Getting the ‘RIGHT’ Job

Your Work Friends Podcast: Getting the Right Job with James Hudson

Jobs aren’t magic…

And, they’re not always the right fit for you. Jobs are built, banded, and budgeted—before you ever apply. In this episode, we sit down with Talent Acquisition expert James Hudson (Regeneron, Nike, Levi’s, Net-a-Porter) to break down how jobs are created, how pay gets set, and how to land the role that actually fits you. Plus, we answer your biggest job search questions—and call out some wild hiring trends you should probably skip (yes, even that one with the parents).

Listen to the full episode here

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Francesca : 0:00

The fact that you can whisper to Alexa and she whispers back is a little creepy. I'm not gonna lie, it's a little creepy.

Mel : 0:08

Sorry to have taught you that, yeah so me and my son.

Francesca : 0:12

So now it's like yes, Francesca.

Mel : 0:18

I am banned from Portland.

Francesca : 0:36

Hello and welcome to your work. Friends were to HR leaders with no filter, but we're exposing the work stuff you need to know I'm Francesca and I'm Mel and Mel, how are you today?

Mel : 0:48

I'm doing great. It is beautiful morning in Portland. It's been Fantastic to spend a few days with you here, seeing the city, planning our year, so I'm excited for 2024. How?

Francesca : 1:00

are you? Yeah, mel made the truck out from Connecticut to to semi snowy, cloudy Portland Oregon.

Mel : 1:09

I've experienced all four seasons in three days. It's great.

Francesca : 1:12

That is Portland in winter. There you are, yeah. Well, now this week we had a really fantastic interview with James Hudson, who is a talent acquisition leader. He's held executive roles at places like Nike, leave eyes for over 21 netta portet and he's a contributor to Forbes, and I think he's just an all-around rad person. We talked to him this week about Getting a job, and not only getting a job, but getting the right job. Now, what did you think about our talk with him.

Mel : 1:44

I think it's so valuable the information that people will get out of this episode, just the tips, good practices, red flags to look out for and wonderful to meet James. He's fantastic yeah.

Francesca : 1:56

So here's the deal, folks today we're going to give you the interview with James Hudson, a talent acquisition vice president and leader. You'll be able to leave that episode understanding how jobs even become a job and how do you really get the right job For you. And we also asked an answer some of the burning questions you all have, like should you negotiate your offer and is it really all who you know? He answers all of that. We'll come back after the interview with our roast and toast. So here's our interview about getting the right job with James Hudson. We are super stoked to have James Hudson with us today. James, how are you this today? How are you today? What's going on?

James : 2:42

I'm pretty good. Yeah, first of all, thank you for having me on your show. It is an honor to be here. I just got back from a long trip over the holidays to Europe and I'm back in what is supposed to be sunny California and it's rain outside my window. So whilst I'm currently working on my job Outside my window, so whilst I'm grateful to be home, the the weather, it's a little bit of pathetic fallacy, it's yeah like outside and maybe I feel a little bit bleak inside.

Francesca : 3:09

But oh, you get past that today. You got to bring the energy, james. You can't, you can't bring the bleak energy. No, it's so funny. I think I'm just north of you up here in Portland. Mel and I are sitting up in Portland today. We're getting snow, you're getting rain, we're getting snow, we're getting snow.

Mel : 3:24

It's, it's coming. I did read, though, that in 40 days, the sunshine is going to stay out until 7 pm Again, so that's moving us from the sad era yeah.

Francesca : 3:34

I think we all needed to hear that today. I think I think James needs some sunshine in his soul. So there you go. You got 40 days to go, james. 40 days. Yeah Well, friends, we're stoked to introduce James to you today. James is a talent acquisition leader and has been an executive at places like Nike, levi's, netta Porte. He's also a pre-massive contributor on Forbes and an all-around rad person. And, james, you and I Overlapped when we were at Nike.

James : 4:04

We share that very unique trauma bond it.

Francesca : 4:07

We indeed do, and if you know, you know, you know, you know. So Today what we wanted to do is give everyone a survey of how this stuff works. How do jobs even come to fruition? How do they go from a concept to like a job board? How does someone find the right job for them Not just a job, but the right job for them, especially from your perspective? And then there's a lot of burning questions that are out there, so we'll do a quick round robin at the end to see what do you think about some of these burning questions. Everybody wants answers to. How does that sound? I'm gonna do my best to answer all these questions.

James : 4:42

Yeah, there will be a test. We will be grading you and judging you at the end.

Francesca : 4:45

So there you go. I'm just so, James. How did you even come into this space as a talent acquisition leader?

James : 4:55

You know, I've been leading talent acquisition teams for a long time now, for the best part of two decades. My last team at Nike, where you and I worked together, I had a team of our hundred recruiters that the team. Before that at Levi's, I had 60 recruiters working for me. So over the course of 20 years I've worked alongside hundreds, if not thousands, of recruiters and obviously met many more peers in the industry at events. And what have you? Of all those thousands and thousands of recruiters that I met, nobody ever intended to become a recruiter, and my story is no different. I fell into the profession Like everybody else appears to have done. If there's anyone out there that in high school, wanted to be a recruiter, please come and find me. I want to talk to you. So my actually, I actually think my story is pretty interesting in that In college, first time around my undergraduate degree, I worked on the shop floor at Gap and ice Dating myself.

James : 6:03

Here in the late 90s in Europe, gap a was expanding pretty quickly and B had fairly innovative approaches to how they manage their workforce, in that they recognize that a large percentage of the folks working for them would be part-time, transient workers, college kids what have you.

James : 6:25

In the UK, unlike here in the United States, it's pretty common to go quote-unquote out of state to college. Obviously we don't call them states but people. You know, people live in one part of the country and Go to college in a completely different part of the country. Back then the cost model was completely different. Our cost model in the UK now is Getting closer to the cost model here. Well, obviously, more frequently people tend to stay in state because it can be cheaper, cheaper, yeah, anyway, you, I like many people in the UK, my undergraduate degree was far from my home and Gap had this program where during term time you could work in your college store and during vacation time you could transfer your employment to your home store, and so they had this really flexible workforce that you could be employed year round.

Francesca : 7:18

Yeah, Get that discount too. Get that discount at home. Got to be looking right in those genes 1969.

James : 7:25

Yeah, that was cool in the 90s. Yeah.

Francesca : 7:27

I know, I know, I'm so what happened to Gap? Because I'm like, I'm still like is Gap still a?

James : 7:32

thing it's going to be. The new CEO just came over from Mattel and was responsible for the Barbie resurgence, so I'm excited.

Francesca : 7:42

I'm pulling for Gap. I'm pulling for Gap Gap banana. I'm athletic. Well, maybe I'm pulling for him all.

James : 7:47

Yeah, san Francisco hometown. Then in my last year of college I ended up moving to the team that hired the staff for all the new stores. So that was my first taste of interviewing and of hiring at scale, and I really enjoyed it, even though I was like 19 years old.

Francesca : 8:04

Making those decisions. I love it. What did you major?

James : 8:06

in.

Francesca : 8:06

Did you even major in HR, or are we Were you like mechanical engineering, my undergraduate?

James : 8:10

degree was art history. Nice, I didn't go back to business school eventually and get a proper degree in something sensible, but yeah, my undergraduate degree at art school was art history Not very useful at all. So, yeah, that was my first taste of hiring. Then, like very many British people, I took a year out after college and went traveling, and I actually stayed away for a year and a half. I spent six months in Southeast Asia and a year in Australia, and then when I got back to London a year and a half later, I had no money at all because I'd basically been on vacation for a year and a half and I have no idea what I wanted to do. And somebody said why don't you go work in recruiting? Because you've done that before and you'll make a ton of money. And I was like, oh OK, that sounds good. And so I interviewed with lots of different search firms in London, without really even knowing what executive search was, and landed a job with a search firm that operated in the sort of retail, head office, corporate retail jobs space, and so that was my first taste of professional recruiting. I did that for three years and what I learned was I loved the people side of search, but I didn't enjoy the cold calling and business development and sales that comes with agency recruiting, and so I knew that I wanted to make the transition to an in-house role so that I could keep the people side but lose the sales and business development element.

James : 9:37

I had just bought a house in London and one of my clients was at the time. This tiny little website had fewer than 200 employees, less than $40 million in revenue, but I just totally believed in what they were doing. Natalie, the founder, was just so visionary. Naomi, the head of HR, who I'd been working with as a vendor, I just adored her, and every week they would send out a list of all the open vacancies that they had and ask us and their other search partners which we could fill. And one week the list came through and they wanted their first in-house recruiter on a six month contract, and I knew that was it, and so I took a 50% pay cut and left a full-time job, even though I had a mortgage to pay, because I just really believed in what Netaporte were doing.

James : 10:30

And still, 20 years later, it's the best career decision I ever made, because when I joined it was this tiny, tiny company and I was just super fortunate to be right place, right time and to be able to grow with the organization for the best part of the near decade that I was there. We had triple digit year-over-year growth, so complete hypergrowth. We opened offices in New York, in Hong Kong, in Shanghai. We opened distribution centers around the world.

James : 11:02

I got to build out the internal recruiting function. In my first year there I hired 150 people on my own. By the time I left, nearly a decade later, we were hiring thousands of people every year and I established recruiting teams around the world. They sent me to business school and it was just the most amazing experience because I was having practical, real-world examples of everything that I was learning in school, because the business was growing so fast. We went through three rounds of M&A so I got to see both sides of the corporate transaction and I think everything that happened during that first decade then enabled me to make the transition to much larger scale quote-unquote corporate America where I've been ever since Right now.

James : 11:48

I'm resting, but yeah, well-deserved rest.

Francesca : 11:52

Well-deserved rest too. It's interesting, too, when you know you're running towards something right, even though it means a 50% pay cut, even though it means a smaller footprint, but then it turns into something exponential right, and it turns into something that sounds like it just married your gap experience, your agency experience, just from a global perspective too. Even that art history, I'm sure, came into play somewhere. Somehow. Design is design. And then you've gone on to things like Levi's, nike, et cetera too, and just kept on growing your career. It sounds like.

James : 12:28

Yeah, exactly, If Nettaporte hadn't grown so quickly, I don't think I'd have been able to make the transition from dot com to corporate America, just because of the scale and complexity.

