting toolbox. Can you work on our question banking my

[00:00:23] Answer is no a I hate that work and be that's not what you need

[00:00:29] What you need is a better understanding of what it is that you're looking for

[00:00:32] You're looking for all these questions because you haven't sat down and said

[00:00:35] These are the five skills that are most important to me. And these are the behaviors that are important to me

[00:00:40] These are things that I want. This is the way that I need someone to work on my team in my company

[00:00:46] Hey everybody, I'm Laurie Ruettimann and this is Punk Rock HR in each episode

[00:00:52] We take a realistic but slightly cynical approach to fix and work

[00:00:57] Bringing you raw and honest conversations with

[00:01:00] Disruptors innovators and even random working people like you and me with one goal to reshape the workplace as you know it

[00:01:08] But sometimes we take a break from all that and talk about real life like relationships and well-being and kids and animals

[00:01:15] And along the way we drop a few f-bombs, too

[00:01:18] whether you're an HR professional trying to do the right thing a leader looking to connect with their people or just

[00:01:25] Fascinated by workplace dynamics. This is your destination to fix work once and for all on this episode

[00:01:33] I'm chatting with Carmen Hudson

[00:01:36] She's an acclaimed recruiter has worked with leading brands on the West Coast and is the author of the corporate recruiting playbook

[00:01:44] strategies for hiring top talent

[00:01:47] she's on the show today to share what she's learned how recruiters leaders HR hiring managers and

[00:01:54] Everybody at work can work together to attract find assess and hire top talent

[00:02:01] So if you're curious about hiring and want to learn how to do it from a pro

[00:02:07] Sit back and enjoy this chat with my good friend

[00:02:10] Carmen Hudson

[00:02:12] Hey Carmen, welcome to the show. Hey Laurie. Thank you for having me. My goodness. It's a long time coming

[00:02:21] I'm trying to think about when I first met you and it must have been like 2008

[00:02:24] Oh, I remember exactly when I first met you you do. What was it? It was about 2008 2008 2007 and

[00:02:31] I wrote you a you said something online about I'm thinking about going back into corporate

[00:02:38] This is hard and I wrote you a long email had never spoken to you before

[00:02:42] I don't think I'd ever tweeted to you and nothing about how you shouldn't do that

[00:02:47] And I gave you all kinds of unasked for advice

[00:02:52] You know what a blessing and I have to say I've had those panicked moments since then

[00:02:58] but

[00:02:59] Wow, that is an amazing way for the two of us connect. You know the minute I met you in real life

[00:03:04] I knew we were kindred spirits. I've just fallen deeply in love with you with your husband William

[00:03:10] You're someone who influences me not only in the world of like recruitment and hiring but just how to live a good life

[00:03:16] That's balanced that's principled and also how to bring art into my life

[00:03:20] So before we get started talking about all the good stuff

[00:03:23] Why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you're all about sure thing

[00:03:25] So my name is Carmen Hudson, and I have been I will call myself just a recruiter

[00:03:32] since the mid 90s, so I started off in executive search just doing research and

[00:03:39] That it eventually launched a career in

[00:03:41] Sourcing and moved out to Seattle and

[00:03:45] Spent some time a little bit of time in Florida, and I found myself working for

[00:03:51] really super large

[00:03:53] Corporations with great reputations and huge hiring engines and so I got to in many cases

[00:04:00] experiment and build and

[00:04:03] Improve and so I really have enjoyed my

[00:04:06] Career inside of companies and then I switched you may remember

[00:04:10] I think we met around the time that I launched my own startup that lovely experiment that died a couple of years

[00:04:17] Wait, but the party was memorable the party is

[00:04:23] I learned so much. It was the most failure of biggest failures, but I learned so much

[00:04:29] so I would never ever ever regret doing one one moment of that and

[00:04:33] Consulting and training and so consulted and trained for many many years and

[00:04:39] Went back into a corporate role for a very short term and left that and wrote a book

[00:04:46] Well, I'm excited to talk about you as an author. I mean true and true. You are a recruiter

[00:04:51] I mean this is in your bones. It's in your DNA. You've been recruiting since the last century

[00:04:55] So like you've been doing it for a minute

[00:04:57] What is it that you're doing that you're so passionate about?

[00:05:00] What is it about recruiting that was true done and is true today

[00:05:04] It's true that it's difficult and it's difficult because there are so many

[00:05:11] There are so many variables

[00:05:13] So you could have the same role the same role could be open and you could go out to the market

[00:05:18] The markets different it may be that these people were very highly and steadily employed

[00:05:23] And so it's a competitive event or it could be that many people are on the market as maybe the same

[00:05:28] People are on the market as maybe the case with recruiters right now. And so it is not as competitive

[00:05:34] It may be that the role that you're hiring for may look different than it looked last year

[00:05:39] It could be just that the people that you are meeting meet your needs don't meet your needs you like them

[00:05:44] You don't like them. They like you don't like you all of these factors

[00:05:49] Actually influence how and when and and who we hire and so that just will never change

[00:05:56] Well, you know there are consistencies within recruiting even when there are a lot of variables and one of the things that struck me in

[00:06:03] My career is that back in the late 90s?

