00:00:03
Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths, closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come together to challenge the status quo and our own ways of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not? And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's time to question everything. I don't know about you, but my algorithm is hitting me with so much career advice lately. Like every scroll, I see a new how to win at work post, and I've started to notice something. A lot of it sounds right in theory, but a lot of it doesn't actually work once you're in the room. Have you thought that too? I think the rules of work are changing, and pretty fast. The pandemic reset absolutely everything, and the return to office has left a lot of people unsure how to navigate. Add in an unstable economy, the rise of AI, and a job market that seems to raise more questions than it answers, and it's no wonder a lot of people feel really stuck. Today's guest Jenny Clark has a really refreshing take on all of this. Ginny spent more than thirty five years in executive recruiting and talent leadership, including as a partner at Spencer Stewart and Director of executive Recruiting at Google. She specializes in working with leaders high performers, and her take, work is just a game and a win. You're going to have to learn how to play.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: It's a game, and once you understand that, you won't fight against it all the time. You've got broken people, brilliant people, happy people, angry people, disturbed people, all here thrown together to do something. And it's a game and it's not always well played, so learn to play it.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: In this conversation, we get into what recruiters actually care about, the mistakes that quietly kill your chances, and the truth about work that people avoid, like why your title might be limiting you and why success doesn't always go to the most qualified person. So here's the question that I can't shake. If work is a game, why does it feel like no one ever taught us how to play? Or worse, are we playing by rules that don't even work anymore? It's time to question everything with Jenny Clark. So, Genny, we say unfinished business, funny business, mind your business, back to business, and lately standing on business.
00:02:41
Speaker 2: I love that all of them.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: When it comes to work, do most of us not even know what our business is?
00:02:47
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that's probably true in what ways. I think we can be sort of myopic. We have a job, we show up, and we do what's expected of us or what someone tells us in the moment to do. I'm not sure we ask enough questions, even small questions like am I kind of doing this right? If someone's still learning philosophical questions? Do I even care about this work? You know? Should I be here? I go sort of micro to meta, you know, sort of out there. So yeah, I think we can do better about understanding the business that we're in and why.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: I love that you talk about the why, because your work actually really centers around story, Like you feel, each of us should have our personal story down in a way that we can communicate to our employers, to our peers. I don't know that I've ever thought about that. I think about it in terms of communicating to my audience, right, but I've never thought about it in the corporate world. How did you come up with that?
00:03:46
Speaker 2: I became an executive recruiter. That was sort of the midpoint of my career roughly, so I interviewed literally thousands of people, and I would ask I always started the interview with tell me about yourself, and people would say, well, you know, it's my resume. I'm like, no, I read it.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: It's the dreaded question, though, Jenny. I get when someone says, tell me about yourself, I'm like, oh, where do I start.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: Well, you can textualize it in the context of sitting across from an executive recruiter, then yes, I want you to tell me the stuff that's relevant to this job, but that's not on your resume.
00:04:18
Speaker 1: So don't say, well, I was born in Chicago.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: It all depends on who you're talking to. I mean, if we're sitting here just getting to know each other, that's a connection point. That's actually part of what you're trying to do is connect Now, it might not always work, but you're offering something about yourself that hopefully is relevant to why you're sitting across from each other.
00:04:37
Speaker 1: I've never like really worked in the corporate world. I've worked in newsrooms, so you might have to speak to me in this interview like I'm a baby not to worry. What is relevant information to a recruiter?
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Well, your journey and why? And maybe I'm especially sensitive because someone called my path meandering someone I was interviewing with, and I said, I don't see it that way at all. I made very de liberate decisions. It wasn't linear, but I decided what I wanted to do. Well.
00:05:04
Speaker 1: I learned from you people make five to seven career transitions in your.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: Lifetimeutely, of course, and that's fine, and the number is going to go up.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: So if I'm thinking, if I'm trying to be strategic and give you relevant information. You were a recruiter for Google, right, and it's obviously a tech company, but.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: First at a global search firm, So yes, Google was different, very different.
00:05:25
Speaker 1: I only bring up Google because I think that in the zeitgeist, it's become known for its recruiting. The company wants the best talent and oftentimes gets it. So I think just having that as your background is such a feather in your cap. But in terms of what's relevant, did you ever interview somebody and thought, Wow, they nailed it? And why?
00:05:46
Speaker 2: Here's part of what I'm getting at as I sit here and think about it, listening to you playing it back. I'm looking for and this is me because every recruiter is different. Some recruiters are looking for have you done it before? Have you done it before? Have you done it before? Check? Check, check, you're qualified. Go. I've learned that that doesn't necessarily correlate to one's level of competence in a role.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: The best person I've ever hired for social media had no social media experience, And.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: How do you know that they should be good? You're taking a bit of a bet.
00:06:13
Speaker 1: But you know what, it didn't even feel like a bet because I looked at her and I thought, you are a proactive person. You are a figure it out, can do person, and you'll figure out anything. And she was better than all the other people I hired that had social media experience. I believe it is that what you're looking for.
00:06:30
Speaker 2: Well, I'm looking for a level of self awareness such that you can reflect on your own career and extract from me what's the most relevant to why we're sitting here today. Okay, in general, when I was recruiting, that was it. It was how are you responding to me. I think I'm very conversational in my interviewing style, and so I wondered the extent to which they were actually listening to me and interacting with me, versus taking very calculated pauses to consider what they think might be the perfect response. That's not flow, that's not being in the moment, that's having been rehearsed.
00:07:08
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I don't know that I would have considered that. Like, I go into an interview and I want to be so prepared that sometimes, like you might answer a question with a prepared SoundBite versus being in the moment, and you're saying that wins over the preparation for you.
00:07:24
Speaker 2: For me, Yeah, every recruiter is completely different. I'll tell you if I can. When I was at Google, I took on an additional role than what I was hired for to create an internal mobility program. So I wanted to hire people from within Google. So I put it out there and started interviewing just a handful of folks, and one of the women did something I will never forget that was so impressive to me. I asked a question. These were all qualitative questions, no calculation required, and I asked it and she said, give me a minute. And she put her head down, and she had brought a pen and pad, and she wrote out her thought. For whatever reason, I thought it was somewhat courageous to have the presence of mind to say I need a minute. It said so much. I'd never seen anybody do it before or since.
00:08:07
Speaker 1: It signals confidence.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. So she ended up working for me, okay, and then she now works for me again. I've been gone for five years and she moved to Connecticut, but she's working with me part time. And I mentioned it to her and she said, Ginny, that was because I'm actually very introverted, which I actually didn't know about her, and introverted is different from shi, right, But she said, I just needed to get my head clear because I had stood on an elevator with you. You didn't know who I was, and I was so completely intimidated by you. Sitting across from you. I was getting flustered, and I knew I wanted to respond succinctly, so I wrote it down.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: That is so impressive, and to have the presence of mind to do that, that's right. My dad always said to me that if you feel like people are going on and on in phone calls that you should actually always say, can you just email me? And it's not to be rude or push them off. It's because when people are writing, they have to be succinct. They're thinking about being succinct.
00:09:04
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, otherwise people will just drone on and on yeah.
00:09:08
Speaker 1: So doing that in an interview is amazing.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: I thought it was impressive.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: So to go back kind of to our first question, if we take away the titles and the LinkedIn profiles and all of our email signatures, what would we really know about our business? What our business is.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: In general, Like we as a populist or an individual.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: Individual, I think we hang our hat on these titles, and it's hard to communicate what we really do. Like I can tell you I'm in the business of interviewing, but that's not really what I do. I really am a storyteller. I am a connector.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: You know.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: I could give you four things of what I actually do, but I think that's hard to deduce, especially like if you're in mortgages.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: Well, but you tell a story about maybe starting with how you came here, and again the most relevant parts to the other person listening to you. It was so funny when I'd asked that question every single one of my interviewees, tell me about yourself, and some people would just choke like, well, I you know, I don't know what to say. It's just you know, it's right there on the resume. Other people would just kind of say something summary of the resume and stop after three minutes, and then I'd have to start probing. And I'm not judging people harshly necessarily, but it was more the answers than the process. Then I had people who would go on and on and tell me, well, in first grade, you know I did this, and then I'm like, okay, no, let me give you a quick outline. Here's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for connection points of how do you think That's part of what I'm looking for, not just what you've done. Why did you make these moves? What precipitated some of these moves? You can tell me part of your personal story. You had to care for a sick parent, or you had to take time off to, you know, deal with the child with special needs. Tell me those things that to me is interesting, is a directly relevant to the job, Not necessarily, but it gives me some insight into some of the things that you've been through that might help shape how you think. And that's what I'm really looking for.
00:11:06
Speaker 1: So the personal is professional in your mind.
00:11:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd learned that probably the most when I got to Spencer Stewart, because I've just gone through some of the hardest times in my life, and so I needed to integrate what was going on, just having lost my mother, my son being one year old, asking my husband for divorce, I say that kindly telling him and then showing up at this global search firm. That was my first month in all that had happened.
00:11:35
Speaker 1: And you were the only person of color there. Yes, So you were navigating that too, Yes.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: And I had been working with a healer. He's so much more than a healer. He's a shaman, a guru, close personal friend, really gifted. He's a therapist, he's a theologian. And so I had been on my spiritual journey for a number of years, and I just knew I needed to integrate these things. It's not like I can meditate in the morning and and be fine and sort of peaceful, or at least seeking having that place as my place of respite and meditation and reflection and then come to work and just be like going hard. I needed to be the same person at my core, never trying to impose my beliefs on anyone in the workplace, but just showing up as who I am. There's one of me, and yeah we code switch, but at my core, what I believe in, what I believe about myself, that needs to show up every day, and I'm not going to suppress that because that weakens me.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I guess in my profession as a broadcaster, I've often thought, is it chicken or the egg? Like I used to do morning TV, and I could be going through something so terrible in my personal life, but you have to show up and be really sunny on TV like you do. Have to kind of compartmentalize. And I always think, are people who are good at that drawn to that profession or do you learn it in the profession. I'm not sure, but I really like the idea of finding a way to integrate.
00:13:01
Speaker 2: And it can be quiet, it can be internal, not necessarily perceptible to others. Although people kind of saw me as the spiritual one, I had this aura about me.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was told I think people were drawn to you and that's why they're drawn to you on social media today.
00:13:16
Speaker 2: Well, that'd be nice. I appreciate that.
00:13:18
Speaker 1: It's true. I feel like, at least on my algorithm, I'm swimming in career content. Do you think that any of it is valuable?