James : 12:41

But by the time I left Nettaporte I had teams that I directly managed in Shanghai, Hong Kong, a very large team in London, I had a technical recruiting team in London and then a non-technical SGNA team in London and then another large team in New York.

James : 12:57

So because I'd already been able to have the global experience, the cross-border experience, multi-lingual recruiting experience, that then enabled me for my first big job, which was Levi's in Europe. So I moved to Levi's, moved me to Brussels, and so for two years I was crisscrossing Europe rolling out the workday technology and re-establishing the recruiting function in the region, and then from that job I was promoted to the head of recruiting role in California. So that brought me to San Francisco eight years ago now. And then my most recent job was head of talent acquisition for Nike's director consumer businesses worldwide. So, as you know, Nike's roughly $50 billion in revenue or it was maybe not this year and the director consumer piece was roughly half of that. And so my team worldwide hired 40,000 people a year for all of the satellite offices and stores around the world.

Francesca : 14:01

Yeah, this is the thing and one of the reasons why we wanted to talk to you today, because I think most people that don't sit in HR or sit in talent acquisition, I don't think most people understand how big and complex recruiting organizations, internally at companies, are. So if you're in a fortune, if you're trying to get a job at a Fortune 500, 1,000, 5,000 firm, you're going to be dealing with a very large team of people that are incredibly skilled at trying to find the best person for the role Sometimes, yeah.

Francesca : 14:34

Listen, there are some real dipshits out there. That's actually true in every single team and everybody knows that. But there are systematic tools, processes, procedures in order to find the right person for the role and, a lot of times, some great people and sometimes some dipshits. So one of the things that we wanted to jam with you about, james, was to kind of educate people on how does something go from a concept like we need somebody in this role to a job posting. I'm wondering if you can open the hood for us and just share. How does a job become a job? Almost like how does a bill become a bill. How does a job become a job?

James : 15:11

It's a great place to start, thank you, thank you. It's one of those areas where there's a ton of myth and misunderstanding. Quit. Let me caveat this by saying everything I'm going to say is from the perspective of large scale organizations, fortune 500 size companies and obviously in smaller organizations you know 100 people organizations everything is a bit looser.

James : 15:42

But the second that you get to any kind of scale, there is a huge amount of rigor and guardrails in how the business is run, and especially once that, because that business becomes publicly traded, there are rules and laws around what you can and cannot do, and that bleeds into every part of the enterprise and obviously HR is no different than any other part of the enterprise. There are rules, regulations and, in many cases, laws around what we can and cannot do. So caveat number one In any large organization there is a strategy which is, you know, often a three to five year plan, and there is an annual operating plan or budget, which is the shorter term, you know, six to 12 month horizon plan, and everything is captured in that plan. For most organizations, irrespective of industry, for most organizations the number one overhead is people. Yes, labor.

James : 16:48

The wage bill is the biggest expenditure and therefore subject to the largest amount of scrutiny. Organizations have a very clear idea at every point. So over the next 90 days, over the next 180 days, over the next year and over the next five years, what their wage bill is going to be. This is all a very long way of saying. Jobs are planned way in advance and as recruiting teams, we play a role in how those roles are brought to market. But we do not create those roles, we do not decide those roles. They're decided by at the highest level of the organization, then with the leadership teams within each function, with their finance teams way in advance, so that the biggest expense of the organization can be controlled and measured.

James : 17:49

In any normal established organization, 80% of jobs that are hired are going to be backfill or replacement for people that have left and roughly 20% are going to be net new headcount growth.

James : 18:03

That has been decided as part of the budget and strategy strategy process to decide we're going to grow this discipline or in this market or in this geography and therefore we need to add x amount of headcount so that 20% of headcount is pretty fixed because we've decided we need x amount of people in Germany or India or in data science, for example.

James : 18:28

The 80% is a little bit more ambiguous because obviously we don't know in advance who is actually going to leave, who's going to get another job, who's going to get promoted, what have you? But we know that in any given year, 20% of your workforce will leave one way or another, so you know that you're going to have to backfill 20% of people. So if your organization is 10,000 people, you know that in any given year you're going to have 2,000 vacancies to fill. You don't know exactly where they're going to be, but you can broadly assume, based on the size of the individual functions within your organization, we'll have 200 to fill in finance, we'll have 150 to fill in marketing, and so that's kind of at the highest level. What's going on with like how headcount is created and how roles come and go and exist within an organization?

Francesca : 19:21

Yeah, I think that's important, though, to know, because I just even know that most organizations are looking at like a 20% of the open jobs they have every year net new right we decide we're going to start making paper clips right Now we need paper clip makers, and we've historically been paper makers, for example. I think that's really important to know, especially because when people one of the questions we get a lot is especially around layoffs, for example, like how can people have open jobs and lay people off at the same time, and a lot of sometimes that's because a skill gap right, Because people we still need to hire the paper clip makers and we had to lay off the paper makers, if you will. So I think it's just helpful to have that context of how these things come into bear annually.

James : 20:05

Yeah, totally so. Then let's get into how the business is operating day by day.

Francesca : 20:11

Yeah.

James : 20:12

I'm running a team in finance and I know that for this quarter ahead I've got two net new headcount that have been assigned to my team that I can hire in this quarter. I can't hire them any sooner because the cost of that headcount is phased into the overall operating plan and if I'm the leader of that team and I want to hire those roles early, I can't just open them. I would have to get approval from either the leader of the function or maybe even up, depending on the size of the organization, maybe even up to C level. That's how tightly controlled costs are in most organizations. So even though the headcount exists, the headcount exists from a point in time, from a point in the budget, and if you can't even bring it forward because that would be adding more costs that wasn't planned for. So I think that's an important caveat that new headcount is phased and is hired when it's supposed to be hired Then if somebody resigns from the team and again, depending on the organization, it isn't even an automatic one-for-one approval that we could replace the finance manager that resigned.

James : 21:24

You often still have to go through an approvals process to get that role opened and the leader of your function may decide to reassign that headcount elsewhere and you might not get to backfill that role. But only after all that has happened does the role get passed to the recruiting team. The recruiting team just executes on a plan that has already been set. We're not responsible for creating headcount, for gatekeeping headcount, for deciding on which roles get filled. That is all done at the leadership and at the HR business partnering level.

Francesca : 21:58

Yeah, I think it's really important for people to know too, because a lot of times, when people interview for jobs, there's a difference between the hiring manager, the person that is going to be your boss, right and there's a and your recruiter. And this is why it's because the person that is going to be leading you is not the person that's going to necessarily be finding you and taking you through the acquisition process. Those are two separate people 100%.

Francesca : 22:21

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, the other thing I'm curious about is do you find that in most organizations like, for example, when I've been leading teams before I had $2 million for payroll, that was my payroll budget and I could decide how those roles and that pay was distributed among roles? Do you find, too, that when you have a job rec open that you're given a dollar amount? Like so, for example, you've got a job role open and this role cannot exceed $100,000 a year, $200,000 a year Are you typically also given a dollar amount too when the job rec opens? Just out of curiosity.

James : 22:59

So there's a few different things at play here. As the leader of the organization, it can happen in a few different ways. You can be given a total number $2 million and therefore you can hire 20 people $100,000, or you can hire two people at $1 million each. Yeah, in some organizations you're given both size and shape. You're given $2 million is your headcount budget, but you can only hire one leader, three managers and 10 associates, and so then that $2 million is already portioned out for you.

James : 23:37

Irrespective of how that happens to you as the leader of the organization, when you decide how your headcount budget is going to be spent for net new hires, those roles then need to be graded and leveled, because and again this is in larger organizations there are set bands and steps in the compensation framework and all roles are anchored to those bands and steps, and in a large organization there can there's typically 16 different steps in the pay hierarchy, so the bands run horizontally and then across the bands running vertically are job families, and so a level one role in finance will have a salary range and a level one role in marketing will have a salary range, and whilst they will be similar, they will not necessarily be identical because the ranges are anchored back to the organizational compensation philosophy, which is either tethered to the cost of living or the cost of labor in the market where the organization is either operating or hiring talent.

James : 24:54

So there's a huge amount of complexity in the background as to how roles are graded and priced and so as a recruiter, when you're given a live role, you know exactly where it sits in the organizational hierarchy it's a level five. It's a level five role in finance. So you know the salary band for that role. Roles are typically pegged at the midpoint of the range, so $125,000. So as a hiring manager, you will be told okay, you've got a level five role and it needs to come in at $125,000. But then your HR business partner might say well, actually the rest of your team is pretty legacy.

James : 25:47

And therefore their salary level are all around the sort of $115, $120,000. So you can't even go to midpoint. You can only go to 90% comp ratio for this hire to maintain internal equity. And so as a recruiter, when you get the live role, you get a lot of pieces of information about where this job has to land, whereas recruiters do not decide. We have to execute against what the budget is based on. All of those factors I've described.

Francesca : 26:20

Going back to what you started, this conversation with. This is so complex. It can get incredibly complex in terms of the amount of people in the room making the decisions from top to bottom. All the variables that we need to consider, even from bands that are well established to things like pay equity on a team to make sure that things are equitable and that you're also competitive right in the marketplace from a talent perspective. It's just really good to know, because if you've never been in HR or in talent acquisition or a hiring manager, most people don't know this and would be like well, I just want to make a million dollars a year, can you do that? It's like no, you're a level five in finance and this is the midpoint, and that's why Also good to know that there's just things like bands and pay equity as well, just to understand the lay of the land. I know, mel, you wanted to talk about finding a job, and not only finding a job, but finding the right job for you.

Mel : 27:16

Yeah, I really love earlier how we talked about your story, james, that you ran towards something that had a fire in you, and we want everyone to feel that way right, so want to make sure folks are finding the right job, not just landing a job, and would love your tips and tricks on that.

James : 27:32

A great question and it's, I think, very timely, in that we're living in an information age where we have far more transparency in all areas of our lives than we did even a decade ago, but there is still a degree of opacity around what it's like inside organizations. But yeah, we're also living in a time when we have five different generations in the workforce in some organizations, and the expectations of Gen Z are wildly different from even millennials, and I just think it's really interesting how these expectations and demands of the newer workforces are changing the work landscape and hopefully for the better, because what we have has not worked for so many different parts of society. Right, it's very clear that how we've run things up to now has not been great.