[00:06:05] We were talking about like how hard it is to hire people and we're talking about that today, right?

[00:06:10] And then we talk about oh the economy is terrible in the late 90s

[00:06:14] Right and the economy in some sectors of our country is terrible today, right?

[00:06:18] But it's always true that people are hiring isn't it? It's always true. I'm a little bit cautious

[00:06:25] Because I see AI creeping into what we do and I think that's going to mean

[00:06:31] Quite a few job losses now. It will mean that other

[00:06:35] professions will rise and we'll see increases but the truth of the matter is a

[00:06:41] Lot of the work that in in the same way that some work has gone away in our in the last decade or so

[00:06:47] If you go into your local Target or convenience store these days, you don't see as many

[00:06:53] Cashiers and that's not going to change they will improve that until there are no cashiers

[00:07:00] Yeah, they can't make it any worse. That's for sure. They can't make it any worse

[00:07:03] I do my I I do my bet my part by

[00:07:06] When I go to the Safeway, I go to the line with the person in it and my husband doesn't understand

[00:07:12] It takes so much longer. It's a long line. It's like it's the one thing I can do, you know

[00:07:17] To save someone's job at least for a little while. So that's right. That's right

[00:07:21] So are you noticing that there are fewer jobs just generally because of AI or even fewer jobs within the world of recruiting? I

[00:07:29] Think there will be multiple attempts to get rid of what is a an expensive cost center

[00:07:35] Over time and so I think here locally in Seattle. We have a large employer and they are quite

[00:07:42] vocal about they are not

[00:07:45] trying to hire back as many recruiters as they once had and

[00:07:49] We are going to continue to experience experiences

[00:07:54] I think what will happen is, you know, we get rid of everyone then we go

[00:07:57] Oh, we need people we need them back, but they need fewer and fewer

[00:08:00] They start to introduce more solutions and suddenly we find ourselves with way fewer than we had

[00:08:06] So it's not that it's immediate. I think we're experiencing

[00:08:10] More of a financial market for most companies

[00:08:13] But eventually we will experience what happens when the knowledge market changes

[00:08:20] Wow, all right. Well, you know pivots in the economy pivots in the way that we're hiring and yet you wrote a really

[00:08:28] optimistic

[00:08:30] Really important book on the world of recruiting. Tell us about your book. So it's it really is I

[00:08:37] someone said I wish there was a place I could go to to

[00:08:41] Understand this and to to talk about this and there are places that we have online but it is

[00:08:48] The moment in time right when I go to that website when I visit that particular tool or what-have-you

[00:08:55] I'm going to get the information that's now but I wanted to share the things that at least I thought

[00:09:02] Were consistent across the board. I don't mention technology

[00:09:05] I think I mentioned LinkedIn a couple of times but that I don't really go into

[00:09:11] what tools that were that are

[00:09:14] important to use I really talk about what

[00:09:18] We need to do as recruiters and as recruiting leaders to set this thing up so that it works well

[00:09:24] So that if you've got five recruiters or you've got 500 or if you've got 2,500, how do you make sure this is?

[00:09:32] Running well that you're doing the right things that you're doing the right things by candidates that you're doing that you're partnering with your hiring managers

[00:09:38] Well, it's all those those basics that I learned as a junior recruiter and there was no

[00:09:45] There's no source for me like every single thing was a lesson

[00:09:48] I bumped my head on the wall so many times and I was very fortunate to work with

[00:09:54] Great people who knew like oh, she's trying. She's an idiot, but she's trying so and

[00:10:00] Over the years I figured it out and I captured at least what I could

[00:10:06] Remember to capture as that and so I say early on in the book if you find my book insufficient or you've got additional ideas

[00:10:14] Write it down share it. It was a

[00:10:17] little bit frustrating and time-consuming to write this but not so much that I

[00:10:24] Wouldn't do it again, and it was pretty easy to publish it. So

[00:10:28] If you've got some thoughts there share it I just want people to

[00:10:35] Really start to focus on what's the the entire process?

[00:10:39] There are sorcerers out there who are great at thinking about sourcing

[00:10:43] There are folks out there who are great at thinking about the candidate side of things

[00:10:46] We need all of it written down in one place so that people can start this profession

[00:10:50] With a little bit of knowledge because there's there's so little out there to teach people

[00:10:55] Carmen when people normally come on the show and present their book they tell stories, right?