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, depending on where you are in your career, what it is that you're looking to get out of it, and then I think a lot of it is noise.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I agree, But I've actually learned a lot from online career coaches or little resume tips. I had no idea, and we're going to talk about AI later, but I learned the other day on TikTok some woman was saying, on your resume, you should put a bunch of keywords in white ink so that they get past the computer system that's looking for certain keywords, so you can get to the next level, to get to a human I was like, I would have never known that.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: I didn't know that because I never worked with algorithms.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a whole different thing.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: Do you think that professionalism is important nowadays or does it feel manufactured?
00:14:14
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is anymore, you know, I mean, I go back to I came out of graduate school in the eighties. All right, I'm seriously dating myself. So it was skirts and pantyhose and all of that. So it was very different, but I kind of yearned for a little bit more formality. I mean, going to Silicon Valley, it's, you know, the epitome of casual. I just did a video talking about what we wear and how there's an element of I'm not remembering the word that they use, but there's a psychological term that says that when you like the way you dress, when you feel good about yourself in the way that you're dressed, you think more clearly. You show up differently.
00:14:52
Speaker 1: Also, people take you more seriously whether you want to do better or no.
00:14:55
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely they do, and understanding who it is your across from. I was in professional services. We served clients. You had to show up, You had to present yourself well to your clients, and some of that is the way that you look.
00:15:09
Speaker 1: Early in my career, I was financially struggling a lot, and I always made sure that part of my small budget went to hair and makeup and clothing. And a lot of people would have said that's a waste and that's crazy. But I really felt like no one was going to hire me unless I looked the part.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: I believe.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: Did you always do that? Did you dress for the job you wanted? Yeah?
00:15:35
Speaker 2: And I just have my own personal style and standards of dressing. You know, my mother was one of those women who you don't go to the grocery store without putting lipstick on it. Literally, she would say that. So I grew up. It wasn't bussy, it wasn't showy, but she taught me how to dress for my body. I'm six feet tall and super long legs, and so I couldn't wear with all the three girls we're wearing.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: So you look like this going to get coffee in the morning.
00:16:04
Speaker 2: Pretty much.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: I aspire to that level of professionalism. I am homeless or Hollywood. There is no in between. It's truly amazing.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: You know. I'm not obsessive. And again, it's not for your show.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: It's just it's who you are.
00:16:18
Speaker 2: This is how I show up.
00:16:31
Speaker 1: I think we live in this era of main character energy. Do you think that kind of energy helps or hurts at work?
00:16:36
Speaker 2: Some of that is going to fly in the face of collaboration, which is for most people, even if you're an individual contributor at work, you need to be able to get along with others, plain nice with others as they say. So. Yes, I think it can fly in the face of this showing up and being the main character. It's not always about you, I know.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: I think about like how you can show up and be the main character without pissing people off. And it's like, be extra competent.
00:17:05
Speaker 2: Be competent, be perceptive, watch signals. What is your goal in being there? Because depending on what the gathering is about your participant. Now, if you're the one sucking the air out of the room, always wanted to raise your hand and say the most important thing that gets tiresome, you're going to turn people off.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: Do you know Bozoma Saint John. That is somebody who I look at her and I'm like, you brought main character energy to your jobs and people loved you for it. She must be really perceptive because she knew like when to bring it and when to listen. And if you bring that kind of energy, you have to be really perceptive.
00:17:40
Speaker 2: It seems you absolutely do. And I think what's really dare I say in Vogue now is the authenticity. Are you putting on a show, are you doing something actually just for someone else to observe, or are we seeing the real you?
00:17:56
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:17:56
Speaker 2: Because I think some people wear masks at work.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: You've talked about something called role prison. Can you explain what that is?
00:18:03
Speaker 2: Well, people get into a role and they think that's all they can never do. Is that what you're referring to.
00:18:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like people start behaving according to what they think their title requires, yeah, rather than what the work needs.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: That's dangerous because part of it tells me that on just a personal level, you're caught up in a title. That's your first mistake. Because these titles anywhere pick a place, they tend to be ridiculous, right, I mean we've seen some that are just really crazy.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: Do titles matter anymore?
00:18:31
Speaker 2: We're still in a hierarchical environment, and so to the extent that it shows rank or level, people in those roles want that. They want others below them subordinates to respect their title and hopefully there's a commensurate amount of competence that goes with the title. That's a big if, because I've worked for people who had big titles who weren't always as competent as I would have expected.
00:18:56
Speaker 1: How do you navigate that situation when you feel like you know more than your boss?
00:19:01
Speaker 2: Do your best to build them up. That's what I would say. It's not going to serve you well to babmoutholm. Other people are probably aware of it, and so to the extent that you can fill the gap, do that.
00:19:12
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about competence a lot. Yeah, and you've said that it's the real currency in the room. What do you mean by that.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: Well, let me describe what the term and I talk about competencies. I was trained to do competency based assessment as a recruiter. The way I describe competencies as the deconstructed elements of how you do something. It's not just that you've done it. That doesn't tell me that you're competent. I know lots of people have done stuff and they're not.
00:19:37
Speaker 1: You know, you're savage in the best way.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: I'm oh, you have no idea. You know my nickname Maybe you don't. It's GMFC G C Oh my god.
00:19:48
Speaker 1: I was given it Jenny MF Clark for anybody listening, got it.
00:19:53
Speaker 2: I'm kind, I'm loving, but I just see things very clearly, and they're not absolute. This is all through my lens, right, But you were competent, competency thinking, deconstructed elements of how you do something.
00:20:06
Speaker 1: How do you communicate that to somebody?
00:20:08
Speaker 2: Though?
00:20:08
Speaker 1: Like if I'm in an interview, how can I describe my how storytelling?
00:20:12
Speaker 2: We're back to that, okay, And the way I seemed to fall into this before I became an executive recruiter. I recruited for two years after I graduated from undergrad University California at Davis, and then I went to business school. Then I went into banking, commercial real estate executive recruiting. In the interviews, the more time and the more varied experiences, I had to create the through line for the person I was speaking to so that they understood what was it that I had learned and what skills had I developed that made sense to what it is that they do? Now?
00:20:45
Speaker 1: What did you say?
00:20:46
Speaker 2: When I was going into Spencer Stewart, I was able to talk about how I developed business when I was in the commercial real estate investment management business because I had clients and I had to go out and find them. I talked about how I thought, how I processed and worked on different challenges in that space, How I innovated, how I developed things, how much I recruited, I did recruiting. I wasn't a recruiter in these other companies, but they would send me on campus on behalf of the company to recruit for them because I was a line person who could interview. So I just dropped these little nuggets of things that I had done that were relevant and it made sense.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: I'm like deducing here. Would you say that you could look at a company's objectives if it is to grow their business, whatever those are, if you could name three of them and then try and fit in how your personal story give them the how for a few of those, and that would be a good interview.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: Well, and it's not just the company. Yes, that's the container, but it's the role. To talk about the role, because so many people, as I was saying, they assume if you've done it, if you have a similar title, ooh, that makes it really easy. They've done this before. You're not asking nearly enough questions.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: There are three really good questions to ask somebody when you are being interviewed.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: Give me an example. That's one. So give me an example of when you had to deal with someone who was difficult, you had a difficult client, to offer them a hypothetical situation and say how would you handle this? That's quite telling, So it's not just the what, it's the how back to that?
00:22:21
Speaker 1: And then how about the reverse side. If you are being interviewed, what are a few questions that are really thoughtful and great to ask?
00:22:29
Speaker 2: The basic ones of tell me something about your organization that you don't like, or there's some simple ones that really aren't that thoughtful, So do your homework. And I would advise people to get as granular as possible so you can know something about damn near anybody that you're talking to. So do your homework on the interviewer, and I would ask a question that's more specific to them and maybe the role that they're in, how they think about the work that the company is doing, or the role that this individual plays in the organization from their perspective, so that you're actually learning something so the question doesn't become just a platitude.
00:23:07
Speaker 1: What do you think? And be honest, what do you think of the question like what is your biggest pain point day to day? And what would somebody in this role do to make your life a lot easier.
00:23:19
Speaker 2: It's not a bad question.
00:23:20
Speaker 1: Don't seem excited by it. It's not a great question.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: To the extent that it might have already been answered. When people hold on to they have this sort of list and they have these questions, and it's like, well, I actually already talked about a lot of that. It doesn't feel probing, it feels rehearsed.
00:23:34
Speaker 1: Well, what I'm hearing you say, though, is that a lot of this is practice. Because I think about myself at twenty two, There's no way I'm going to be present in an interview. I'm so nervous. I'm not practiced. Like I could go in now at thirty five and be present. I don't even know if I could have done that three years ago.
00:23:51
Speaker 2: I get that, and keep in mind I was interviewing as a recruiter. These were very senior people. When I was a college recruiter was more Those were very different kinds of conversations. Okay, so thank you for like kind of making that distinction. But I still think back to your original question around what I call the narrative. Everybody needs one be able to tell your story, even if no one's giving you any real guidelines. Have something in your head about why you're sitting here?
00:24:18
Speaker 1: Are there certain beats in the story to hit, Like if you could break down what are the beats you want to hit?
00:24:24
Speaker 2: Why you're here? You're trying to hit why I'm interested, because you'd be surprised how many people take interviews and they actually don't know much about the organization, don't really care. Really, it's an opportunity, it's an opening, and they're sitting here.
00:24:39
Speaker 1: But it's such a competitive job market nowadays.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, but some people are there just because someone said yes to them and they haven't given it a lot of thought, and that's unfortunate.
00:24:47
Speaker 1: I'm really surprised to hear that, especially you're having done like senior recruiting. That's shocking.
00:24:53
Speaker 2: Or you're supposed to be impressed by them. All right.
00:24:54
Speaker 1: Eight, So you've considered yourself a former executive recruiter, conscious leadership expert, executive coach, keynote speaker, and workplace activists. What do you consider your competency.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: My competencies are around how I think. I'm a holistic thinker. I look at things. I'm able to zoom in and zoom out. I'm highly analytical, qualitatively analytical. I'm a systems thinker, and that I think comes from my training in language linguistics in French and loving to read the dictionary. So I perceive things in a deeper way than a lot of people who just might give it a cursory observation. I see everything, watching people, I'm sensing, I'm using all of my senses. I'm highly intuitive, so I see a lot.
00:25:40
Speaker 1: You're hired give a moment, but can I tell you what stood out for me? I was thinking, like, okay, I'm sitting across from her. When you said I think more deeply and see what other people miss, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Like you hit something there with the way you described it. I just think that's good for people to notice they're thinking about how to describe their own competency.