Francesca : 28:42

Yeah, it kind of sucked. I think this is the thing that a lot of people don't think about.

Francesca : 28:47

I was telling Mel this the other day when I first started working. So I'm 44, right when I first started working, my first job was at Accenture and I got a desktop and I remember I loved my time at Accenture. It's not an Accenture, but I remember being in the office and working until 10 o'clock at night and there was not a question of whether or not I was going to work. This is what was expected. You earn your stripes, you labor so you can get to that partner level. That was what was expected and I love the idea. We've been talking a lot on the pot around. Do we have to live like this? Do we need a dream of labor? And I feel like your Gen Z is coming in and being like guys. This blows what are we doing?

Mel : 29:26

Yeah, my favorite tic-tac recently was a young woman who just started her first full-time job and I really had empathy for her because she was like is this, it Is this life? I work, and then I have no time for my friends or any of my hobbies. I work, I come home, I go to the gym, I cook dinner, I go to sleep and it's like Groundhog's Day and she was having somewhat of a panic attack about it. Right, and she made a good point. Francesca, you and I have the same kind of history there. I also had a desktop in my first job in big law, working until 10, and then you get home and you're like just recycled. But we were always told this is what's expected. I really love that.

Mel : 30:06

Gen Z is bringing a different perspective and millennials started it a little bit. I like to see that Gen Z is really kind of demanding more transparency in the workplace, including recent laws around salary transparency, even in job descriptions. I think now it's more important than ever. How can people find the right fit? So one of the things that's an interesting topic to me is the legitimacy about what the culture is like, what you're going to experience in the workplace. How can people find that information out? So if a candidate's going out and they're researching different companies for the job that they're looking for, how do they know that that company is legit about what they're putting out there and it's not just kind of word, lip service, on their website?

James : 30:54

And what's great about? I mean, there are a lot of negatives to living in the information economy, but what's great about the information economy is that it was so much more networked than we ever were before. So my number one tip is obviously start by trying to connect with people on LinkedIn that work at the company or companies where you're hoping to work, and obviously try and connect with a cross section of folks, so people within your discipline. So if you're a marketing, obviously focus on the marketing team. But also, what's great about LinkedIn is LinkedIn will help you find the people that are most active on the platform. So go where it's warm, right? So if you want to work at Nike and actually the people at Nike that are most active on LinkedIn are in supply chain well, start there, right, because they still work at the organization. So target folks at the places that you want to work and start to make connections with them on LinkedIn, and then the more time that you spend with them virtually will hopefully lead to at least a coffee chat where you can ask them what it's really like. Tip number one yeah. Tip number two Glassdoor is a great resource.

James : 32:09

If you take it to the next level, glassdoor is like Yelp, right Right. It's polarized, in that you've got a lot of positive and a lot of negative, because those are the people that are mostly motivated to say something. So you have to be a little bit discerning when you're reading reviews on Glassdoor. Still will tell you that the average user reads six comments before they form an opinion. I would say, okay, read 30. Do you know what I mean? Like this is somewhere you're going to be spending 40 hours a week for the next two, three, five years. Like read as much as you can to get more of a sense of are these just angry people or is this a theme that may or may not be concerning to me? And then where it gets really interesting is last year Glassdoor launched really powerful new functionality, which hasn't had much airtime and I really wish more people knew about it, in that they allow you to slice the data by demographic and so on Glassdoor. Right now, you can see the average company rating for the employees that work there and it's out of five and they might have a 3.5 or a 4.0.

James : 33:30

And then what you can do is slice it by demographic and say well, what do women think? What do LGBTQ people think, what do people of color think and what's really? And I encourage everyone to go and try this. What's obviously really disappointing is that for virtually every company out there the underrepresented folks, their scores are always lower In every organization, even your dream organizations. Women, people of color, lgbtq folk consistently have a worse time than the general population. That sucks, but that's the society that we live in. What I encourage folks to do is look at the Delta. If you accept, rightly or wrongly, that it's always going to be lower for those of us that are not straight white men, look at the Delta and where the number is, particularly where the gap is particularly big. That might indicate not might it does indicate that that organizational culture is not somewhere that you would thrive, irrespective of how you identify. Do you want to work in a place where women, lgbtq folk and people of color consistently have a worse experience?

Francesca : 34:45

No, the answer is no, absolutely not. Don't go there. Yeah, exactly.

Mel : 34:52

Oh, I love that feature because I think it's incredibly important to gain that perspective, especially as a woman. If you're LGBTQ, if you're a person of color, being able to see what that experience is like it gives you that inside look into the culture.

James : 35:09

There's no smoke without fire, right? If there are consistently people saying really terrible things about the place that you want to work, there may be some truth in that. And then my last tip is if you get as far as an interview at your quote unquote dream organization, again, irrespective of how you personally identify, ask if the organization has ERGs employee resource groups and then ask as part of your interview process if you can meet with someone from that group either a group that you identify with or a group that you're an ally to and if they don't have ERGs, red flag number one. And if they have ERGs but won't let you speak to anybody, red flag number two. It tells you that something shady is going on and you don't want to work there.

Mel : 35:58

What other red flags should people look out for in the job description interview process? What are some things that stand out to you that folks can pay attention to?

James : 36:08

There's a ton of click-batey articles about these red flags in job descriptions, and I'm super wary of that because, again, coming from having worked in a side corporate America for a long time, I know that job descriptions can often be literally 10 years old and have been no relation whatsoever on what it's actually A what the job is or, b what it's like to work there, and so, yeah, you never know who wrote the job description or how old it is. So I don't know that there's anything super valuable that you can get from that. It's more what you can pick up on by people that are currently working there either what they're saying on review sites, what you're able to glean from them by networking on LinkedIn, or what you're able to discover during the interview process. I think that's your best barometer.

Mel : 37:05

That leads me to my next question. Around the interview process, you're in the interview, especially since a job description, as you said, it can be old. Sometimes they don't get updated for years, as you mentioned. So what are some questions candidates should ask in every interview to make sure that they understand what their duties will be? What does their day-to-day look like? What does the team look like? What are some things that they should ask, no matter what, just to get a very clear picture of the truth, of what their experience will be like in that position.

James : 37:38

Yeah, and before I even get into specific questions, I think it's about remembering and framing it in your mind that the interview is a two-way street.

James : 37:52

You're interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you and what is scary. But what you have to get really good at is that when you come out of an interview and you think, oh hell, no, then you have to hold on to that. You have to be like no, trust it. Yeah, I have decided no, because, especially in a market like this, where it's so easy to fall into a scarcity mindset, we come out of an interview thinking that, ooh, I've got a bad feeling and then we talk ourselves into it because we need to get a job. Trust your instincts. If you get a bad feeling, there is a reason for that.

Mel : 38:30

Trust your gut. I've had that feeling before. Have you ever walked away from an interview process after an interview and just said no and sent them a note about it?

James : 38:41

I have done the opposite of that. I've done what I've told people not to do, in that, if you look at my career history, you'll see that I'm a tenure guy. I tend to stay around in places for a long time and wherever it's been a short tenure, it's because and there's only two of them it's because I found out too late that my personal values did not align to the values of the organization. And I had a very brief stint at Forever 21, which, since I left it, went bankrupt and is now owned by a VC firm. So I feel comfortable saying this. But when I went to interview at the HQ in Los Angeles, there were Bibles in the meeting room and I was like this is weird, like religion does not belong in the workplace.

Mel : 39:41

Absolutely not. That's strange, that's very strange.

James : 39:45

Yeah, and it's because the family that owned at the time were very strong believers in their faith, which is great. But that does not belong at work and obviously I ignored that giant red flag and was one of the more toxic environments I'd worked in because they were trying to mix their personal views with corporate America and those two things I will tell you.

Francesca : 40:10

That has been absolutely true for me too, like I've had two jobs that I knew in the interview process no bueno and they ended up being no bueno, and it's almost like dating. You know you date somebody and like week two you know week two like the thing that's going to end it. It's like food poisoning as well. Right, you can eat a whole day's worth of stuff, but you knew it was the fish. You know that's the same shit. It's the same shit. Love the advice. Don't do it.

Mel : 40:39

Just say no, just say no.

James : 40:41

Trust your instincts.

Mel : 40:42

I recently read that there's a proposal to pay people for their time in the interview process to avoid this type of thing. What do you think about that?

James : 40:58

I really strongly believe that if you are going to be setting folks any kind of take homework or any kind of lengthy assessment, you should pay them for their time.

James : 41:14

You certainly shouldn't be requiring people to give you their IP for free, right? However, having worked on the other side of the desk in corporate America, trying to bring any of that to life would be such a nightmare, both in America and in Europe, where we have different sets of rules and regulations. Like you're essentially trying to either payroll someone that's not already on the payroll or create, make a new vendor for someone that's not a vendor, and for anyone that's worked in corporate America, you know that doing either of those things is an administrative nightmare. So trying to get to a place where that happens at scale, I just don't see it happening anytime soon, because you know how are you going to pay hundreds or you know, in my case, hundreds of thousands of people that are going through an interview process, and not just the money, how are you going to fund it, which is question one. But even assuming there is a budget for it, how are you actually going to physically pay these people, right? Just, it's not going to happen.

Mel : 42:25

Yeah, that's complicated it can be. It's its own whole department just managing that alone.

James : 42:29

How are you going to ensure that they pay their tax so that they've identified you from their tax, are they?

Mel : 42:33

1099?.

Francesca : 42:36

Yeah, I feel like everybody's getting target gift cards Be happy.

James : 42:40

Even that's questionable right.

Francesca : 42:42

Yeah, there are rules.

James : 42:43

Yeah, yeah, like.

Francesca : 42:45

Oh yeah, you can't go over.

Mel : 42:46

Yeah, there's a lot of complication. It's interesting. I've heard that tossed around a few times now. It's an interesting concept.

James : 42:55

Nice idea. I just don't see it being executed at scale.