[00:11:00] And they have all these like sound bites, right? Yeah. Yeah. So tell us in your book

[00:11:05] How did you decide how to structure it because you've really written what is like the Wikipedia of recruiting, right?

[00:11:11] So tell us tell us a little bit about how you built the book

[00:11:14] All right, so I wrote the corporate recruiting playbook strategies for hiring top talent

[00:11:20] You will find that on Amazon. I structured the book and

[00:11:24] The way that I that recruiting is structured

[00:11:26] So I start with a chapter that talks about the candidate experience, which it's not always the most exciting topic

[00:11:33] but at the root of what we do are the folks that we are

[00:11:38] Serving at the folks that we are trying to bring into our organizations and if we don't do that

[00:11:42] Well, we have very little chance of getting the high caliber candidates that we want. So wait

[00:11:48] wait, I want to interrupt because you start with candidate experience and not with

[00:11:51] shareholder experience or

[00:11:54] Leadership experience or hiring manager experience. You think the candidates are the people that recruiters serve?

[00:11:59] That's it

[00:12:00] If we don't find if we don't find the right candidates if we don't get the right candidates to the right manager for the right

[00:12:06] job, we're never gonna be successful. And so that's where I've always placed my emphasis and

[00:12:12] Probably because I think you're right. I think there are different ways of looking at this

[00:12:16] I think it probably

[00:12:19] impacted how my career flowed

[00:12:22] because I didn't think in the way that HR leaders thought for me if I had a

[00:12:28] An issue it was going to that manager

[00:12:32] That hiring manager and really working out. How do we solve this issue?

[00:12:37] Well, how do we solve this so that we're getting you the right person?

[00:12:40] So yeah, there are probably different ways of thinking about it, but that's where I started. Yeah. All right. So start with candidate experience

[00:12:45] What's next and then from there? I just dive right into how to do this. And so you get a rec it lands on your

[00:12:51] desk, what do you do next and

[00:12:54] I talked very deeply about what you do next really does

[00:12:59] Impact how you're viewed as a recruiter how your career will go

[00:13:02] And again, it took me a long time to figure this out and I'll tell you I didn't tell the story in the book

[00:13:07] But I'll tell you the story

[00:13:08] So I was at Microsoft and so by that time I've been into my recruiting career for quite some time

[00:13:14] and

[00:13:15] I had an open rec and I was excited about this rec showed up to the hiring manager

[00:13:22] with a blank notebook and

[00:13:25] ready to have a discussion and talk about things and

[00:13:29] Get this rec going. I thought we had a great meeting

[00:13:31] But later on I got I got copied on an email and I'm nosy

[00:13:37] So I read every email all the way down to the chorus

[00:13:39] And there was an email where this manager was complaining to my manager about my

[00:13:45] Ability to support her position because she wasn't certain because I showed up with a blank piece of paper and pretty general questions

[00:13:54] So, yeah that just struck I was a recruiters recruiter I loved what I did people told me I was good and

[00:14:00] Turns out oh I sucked. So from that moment on I was like, okay, how do I get better at this and

[00:14:07] What do I need to do to prepare for one of these meetings and so that became a

[00:14:12] Big deal and the difference between a great recruiter

[00:14:15] Yes, any hiring manager and an okay recruiter and an okay recruiter you need them

[00:14:20] So you're gonna smile at them in the hallway and you're gonna be nice to them

[00:14:24] But you know that they're they're kind of sucking and so you're not gonna say that to them

[00:14:28] You may say that to their manager and in this case I was

[00:14:32] Fortunate enough took me a couple days to get over it

[00:14:35] But I was fortunate enough to get the message that I wasn't that great

[00:14:37] And so that could have you know, I could have said oh, no, I'm really good or I could have said. Mm-hmm

[00:14:43] No, I'm not so great

[00:14:44] So let me figure this out

[00:14:46] And so I learned that you have to prepare for your open position before you meet with your manager

[00:14:52] you've got to learn as much as you can learn fill in as much as you can fill in and

[00:14:57] Show up in that meeting with some intelligence

[00:15:00] It could be all wrong, but yeah managers gonna appreciate the work that you put into it. No, I like it

[00:15:05] I mean, you don't want to walk into a meeting and say tell me everything right?

[00:15:19] But I didn't I didn't instill any confidence in her

[00:15:25] For her to have for me. So I didn't bring that

[00:15:28] It also reminds me that recruiting is really just relationships, right?

[00:15:32] It's both relationships with your organization and your hiring manager

[00:15:35] But also with the candidates and then bringing two people who don't know one another together to form a new relationship

[00:15:41] So in that if you're not building a relationship with your hiring manager, how can you then do that with candidates?