00:26:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely one of the ways I came up with the five dimensions of conscious leadership, and it's not just for people in leadership roles. By the way, know yourself, speak your truth, inspire love, expand consciousness, and activate mastery. I came up with those when I was getting ready to leave Google, and I look back on my entire career to reflect on what did I think make leaders good or great or terrible? And these are the personal characteristics that I think underlie any functional expertise, any leadership expertise. These are personal attributes that people need to consider, because I think a lot of people don't. They're just like, I'm here, I'm good, I've done all these things. Their identity is their resume, which you were alluding to earlier, and that's very dangerous. I think we need to step back. You're not your job. You need to know who you are, what you stand for, what your values are, why you're here. It's simple stuff, but I think a lot of us are lost.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: Well, I have to tell you. I've had the woman on the podcast named Susie Welch who created something called the Values Bridge, and you take a simple quiz and it tells you what your sixteen values are in order, and we conflate values and virtues. So kindness is really important to me, and I thought that was a value, that's a virtue. I ask myself questions all the time. I ask questions for a living, and I had no idea what my real values are. I think, like you really have to carve out the time, it's very difficult to really know yourself.
00:27:29
Speaker 2: It is especially now, especially with social media.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you have everybody else's opinions. I have found that in my career, my professional life really only expands as much as my personal development. Have you found that to be true in your life.
00:27:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, because my personal development matters more. I can't be someone totally different when I show up at work from the essence of who I am. Maybe some people can, maybe they have to. Yeah, you get all of them, you know, it's kind of all or nothing again, you know what's appropriate. Yeah, But at my core, I'm the same person, and I wish that for everyone because I think trying to be something you're not is exhausting and depleting. And if you don't know, then I think you're missing big aspects of yourself that you could be bringing into the workplace, bringing into the rest of your life that you haven't. And it's more than just the language. It's the awareness.
00:28:39
Speaker 1: As a recruiter, would you hire somebody that you liked over somebody with high competency?
00:28:46
Speaker 2: No, in the workplace, I need competence. Do I need to like you? Not necessarily if I find you obnoxious that's a problem if I don't perceive that you're going to work well with others.
00:28:58
Speaker 1: There's sort of a meter.
00:28:59
Speaker 2: There's a meter, but you've probably heard me say I don't need to be liked, so if someone else needs to be liked, there's kind of a hole there, I think. And that's cause for concern.
00:29:09
Speaker 1: Because so much of your work intertwines the personal and professional, and I just want to say that I deeply appreciate that. How do you think about personal and professional boundaries? Are there professional boundaries when you're a high achiever, high performer?
00:29:23
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
00:29:24
Speaker 1: Really Yeah.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do anything my superior. I work for myself now, so I am that right. But when I think about the people on my team, I only have two full time people. I'm not going to ask them to do anything I wouldn't do in the context of work, you know what I mean. I'm not going to ask them to work all weekend. If we all agree that we have to get something out, we're on a sprint and we're all going to do it, then that's one thing that's a boundary, and personal boundaries I'm probably even more locked down on those.
00:29:53
Speaker 1: I want to sort of dig into this because you talk about how nobody teaches us how to say no. You actually talk about it very often on your Instagram. Why is that important to you?
00:30:02
Speaker 2: Because I see so many people in the workplace, people like coach people I encounter who are people pleasing. They don't know how to say no. They don't think it serves them to say no. And I just think it's really important that you know what your boundaries are and you're able to express them. Because this is maybe my upbringing, but you know, I don't owe you anything. If we're in a work environment and I have responsibilities and deliverables, of course I'm going to honor those commitments. But you want me to do something else that goes well beyond what's expected maybe of others. No, And part of my barometer is what I ask somebody to do that under the same circumstances.
00:30:42
Speaker 1: Do you think that is realistic for a startup because that feels like very true in a corporate environment, But when I think about startup environments, I'm like, I don't know if that's even possible.
00:30:53
Speaker 2: It might not be. I mean, where you're sort of a jack of all trades, master of none, as I say, right you need to jump in and that the team I have now, frankly, they'll do anything we agree. Can you do this? Yes? I can. No, I'm probably not the one to ask, So yeah, I do like having people in a startup. Yeah, but still there might be boundaries.
00:31:13
Speaker 1: You've called interviews theater, so I really want to know who's the worst actor in the room, the candidate or the company.
00:31:21
Speaker 2: You know, I would say the company. But a company is nothing more than a bunch of people. And I always say that the culture is determined by the senior most leaders, So I guess it kind of trickles all the way up to leadership.
00:31:32
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about culture. It's something that as a millennial I've heard in the zeitgeist a lot. Yeah, and there is company culture. You can feel it that you walk in, But I find it to be very amorphous, like very rarely is there a culture or a value system written on the walls. You just kind of walk in and feel it. So when you say it's set by the leaders, do you think it's caught not taught? Do you think it's taught? How does it get set?
00:32:00
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't even think it's necessarily intentional in a lot of companies. I mean, they might have their sort of ethos or whatever's on the website or have it written down on a wall, but then when you walk in I refer to it as the soup that you're in. You feel it. You just said that you feel it, and very often what you feel is not what might be on that wall exactly. The leaders are the ones who set the tone very typically without thinking about it. It's what they will and will not tolerate. That to me is one of the big elements of what is going to determine the culture. What are people getting away with, what kind of behavior is incentivized? See.
00:32:38
Speaker 1: I think that's so interesting because I think when people talk about culture, they think it's we are kind, we are doers, But it's actually who gets hired and who gets fired Because you watch what behavior gets rewarded and what.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: Is punished and how you're treated and by whom.
00:32:54
Speaker 1: It's more simple than I thought.
00:32:56
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, people are simple in so many ways.
00:32:58
Speaker 1: So our producer and I loved this video you made about interviews. So you say interviews were invented in nineteen twenty one, How have we been conducting them wrong since then? You need to spill the tea. I didn't realize they were this old.
00:33:14
Speaker 2: And I think the reference was to the fact that this was sort of at the beginning of the industrial age, where you know, people open these factories and they had all these people show up, and they needed to figure out a way to discern who's more suitable than the other person. And so the interview and I think it's become something that we do a standard, but I just don't think they're done well. I think most interviewers aren't asking the right questions.
00:33:38
Speaker 1: I want a set of questions from you. I know that's so hard to give me when it's just a general conversation, but I would love to see you do a video about that. I'm so curious, like, what are people doing.
00:33:49
Speaker 2: Wrong the interviewers.
00:33:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell you from my perspective. Sure, I have just recently started hiring help and a freelance team, and I think I'm a really bad high I'm self aware enough to okay, I'm getting better at it. I do think part of its practice. I didn't know the questions to ask at the beginning. So I did look at the resume like you said, and I was like, Okay, they've done this before. I learned very quickly that doesn't mean competence. And I don't know the right questions to ask, so I don't know I have an expert. Here, can you advise me.
00:34:21
Speaker 2: I'll start with a shortcut, and that is take the job description hopefully you had one, drop it into your favorite AI system. Tell it what your expectations are, tell it what's not on the job description. Describe the circumstances in which this person is going to be operating, and what your expectations actually are. Not the to do, but this is the environment, the culture that we operate in. I'm this, I'm a that. Give it a couple paragraphs and then ask it to generate some questions for you.
00:34:52
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
00:34:53
Speaker 2: I mean I was a recruiter long before AI, but I learned myself how to contextualize what it is that I'm trying to hire. For given who was sitting in front of me, it became automatic for me.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: Wow, I love that answer. Thank you for that. I think everybody's different. I've boiled down. My most important quality is being proactive. Proactivity. That's what I'm looking for. What one quality were you really.
00:35:17
Speaker 2: Looking for for people? On my team or as a recruiter when I.
00:35:21
Speaker 1: Was as a recruiter, If you had to give us one quality.
00:35:24
Speaker 2: You know what, it's the self awareness. That's the quality I was always looking for. I didn't always name it as that. I'll never forget. I was sitting across from someone. I don't remember now if he became the final candidate, but in the end, I really like this guy and he was responding to a question I think, and I looked across. I'm at my big desk and he's sitting over in the chair, and I saw this little ten year old boy when I looked up, and it wasn't that he was childish. I just saw a vulnerability and I thought this was a decent, kind person. It wasn't what he said. What he talked about told me that he was competent, But there was something else that I noticed that let me know that he was human and kind, and that is something I value.
00:36:08
Speaker 1: If you could interrupt everybody's algorithm for five minutes, what truth about work would you force us all to sit with.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: It's a game, and once you understand that, you won't fight against it all the time. Half the stuff that people think is cast in stone and half the genius that they believe that their boss has. Oh you've got broken people, brilliant people, happy people, angry people, disturbed people, all here thrown together to do something. And it's a game and it's not always well played.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: So learn to play it if you could try and in a simple way, boil down who wins and who loses.
00:36:49
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think so many people think that they win when they make a lot of money or they have a big title and they're over lots of people. I just don't believe that's the case. For me, it was how can I impact people. I've been gone from Google five years, but when I still hear from members of my team and I'm employing one now, or they're reaching out just to say hey, they see me on social media and they're celebrating something, my son is in grad school or whatever. It's a personal connection, you know. And I think we don't do that well. It's not valued and people underestimate and you can't fake it. I'm not saying go try to be friends with everybody. I don't have that many friends from work or work colleagues. And we respect each other and like each other, but fewer friends. But I think we need to sort of understand what everybody's doing there.
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Well, what I think you're talking about, and tell me if I'm assessing it right? Is integrity one of my favorite words?
00:37:43
Speaker 2: Me too, I don't know that enough people actually know what that is, or regrettably that it's modeled by leaders, the ones that you would expect to embody that. That's how I grew up. My dad, I told you, was a superintendent of correctional facilities.
00:37:59
Speaker 1: And so much tight shit.
00:38:01
Speaker 2: Oh yes he did. I'm his daughter. I look like my mom. My brother looks like my dad, but my brother is my mother's son. I am my dad's daughter very much him. Hence the GMF sy. But yeah, I just think we need to get clear on why we're doing things, how we're doing things. And yes, the integrity piece is integral, but unfortunately integrity isn't often modeled by the senior most people. Yeah, and so that standard isn't set and the culture suffers.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever been able to name that. I appreciate you pointing that out, because all the best places I've worked, the leader, the number one in charge, has a lot of integrity and they hire people with integrity for the most part.