Mel : 42:58

Yeah, yeah. In terms of the inner how many interviews? How many is too many? What's what's a red flag a candidate should look out for In terms of you know, now you're on your 15th interview for this role. Is there a magic number or a place where you're like, if you're getting to this many interviews, you should probably hit pause? That should give you that's a red flag that you should look out for.

James : 43:26

I love this question because there is a clear, unequivocal answer which I wish more people knew. Over the course of three or four years, Google did a huge longitudinal study where they looked at tens of thousands of hires and hundreds of thousands of data points, and they were able to conclusively prove that the magic number for interviews is four, Because after four the quality of the decision making process does not improve enough to justify the initial, the further investment of time. The sweet spot for high quality decision making is for interviews, and so any forward thinking and well run TA function knows that because they've all read Laszlo Box book work rules. If you haven't read work rules, I encourage you to go out and read it. It's phenomenal, not just for hiring but just for how Google think about or thought about people back when Laszlo was running HR. So four is the magic number. Most places in corporate America, probably for senior level roles, probably still around six. Anything beyond that is just a joke.

Mel : 44:55

It's a waste. Yeah, it's a time waste. Well, we'll link to that recommendation in the show notes because that's a great recommendation for folks. So we'll do that. For job seekers, I read your post today on LinkedIn about the post pandemic job market, so I'd love to give space to talk about what job seekers should know about this post pandemic job market and finding success and finding the role that's right for them. What advice would you give?

James : 45:21

Sure, I think what's really interesting that's happening right now is a perfect storm that is exacerbating conditions that have been prevailing for a while. What I mean by that is, in the talent marketplace there has always been a signal to noise issue in that a decade ago, a job posting or job ad might receive 100 applications and in every part of the enterprise in every geography that I've worked in, the numbers are always the same. In aggregate, of those 100 applications, roughly 25 of them will meet the minimum criteria for the job and 75 are just not qualified at all. And part of the recruiters job is to separate the signal from the noise right to find amongst those 100 applications the 25 that qualified, to speak to those 25 people and decide of those 25 who were the six or seven that most closely match the brief from the hiring manager and take those into the process At the highest level. That's, you know, a big chunk of the recruiters job for dealing with inbound applications.

James : 46:42

And then we'll move on to today, where we are living in the after effects of the massive structural changes to work and labor that the pandemic created, the macroeconomic tsunami that we've all been through and the significant strides forward in consumer facing tech, which, to be clear, all good things. As a job seeker today, as an applicant, today, you have so many powerful tools that enable you to turbo charge your application process, which is fantastic. What that means, though, is that a because of the macroeconomic situation, be because more people have had a taste for remote or hybrid work and want to pursue that, see, because we've got so much more visibility in the age of information. And D because of the powerful tools that are now in the hands of everyday job seekers, application volume has gone up 10 or 100 X. So a job oh yeah, you could get 100 applications could now get 1000 or 5000. And those ratios are still the same. Of those 1000 applicants, still only 250 people are going to be qualified in 750 and not, but a recruiter cannot speak to all 250.

James : 48:02

No way, and so it's the signal to noise issue has just gotten so much worse. And, yes, you can send out more applications and send out more curated applications and send out better applications, but your chances of the application being seen by the right person have diminished exponentially.

Mel : 48:21

And so, what can they do?

James : 48:23

to navigate.

Mel : 48:24

What? What can candidates do to kind of cut through the noise, especially if they feel you know pretty strongly that they they fit the profile. How can they cut through that noise? I see on LinkedIn all the time you see how many folks have applied for the job, which can be super intimidating. So how can you kind of put yourself ahead of the pack if you're qualified?

James : 48:47

So there's a few things. That number that you see yeah, it's not the number of applicants. The number that you see is the number of people that have hit apply, oh OK, which is different from the number of applicants that are inside the ATS.

James : 49:03

That's misleading yeah well, it's not misleading. Okay, that's the data that LinkedIn have which is valid. That's a number of people that did click apply, but I can tell you from sitting on the other side of the desk that the attrition from apply to applicant is massive. Okay, in that, in a volume environment, so you know companies that are hiring 10,000 people a year or more the average pull through is 16% and in one place I worked that may be a place that someone else on this the pull through was 1%. Oh, wow. So for every 100 people that click apply, only one applicant made it into the ATS, into the applicant tracking system, because the application journey was so cumbersome that 99 out of 100 people gave up. In most places, it's 16 out of every 100 that will come through.

Mel : 50:07

So you do not be intimidated by that number. If it's a high number, that's good to know.

James : 50:11

Do not be intimidated, because most people won't complete the application.

James : 50:14

Okay, and of all the people that do complete the application, only 25% of them are going to be qualified, but, that being said, it can still be hundreds or thousands of people that do all of that Right. So there is still a signal to noise issue. It's just not as bad as it appears on the surface to the everyday user, but I see both sides and it is worse than it was before, and recruiters have this deluge of applications to deal with. So just submitting your application is no longer enough, because if you just submit an application, it might never get seen. So you also need to try to figure out who is the recruiter at the company and get in touch with them, and who is the hiring manager and getting in touch with them, and ideally get a referral from somebody that already works there, because candidates that are referred by existing employees often go into a fast track processing lane and your application is more likely to be seen Not guaranteed to be seen, just more likely to be seen. So you have to go the extra mile.

Mel : 51:25

Yeah, at a minimum if you have a referral. Typically my experience in the past is when I worked in TA2, if it was a referral coming in, at a minimum we had at least a one-on-one screening interview with someone from talent acquisition to meet with that candidate, just as a bare minimum.

James : 51:41

In larger organizations? Sure, in smaller organizations maybe not.

Francesca : 51:46

And you can use LinkedIn to do all of this. You can be using LinkedIn to figure out who the recruiter is, figure out who the hiring manager is, send them an email. Linkedin is a great product, but LinkedIn is your place. Where you'd want to do this, yeah, 100%.

Mel : 52:00

What if the recruiter is not listed on the job rec on LinkedIn? What's a good way to identify who the recruiter may be or to get in touch? What can people do?

James : 52:11

Yeah, and by searching LinkedIn right for recruiters at Nike, for recruiters at Apple and, bear in mind, at large companies, there will be hundreds of recruiters.

James : 52:24

And so then you need to figure out, okay, and recruiters are normally obviously very active on LinkedIn.

James : 52:32

So once you find people that you think are going to be in the right area, then you need to figure out okay, this person's a recruiter at Apple, but do they recruit product managers or do they recruit marketing folks?

James : 52:44

You need to figure out what their area is, and you can usually see that by what they say on their profile, all the types of things that they post, and the closest you're going to be able to get as a normal user is figuring out the recruiter at the company in the broad job family that you're targeting, and then reach out to that recruiter and say, hey, I've applied for this role, and give them the unique reference number or whatever you get from the applicant tracking system, explain in three very short bullet points why you've applied, why you're a fit, and ask them to connect you with the right recruiter.

James : 53:16

If they're not, obviously, just make their lives easier. Now you might still not get a response, but you will stand more chance of getting a response. If you work in supply chain and you reach out to a supply chain recruiter, they're more likely to respond because they'll be able to see that you're qualified for the job that you've applied for. And if you're consistently doing this and consistently not hearing, then maybe it's time to ask yourself are you being honest with yourself and the types of roles that you're applying for?

Mel : 53:46

Yeah, that's great advice. Just don't keep repeating the same thing if you're starting to see a trend for yourself.

Francesca : 53:56

There's a lot of just burning questions around getting a job and telling the acquisition, and so I thought let's do a rapid round with you. You can answer yes, no or a one word answer. Are you ready to play?

James : 54:09

Yes, I'm going to really struggle with one more answer, but I'm going to try.

Francesca : 54:12

Okay, I believe in you. I believe in you. So, rapid round with James about getting a job. James, is it all who you know?

James : 54:22

No.

Francesca : 54:24

Should you put the green banner on in LinkedIn if you want to get a job?

James : 54:28

100%, and let me talk about that later.

Francesca : 54:30

Okay, should you do a cover letter? Do cover letters matter anymore? No, should you customize your resume for each role?

James : 54:38

No.

Francesca : 54:38

Thank you notes Do we write them or not?

James : 54:40

Yes.

Francesca : 54:42

Should you negotiate your offer?

James : 54:43

Yes.

Francesca : 54:46

Should the interview process last no longer than 60 days.

James : 54:51

Depends.

Francesca : 54:52

Should you quit your old job before starting your new job?

James : 54:56

Ideally not All right.

Francesca : 54:59

I want to go back to. Should you put the green banner on if you're looking at LinkedIn, the open to work banner? This is such a hot topic. Thoughts.

James : 55:09

There has been so much clickbait around this and it infuriates me.

James : 55:13

I actually wrote a piece and included quotes from the LinkedIn product managers that built the feature. Let me say unequivocally there are, in fact, two features. There is the open to work functionality, which most people don't know about, and then there is the open to work green banner, and they do slightly different things and, as a job seeker, you may want to do one or both of them. So, first of all, there's the open to work toggle, which, in your settings, you can indicate two recruiters that you are open to work, and you can also detail where you're open to work so both in your hometown or if you're open to relocation and the types of work full-time, contract and job titles that will be of interest to you. If you click that toggle, it is only visible to recruiters, and what all of the data from LinkedIn shows is that folks that do that typically see an uptick of 40% of in-mails from recruiters. That's huge, that's significant. There is no reason, if you're looking for work, why you shouldn't do that.

Francesca : 56:31

Even if you're curious, like, even if you're curious, you're like I don't know if I want to see at this gig, just put it on.

Mel : 56:35

Yeah, Put it on all the time, potentially just to have conversations.

James : 56:39

Yeah, why not Right? And LinkedIn say but do not guarantee that it's not visible to recruiters at your own company.

Mel : 56:50

That's good to know it's only visible to recruit.

James : 56:52

They can't guarantee 100% accuracy. And so what? Even if a recruiter does see that you're open to work like it's not, unless you work somewhere that's really evil, it's not going to come back on you.

Mel : 57:02

Yeah, good work environment. I mean, as a leader, I think everyone should always have their ear to the ground, right? Never know when your dream job might happen. So good work cultures, I think, encourage folks to always keep their ear. You hate to lose good talent, but you also shouldn't deter anyone from having those conversations if you're in a good workplace 100%.