[00:15:48] Right. It doesn't it doesn't logically flow. That's it. I think I think that's that's the core of

[00:15:53] Of doing this well, but it's not only

[00:15:58] developing a great relationship with your candidates but developing a great relationship with your hiring managers and

[00:16:04] Asking your hiring managers to bring someone along in the process

[00:16:07] so

[00:16:09] One of the things that I advise is that you're hiring

[00:16:12] You don't work just with your hiring manager get your hiring managers a sex to like someone senior on their team someone who may be

[00:16:17] Hiring more often in the future so that they are learning as well

[00:16:21] So we're we're all three working well together and that works because then you have a backup person to when things aren't going well

[00:16:27] So but when someone to email and say where where is that feedback, right?

[00:16:33] That for me is that was the key lesson it changed the way that I recruit and it changed the way that

[00:16:42] That I think managers view and work with me

[00:16:44] All right

[00:16:45] So be prepared when you meet the hiring manager after you get the rec on your desk

[00:16:50] Like I got it totally makes sense

[00:16:52] But then what next because you don't talk about technology in the book, which I appreciate because technology comes and goes right?

[00:17:00] But how do we know that what we're doing in recruiting is effective?

[00:17:05] How do we know that the next steps were taking set us up to close the rec?

[00:17:09] Within you know six months or a year right some of these recs stay open forever

[00:17:13] Some of them stay open forever. So that we know we're doing good work

[00:17:16] That takes me to a couple of the next couple principles. I talked about the first is you have to know what you're looking for

[00:17:22] and

[00:17:23] In recruiting I have had recruiters who have never had a conversation with the hiring manager go

[00:17:28] Oh, I know what they're looking for

[00:17:29] They look for this last month and they don't have this discussion and their understanding of the rec is minimal at best

[00:17:36] So I suggest in the book how to actually figure out what it is that you're looking for

[00:17:41] you have to be very articulate about what it is that you're looking for and most recruiters are not especially in the world that I

[00:17:48] lived in in tech recruiting and

[00:17:50] You need that for several reasons you need that so that you can know when you find someone

[00:17:54] But you also need to have a great way of describing the position to the candidate

[00:18:00] And so, you know

[00:18:01] We use job titles and we use jargon throw all that out the door and talk to me about what exactly you're hiring for

[00:18:09] You know

[00:18:09] I like the fact that we're talking about

[00:18:11] Speaking in a jargon free way because one of the things that comes to mind is all of the biases we bring

[00:18:18] To the hiring process in and of itself and sometimes it manifests in that jargon, right?

[00:18:23] You we don't have to have a conversation that's long and detailed about the many ways that words

[00:18:28] include and exclude people but talk to me a little bit about the importance of actually being more thoughtful in the way we

[00:18:35] Describe jobs in the way we go out to the market and describing jobs because I know we don't call people ninjas and gurus anymore

[00:18:43] But there are other versions of that other iterations that are out there. So why is monitoring our language so important?

[00:18:49] I think it's important because when we find ourselves doing that when we're using ninja and guru and I

[00:18:55] Want at someone who does Java blah blah blah

[00:18:58] It's masking what we don't know

[00:19:01] That hurts us in our ability to recruit and if we don't know

[00:19:06] If we haven't had that deep conversation with the manager you say that you need someone with five years of this

[00:19:12] What if they have four years? Well, they have four and a half years, right? Oh, that's okay

[00:19:16] Well, what if they have three years, but they still know this?

[00:19:19] How do you know that they know it?

[00:19:21] That's what's more important than the number of years. So let's talk about that

[00:19:25] So getting your hiring managers to think about roles beyond years beyond specific skills

[00:19:31] what do you want them to do and then we can figure out in

[00:19:35] whatever kind of interview style that you want have they done this in the past and

[00:19:40] If we were to give them something that they haven't faced before would they be able to meet that challenge?

[00:19:45] Are you wedded to a particular style of interview?

[00:19:49] I'm so glad you brought that up because I was brought up in the late 90s

[00:19:52] All right, so we did the star based method of interviewing even for technical jobs

[00:19:56] It's like give me an example of a tub blah blah blah and it was a stupid forced practice conversation

[00:20:04] So like what's cool? What's hip or just like what's a classic way to interview people?