00:38:45
Speaker 2: Well, and the ones who don't have integrity who operate from that place at work. Well, I keep thinking of the coldplay situation, right that CEO with the head of hr.
00:38:56
Speaker 1: Oh, tell me what you think about that?
00:38:58
Speaker 2: How stupid and irresponsible frankly for the two of them to even be there, to get caught in public, in public, what were you thinking?
00:39:05
Speaker 1: Because there were other people from the company there too, so everyone was just kind of turning a blind eye. Yeah. I felt like, what you do on your own time is your business. Yeah, that is your marriage, you decide, But to bring it out into public as.
00:39:18
Speaker 2: A wild irresponsible.
00:39:20
Speaker 1: So you agree that they both should have been.
00:39:21
Speaker 2: Fired absolutely if I was on the board immediately bad judgment. Use that kind of judgment in work situations, No, out of here, gotta go. There got to be consequences to bad behavior, which.
00:39:34
Speaker 1: Is the culture piece it is. It kind of all fits together.
00:39:38
Speaker 2: That's why I was saying, what gets tolerated is going to determine the culture.
00:39:42
Speaker 1: Do you think then it's very important for us to as individuals recognize what our values are, maybe even write a list and only work at companies that align with our values. Is that even possible?
00:39:55
Speaker 2: That might narrow it down to too few. I just don't think companies are as deliberate and aware, and the leaders I don't think are necessarily holding themselves as accountable as they should to their employees. Very often, I think leaders think in terms of, you know, I'm accountable to my shareholders and to my board. What about to the thousands of employees. You're accountable to them too by showing up with integrity, And I think that's what's missing.
00:40:21
Speaker 1: If you are a person who wants to work on your integrity, what does that look like?
00:40:25
Speaker 2: Need to go somewhere and sit by yourself and look deeply into the mirror.
00:40:30
Speaker 1: Because what you're talking about is leadership, and you can be a leader in any role you're in.
00:40:35
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I guess I landed on that because I saw how many leaders people in leadership roles. So I use the term judiciously. When you're not leading well, but you're still called a leader. I just was disappointed. I expected more, you know, I held my dad out as that sort of standard of someone who knew how to set boundaries but respected people. And that's the difference that I talk about. I don't need you to like me. But as my mother used to say, you will respect me. I can't force you to do that. You will respect me if I am truthful, if I'm kind, if I have integrity, which means you can trust me. I don't think a lot of leaders can be trusted these days. They don't demonstrate that they are worthy of trust.
00:41:18
Speaker 1: As you're talking, I'm thinking about that. The best leaders I've worked for show up as the same person every day, so they're not, you know, full of integrity one day and then maybe in a bad mood the next. There's a consistency piece, like you trust them because they're consistent.
00:41:33
Speaker 2: That's right, and you know we're all human, right, So I would let my team know I'm kind of off today. I'm feeling a little wonky and dizzy, so you'll excuse me, you know, have some humility.
00:41:55
Speaker 1: I've had friends in other fields who are more in corporate worlds, and they've applied for jobs and they had to take a compatibility test before they even get to round one. And I feel like a lot of those are making people feel like they're fired before they're even hired. What do you think about those.
00:42:10
Speaker 2: I've never seen one of those tests. I'm well aware that they're out there. It triggers a little something for me in the sense that it sounds suspiciously like the fit. Do they fit our culture? What does that even mean? That leaves so much room for what I think often becomes I'll say it, it can be biased.
00:42:30
Speaker 1: That's how I feel.
00:42:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker 1: Can I tell you When I am given any sort of like paperwork and I have to click an identity box a race and ethnicity, a gender, I'm like, there's no good way to answer this, and I don't want to answer right because it feels like I'm damned if I do. I'm damned if I don't. What do you think about those?
00:42:49
Speaker 2: I mean, there was a time when I think some of that information was actually used to calibrate the outreach that an organization might have been getting. I co founded the City Practice at Spencer Stewart, and part of my responsibility Google was developing some of that expertise and capability, and so there weren't quotas, but also we wanted to know that we were getting a representative sampling of people who had the qualifications.
00:43:16
Speaker 1: Right, you want a pipeline of different types of people.
00:43:19
Speaker 2: That's right, but it can send a very negative signal.
00:43:22
Speaker 1: Well, I think nowadays it's so confusing. People don't know if they're going to be discriminated against because of a certain box, or they don't know if it helps them if they check a certain box.
00:43:33
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:43:34
Speaker 1: I guess Netflix is known for having like a lot of different boxes. People a check yeah, and I don't know if it's helpful or hurtful.
00:43:42
Speaker 2: I don't either, I just don't. I think there's this confusion because they might be asking for things they don't communicate why, and then can you even trust them or are you being screened out? Would you say, before you even cross the threshold.
00:43:56
Speaker 1: Do you recommend people just put like not applicable.
00:43:59
Speaker 2: Or other true? Just be you?
00:44:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you don't want to walk in somewhere where you're not welcome as you here, we have it, you got it ultimately.
00:44:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, The welcome can mean different things. I've been in situations where I was welcomed by the masses, but then certain people were uncomfortable with my presence. I represented a threat.
00:44:20
Speaker 1: Well, what I found so interesting about your story is that you shared that early on in your career at Spencer.
00:44:27
Speaker 2: What is it called Spence Spencer Stewart.
00:44:28
Speaker 1: Spencer Stewart that very early on they asked you to start a diversity program. Yeah, and you said no, thank you, and they were kind of shocked. Can you explain your thinking behind that?
00:44:38
Speaker 2: Well, it was a couple of things. One, I was going through so much with my young son and my mom passing a month after I started there, So that was one. So knowing my own physical emotional limitations in that moment. But the overarching thing was that I needed to learn the business of executive recres The way they did it what made them one of the top firms in the world. There's a way, and they had very clear standards, talk about professionalism. It was just very clear quality control. This is how we do things. And you know what. That worked for me because now that I know what you expect, I know what I need to learn and how I need to fortify what I came here knowing with spending time with people and just doing some of the work. So it was a great experience. It was probably the most formative role of my career because I learned so much.
00:45:36
Speaker 1: I love when you share that story because I think it signals the yes and no that you talk about a lot of people I think would have thought, Wow, an opportunity to lead so early on, And that was your self awareness that said I'm actually not ready yet.
00:45:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the ready wasn't as in knowledge, I could have done it based on what they wanted. I prioritized learning the business because ultimately that's how I was going to be evaluated. And what it was that they were asking me to do was a function of understanding the business, and that meant knowing people, knowing behaviors and you know, just some of the things that aren't on paper, and building relationships internally.
00:46:18
Speaker 1: So you've worked for two of the top companies in the world in terms of recruiting, interviewed thousands of people, hired hundreds of top performers. If you could give me three qualities that top performers have, what would they be.
00:46:33
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to self awareness. I think they really do because that self awareness allows them to interact with other people in a way that brings the best out in those people. So it's a derivative of some of the leadership competencies that I was trained to assess for. So that's probably one. It's that how well do you know yourself? And that weeds out I think extreme behavioral maladies and things like you know, narcissism and other things that can be really destructive in an organization. So that's one. How many did you want?
00:47:05
Speaker 1: I'd love three if you have them.
00:47:07
Speaker 2: A sense of collaboration because even if you're coming into a leadership role, no one expects you to know everything. A good leader knows how to ask questions, how to admit when they don't know something. That's why you have a team. Have them know or go find out. One of the primary competencies is decision making. And again I'm going to fall back on what I mentioned earlier around the fact that so many people now are conflict diverse and people pleasing. They're derivatives of a similar mindset, I dare say. And so if you're a people pleaser or you're conflict averse or both, you're probably not going to make optimal decisions because you're too worried about what everybody else is thinking and you don't want to necessarily say anything because you're avoiding conflict. So that's why personal traits can influence the level of competence in a certain area.
00:47:59
Speaker 1: I love that really struggled with conflict, and I saw a therapist. I'll never forget. I was doing a morning show in Chicago and my boss and I butt heads a lot. I thought he was a person of low integrity and I didn't trust him, and that's one of my favorite traits or values, and so it was tough for me and we would disagree a lot, and I didn't know what information I could share with him. I went to a therapist and I was like, I'm so bad at conflict, and she said, no, you are just not practiced. So we're going to practice conflict. Your boss already doesn't like you, We're going to really practice with him.
00:48:33
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
00:48:35
Speaker 1: I love that we had so much conflict for a year. Now I don't get stressed out by conflict. I actually appreciate a hard conversation. So I only share that to say that if you are listening and feeling that, yeah, it is something that you can practice.
00:48:49
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I had to tell someone I was coaching. I said, you know, I'm not sure you and your manager are ever going to like be buds, so why don't you focus on building the best team this organization has ever seen in your function? Because trust me, word will get around. So you don't need to be the one. You have nothing to prove, per se, but go do the best you can possibly do. And trust me, his boss is going to find out how good you are because the top bosses have plants, they have people. Somebody once told me you seem to have your ear to the ground. It was like, huh, I probably do. It wasn't an active thing that I did. It's simply that people felt comfortable coming to me because they felt that they could what trust me.
00:49:36
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to give you some rapid fires. Okay, the workplace trend you didn't see coming. Yoga pants, the workplace trend that will not age well.
00:49:46
Speaker 2: Yoga pants.
00:49:48
Speaker 1: The number one thing not to put in a cover.
00:49:50
Speaker 2: Letter your test scores, work.
00:49:52
Speaker 1: From home, return to office or hybrid.
00:49:54
Speaker 2: Return to office. I want to tell you why later we keep going.
00:49:57
Speaker 1: Okay. The most outdated aspect of applying for jobs algorithms. First red flag in an interview.
00:50:03
Speaker 2: Wasn't kind to the admin.
00:50:05
Speaker 1: Overused corporate word that needs to retire immediately.
00:50:08
Speaker 2: I've been out. Now, let's see there's some of these platitudes that sound so stupid.
00:50:11
Speaker 1: We'll circle back, a title that people chase that just is not worth the stress.
00:50:16
Speaker 2: Anything but a c.
00:50:17
Speaker 1: The fastest way to lose credibility in.
00:50:19
Speaker 2: A room talk too much.
00:50:20
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty six way to say, per my last email.
00:50:24
Speaker 2: Maybe you didn't understand.
00:50:25
Speaker 1: Jinny, MF and Clark, thank you. You're so wonderful.
00:50:30
Speaker 2: What a pleasure. Thank you.