James : 57:24

So that's the open to work feature.

James : 57:25

You should absolutely use that.

James : 57:26

The Green Banner, which has obviously had tons of click baity articles and what's really annoying is that most of the people that have an opinion about it have never worked in HR or recruiting and have no business talking about this Again.

James : 57:39

What the data from LinkedIn shows is that system wide, folks using the Green Banner get 20% more in-mails from the entire LinkedIn user base, so not just from recruiters, but from folks across LinkedIn, and for most users that is going to be a good thing because, even though the in-mail is not coming from a recruiter, the more connections you can make and the more you can bring in broad in your digital footprint and it might be from the hiring manager, it might be from someone that works with the hiring manager that knows that that person is looking for the type of employee that you are. It is a good thing to get more inbound outreach across LinkedIn, especially if we go back to what I said before about the signal to noise issue. If you can be more discoverable to either recruiters or people that can influence the hiring decision, that is a very good thing. So you should unequivocally, in my view, use one or both if you are looking for work.

Mel : 58:42

That's good advice. We'll link to your post on that because I, like you, I hate the clickbait around it or the shaming that, like the weird shaming that was going on around it. It's like don't listen to the noise Do your thing.

James : 58:54

The former Google recruiter who now runs a small business in Salt Lake. I wish we could just say for what it is he runs a small business in Salt Lake. Good for him. He's not the king of recruiting. Right Opinions are not valid Right, right.

Francesca : 59:10

Well, they can be really harmful too, because I think the thing is, I feel like we're going to see more and more upticks on layoffs. Quite honestly, it's just going to be more. There's a running thought right now, quite honestly, around you're one quarter away, potentially, from getting laid off. That's literally how business is operating right now. People will be looking for work more and more. I feel like we're going to be flipping more and more into gig-type work or trading jobs more and more. We have to get used to this conversation that people are going to be open to work and then working, open to work and then working. There's no room for shame in this discussion. It's a marketplace. At this point, 100%.

James : 59:51

Yeah, I'd go back to what I said earlier that, yes, we are increasingly in a world where careers are not for life of course they're not and increasingly moving to an environment where people have side hustles and portfolio careers, and that is all a great thing. But ideally, when you move to your next job, you're hopefully going to be there for two or three years right, maybe four, maybe five, if you're going to be spending the next three years 40 hours a week somewhere. Invest some time in doing your research, doing all your due diligence. Think about how much time you spend researching your vacation or maybe that's just me, but what is the hotel like? All of that stuff? You spend hours and hours, yet people spend no time at all on researching the place that they're going to spend all of this time. Do your due diligence. Reach out to folks at the company, ask to speak to people in the ERGs, read the review sites, make an informed decision and don't be afraid to walk away.

Francesca : 1:00:59

I love that. Sage advice, sage advice. James, thank you so much for joining us today. It has been a pleasure. We'd love to have you back to talk about more subjects around acquisition and talent acquisition, but thanks so much for your time.

James : 1:01:11

Thanks, you're welcome. Thanks for having me, yeah.

Francesca : 1:01:16

So now it's time for our segment called Roast and Toast, where we roast some companies or individuals that need some light roasting and some that need some great toasting because they're doing it and doing it so well. And we're going to start with the toast. Who are we toasting this week?

Mel : 1:01:33

I have two toasts One for candidates, candidates that ask the tough questions and do their homework during the interview process. So toast to you Organizations who streamline the process I'm talking no more than four interviews and those who have a high touch of candidate care and transparency. Toast to those folks.

Francesca : 1:01:58

Love it. Yeah, I think that idea quite honestly of doing your homework. It is so easy to get swayed by your dream company or companies that you think are going to be an amazing employer. But sometimes just because the company is really sexy doesn't mean it's the right company, the right role or the right team for you. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. So doing your homework Huge.

Mel : 1:02:22

Huge yeah. Sometimes it's glitter on a pile of poop, so check it out Indeed it is.

Francesca : 1:02:27

Indeed, it is. That's awesome. Well, and today I am roasting, actually, an article that I saw in Business Insider, which brought up some memories. Here it is. This is it came out this week Some Gen Z job seekers are bringing mom and dad to interviews. Yeah, this is just a hard pass, people and, by the way, gen Z, not the only generation that has been doing that right.

Mel : 1:02:53

It is not just you, I know. Back in the early 2000s, when I was working in TA, I had a dad call me up asking for swag from the law firm I was at because his son was interviewing and he thought, well, I just want to represent like you do for colleges. I'm like not the same thing.

Francesca : 1:03:13

And I just was like candidates trust yourself.

Mel : 1:03:16

You got this you got this.

Francesca : 1:03:18

Yeah, that's my thing. This is not just a Gen Z thing. This is actually going on. It melts here very good for about 10 years a long time. We are seeing an uptick in it. Friends, don't bring mom and dad into the interview process. They're not going to be there with you for work. Don't bring them into the interview process. It's not a good look. It's only a good look when it's bring your mom and dad to work day. Yeah, yeah. That's the only time. That's the only time.

Francesca : 1:03:43

So, yeah, a light roast of bringing the parental units into the interview process.

James : 1:03:47

Just don't do it.

Francesca : 1:03:49

You want to bring them on a date. You want to bring them on an interview, and if you need me to explain that to your parents, have them call me. There you go, follow us, music Mel. How about that interview with James about getting the right job?

Mel : 1:04:04

Yeah, I mean, look, James is a huge expert in this space. He knows his stuff. I think if listeners walk away and implement just one thing that he shared, they're going to find different success in finding not just a job but their right job for them. So just loved it. So thankful he was able to join us and to share these tips with folks. How about you? Yeah, absolutely.

Francesca : 1:04:28

It kind of reaffirms my belief in why we even started the pod is because we really wanted to open the hood on how this stuff works and how you can actually use this knowledge to your benefit. So stoked to have him with us. Friends. Really thanks so much for joining us today. We're stoked to be back next week with New Week, new Headlines. Mel and I have been together this whole week planning out the year of the pod, and so we're stoked to be bringing not only New Week, new Headlines every week, but really rich topics like the one we brought today. Really cool guests like the one we brought today. Thanks so much for joining us. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. If it moves, you come over and say hi on Instagram, the tiktaks or LinkedIn, hit us up on yourworkfriends.com and if you found this episode helpful, please share with your work friends All right, take care, friend.

Mel : 1:05:20

Bye, friend, Bye friend. Also thanks for staying with us today.

Socioeconomic Status Impacts to Work

Your Work Friends Podcast: Socioeconomic Impacts to Work with Brayden Olson

Class isn’t invisible…

It shows up in how we speak, how we network, how we navigate work—and who gets hired. In this episode, we sit down with Brayden Olson, co-founder of Almas Insight and author of Twilight of the Idols, to expose how socioeconomic status silently shapes career access, confidence, and opportunity. From college applications to job interviews, we unpack the unspoken class system baked into our workplaces—and what it will take to finally level the playing field.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

the most significant determinant of someone's future is how much money they were born into, and it's not even close. So when you compare it to race and gender and sexual orientation and all of the other statistics that we have invested a lot of infrastructure in protecting for it doesn't even come close to the amount of advantage that people are experiencing based on wealth inequality.

Speaker 2: 0:40

Hey friends, we're excited because we have Brayden Olson with us. Brayden has had a long and successful career in the tech and human development space. In 2022, they became the co-founder of Amis Insight Inc. A company backed by Learn Capital that quickly and objectively measures human capability at scale. In 2019, they joined Deloitte as the Enduring Human Capability Center of Excellence lead, leading a team of passionate people about better understanding of human potential and how orgs can be even more effective by fostering that human potential. That's also where I had the pleasure of working with Brayden. Brayden also has a very deep background in game design. He was an NSF grant recipient for work in this field and has designed games to better understand human behavior. He worked with to pass legislation relevant to economic inequality the Washington Jobs Act in Washington State and he received a pen from the governor. So, brayden, welcome to the podcast. We're so happy to have you here. You've had quite the journey, so we'd love to just hear about your journey. Tell us more about how you got started in this space.

Speaker 1: 1:52

My pleasure to be here, so great to be with some fellow Deloitte alumni. The way I like to talk a little bit about my journey. It's always easy to talk about the end state or the successes or the accomplishments. I really like to get the message out there. The reason I'm here today has a lot to do with where I came from.

Speaker 1: 2:11

My educational journey was hard so I didn't have money for school. I had to get basically a government program that helps Washington students go to school, basically get their associate's degree through community colleges first before going on to a four-year degree. I had to overload all my classes. I ended up graduating with my four-year degree 18 months after I graduated from high school, working in the school cafeteria and I barely made it right. I was on two-thirds merit scholarship, public subsidy, the whole thing. We'll get into it, but it's part of why I care about this stuff so much.

Speaker 1: 2:47

I went through a period where every day was looking at my bank account and thinking did I get another overdraft fee? Can I afford to eat this meal? There was a time before getting financing for my first company where I was like I don't have money to eat, I can't go get a sandwich and I always want to make the point my parents did absolutely the best for me that they could. There is nothing that they didn't do for me that they could do, so I don't want that to get mixed at all. The fact that I went on to become an author and a researcher and an entrepreneur at all is something that I am grateful for every day, and that was a hair's breadth from never happening. So that's the way I like to tell my journey and why I care about this stuff.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yeah, it's incredibly important and powerful right, because that's what's really powering you behind all of this initiative and it makes sense. It's tough. We've been there, francesca, and I talk about it often that early, early days of just the struggle bus when you're getting started and it being really difficult. And I have a very similar background to you, brayden, so for me your work is also really important. I just think giving people the opportunity that you had to really struggle to find is incredibly important. We're here today to talk about socioeconomic bias. You've written a book about it. You've built technology to help eliminate it. What is socioeconomic bias? Explain it to someone like they're five. What is it at the most basic definition level?

Speaker 1: 4:19

Yeah, I'll say it personally and then I'll say it more technically. When I went through that process I just described and I said I was so close to none of these things ever happening, I went back and I did the numbers and if I had been two years younger, the increased cost of tuition would have meant that none of this would have ever happened in my life. I would have ran out of money for food before I became an entrepreneur and anything subsequent to happen to that. So what socioeconomic biases mean is, you know, put you in the same role that were, but a couple of years later and all of a sudden you become a different person. You can't make it. Those doors closed for you.