[00:20:09] The classic way to interview people is to a stop before you interview them and understand what you're looking for

[00:20:15] so people spend so much time thinking about the questions and developing questions and they have question banks and

[00:20:23] that's the the first kind of

[00:20:25] Work that we get asked to do at recruiting toolbox. Can you work on our question bank? And my

[00:20:31] Answer is no a I hate that work and be that's not what you need

[00:20:37] What you need is a better understanding of what it is that you're looking for

[00:20:40] You're looking for all these questions because you haven't sat down and said

[00:20:43] These are the five skills that are most important to me. And these are the behaviors that are important to me

[00:20:49] These are the things that I want

[00:20:50] This is the way that I need someone to work on my team in my company and we don't do that

[00:20:55] So we don't think about the answers. We're just thinking very deeply about all these great questions

[00:20:59] I don't care how you ask the question if you're looking for five skills and you're talking about

[00:21:04] Whether or not they've used those skills or how they might use those skills of the situation presented itself

[00:21:09] Then you're going to know whether or not they are appropriate for the role

[00:21:14] It doesn't matter how you ask the question to be honest. I don't talk about that much at all

[00:21:19] I love that. I love that. Can I tell you my least favorite way my least favorite interview style is role-playing?

[00:21:25] Oh my god, Carmen one time

[00:21:27] I was interviewing for a job at a shampoo company by the way

[00:21:30] I got that job and they said okay

[00:21:32] We're gonna give you a resume and we want you to pretend

[00:21:35] Like you're in an interview and you're interviewing me and you're looking at the resume and doing the interview live, right?

[00:21:40] You're the recruiter and I said, I'm not gonna do this and she said well

[00:21:45] How will I know if you know how to recruit I said call my references or ask me some other questions, right?

[00:21:49] I don't know what to tell you but I'm not role-playing and she said okay. I hear you. You know like moved on

[00:21:56] It gives me the opportunity to go go completely silly and off the course and just share with someone how ridiculous

[00:22:03] What's interesting to me?

[00:22:05] And I think this was when I was at Amazon

[00:22:08] We got into this big debate about

[00:22:10] The kinds of questions that we asked some of our technical people and whether or not they asked all of those crazy questions about

[00:22:16] You know, how many boats are there? How many windows are there in Seattle? Yeah, the Google questions

[00:22:21] Yeah, exactly. And I think those are ridiculous

[00:22:24] I think that what many of those

[00:22:27] Engineers were trying to get to was whether or not someone had the kinds of skills that would be necessary to break down a problem

[00:22:33] So what would be better is to actually present a problem and watch how they break it down

[00:22:38] And if even better that's good and even better or best is actually to take a look at some problem that you have around

[00:22:46] Amazon something for which you actually have an anchor

[00:22:50] And you can learn about how that person breaks down a problem whether or not they know the number of windows

[00:22:57] there are in Seattle is is

[00:22:59] Ridiculous and anyone can ask that question and I'm sure they could find it these days on any website

[00:23:05] So it's really about how do they solve this kind of problem? What tools like do they use what approach might they use?

[00:23:10] How many people will they talk to and know that?

[00:23:14] Oh, this person is gonna sit at their desk and they're gonna fiddle with it and research it until they figure it out

[00:23:19] If that's the kind of environment you work in great

[00:23:23] Or this person is going to first call someone ask someone get their their network of people involved in this problem

[00:23:31] That's the kind of

[00:23:34] That's great, but you gotta figure it out I like that example one of the things I hear from

[00:23:40] Technical job seekers, you know people with actual really great skills that we're gonna need in the future who are young

[00:23:46] They hate being asked to do free work

[00:23:49] And so they'll go on these interviews and they're given a problem to solve and they're like well pay me and then I'll solve that

[00:23:55] Problem for you, right?

[00:23:56] And so there's this disconnect with the candidate experience because it almost seems like some employers are looking for free

[00:24:03] Work early. That's how it feels to some job seekers. So do you push back on that?

[00:24:09] Do you think that's overstated like what's your reaction to here?

[00:24:12] And have you heard that before I have I have and that's where you can be really helpful as a recruiter and tell them look

[00:24:18] We're not gonna put any problem in front of you. That is proprietary

[00:24:22] You're not gonna be solving anything that we haven't already solved so assure them of that and that should be true, right you don't want

[00:24:29] People unknown to your company going out solving your problems

[00:24:33] Otherwise, you're gonna have a startup that pops up suddenly that does something that you are asking about so you don't do it

[00:24:39] Very well

[00:24:39] So you want to make sure that they understand why and so that's the job of the recruiter to explain

[00:24:46] Here's our process and here's what we're looking for how you problem-solve the problem itself doesn't matter

[00:24:52] And if we don't have this conversation, we don't have any idea of how you might go about

[00:24:57] Solving a problem. We're not gonna ask you anything proprietary

[00:25:00] You're not gonna ask you to come up with you know

[00:25:02] A new way to get to the moon we're going to ask you about something that we've already done

[00:25:06] Something about which I'm pretty sure of the answers

[00:25:10] Carmen I know you have a lot of points of view and they're all informed