00:50:37
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day, to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths, closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come together to challenge the status quo and our own ways of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not? And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's time to question everything. I don't know about you, but my algorithm is hitting me with so much career advice lately. Like every scroll, I see a new how to win at work post, and I've started to notice something. A lot of it sounds right in theory, but a lot of it doesn't actually work once you're in the room. Have you thought that too? I think the rules of work are changing, and pretty fast. The pandemic reset absolutely everything, and the return to office has left a lot of people unsure how to navigate. Add in an unstable economy, the rise of AI, and a job market that seems to raise more questions than it answers, and it's no wonder a lot of people feel really stuck. Today's guest Jenny Clark has a really refreshing take on all of this. Ginny spent more than thirty five years in executive recruiting and talent leadership, including as a partner at Spencer Stewart and Director of executive Recruiting at Google. She specializes in working with leaders high performers, and her take, work is just a game and a win. You're going to have to learn how to play.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: It's a game, and once you understand that, you won't fight against it all the time. You've got broken people, brilliant people, happy people, angry people, disturbed people, all here thrown together to do something. And it's a game and it's not always well played, so learn to play it.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: In this conversation, we get into what recruiters actually care about, the mistakes that quietly kill your chances, and the truth about work that people avoid, like why your title might be limiting you and why success doesn't always go to the most qualified person. So here's the question that I can't shake. If work is a game, why does it feel like no one ever taught us how to play? Or worse, are we playing by rules that don't even work anymore? It's time to question everything with Jenny Clark. So, Genny, we say unfinished business, funny business, mind your business, back to business, and lately standing on business.
00:02:41
Speaker 2: I love that all of them.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: When it comes to work, do most of us not even know what our business is?
00:02:47
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think that's probably true in what ways. I think we can be sort of myopic. We have a job, we show up, and we do what's expected of us or what someone tells us in the moment to do. I'm not sure we ask enough questions, even small questions like am I kind of doing this right? If someone's still learning philosophical questions? Do I even care about this work? You know? Should I be here? I go sort of micro to meta, you know, sort of out there. So yeah, I think we can do better about understanding the business that we're in and why.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: I love that you talk about the why, because your work actually really centers around story, Like you feel, each of us should have our personal story down in a way that we can communicate to our employers, to our peers. I don't know that I've ever thought about that. I think about it in terms of communicating to my audience, right, but I've never thought about it in the corporate world. How did you come up with that?
00:03:46
Speaker 2: I became an executive recruiter. That was sort of the midpoint of my career roughly, so I interviewed literally thousands of people, and I would ask I always started the interview with tell me about yourself, and people would say, well, you know, it's my resume. I'm like, no, I read it.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: It's the dreaded question, though, Jenny. I get when someone says, tell me about yourself, I'm like, oh, where do I start.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: Well, you can textualize it in the context of sitting across from an executive recruiter, then yes, I want you to tell me the stuff that's relevant to this job, but that's not on your resume.
00:04:18
Speaker 1: So don't say, well, I was born in Chicago.
00:04:21
Speaker 2: It all depends on who you're talking to. I mean, if we're sitting here just getting to know each other, that's a connection point. That's actually part of what you're trying to do is connect Now, it might not always work, but you're offering something about yourself that hopefully is relevant to why you're sitting across from each other.
00:04:37
Speaker 1: I've never like really worked in the corporate world. I've worked in newsrooms, so you might have to speak to me in this interview like I'm a baby not to worry. What is relevant information to a recruiter?
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Well, your journey and why? And maybe I'm especially sensitive because someone called my path meandering someone I was interviewing with, and I said, I don't see it that way at all. I made very de liberate decisions. It wasn't linear, but I decided what I wanted to do. Well.
00:05:04
Speaker 1: I learned from you people make five to seven career transitions in your.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: Lifetimeutely, of course, and that's fine, and the number is going to go up.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: So if I'm thinking, if I'm trying to be strategic and give you relevant information. You were a recruiter for Google, right, and it's obviously a tech company, but.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: First at a global search firm, So yes, Google was different, very different.
00:05:25
Speaker 1: I only bring up Google because I think that in the zeitgeist, it's become known for its recruiting. The company wants the best talent and oftentimes gets it. So I think just having that as your background is such a feather in your cap. But in terms of what's relevant, did you ever interview somebody and thought, Wow, they nailed it? And why?
00:05:46
Speaker 2: Here's part of what I'm getting at as I sit here and think about it, listening to you playing it back. I'm looking for and this is me because every recruiter is different. Some recruiters are looking for have you done it before? Have you done it before? Have you done it before? Check? Check, check, you're qualified. Go. I've learned that that doesn't necessarily correlate to one's level of competence in a role.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: The best person I've ever hired for social media had no social media experience, And.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: How do you know that they should be good? You're taking a bit of a bet.
00:06:13
Speaker 1: But you know what, it didn't even feel like a bet because I looked at her and I thought, you are a proactive person. You are a figure it out, can do person, and you'll figure out anything. And she was better than all the other people I hired that had social media experience. I believe it is that what you're looking for.
00:06:30
Speaker 2: Well, I'm looking for a level of self awareness such that you can reflect on your own career and extract from me what's the most relevant to why we're sitting here today. Okay, in general, when I was recruiting, that was it. It was how are you responding to me. I think I'm very conversational in my interviewing style, and so I wondered the extent to which they were actually listening to me and interacting with me, versus taking very calculated pauses to consider what they think might be the perfect response. That's not flow, that's not being in the moment, that's having been rehearsed.
00:07:08
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I don't know that I would have considered that. Like, I go into an interview and I want to be so prepared that sometimes, like you might answer a question with a prepared SoundBite versus being in the moment, and you're saying that wins over the preparation for you.
00:07:24
Speaker 2: For me, Yeah, every recruiter is completely different. I'll tell you if I can. When I was at Google, I took on an additional role than what I was hired for to create an internal mobility program. So I wanted to hire people from within Google. So I put it out there and started interviewing just a handful of folks, and one of the women did something I will never forget that was so impressive to me. I asked a question. These were all qualitative questions, no calculation required, and I asked it and she said, give me a minute. And she put her head down, and she had brought a pen and pad, and she wrote out her thought. For whatever reason, I thought it was somewhat courageous to have the presence of mind to say I need a minute. It said so much. I'd never seen anybody do it before or since.
00:08:07
Speaker 1: It signals confidence.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. So she ended up working for me, okay, and then she now works for me again. I've been gone for five years and she moved to Connecticut, but she's working with me part time. And I mentioned it to her and she said, Ginny, that was because I'm actually very introverted, which I actually didn't know about her, and introverted is different from shi, right, But she said, I just needed to get my head clear because I had stood on an elevator with you. You didn't know who I was, and I was so completely intimidated by you. Sitting across from you. I was getting flustered, and I knew I wanted to respond succinctly, so I wrote it down.
00:08:44
Speaker 1: That is so impressive, and to have the presence of mind to do that, that's right. My dad always said to me that if you feel like people are going on and on in phone calls that you should actually always say, can you just email me? And it's not to be rude or push them off. It's because when people are writing, they have to be succinct. They're thinking about being succinct.
00:09:04
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, otherwise people will just drone on and on yeah.
00:09:08
Speaker 1: So doing that in an interview is amazing.
00:09:10
Speaker 2: I thought it was impressive.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: So to go back kind of to our first question, if we take away the titles and the LinkedIn profiles and all of our email signatures, what would we really know about our business? What our business is.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: In general, Like we as a populist or an individual.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: Individual, I think we hang our hat on these titles, and it's hard to communicate what we really do. Like I can tell you I'm in the business of interviewing, but that's not really what I do. I really am a storyteller. I am a connector.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: You know.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: I could give you four things of what I actually do, but I think that's hard to deduce, especially like if you're in mortgages.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: Well, but you tell a story about maybe starting with how you came here, and again the most relevant parts to the other person listening to you. It was so funny when I'd asked that question every single one of my interviewees, tell me about yourself, and some people would just choke like, well, I you know, I don't know what to say. It's just you know, it's right there on the resume. Other people would just kind of say something summary of the resume and stop after three minutes, and then I'd have to start probing. And I'm not judging people harshly necessarily, but it was more the answers than the process. Then I had people who would go on and on and tell me, well, in first grade, you know I did this, and then I'm like, okay, no, let me give you a quick outline. Here's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for connection points of how do you think That's part of what I'm looking for, not just what you've done. Why did you make these moves? What precipitated some of these moves? You can tell me part of your personal story. You had to care for a sick parent, or you had to take time off to, you know, deal with the child with special needs. Tell me those things that to me is interesting, is a directly relevant to the job, Not necessarily, but it gives me some insight into some of the things that you've been through that might help shape how you think. And that's what I'm really looking for.
00:11:06
Speaker 1: So the personal is professional in your mind.
00:11:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd learned that probably the most when I got to Spencer Stewart, because I've just gone through some of the hardest times in my life, and so I needed to integrate what was going on, just having lost my mother, my son being one year old, asking my husband for divorce, I say that kindly telling him and then showing up at this global search firm. That was my first month in all that had happened.
00:11:35
Speaker 1: And you were the only person of color there. Yes, So you were navigating that too, Yes.
00:11:40
Speaker 2: And I had been working with a healer. He's so much more than a healer. He's a shaman, a guru, close personal friend, really gifted. He's a therapist, he's a theologian. And so I had been on my spiritual journey for a number of years, and I just knew I needed to integrate these things. It's not like I can meditate in the morning and and be fine and sort of peaceful, or at least seeking having that place as my place of respite and meditation and reflection and then come to work and just be like going hard. I needed to be the same person at my core, never trying to impose my beliefs on anyone in the workplace, but just showing up as who I am. There's one of me, and yeah we code switch, but at my core, what I believe in, what I believe about myself, that needs to show up every day, and I'm not going to suppress that because that weakens me.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I guess in my profession as a broadcaster, I've often thought, is it chicken or the egg? Like I used to do morning TV, and I could be going through something so terrible in my personal life, but you have to show up and be really sunny on TV like you do. Have to kind of compartmentalize. And I always think, are people who are good at that drawn to that profession or do you learn it in the profession. I'm not sure, but I really like the idea of finding a way to integrate.
00:13:01
Speaker 2: And it can be quiet, it can be internal, not necessarily perceptible to others. Although people kind of saw me as the spiritual one, I had this aura about me.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was told I think people were drawn to you and that's why they're drawn to you on social media today.
00:13:16
Speaker 2: Well, that'd be nice. I appreciate that.
00:13:18
Speaker 1: It's true. I feel like, at least on my algorithm, I'm swimming in career content. Do you think that any of it is valuable?