Speaker 1: 4:59

This is an active and progressive issue. Now, in a more general sense, society can be structured so that an individual's fate is based on their contributions or on their endowments, in other words, what they bring to the table and what they do for others, or what they started with. And socioeconomic inequality is what kind of a culture do you want to live in? One that's a feudalist culture you're inherited into whatever your life is going to be, or one where your ambition and capability and talent are what drive those outcomes?

Speaker 2: 6:05

no-transcript. Something that really hit me hard was that story that came out about celebrities who were paying for their kids to get into those prestigious schools when they didn't have the merit or do the work to do it. And you just think, oh my God, that's just so unfair to so many people that these little kind of backdoor entries into these institutions exist even.

Speaker 3: 6:38

But Mel, the Full House mom's daughter, was an influencer, so we could talk a lot about being on the rowing team and I wrote at UConn, so I was like even that's fake.

Speaker 2: 6:47

It made me so angry, but so I just. I really think this is such a critical topic because it does. It starts in in the education space, which we know. Education and higher education isn't the only path to success right in the world today. However, that is a big path to success and opportunity, and when there's five padlocks to get through those doors, you can't even get into the workplace because it starts with the education piece. So it's just yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Can I give you an unfun?

Speaker 2: 7:19

fact. Oh, please do, please share.

Speaker 1: 7:23

This is unfortunately an unfun one, but so I was doing a little research on this recently myself. I was talking with someone who's from a different generation and we were talking about what's changed, and he'd gone to Harvard himself and he was aghast to know that now there's this industry built around graduate advisors. And you would think what's a graduate advisor? Oh, if you get your master's, you have a graduate advisor who helps you get ready for your PhD. No, these are private graduate advisors. Use them for applying to master's programs or undergraduate programs, and they're admission officers that then sell their services to help you prepare your essay, your extracurriculars, what clubs you should say that you belong to, exactly what to say in your application. What they're looking for and what they promise is for $25,000, 90% or higher rates of acceptance into your top three schools of your choice. So, regardless of merit or background or current level of education, they can get 90% of the people they help, or above, placed in one of their top three schools in the world.

Speaker 2: 8:30

That's the system, unreal, because they're admission counselors and they have that network. How is that not a conflict of interest?

Speaker 1: 8:37

Yeah, so it's admission counselors who just left the admission board and it is a conflict of interest and the implication is but they don't have any insight today. They're not in touch with the colleagues that just rolled into the admission office. I don't believe that personally, especially with those rates of success. But that is the idea, is that it's not quite illegal because they are not currently the admission officers.

Speaker 3: 9:01

I like to frame that under hashtag bullshit.

Speaker 2: 9:05

Unreal, 100%, all right and we know this is rampant in education but say you made it through those hurdles. You have your education. Now You're ready to go out into the working world. How does this show up in the workplace?

Speaker 1: 9:19

I'm going to answer that, but I just have to like say but the premise is, how many people are making those hurdles? I think we really think there's so many more people who are able to get through an educational system, but it's what? Third? A third of people get through, and most of it is financially derived now. So I just want to say those are big hurdles. It's hard to get to the other side, but once you get to the other side, they're going to show up.

Speaker 1: 9:47

There was a scandal a couple of years ago that I actually think is maybe one of the best things that could have happened.

Speaker 1: 9:53

That has happened, which was Amazon created an algorithm completely de-biased, objective algorithm, in theory that was just meant to basically look through people's resumes and indicate, you know, who should be brought in for interview, and when they set the AI to look at the commonalities in the resume, what they found is that the people they had and the people that they were bringing in were from the same schools, from the same clubs, from the same associations, and so the same is true for birds of a feather flock together, right?

Speaker 1: 10:30

So if your senior boss went to the same alma mater that you do and I don't want to make it just about school but is in the same club as you. Right, you're in the golf club. Together. That is going to influence your career, and so, at every step, at every juncture, we place people that we have connection and familiarity to. So, even after the schooling is done, it's what clubs and associations you block to, which, again, are related to how much money you have. Right, you don't belong to the golf club and you don't belong to the Columbia Tower Club. You don't belong to the St James Club, unless you're already wealthy enough to be there.

Speaker 2: 11:09

I worked in talent acquisition for years prior to getting into talent development and that is absolutely rampant in organizations where it's.

Speaker 2: 11:19

These are the schools that our people are from, they're alumni.

Speaker 2: 11:23

These are our main campuses that we're gonna focus our time and attention to and there are a lot of services that come with that relationship, because internal talent acquisition teams at organizations typically build deep relationships with the programs at those schools career services offices, they provide workshops, they provide interview prep. You're providing all of these free services and connection and relationship with those quote unquote chosen schools. And then you have what we would call essentially these are the fringe schools and the time and effort and resources aren't really put into recruiting from those schools unless someone's really pushing for it, and it used to be just mind boggling to me like how much talent are we missing out on? Because you will only prioritize these 10 schools and we have 30 that we can choose from, with exceptional candidates coming out of all of them. But if it's between two candidates, there's this preference for someone that comes from one of those known schools. I know that's changing and there's a lot of good discussion around that today, but it's definitely hard to see and hard to work through.

Speaker 1: 12:35

You might actually have this data point better than I do. I just generally say how many people get jobs going through the standard, apply for it on the website, submit your resume, get called on the basis of your resume, and how many people get jobs because they know someone at that company. Right In my mind, the most common way and I'd love to hear your expertise on it. But referrals are socioeconomic bias. Inherently they know you because you are in a social sphere to know them, whether that was from your parents or from your school or from your social club or from your church. That is inherently the system and I again, you might know the numbers better, but I would imagine it's pretty high the number of people who get in through a referral.

Speaker 2: 13:23

Yeah, we have obviously nepotism rules that you need to follow to avoid that bias and try to get ahead of bias taking place just in terms of standards. But you could definitely feel the unspoken pressure right of this person in particular really wants them to come in for this internship and at times, yeah, you're like what the hell, man, I don't want to be part of this choice or this conversation, and referrals are definitely a way that it at least gets your foot in the door for a screening interview the majority of the time.

Speaker 3: 13:58

And referrals. When you're in the organization, they're incented. We were offered thousands of dollars If we found someone from our network and they were hired into those organizations. We would get thousands of dollars for that. It's not even just a hey, could you refer this person in it's? You're financially incented to do that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:22

Yeah, and on one hand seems harmless.

Speaker 3: 14:26

Seems like it yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:28

It seems very efficient. It cuts down on the time of potentially finding good candidates right, because that takes time and money. I always go back to it. Started with positive intent but quickly got dark.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Exactly.

Speaker 3: 14:42

Why are we all white guys named Chad Exactly?

Speaker 2: 14:45

Why are we all?

Speaker 1: 14:46

white guys named Chad. We were all part of the rowing club.

Speaker 3: 14:50

You went to University of Illinois too. Oh my God yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:54

I accidentally made it on the rowing team. My friends will tell you.

Speaker 3: 14:57

How do you accidentally make it? How do you accidentally Listen?

Speaker 2: 15:00

it was a dare to try out. It was like a fluke thing and I'll just yeah anyway, but then it was awesome. With everything, there are misconceptions on topics. So what are some common misconceptions that people often think about? Socioeconomic bias in general and then in the workplace?

Speaker 1: 15:36

I'm going to respond to that question with a question, and this is a little bit of a hot take on my part, or I want to say a hot take. It's really sound in the data, but there's a lot to talk about here. So my question is what do you think are some of the most common biases that we talk about in workplaces today, or that we create policies around?

Speaker 3: 15:56

Race gender, age, sexual orientation, religion.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot we talk about in this field. So there's some great research just three years ago out of Georgetown that shows the most significant determinant of someone's future is how much money they were born into, and it's not even close. So when you compare it to race and gender and sexual orientation and all of the other statistics that we have invested a lot of infrastructure in protecting for it doesn't even come close to the amount of advantage that people are experiencing based on wealth inequality. So the common misconception is this is not as big of a deal as it really is.

Speaker 2: 16:44

I believe that, though, because we have an unspoken class system in the US, I like to say we don't have this caste or class system here, or you often hear, oh, middle class, what does this truly mean? But it does feel like people have their stations and it gets harder and harder to climb to the next level, and there's this misconception that you can do anything if you just pull up your breech straps. You've been going and work hard, but it is not the case.

Speaker 1: 17:17

That is what the economic data tells us.

Speaker 3: 17:20

I think because there's a money thing to it. There's also to me. I grew up upper middle class. I remember I had someone very close to me that their parents had immigrated to this country and he was eight when he immigrated and I remember we were both in grad school and I was going into corporate. My parents were both corporate, his parents worked in factories and we had this discussion around navigating corporate and that I knew what to do because my parents were helping me navigate all of this stuff. There was a language that I inherently grew up with and understood, that was absolutely foreign to him, and it was the first time in my life where I was like, oh wow, it's a money and opportunity piece. It's also a unwritten language of how do you even navigate college applications, how do you navigate social crap that happens when you're in these circles or not. It's all of that.

Speaker 2: 18:17

It's all of that with Francesca and I talk about it all the time because we're like, wow, this experience was way different. But like you, brayden, and to your point, francesca, similarly I did not have that guidance. It was a financial aid officer at UConn that helped me fill out my FAFSA, because my parents didn't help me do it. And then I remember my first job interview. I didn't realize you had to wear a suit because I didn't have parents to teach me. They were like telling me that guidance and I borrowed a friend's suit to interview because I was rejected by three jobs because I showed up in a button down shirt and pants and it wasn't a formal suit and I was like, what's the problem? Why does that matter? And I didn't even own a suit and I didn't have the money to buy a suit, so I borrowed one just to have that first interview.

Speaker 1: 19:10

Yeah, I would love to amplify because you're exactly right, it's all of these subtle and small things we don't even think about. And then there's this level deeper let's talk about, like how a person perceives themselves in the world, confidence, what their worth, what their inherent worth is as a human being. And when they study this they're like they can do the standardized tests on kids young and they'd be like this kid's in the top 10 percentile in terms of math capability, but bottom 10 percentile in terms of economics, and what happens? So they see that their scores go down and down and down Right, and the other kids scores go up, and part of that is the tutors that the parents can afford, but the other part of that is one of these kids is getting affirmation.