[00:25:15] But I know you're passionate about talking about people versus operations versus process. Tell me about that

[00:25:21] So in order what I learned after all these years in recruiting that you need all three

[00:25:26] That as a leader if you are building out your recruiting organization

[00:25:32] You need great people

[00:25:34] You need great managers that are trained on the process who understand it you need the tools

[00:25:40] So your operations need to be aligned and they should be accurate and easy. It should be easy to

[00:25:48] For example, Oh start a wreck open a wreck

[00:25:51] And I have worked in organizations where that was just the most difficult thing in the world. So fix that

[00:25:58] That's what you need

[00:25:59] And then you need a process you need a process that works well for every single team and

[00:26:05] You can't do it all as the leader. So you're going to have to get your teams worked on that working on that

[00:26:10] but it's important to

[00:26:12] Make sure that you have all of these elements aligned if you don't you're going to find yourself always

[00:26:19] Under the gun always feeling less successful than you really think you should be

[00:26:24] And so that's what you've got to get everybody aligned on

[00:26:26] Do I am I bringing the right candidates in and I approaching my hiring managers in the right way?

[00:26:31] Do I have the right team of recruiters great?

[00:26:35] Then it is and are we leveraging the right tools?

[00:26:38] Are we getting things done in an efficient way and the last piece is how are we doing that?

[00:26:44] And what does that look like for each team?

[00:26:46] How do we make sure that every team is successful in the process that they leverage?

[00:26:50] The process might look a little bit different depending on the level and the kinds of goals

[00:26:55] But generally you should have an idea of how the process works for your organization

[00:27:00] Yeah, I mean I like that. I set the question up like a versus problem and it's really more of an integration

[00:27:06] It's more of a Venn diagram

[00:27:07] And I think the reason why so many of us see this as like an antagonistic

[00:27:12] process is because many companies these days want to over index on technology and

[00:27:17] Cut back on the recruiters or believe that if they have a process the process should dictate everything and just step in line

[00:27:24] Get on, you know get on the bus and then we'll fill this wreck

[00:27:27] And so I just yeah, so I just wonder who's doing it, right? Who's got all these things aligned

[00:27:33] There are there are teams that are doing I don't know that there are organizations that are doing it all correctly

[00:27:38] But there are teams that are doing it. Well, and

[00:27:40] When I was at recruiting toolbox, we'd have very in-depth conversations and we'd always come back to

[00:27:47] Okay, I get it

[00:27:48] I don't have the right people or I haven't trained my people where my managers don't understand this or they come back to I

[00:27:55] Need to invest and I need to buy that tool or it could be you know

[00:27:59] What we have to stop and we have to redesign or it could be all three

[00:28:02] so that's how I would filter what was coming in to me and

[00:28:08] Then we would decide where they wanted to you know, spend their money and place your emphasis makes sense makes sense

[00:28:14] well, there's one thing I want to talk about because

[00:28:17] It's something I know that you're passionate about discussing in a very frustrated way

[00:28:23] And that is the back-and-forth swinging pendulum around

[00:28:27] diversity recruiting and diversity hires

[00:28:30] And I think one of the things you're really passionate about is explaining what diversity hiring

[00:28:35] Means and then also what it is and what it isn't

[00:28:38] So you've written some really great articles on LinkedIn that as you said tend to come up every year on Black History Month

[00:28:45] Right, you know so we can also talk about that and why people only read them then but can we talk a little bit about?

[00:28:51] Your perspective on diversity recruiting diversity hiring and what recruiters need to know in 2024. So my first

[00:28:59] Comment when someone comes to me and says we need to

[00:29:03] Do diversity hiring is

[00:29:06] Okay

[00:29:07] let's take a look at your organization and see where diversity sits and

[00:29:12] Often that conversation sits with oh, we're a technology organization

[00:29:17] And we go here and go here and go here and at the very lowest level. There's tons of diversity and

[00:29:23] So for me diverse your first

[00:29:27] Question about diversity

[00:29:29] means that you need to look at who is diverse in your organization and figure out how to get them in other parts of

[00:29:36] The company and I don't think that's changed much

[00:29:40] I think it is the case and I think many companies rely on those numbers to say hey we have diversity

[00:29:46] But as you look at different levels within your organization, do you really have diversity? And if you don't why are

[00:29:56] Certain people sitting at the lowest

[00:29:59] Rungs of your organization without ever moving without having the opportunity to move a lot of it is they don't know how

[00:30:06] a lot of it is a bit a bridge needs to be built and

[00:30:09] You can't blame an entry-level person for not understanding how things work

[00:30:14] So that's that is the biggest I think fallacy is that we have no diversity