00:13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, depending on where you are in your career, what it is that you're looking to get out of it, and then I think a lot of it is noise.
00:13:35
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I agree, But I've actually learned a lot from online career coaches or little resume tips. I had no idea, and we're going to talk about AI later, but I learned the other day on TikTok some woman was saying, on your resume, you should put a bunch of keywords in white ink so that they get past the computer system that's looking for certain keywords, so you can get to the next level, to get to a human I was like, I would have never known that.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: I didn't know that because I never worked with algorithms.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a whole different thing.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: Do you think that professionalism is important nowadays or does it feel manufactured?
00:14:14
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is anymore, you know, I mean, I go back to I came out of graduate school in the eighties. All right, I'm seriously dating myself. So it was skirts and pantyhose and all of that. So it was very different, but I kind of yearned for a little bit more formality. I mean, going to Silicon Valley, it's, you know, the epitome of casual. I just did a video talking about what we wear and how there's an element of I'm not remembering the word that they use, but there's a psychological term that says that when you like the way you dress, when you feel good about yourself in the way that you're dressed, you think more clearly. You show up differently.
00:14:52
Speaker 1: Also, people take you more seriously whether you want to do better or no.
00:14:55
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely they do, and understanding who it is your across from. I was in professional services. We served clients. You had to show up, You had to present yourself well to your clients, and some of that is the way that you look.
00:15:09
Speaker 1: Early in my career, I was financially struggling a lot, and I always made sure that part of my small budget went to hair and makeup and clothing. And a lot of people would have said that's a waste and that's crazy. But I really felt like no one was going to hire me unless I looked the part.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: I believe.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: Did you always do that? Did you dress for the job you wanted? Yeah?
00:15:35
Speaker 2: And I just have my own personal style and standards of dressing. You know, my mother was one of those women who you don't go to the grocery store without putting lipstick on it. Literally, she would say that. So I grew up. It wasn't bussy, it wasn't showy, but she taught me how to dress for my body. I'm six feet tall and super long legs, and so I couldn't wear with all the three girls we're wearing.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: So you look like this going to get coffee in the morning.
00:16:04
Speaker 2: Pretty much.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: I aspire to that level of professionalism. I am homeless or Hollywood. There is no in between. It's truly amazing.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: You know. I'm not obsessive. And again, it's not for your show.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: It's just it's who you are.
00:16:18
Speaker 2: This is how I show up.
00:16:31
Speaker 1: I think we live in this era of main character energy. Do you think that kind of energy helps or hurts at work?
00:16:36
Speaker 2: Some of that is going to fly in the face of collaboration, which is for most people, even if you're an individual contributor at work, you need to be able to get along with others, plain nice with others as they say. So. Yes, I think it can fly in the face of this showing up and being the main character. It's not always about you, I know.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: I think about like how you can show up and be the main character without pissing people off. And it's like, be extra competent.
00:17:05
Speaker 2: Be competent, be perceptive, watch signals. What is your goal in being there? Because depending on what the gathering is about your participant. Now, if you're the one sucking the air out of the room, always wanted to raise your hand and say the most important thing that gets tiresome, you're going to turn people off.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: Do you know Bozoma Saint John. That is somebody who I look at her and I'm like, you brought main character energy to your jobs and people loved you for it. She must be really perceptive because she knew like when to bring it and when to listen. And if you bring that kind of energy, you have to be really perceptive.
00:17:40
Speaker 2: It seems you absolutely do. And I think what's really dare I say in Vogue now is the authenticity. Are you putting on a show, are you doing something actually just for someone else to observe, or are we seeing the real you?
00:17:56
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:17:56
Speaker 2: Because I think some people wear masks at work.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: You've talked about something called role prison. Can you explain what that is?
00:18:03
Speaker 2: Well, people get into a role and they think that's all they can never do. Is that what you're referring to.
00:18:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like people start behaving according to what they think their title requires, yeah, rather than what the work needs.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: That's dangerous because part of it tells me that on just a personal level, you're caught up in a title. That's your first mistake. Because these titles anywhere pick a place, they tend to be ridiculous, right, I mean we've seen some that are just really crazy.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: Do titles matter anymore?
00:18:31
Speaker 2: We're still in a hierarchical environment, and so to the extent that it shows rank or level, people in those roles want that. They want others below them subordinates to respect their title and hopefully there's a commensurate amount of competence that goes with the title. That's a big if, because I've worked for people who had big titles who weren't always as competent as I would have expected.
00:18:56
Speaker 1: How do you navigate that situation when you feel like you know more than your boss?
00:19:01
Speaker 2: Do your best to build them up. That's what I would say. It's not going to serve you well to babmoutholm. Other people are probably aware of it, and so to the extent that you can fill the gap, do that.
00:19:12
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about competence a lot. Yeah, and you've said that it's the real currency in the room. What do you mean by that.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: Well, let me describe what the term and I talk about competencies. I was trained to do competency based assessment as a recruiter. The way I describe competencies as the deconstructed elements of how you do something. It's not just that you've done it. That doesn't tell me that you're competent. I know lots of people have done stuff and they're not.
00:19:37
Speaker 1: You know, you're savage in the best way.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: I'm oh, you have no idea. You know my nickname Maybe you don't. It's GMFC G C Oh my god.
00:19:48
Speaker 1: I was given it Jenny MF Clark for anybody listening, got it.
00:19:53
Speaker 2: I'm kind, I'm loving, but I just see things very clearly, and they're not absolute. This is all through my lens, right, But you were competent, competency thinking, deconstructed elements of how you do something.
00:20:06
Speaker 1: How do you communicate that to somebody?
00:20:08
Speaker 2: Though?
00:20:08
Speaker 1: Like if I'm in an interview, how can I describe my how storytelling?
00:20:12
Speaker 2: We're back to that, okay, And the way I seemed to fall into this before I became an executive recruiter. I recruited for two years after I graduated from undergrad University California at Davis, and then I went to business school. Then I went into banking, commercial real estate executive recruiting. In the interviews, the more time and the more varied experiences, I had to create the through line for the person I was speaking to so that they understood what was it that I had learned and what skills had I developed that made sense to what it is that they do? Now?
00:20:45
Speaker 1: What did you say?
00:20:46
Speaker 2: When I was going into Spencer Stewart, I was able to talk about how I developed business when I was in the commercial real estate investment management business because I had clients and I had to go out and find them. I talked about how I thought, how I processed and worked on different challenges in that space, How I innovated, how I developed things, how much I recruited, I did recruiting. I wasn't a recruiter in these other companies, but they would send me on campus on behalf of the company to recruit for them because I was a line person who could interview. So I just dropped these little nuggets of things that I had done that were relevant and it made sense.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: I'm like deducing here. Would you say that you could look at a company's objectives if it is to grow their business, whatever those are, if you could name three of them and then try and fit in how your personal story give them the how for a few of those, and that would be a good interview.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: Well, and it's not just the company. Yes, that's the container, but it's the role. To talk about the role, because so many people, as I was saying, they assume if you've done it, if you have a similar title, ooh, that makes it really easy. They've done this before. You're not asking nearly enough questions.
00:22:00
Speaker 1: There are three really good questions to ask somebody when you are being interviewed.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: Give me an example. That's one. So give me an example of when you had to deal with someone who was difficult, you had a difficult client, to offer them a hypothetical situation and say how would you handle this? That's quite telling, So it's not just the what, it's the how back to that?
00:22:21
Speaker 1: And then how about the reverse side. If you are being interviewed, what are a few questions that are really thoughtful and great to ask?
00:22:29
Speaker 2: The basic ones of tell me something about your organization that you don't like, or there's some simple ones that really aren't that thoughtful, So do your homework. And I would advise people to get as granular as possible so you can know something about damn near anybody that you're talking to. So do your homework on the interviewer, and I would ask a question that's more specific to them and maybe the role that they're in, how they think about the work that the company is doing, or the role that this individual plays in the organization from their perspective, so that you're actually learning something so the question doesn't become just a platitude.
00:23:07
Speaker 1: What do you think? And be honest, what do you think of the question like what is your biggest pain point day to day? And what would somebody in this role do to make your life a lot easier.
00:23:19
Speaker 2: It's not a bad question.
00:23:20
Speaker 1: Don't seem excited by it. It's not a great question.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: To the extent that it might have already been answered. When people hold on to they have this sort of list and they have these questions, and it's like, well, I actually already talked about a lot of that. It doesn't feel probing, it feels rehearsed.
00:23:34
Speaker 1: Well, what I'm hearing you say, though, is that a lot of this is practice. Because I think about myself at twenty two, There's no way I'm going to be present in an interview. I'm so nervous. I'm not practiced. Like I could go in now at thirty five and be present. I don't even know if I could have done that three years ago.
00:23:51
Speaker 2: I get that, and keep in mind I was interviewing as a recruiter. These were very senior people. When I was a college recruiter was more Those were very different kinds of conversations. Okay, so thank you for like kind of making that distinction. But I still think back to your original question around what I call the narrative. Everybody needs one be able to tell your story, even if no one's giving you any real guidelines. Have something in your head about why you're sitting here?
00:24:18
Speaker 1: Are there certain beats in the story to hit, Like if you could break down what are the beats you want to hit?
00:24:24
Speaker 2: Why you're here? You're trying to hit why I'm interested, because you'd be surprised how many people take interviews and they actually don't know much about the organization, don't really care. Really, it's an opportunity, it's an opening, and they're sitting here.
00:24:39
Speaker 1: But it's such a competitive job market nowadays.
00:24:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, but some people are there just because someone said yes to them and they haven't given it a lot of thought, and that's unfortunate.
00:24:47
Speaker 1: I'm really surprised to hear that, especially you're having done like senior recruiting. That's shocking.
00:24:53
Speaker 2: Or you're supposed to be impressed by them. All right.
00:24:54
Speaker 1: Eight, So you've considered yourself a former executive recruiter, conscious leadership expert, executive coach, keynote speaker, and workplace activists. What do you consider your competency.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: My competencies are around how I think. I'm a holistic thinker. I look at things. I'm able to zoom in and zoom out. I'm highly analytical, qualitatively analytical. I'm a systems thinker, and that I think comes from my training in language linguistics in French and loving to read the dictionary. So I perceive things in a deeper way than a lot of people who just might give it a cursory observation. I see everything, watching people, I'm sensing, I'm using all of my senses. I'm highly intuitive, so I see a lot.
00:25:40
Speaker 1: You're hired give a moment, but can I tell you what stood out for me? I was thinking, like, okay, I'm sitting across from her. When you said I think more deeply and see what other people miss, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Like you hit something there with the way you described it. I just think that's good for people to notice they're thinking about how to describe their own competency.