Speaker 1: 19:53

One of these kids is being told that they're worth something and that they're loved and that they're valued. And that adds up in how, like, I'm going to take it all the way to the workplace, right? So you have that kid who starts out like always feeling they're super talented, they're super capable, and they always feel behind and they're always made to feel not enough or not as good as their peers. Are they asking for promotions when they're 25 and when they're 30 and when they're 35? Or are they just happy to be there if they succeeded in being anywhere? And so there's, like this inner confidence and value and self-worth and problem of caste systems, as you said, you know.

Speaker 2: 20:31

Yeah, it sounds like there's a lifelong kind of issue there where they're not going to ask for those opportunities or feel they're worth going after them. So, man, we could probably talk about two hours I'm like oh, there's so much to uncover, how, how does this, or does it even differ between industries or professions Is there? Is it more rampant in certain professions over others, or have you found that it's pretty much across the board?

Speaker 1: 21:02

Well, it's going to sound like good news. It's not across the board, but the bad news is it's directly proportional to how much status, money, privilege, come with that position. So the more desired the position, the more socioeconomic barriers will be an impediment If you want to be a CEO, or you want to be a senator, or you want to be an astronaut, or you want to be if it has power, and so you can see this again. I've done some of my own research more recently and my own personal experience with graduate programs, so it's fresh on my mind. I don't want to keep going back there, but the families that are wealthy want their kids to go get a medical degree, get a law degree, get a business degree, get an engineering degree. These are going to be inherently more competitive and bought and purchased programs. Someone going for a fine arts degree? I don't know, there's probably not a lot of low economic people that are trying to go to a four-year school to get a fine arts degree, but it's more competitive the more money is associated with the role.

Speaker 3: 22:06

I'm laughing because my undergrad was in Italian printmaking, which is etching on copper plates. Again, I made really dumb shit decisions. Sorry, yeah, I'm laughing. Oh, yeah, oh my god was that about privilege I'm gonna come for?

Speaker 1: 22:26

I'm here for the joke, yeah but it's yeah, I love it and yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's good, we need to care about the issue. We need to laugh too, because that's how you do with this stuff. It's good, we need to care about these issues. We need to laugh too, because that's how you deal with this stuff. It's sad, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:39

I love that we're having this conversation and we can joke about it, right, because, okay, what can we do to make it better? That's the ultimate goal, and talking about it helps bring awareness. I think even just sharing our personal stories about what was your experience like can be really eye-opening of how different Back I remember when I was younger, I knew there was a difference, but I didn't realize how much. And it's these stories as I get older, with peers and friends and talking about it, where you're like holy shit, how do you change this? How?

Speaker 3: 23:07

do you change it? Brayden? One of the things you talked about earlier was this idea of confidence from an individual. What is the long-term impact of socioeconomic bias on individuals? One of those impacts could be on the confidence piece, but what have you found in terms of what are some of the other long-term impacts of this, as people are going through their career.

Speaker 1: 23:29

Okay, let's take it step by step. I think that self-worth thing develops early. I think whether you can afford to get an education which a majority of people won't. So these are big barriers each time. So, whether you can afford to, can you get into a prestigious one? Do you have the with the right people in the right ways especially now with the remote work outside of work, in your social clubs and golf clubs and whatever to get promoted more quickly as you go through your career? For most people that's about promotions.

Speaker 1: 24:09

I do want to take a slight turn and say a lot of these people don't do it through the traditional career workforce. Right, they might go on to be politicians or celebrities or. But I'm an entrepreneur. A lot of people are trying to move in that direction now and that is highly correlated. Whether the people that can make your company successful I how deep do I want to get into this, there's so much I can say being able to get money for your company is completely who. You know, I sit in these different meetings, so I see both perspectives very clearly.

Speaker 1: 24:44

For people who go in and pitch to VCs and the VC doesn't know who that person is, is a button down professional pitch, super nuts, they are going to talk about the business and they're probably going to get a no. If the VC knows the person and again, I sit in on these calls they say, oh, nevermind, don't worry about the pitch. Yeah, how are we going to get this done? Verbatim, how are we going to structure this deal? Which of our friends are we bringing in on it?

Speaker 1: 25:11

Which? Which influencers are we going to tap for this one? Oh, it's like the other one we did right, so let's tap this one and this one. So it's everywhere. And so they might do it within promotions, they might do it by trying to be an entrepreneur or start their own business. They're still going to count it. And I think the longest term implication, and the one that we need to be the most concerned about and talk the most about, is that the impact of socioeconomic inequality on that person's life is also going to be the primary determinant of the success of their child's life and their child's life. It's like generational at this point.

Speaker 3: 25:49

Yes, I just read a study that one of the greatest impacts on a child's happiness and their well-being is actually how happy the mother is. Did you see that?

Speaker 1: 26:00

Which makes sense.

Speaker 1: 26:01

So there's a great book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, which is written by one of the greatest addiction experts in the world, and in that book he talks about all of this research and about basically what leads to addiction.

Speaker 1: 26:19

His point is amazing, which is we're all oriented to addiction and we all have some form of addiction. The question is, how much do we express it? And that has to do with how much we suffer, love the message. But his point on this mother thing is he says that the number one determinant, or the most impactful determinant around whether someone will become a drug addict is the abnormalities that they have in their serotonin and dopamine production, because basically, people who have abnormalities will have different experiences with drugs, where it's like they really don't feel normal without them, and the primary determinant of that is how much eye contact they have with the mother between the ages of one and three and what were her stress levels. And so then you think about that and it's which mothers are with their children constantly between one and three and don't have stress or have the least amount of stress.

Speaker 3: 27:14

When I think about some of the highest stressors that people face too money, if you are feeling like you're living paycheck to paycheck or you're on the verge of homelessness that amount of stress, in addition to raising children, in addition to trying to be a partner or a spouse or a daughter, a son, a sibling, it's incredible. That's an incredible amount of stress. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:35

And working right. And the other thing we didn't say is how many families can either parent but one of the parents afford not to work? That's a wealth option. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 3: 27:49

That's from a For those folks that have gone through all of those hurdles. I'm looking at two of them that have gone through that and come out very successful as well. Are there advantages Meaning are you stronger minded, right, or something of this sort? Do you find that there's better skills coming out of that or no? Is this a bad?

Speaker 2: 28:11

this is a weird question but you get where I'm going with this. No, it's not a weird question.

Speaker 1: 28:15

I did a talk on resilience and we talked about what breeds resilience and there's lots of things metacognition and lots of things are really important to talk about. One of the really important things is how much have you been through? And if you can reference back to oh, I've been through harder times than this right, that's the easiest way to be resilient. I did that. I can survive this right. So resilience is directly proportional to how much someone goes through and experiences. I think empathy is a muscle that you're gonna grow, because it's easy to see, when you almost don't make it, why someone else might not have made it, and that not being a reflection of their inadequacies or, um, in game build lack of capable. I think it's a really relevant consideration. I think the problem is that you never really know where you would have gotten without the barriers, so you can't really compare to who you would have been and I can't say whether it would have been better or worse.

Speaker 3: 29:19

In a way that's true for everybody Right have you ever seen the? Movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. What was that, Mel? From like 1994? I have no idea. I think so. Yeah, I love that movie. Brady, do you know the premise of this movie?

Speaker 1: 29:31

I don't, you'll have to tell me.

Speaker 3: 29:33

You're like really, this is what we're talking about. So the premise of the movie is Gwyneth Paltrow. Basically, she takes one subway or she takes another subway, and depending on which subway she takes, her life just ends up completely different. Like it's that question of if I would have just taken path A, how would my life be different? The answer is that question, but it also begs an interesting question In order to gain empathy, or resilience too, do people have to go through hardship in order to get? That Is a different question. Curious about impact, so we talked about it at the individual, I am wondering how this might impact work, culture or impact a team.

Speaker 1: 30:13

I'll say a light thing first, which is the birds of a feather thing again. Right, so teams are probably going to get organized around people they know and comfort level, and so birds of a feather, that's a very light thing. I think that as a culture, we are moving more and more towards what makes us different. It's all about this group and that group and you're not part of my group and my group group and that group and you're not part of my group and my group just got smaller today and you're not part of it anymore, and so as we move in that direction, this becomes part of it. It's one more thing that divides people. That's where you middle class or low class or upper class and do I trust you because of that or do I not trust you because of that? Does one group feel resentment towards the other or contempt towards the other? I see those things showing up. I don't want to speak to other people's experiences, but that's something that we see emerging. So that relates to teams, right, people who might not feel as comfortable trusting of each other, because it's one more divide that's getting between us.

Speaker 1: 31:11

My bigger message on that and we could circle back to it later, but I don't know. I just said circle back. I know that's like the most hated term in corporate. We could talk about that again at a later time. But the real message is like there are so many things that divide us right now. How do we start unifying? Because this is an issue that impacts almost everyone in the United States. Like you can make arguments about oh, I'm upper middle class or middle class or lower middle class or dirt poor, or, but it's really just like the one percent and then everybody else. The differences are so severe and so substantial.

Speaker 1: 31:51

And look, harvard ain't admitting that many people this year. Nor is Oxford, right, we're talking about small numbers of people in one camp. And look, harvard ain't admitting that many people this year. Nor is Oxford, right, we're talking about small numbers of people in one camp. And there's just so many other things that divide us today. And a lot of us have this in common, and it is again the single most impactful thing as to what our futures will look like, at least financially speaking, at least in terms of our wealth and accomplishments. We got a lot in common, and I think coming together is going to help a lot.

Speaker 3: 32:19

You feel it in politics. This isn't a political statement by any means, but when you look at, for example, a lot of what the Trump campaign had run on, continues to run on, is this idea of you've been left behind economically and I'm going to be the person that's going to bring it back in. And then you have the Biden administration, which is looking at more, bringing everybody along. They're both an economic message coming from different places, but I feel like both of those messages are very different. They're very divided. So you have the politics happening with that kind of economic message. You also have technology, with AI, and we just got the job support, for example.