[00:30:20] There's often diversity in organizations

[00:30:22] But it's often that sitting at the very lowest levels and there hasn't been much effort into moving people into other roles other levels

[00:30:29] I think that's charitable

[00:30:32] And I mean, I

[00:30:34] Mean you're a you're a supremely charitable human being. I also think that sometimes

[00:30:40] There's this idea of a meritocracy and that I'm all for diversity hiring if they're good

[00:30:47] Oh that oh that

[00:30:49] You still hear it today in 2024. I still hear it and I hate the word meritocracy

[00:30:54] Yeah, yeah, so tell me about that. So I think that

[00:30:58] So I'll give you an example

[00:31:01] when I was at a certain

[00:31:04] company I

[00:31:05] Decided that there was no gender diversity in a team. And so I started just to

[00:31:12] to only

[00:31:14] send

[00:31:15] candidates of a certain gender to

[00:31:17] certain areas and

[00:31:19] hiring decisions were made and

[00:31:22] There was very little even recognition of what I was doing a couple managers said a how come I haven't seen any men

[00:31:31] Just because you haven't right and so then I tried the the same experience the experience racially and

[00:31:39] I did that I happened it happened to coincide with

[00:31:43] There was a layoff at a very big company. It's a very different industry

[00:31:47] So there was probably some work that I should have done to prepare these people to move into a different industry

[00:31:53] That did not work as well

[00:31:56] That was a little bit that became

[00:31:59] Noted a little bit more

[00:32:02] And I was not as successful

[00:32:04] in that approach, so I think that this idea that there's meritocracy I think

[00:32:12] The way that you pull that apart is just what we talked about

[00:32:15] I'd go right back to standing at the very beginning of the rec and let's talk about what you need and

[00:32:22] Doing being able to have that conversation really well

[00:32:25] and then there are skills or words or phrases or behaviors that knock people out and they do so

[00:32:32] without

[00:32:34] this kind of

[00:32:36] Knockout process can hurt people who are diverse often

[00:32:41] And so you have to knock that out early on

[00:32:43] Or you have to be able to say that doesn't meet the profile that we originally

[00:32:48] Developed are you telling me that it's changed and if it's changed

[00:32:52] then we've got to go back and start over because we haven't interviewed any of these candidates in the right way and that usually

[00:32:59] Gets managers to sit back and go. Okay. I'm talking about something. That's not

[00:33:04] Relevant. I'm talking about I'm demanding a skill from one person that I'm not demanding from the other person. So

[00:33:11] Getting managers to really just go back fall back on their own word. It's the only way that I've been able to do it

[00:33:18] I like it sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't

[00:33:21] Well, and I like your punk rock subversive approach there. I mean when it works it works and when it doesn't it doesn't but

[00:33:30] You're only you're only one person

[00:33:32] Only one person. I am NOT gonna walk into any company and change their numbers if they're not willing to do it

[00:33:40] And I have worked with many managers who were willing who were willing to say, okay. I'm not doing this, right?

[00:33:47] I am putting barriers around getting roles on my teams. And so let me take some of those barriers away

[00:33:53] Well Carmen as we start to wrap up the conversation you've written this really amazing book

[00:33:58] What do you what do you want people to know about the book?

[00:34:00] What do you think is really important for them when they're trying to figure out am I gonna plunk money down, right?

[00:34:05] Am I gonna buy this book about recruiting?

[00:34:07] What's in it for them what's in it for them is I think for those who have been recruiting for a long time

[00:34:14] It's just a checklist. Am I doing this? Well, am I doing this?

[00:34:17] Well, could I be doing more here and for those who are newer to recruiting? It's an approach. It's my approach

[00:34:24] It's what's worked for me. It's worked what's worked for people on my team. It's what I've learned over the years

[00:34:29] I haven't always done all of this at at any one time

[00:34:31] So hopefully it gives you a little bit of a head start if you're newer in your career

[00:34:36] So that's that's that's all I want to do. That's what I want to do. I love it

[00:34:41] It's like an act of giving back to the recruiting community because you yourself had to learn these lessons the hard way, correct?

[00:34:47] That's it. That's it. Yeah

[00:34:50] Carmen one of the things I really want to know is who inspires you in the world of recruiting right now

[00:34:56] I mean you inspire so many people but who do you look to who is doing it?

[00:35:00] Right or makes you feel hopeful like what's what's good? Who's good? What do you like?