00:26:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely one of the ways I came up with the five dimensions of conscious leadership, and it's not just for people in leadership roles. By the way, know yourself, speak your truth, inspire love, expand consciousness, and activate mastery. I came up with those when I was getting ready to leave Google, and I look back on my entire career to reflect on what did I think make leaders good or great or terrible? And these are the personal characteristics that I think underlie any functional expertise, any leadership expertise. These are personal attributes that people need to consider, because I think a lot of people don't. They're just like, I'm here, I'm good, I've done all these things. Their identity is their resume, which you were alluding to earlier, and that's very dangerous. I think we need to step back. You're not your job. You need to know who you are, what you stand for, what your values are, why you're here. It's simple stuff, but I think a lot of us are lost.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: Well, I have to tell you. I've had the woman on the podcast named Susie Welch who created something called the Values Bridge, and you take a simple quiz and it tells you what your sixteen values are in order, and we conflate values and virtues. So kindness is really important to me, and I thought that was a value, that's a virtue. I ask myself questions all the time. I ask questions for a living, and I had no idea what my real values are. I think, like you really have to carve out the time, it's very difficult to really know yourself.
00:27:29
Speaker 2: It is especially now, especially with social media.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you have everybody else's opinions. I have found that in my career, my professional life really only expands as much as my personal development. Have you found that to be true in your life.
00:27:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, because my personal development matters more. I can't be someone totally different when I show up at work from the essence of who I am. Maybe some people can, maybe they have to. Yeah, you get all of them, you know, it's kind of all or nothing again, you know what's appropriate. Yeah, But at my core, I'm the same person, and I wish that for everyone because I think trying to be something you're not is exhausting and depleting. And if you don't know, then I think you're missing big aspects of yourself that you could be bringing into the workplace, bringing into the rest of your life that you haven't. And it's more than just the language. It's the awareness.
00:28:39
Speaker 1: As a recruiter, would you hire somebody that you liked over somebody with high competency?
00:28:46
Speaker 2: No, in the workplace, I need competence. Do I need to like you? Not necessarily if I find you obnoxious that's a problem if I don't perceive that you're going to work well with others.
00:28:58
Speaker 1: There's sort of a meter.
00:28:59
Speaker 2: There's a meter, but you've probably heard me say I don't need to be liked, so if someone else needs to be liked, there's kind of a hole there, I think. And that's cause for concern.
00:29:09
Speaker 1: Because so much of your work intertwines the personal and professional, and I just want to say that I deeply appreciate that. How do you think about personal and professional boundaries? Are there professional boundaries when you're a high achiever, high performer?
00:29:23
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
00:29:24
Speaker 1: Really Yeah.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do anything my superior. I work for myself now, so I am that right. But when I think about the people on my team, I only have two full time people. I'm not going to ask them to do anything I wouldn't do in the context of work, you know what I mean. I'm not going to ask them to work all weekend. If we all agree that we have to get something out, we're on a sprint and we're all going to do it, then that's one thing that's a boundary, and personal boundaries I'm probably even more locked down on those.
00:29:53
Speaker 1: I want to sort of dig into this because you talk about how nobody teaches us how to say no. You actually talk about it very often on your Instagram. Why is that important to you?
00:30:02
Speaker 2: Because I see so many people in the workplace, people like coach people I encounter who are people pleasing. They don't know how to say no. They don't think it serves them to say no. And I just think it's really important that you know what your boundaries are and you're able to express them. Because this is maybe my upbringing, but you know, I don't owe you anything. If we're in a work environment and I have responsibilities and deliverables, of course I'm going to honor those commitments. But you want me to do something else that goes well beyond what's expected maybe of others. No, And part of my barometer is what I ask somebody to do that under the same circumstances.
00:30:42
Speaker 1: Do you think that is realistic for a startup because that feels like very true in a corporate environment, But when I think about startup environments, I'm like, I don't know if that's even possible.
00:30:53
Speaker 2: It might not be. I mean, where you're sort of a jack of all trades, master of none, as I say, right you need to jump in and that the team I have now, frankly, they'll do anything we agree. Can you do this? Yes? I can. No, I'm probably not the one to ask, So yeah, I do like having people in a startup. Yeah, but still there might be boundaries.
00:31:13
Speaker 1: You've called interviews theater, so I really want to know who's the worst actor in the room, the candidate or the company.
00:31:21
Speaker 2: You know, I would say the company. But a company is nothing more than a bunch of people. And I always say that the culture is determined by the senior most leaders, So I guess it kind of trickles all the way up to leadership.
00:31:32
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about culture. It's something that as a millennial I've heard in the zeitgeist a lot. Yeah, and there is company culture. You can feel it that you walk in, But I find it to be very amorphous, like very rarely is there a culture or a value system written on the walls. You just kind of walk in and feel it. So when you say it's set by the leaders, do you think it's caught not taught? Do you think it's taught? How does it get set?
00:32:00
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't even think it's necessarily intentional in a lot of companies. I mean, they might have their sort of ethos or whatever's on the website or have it written down on a wall, but then when you walk in I refer to it as the soup that you're in. You feel it. You just said that you feel it, and very often what you feel is not what might be on that wall exactly. The leaders are the ones who set the tone very typically without thinking about it. It's what they will and will not tolerate. That to me is one of the big elements of what is going to determine the culture. What are people getting away with, what kind of behavior is incentivized? See.
00:32:38
Speaker 1: I think that's so interesting because I think when people talk about culture, they think it's we are kind, we are doers, But it's actually who gets hired and who gets fired Because you watch what behavior gets rewarded and what.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: Is punished and how you're treated and by whom.
00:32:54
Speaker 1: It's more simple than I thought.
00:32:56
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, people are simple in so many ways.
00:32:58
Speaker 1: So our producer and I loved this video you made about interviews. So you say interviews were invented in nineteen twenty one, How have we been conducting them wrong since then? You need to spill the tea. I didn't realize they were this old.
00:33:14
Speaker 2: And I think the reference was to the fact that this was sort of at the beginning of the industrial age, where you know, people open these factories and they had all these people show up, and they needed to figure out a way to discern who's more suitable than the other person. And so the interview and I think it's become something that we do a standard, but I just don't think they're done well. I think most interviewers aren't asking the right questions.
00:33:38
Speaker 1: I want a set of questions from you. I know that's so hard to give me when it's just a general conversation, but I would love to see you do a video about that. I'm so curious, like, what are people doing.
00:33:49
Speaker 2: Wrong the interviewers.
00:33:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell you from my perspective. Sure, I have just recently started hiring help and a freelance team, and I think I'm a really bad high I'm self aware enough to okay, I'm getting better at it. I do think part of its practice. I didn't know the questions to ask at the beginning. So I did look at the resume like you said, and I was like, Okay, they've done this before. I learned very quickly that doesn't mean competence. And I don't know the right questions to ask, so I don't know I have an expert. Here, can you advise me.
00:34:21
Speaker 2: I'll start with a shortcut, and that is take the job description hopefully you had one, drop it into your favorite AI system. Tell it what your expectations are, tell it what's not on the job description. Describe the circumstances in which this person is going to be operating, and what your expectations actually are. Not the to do, but this is the environment, the culture that we operate in. I'm this, I'm a that. Give it a couple paragraphs and then ask it to generate some questions for you.
00:34:52
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
00:34:53
Speaker 2: I mean I was a recruiter long before AI, but I learned myself how to contextualize what it is that I'm trying to hire. For given who was sitting in front of me, it became automatic for me.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: Wow, I love that answer. Thank you for that. I think everybody's different. I've boiled down. My most important quality is being proactive. Proactivity. That's what I'm looking for. What one quality were you really.
00:35:17
Speaker 2: Looking for for people? On my team or as a recruiter when I.
00:35:21
Speaker 1: Was as a recruiter, If you had to give us one quality.
00:35:24
Speaker 2: You know what, it's the self awareness. That's the quality I was always looking for. I didn't always name it as that. I'll never forget. I was sitting across from someone. I don't remember now if he became the final candidate, but in the end, I really like this guy and he was responding to a question I think, and I looked across. I'm at my big desk and he's sitting over in the chair, and I saw this little ten year old boy when I looked up, and it wasn't that he was childish. I just saw a vulnerability and I thought this was a decent, kind person. It wasn't what he said. What he talked about told me that he was competent, But there was something else that I noticed that let me know that he was human and kind, and that is something I value.
00:36:08
Speaker 1: If you could interrupt everybody's algorithm for five minutes, what truth about work would you force us all to sit with.
00:36:16
Speaker 2: It's a game, and once you understand that, you won't fight against it all the time. Half the stuff that people think is cast in stone and half the genius that they believe that their boss has. Oh you've got broken people, brilliant people, happy people, angry people, disturbed people, all here thrown together to do something. And it's a game and it's not always well played.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: So learn to play it if you could try and in a simple way, boil down who wins and who loses.
00:36:49
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think so many people think that they win when they make a lot of money or they have a big title and they're over lots of people. I just don't believe that's the case. For me, it was how can I impact people. I've been gone from Google five years, but when I still hear from members of my team and I'm employing one now, or they're reaching out just to say hey, they see me on social media and they're celebrating something, my son is in grad school or whatever. It's a personal connection, you know. And I think we don't do that well. It's not valued and people underestimate and you can't fake it. I'm not saying go try to be friends with everybody. I don't have that many friends from work or work colleagues. And we respect each other and like each other, but fewer friends. But I think we need to sort of understand what everybody's doing there.
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Well, what I think you're talking about, and tell me if I'm assessing it right? Is integrity one of my favorite words?
00:37:43
Speaker 2: Me too, I don't know that enough people actually know what that is, or regrettably that it's modeled by leaders, the ones that you would expect to embody that. That's how I grew up. My dad, I told you, was a superintendent of correctional facilities.
00:37:59
Speaker 1: And so much tight shit.
00:38:01
Speaker 2: Oh yes he did. I'm his daughter. I look like my mom. My brother looks like my dad, but my brother is my mother's son. I am my dad's daughter very much him. Hence the GMF sy. But yeah, I just think we need to get clear on why we're doing things, how we're doing things. And yes, the integrity piece is integral, but unfortunately integrity isn't often modeled by the senior most people. Yeah, and so that standard isn't set and the culture suffers.
00:38:32
Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever been able to name that. I appreciate you pointing that out, because all the best places I've worked, the leader, the number one in charge, has a lot of integrity and they hire people with integrity for the most part.