[00:35:05] I had the

[00:35:09] The just the pleasure of working with some really great leaders in recruiting in my career and

[00:35:15] So and many of them I mentioned in the thank yous and then some of them I wake up in the middle of night

[00:35:20] And I think oh my god, I left them out but

[00:35:23] Just throughout my career. I have worked with people who

[00:35:28] have said

[00:35:29] when I said I raised my hand and I want to do this and I want to do a good job or

[00:35:34] When something went wrong, I'm here in front of you to say I did it did it wrong. So sorry

[00:35:41] They were quite willing to lean into it and say here. I got you. I'm going to help you

[00:35:47] I'm going to point you in this direction

[00:35:49] I'm going to give you praise when I think you need it

[00:35:51] I'm gonna tell you stop doing that when I need you to stop doing that and I

[00:35:56] I don't want to start to name them because I'll forget someone

[00:36:00] I get it. It's like an Oscar speech. Yeah, I'm with you

[00:36:03] But the one thing we can say is that our dear friend Jerry Crispin wrote the forward to the book

[00:36:07] So tell us a little bit about Jerry and why you picked him to write the introduction to the book

[00:36:12] I appreciate the fact that that Jerry thinks about

[00:36:16] recruiting as a profession that

[00:36:18] It is really the backbone of almost any organization are the people that are there and out of the people who get there get there

[00:36:26] How are they formed? How is it shaped and he values the importance of that and I value the importance of that

[00:36:33] Well, I value both of you and I can't wait for you to get out there and teach people how to recruit

[00:36:39] With your wonderful new book. So first of all, can you tell us again the name of the book title and where to buy it?

[00:36:45] And also are you available to do webinars and workshops? Like what are you doing with the book? So awesome

[00:36:51] so the corporate recruiting playbook

[00:36:53] Strategies for hiring top talent. It's available on Amazon and

[00:36:57] My next so I'm going to spend the next

[00:37:01] Probably two or three months really figuring out what I want to do next, but I think what I want to do is

[00:37:07] coach

[00:37:09] Recruiters recruiters who are moving into recruiting leadership roles

[00:37:13] And so I'm coming up with an approach to doing that and I haven't really shared that with people

[00:37:18] That should be breaking news here breaking news breaking news, but looking at those people who are

[00:37:25] Managers new managers or recruiters who want to move into leadership really helping them get there. So I

[00:37:35] Am super stoked to hear about this and I just have a question

[00:37:38] What's the differentiator because we know there are certain skills and attributes between like a regular contributor like in a manager or a director

[00:37:46] Right, but what's the difference between a recruiter and a recruiting manager or recruiting manager and recruiting director?

[00:37:53] Is it the technical knowledge of recruiting or is it something else?

[00:37:56] I think the technical knowledge of recruiting is critically important, but it's also that

[00:38:03] Recognition that desire that this could be done better and I want to work on doing it better

[00:38:09] And I had no idea. I literally Scott Patosky at at Amazon

[00:38:15] Literally stopped me in the hall and said hey, you know what you're a manager and I had never even thought like I

[00:38:22] Thought that was years away and I'm like me a manager and he's like, yeah

[00:38:26] You're a manager and go solve these problems and you know, some I did some I didn't some are probably still sitting around there

[00:38:33] Waiting to be solved. But I

[00:38:36] Sound has moved on with their problems

[00:38:39] But what an example of a leader in and of itself like Scott Patosky understanding that

[00:38:44] It's not just about recruiting externally

[00:38:46] But also looking at your team and motivating your team and seeing the best in them and trying to develop talent internally, right?

[00:38:52] Most people are playing checkers. He was playing chess. He's playing chess and he's up. That's just the way that he's always operated

[00:38:59] it's it's interesting because

[00:39:02] At some point in recruiting you realize either you love it or you hate it and you can't wait to get out of it

[00:39:08] so

[00:39:10] Understand that as quickly as you can and then lean into that. But yeah, I'm excited

[00:39:15] I'm excited about this coaching idea. You got I think there's a lot of legs on it

[00:39:19] So yeah, listen when that is fully baked and you're ready to talk about it. Will you come back on punk rock HR?

[00:39:25] Absolutely, and I'll share more on Carmen Hudson calm. I finally got my own name is my website. Oh my god your own

[00:39:32] Girl now, well listen Carmen. It was really amazing to have you on the program

[00:39:36] We'll put all of that good stuff in the show notes. And once again, I just want to say thanks for coming up

[00:39:40] Well, thank you for offering to talk to me about this. I'm really getting into how I market this book

[00:39:46] So I really appreciate really appreciate you Laurie just for many many years

[00:39:52] How'd to know you I'm so proud to watch your good work and you know

[00:39:57] Whether you're taking fiction writing classes or just, you know reading Jane Austen

[00:40:01] Thanks again for being a guest. Absolutely. Thank you Laurie. Thanks. Hey everybody

[00:40:06] I hope you enjoyed this episode of punk rock HR show notes and more can be found on punk rock

[00:40:13] Hr-com this episode was expertly produced by Emerald City Productions and we would all appreciate it

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