00:38:45
Speaker 2: Well, and the ones who don't have integrity who operate from that place at work. Well, I keep thinking of the coldplay situation, right that CEO with the head of hr.
00:38:56
Speaker 1: Oh, tell me what you think about that?
00:38:58
Speaker 2: How stupid and irresponsible frankly for the two of them to even be there, to get caught in public, in public, what were you thinking?
00:39:05
Speaker 1: Because there were other people from the company there too, so everyone was just kind of turning a blind eye. Yeah. I felt like, what you do on your own time is your business. Yeah, that is your marriage, you decide, But to bring it out into public as.
00:39:18
Speaker 2: A wild irresponsible.
00:39:20
Speaker 1: So you agree that they both should have been.
00:39:21
Speaker 2: Fired absolutely if I was on the board immediately bad judgment. Use that kind of judgment in work situations, No, out of here, gotta go. There got to be consequences to bad behavior, which.
00:39:34
Speaker 1: Is the culture piece it is. It kind of all fits together.
00:39:38
Speaker 2: That's why I was saying, what gets tolerated is going to determine the culture.
00:39:42
Speaker 1: Do you think then it's very important for us to as individuals recognize what our values are, maybe even write a list and only work at companies that align with our values. Is that even possible?
00:39:55
Speaker 2: That might narrow it down to too few. I just don't think companies are as deliberate and aware, and the leaders I don't think are necessarily holding themselves as accountable as they should to their employees. Very often, I think leaders think in terms of, you know, I'm accountable to my shareholders and to my board. What about to the thousands of employees. You're accountable to them too by showing up with integrity, And I think that's what's missing.
00:40:21
Speaker 1: If you are a person who wants to work on your integrity, what does that look like?
00:40:25
Speaker 2: Need to go somewhere and sit by yourself and look deeply into the mirror.
00:40:30
Speaker 1: Because what you're talking about is leadership, and you can be a leader in any role you're in.
00:40:35
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I guess I landed on that because I saw how many leaders people in leadership roles. So I use the term judiciously. When you're not leading well, but you're still called a leader. I just was disappointed. I expected more, you know, I held my dad out as that sort of standard of someone who knew how to set boundaries but respected people. And that's the difference that I talk about. I don't need you to like me. But as my mother used to say, you will respect me. I can't force you to do that. You will respect me if I am truthful, if I'm kind, if I have integrity, which means you can trust me. I don't think a lot of leaders can be trusted these days. They don't demonstrate that they are worthy of trust.
00:41:18
Speaker 1: As you're talking, I'm thinking about that. The best leaders I've worked for show up as the same person every day, so they're not, you know, full of integrity one day and then maybe in a bad mood the next. There's a consistency piece, like you trust them because they're consistent.
00:41:33
Speaker 2: That's right, and you know we're all human, right, So I would let my team know I'm kind of off today. I'm feeling a little wonky and dizzy, so you'll excuse me, you know, have some humility.
00:41:55
Speaker 1: I've had friends in other fields who are more in corporate worlds, and they've applied for jobs and they had to take a compatibility test before they even get to round one. And I feel like a lot of those are making people feel like they're fired before they're even hired. What do you think about those.
00:42:10
Speaker 2: I've never seen one of those tests. I'm well aware that they're out there. It triggers a little something for me in the sense that it sounds suspiciously like the fit. Do they fit our culture? What does that even mean? That leaves so much room for what I think often becomes I'll say it, it can be biased.
00:42:30
Speaker 1: That's how I feel.
00:42:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker 1: Can I tell you When I am given any sort of like paperwork and I have to click an identity box a race and ethnicity, a gender, I'm like, there's no good way to answer this, and I don't want to answer right because it feels like I'm damned if I do. I'm damned if I don't. What do you think about those?
00:42:49
Speaker 2: I mean, there was a time when I think some of that information was actually used to calibrate the outreach that an organization might have been getting. I co founded the City Practice at Spencer Stewart, and part of my responsibility Google was developing some of that expertise and capability, and so there weren't quotas, but also we wanted to know that we were getting a representative sampling of people who had the qualifications.
00:43:16
Speaker 1: Right, you want a pipeline of different types of people.
00:43:19
Speaker 2: That's right, but it can send a very negative signal.
00:43:22
Speaker 1: Well, I think nowadays it's so confusing. People don't know if they're going to be discriminated against because of a certain box, or they don't know if it helps them if they check a certain box.
00:43:33
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:43:34
Speaker 1: I guess Netflix is known for having like a lot of different boxes. People a check yeah, and I don't know if it's helpful or hurtful.
00:43:42
Speaker 2: I don't either, I just don't. I think there's this confusion because they might be asking for things they don't communicate why, and then can you even trust them or are you being screened out? Would you say, before you even cross the threshold.
00:43:56
Speaker 1: Do you recommend people just put like not applicable.
00:43:59
Speaker 2: Or other true? Just be you?
00:44:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you don't want to walk in somewhere where you're not welcome as you here, we have it, you got it ultimately.
00:44:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, The welcome can mean different things. I've been in situations where I was welcomed by the masses, but then certain people were uncomfortable with my presence. I represented a threat.
00:44:20
Speaker 1: Well, what I found so interesting about your story is that you shared that early on in your career at Spencer.
00:44:27
Speaker 2: What is it called Spence Spencer Stewart.
00:44:28
Speaker 1: Spencer Stewart that very early on they asked you to start a diversity program. Yeah, and you said no, thank you, and they were kind of shocked. Can you explain your thinking behind that?
00:44:38
Speaker 2: Well, it was a couple of things. One, I was going through so much with my young son and my mom passing a month after I started there, So that was one. So knowing my own physical emotional limitations in that moment. But the overarching thing was that I needed to learn the business of executive recres The way they did it what made them one of the top firms in the world. There's a way, and they had very clear standards, talk about professionalism. It was just very clear quality control. This is how we do things. And you know what. That worked for me because now that I know what you expect, I know what I need to learn and how I need to fortify what I came here knowing with spending time with people and just doing some of the work. So it was a great experience. It was probably the most formative role of my career because I learned so much.
00:45:36
Speaker 1: I love when you share that story because I think it signals the yes and no that you talk about a lot of people I think would have thought, Wow, an opportunity to lead so early on, And that was your self awareness that said I'm actually not ready yet.
00:45:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the ready wasn't as in knowledge, I could have done it based on what they wanted. I prioritized learning the business because ultimately that's how I was going to be evaluated. And what it was that they were asking me to do was a function of understanding the business, and that meant knowing people, knowing behaviors and you know, just some of the things that aren't on paper, and building relationships internally.
00:46:18
Speaker 1: So you've worked for two of the top companies in the world in terms of recruiting, interviewed thousands of people, hired hundreds of top performers. If you could give me three qualities that top performers have, what would they be.
00:46:33
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back to self awareness. I think they really do because that self awareness allows them to interact with other people in a way that brings the best out in those people. So it's a derivative of some of the leadership competencies that I was trained to assess for. So that's probably one. It's that how well do you know yourself? And that weeds out I think extreme behavioral maladies and things like you know, narcissism and other things that can be really destructive in an organization. So that's one. How many did you want?
00:47:05
Speaker 1: I'd love three if you have them.
00:47:07
Speaker 2: A sense of collaboration because even if you're coming into a leadership role, no one expects you to know everything. A good leader knows how to ask questions, how to admit when they don't know something. That's why you have a team. Have them know or go find out. One of the primary competencies is decision making. And again I'm going to fall back on what I mentioned earlier around the fact that so many people now are conflict diverse and people pleasing. They're derivatives of a similar mindset, I dare say. And so if you're a people pleaser or you're conflict averse or both, you're probably not going to make optimal decisions because you're too worried about what everybody else is thinking and you don't want to necessarily say anything because you're avoiding conflict. So that's why personal traits can influence the level of competence in a certain area.
00:47:59
Speaker 1: I love that really struggled with conflict, and I saw a therapist. I'll never forget. I was doing a morning show in Chicago and my boss and I butt heads a lot. I thought he was a person of low integrity and I didn't trust him, and that's one of my favorite traits or values, and so it was tough for me and we would disagree a lot, and I didn't know what information I could share with him. I went to a therapist and I was like, I'm so bad at conflict, and she said, no, you are just not practiced. So we're going to practice conflict. Your boss already doesn't like you, We're going to really practice with him.
00:48:33
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
00:48:35
Speaker 1: I love that we had so much conflict for a year. Now I don't get stressed out by conflict. I actually appreciate a hard conversation. So I only share that to say that if you are listening and feeling that, yeah, it is something that you can practice.
00:48:49
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I had to tell someone I was coaching. I said, you know, I'm not sure you and your manager are ever going to like be buds, so why don't you focus on building the best team this organization has ever seen in your function? Because trust me, word will get around. So you don't need to be the one. You have nothing to prove, per se, but go do the best you can possibly do. And trust me, his boss is going to find out how good you are because the top bosses have plants, they have people. Somebody once told me you seem to have your ear to the ground. It was like, huh, I probably do. It wasn't an active thing that I did. It's simply that people felt comfortable coming to me because they felt that they could what trust me.
00:49:36
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to give you some rapid fires. Okay, the workplace trend you didn't see coming. Yoga pants, the workplace trend that will not age well.
00:49:46
Speaker 2: Yoga pants.
00:49:48
Speaker 1: The number one thing not to put in a cover.
00:49:50
Speaker 2: Letter your test scores, work.
00:49:52
Speaker 1: From home, return to office or hybrid.
00:49:54
Speaker 2: Return to office. I want to tell you why later we keep going.
00:49:57
Speaker 1: Okay. The most outdated aspect of applying for jobs algorithms. First red flag in an interview.
00:50:03
Speaker 2: Wasn't kind to the admin.
00:50:05
Speaker 1: Overused corporate word that needs to retire immediately.
00:50:08
Speaker 2: I've been out. Now, let's see there's some of these platitudes that sound so stupid.
00:50:11
Speaker 1: We'll circle back, a title that people chase that just is not worth the stress.
00:50:16
Speaker 2: Anything but a c.
00:50:17
Speaker 1: The fastest way to lose credibility in.
00:50:19
Speaker 2: A room talk too much.
00:50:20
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty six way to say, per my last email.
00:50:24
Speaker 2: Maybe you didn't understand.
00:50:25
Speaker 1: Jinny, MF and Clark, thank you. You're so wonderful.
00:50:30
Speaker 2: What a pleasure. Thank you.
00:50:37
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day, to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