Speaker 3: 32:59

I think, there's going to be a lot more fear around economics and the 1% and those that aren't. How do we move towards that common ground when it just feels like there are so many vices that are just pushing us further and further, apart from an economic perspective?

Speaker 1: 33:18

I can sometimes sound like a super pessimist when I talk about the data, but this is actually something I'm quite optimistic about, oh, sweet, because we need some good news, because I'm like, I'm bummed, bring the good news please Look.

Speaker 1: 33:31

At the end of the day, we have a lot that's working to divide us. Your point is exactly the right point and I'll put even, like a pin on top of it, who is the Trump administration speaking to and who is the Biden administration speaking to. They're talking about different economic problems, so I'll just put a label on it. I'll be the person.

Speaker 1: 33:52

One might be talking about white male problems and the other might be talking about people of color problems, women problems, and the reality is the cake for all of us is getting smaller every year and has been since 1971. Under every administration Republican, democrat, doesn't matter. Congress controlled by Democrats, president, republican doesn't matter, matter Congress controlled by Democrats, president, republican doesn't matter. Every administration, the pie has got smaller for all of those groups. Now we're fighting over it in different ways and it might be getting split up in different ways, but it's getting smaller for all of us and has been consistently. And the reason I say I'm a bit of an optimist is one humans might be my belief, but I think most of us are empathetic and compassionate and believe in essential equality, believe in modern political terms. They talk about this kind of era as liberal equality what is?

Speaker 1: 34:51

that, okay, there's all. So all political philosophy is underpinned by moral philosophy. So we start with a set of morality and then we build it into an idea, and utilitarianism was an idea that we should maximize the good for everyone. Right, and so it became a political movement that, under that kind of, helped destroy feudalism, because it was like this isn't the best for all. There's these three people at the top, or whatever. Unfortunately, we've come back around back to dead your servants.

Speaker 3: 35:23

Okay, fantastic, that's good all right.

Speaker 1: 35:25

So then we entered into this, this era, and there's some great works by a guy named Rawls and Dworkin great names to a theory of justice and and it's a lot of what we talk about today where they're like, hey, this is what it would ideally look like and a lot of people bought into this message.

Speaker 1: 35:43

It's where a lot of these like pushes for equality and people shouldn't have these negative dispositions on them. Unfortunately, it hasn't really translated to our politics, but it is something we naturally feel. So I think there is both this sense in human beings that, like we innately have compassion, and there's this cultural zeitgeist that, like people fundamentally feel about what is right in politics, and so there's a lot of systems that are holding that back, but it is holding back something that is natural, something that is believed and accept and been felt by most people, like super majority of people, and so my optimism is look, the politicians are not going to lead us to the promised land here, like they are working to create divisiveness among us, and whether that's a conspiracy or what helps them get elected doesn't matter to me. They're not solving the problem.

Speaker 3: 36:39

No, the data shows that yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:40

Yeah, but we should be optimistic about the future because culturally we hold these beliefs and take off some of this kind of unnatural confusion and we're compadres. We're in the same journey, fighting for the same things.

Speaker 3: 36:54

Yeah, I just feel like there's so much more that unites us than divides us instinctually and actually as well that it'd be. I am looking forward to seeing more of us leaning into that and not waiting for institutions to make that happen.

Speaker 1: 37:11

I agree, and that's where it's going to come from. I think it comes from us as individuals, but a mentor of mine says he teaches leadership to, has the best selling books on leadership in the world and he really understands the topic. He said I've given up on politics. I gave up a long time ago. Any hope I have in the future is in business leaders stepping up, and so I think it's individuals and I think it's organizations that are hopefully going to move this message forward.

Speaker 3: 37:36

There's a lot of organizations can do right.

Speaker 1: 37:38

Yes, there is, especially when 96% of elections are won by whoever raised the most money.

Speaker 3: 37:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:47

And now about 80% of the money that goes into campaigns comes from businesses and super PACs. So there's a lot of the business community.

Speaker 2: 37:56

Absolutely, absolutely so what measures can organizations start to take? One to identify the socioeconomic biases that they're upholding within their structures and systems and policies.

Speaker 1: 38:29

There are some basic things right. Ditch the degree requirements, especially where they don't matter. You could say stronger programs around, don't take referrals, so maybe don't incentivize the referrals or put some policies in place to stop them. Obviously, I'm going to say gather human capability data to actually understand the people and look at what is effective instead of where people came from. Ask more about people's stories in the interview process and filter that information into how you're judging their responses. As an example to your case, mel, if they asked about your background, maybe they could have overlooked that you weren't in a suit, building stronger reskilling programs, thinking about people as people and saying you know what. You didn't get a two-year accounting degree, but you've got all the makings and we're going to invest in some people this year and get them skilled up. The upswing for companies is these are exceptionally loyal people. That's everything that we see in the data. So if you want to save a ton of money on attrition, invest it on these kinds of programmatic changes.

Speaker 2: 39:39

I think that's such an important call out. I think organizations miss the forest through the trees because they're not going to see an immediate return on investment in some of these things or don't see the value of implementing some of these things. What role does leadership play here in addressing and reducing these issues in the workplace?

Speaker 1: 39:58

Referencing Bill George leadership at Harvard for 23 years. He wrote the True North book series. I've had a beyond unbelievable opportunity to be mentored by him for 16 years, which came out of nowhere. It was one of these never should have happened things. But actually you know what I'm going to tell that story because I think it answers a bit of your question.

Speaker 1: 40:22

So I was, he was doing a tour, talking to all these universities, and he came by a relatively not prestigious Seattle university and gave a talk. I skipped my class so that I could attend. I didn't know who he was, but the talk was on like ethical leadership and that was appealing to me. And so I went to this talk and I just challenged him in a polite way. I was if you're so good at business, like, why didn't you start your own? Why did you just become a CEO of a company that was almost a billion dollars and then make it a international 18 billion or something? At the end of his tenure grew at 23%, and he loved that. And so I went up after and I gave him my card and he was like oh, I'm so glad that you, that you came up, let's keep in touch. And I emailed him once and he never responded. I emailed him a second time he never responded. I emailed him a third time he never responded. I emailed him a fourth time and he was like I was waiting to hear from you, so good to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 41:15

And two years later we went for a run together and he was like do you know why we're friends? And I said I have no idea. And and I had just passed him on the track and he was like do it one more time and I'll tell you. And he was a good runner, but mind you. But I looped him again and he said no one that I teach at Harvard will run.

Speaker 1: 41:36

And so, in a way, he was looking for people that aren't normal, not what most of these leaders are surrounded by, which is people that they're very comfortable with, that don't challenge them, that just support their views, that just say gosh, you're the best person that I've ever met met. And I do want to say I'm sure there are some people at Harvard and not everyone is there with all these things that we're talking about. So I don't want to say anything negative about any institution, but the point nonetheless he was looking for something really different than what organizational leaders typically look for, and I think that's what we need to do. And this is the long way of moving back to that.

Speaker 1: 42:21

96% of politicians win based on who raised the most money. So politicians aren't going to change it. It's on business leaders, and I think it's the defining issue of our time. So I think it's up to us. I think that business leaders have to look outside what's efficient, natural, comfortable in front of them and say this is an issue I'm aware of. What can I do about it in the day to day things that I do.

Speaker 2: 42:48

When you think about business leaders presence throughout communities, it's massive. Your experience alone a lot of business leaders spend a lot of time on campus, where people are just beginning their journeys of career exploration. So even how they show up there or think of candidates differently, or interacting with students differently and having those conversations or being willing to give, I got to ask, though I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: 43:15

I think we are absolutely not talking about the very important thing in that story is you had a card in undergrad.

Speaker 1: 43:24

I didn't want to say anything Absolutely, and I will make even more fun of myself. I wore suits.

Speaker 3: 43:36

Oh.

Speaker 1: 43:36

I know.

Speaker 3: 43:37

We're ending the conversation right now. Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more.

Speaker 1: 43:47

I was working in the school cafeteria, I was overloading on my classes and I was trying to start a company, and so I was like, okay, I'm like, I am showing up to this game, I am working as hard as I can work I actually I don't even know how I did it these days but so I was like suit, I had a card for my company. I was like this is my dream, I'm going to go after it. That was me, and so this one other guy we joke now because we're both like super laid back and super I wear like Mandarin cut shirts and not normal. And we were the two like. We showed up in suits and we stayed friends and we're both like the opposite now oh, that's so funny.

Speaker 3: 44:22

How did you know to do that? Like literally, how did you know to do that?

Speaker 1: 44:25

or did you just free this up? Gosh, I didn't. I certainly didn't know how to do it. I struggled for such a long time. Yeah, I had no experience, no, no one to teach me at all. I did so many things wrong for so long. I guess it was just like I was just going to give it everything I had every day. But again, if I had been two years younger, none of it would have ever happened. It didn't matter that I had overloaded all my classes and still graduated magna cum laude and big gamma sigma and worked in the school cafeteria and didn't have enough money and started a business. None of it would have mattered. It wouldn't have been enough.

Speaker 2: 45:04

Timing and luck are big components of, in addition to that ambition piece and the business cards, let's not forget the business cards.

Speaker 1: 45:16

And don't underestimate the kids sitting in the suit in the business class.

Speaker 2: 45:20

Wear your suits, class kids.

Speaker 1: 45:22

Kids go in places.

Speaker 2: 45:26

AI is the hot topic everywhere. What role does technology play in either holding up socioeconomic bias or eliminating it in the workplace?

Speaker 1: 45:39

I think that totally has to do with what leaders do. I think it'd be very the technologies are becoming available. I'm working on them, other people are. It calls on leaders to not ignore the technologies that are becoming available, to recognize that they will get lower attrition rates, that they are going to save money, that they are going to get better people and that they're going to do good for the world all at the same time.

Speaker 1: 46:04

And honestly, you mentioned AI and automation. Are some of my biggest concerns because throughout time, the conflict has been between labor and capital. All economics or models are built on this, and wages for labor has not matched productivity gains for 55 years now something like that and the problem with AI and automation is the power of the labor class to negotiate is getting pulled out from under them. It's been a concern. I think it is an increasing concern and I don't know how fast it's all going to change. But labor needs to negotiate now and get political influence now if we're going to live in something other than a dystopian altered carbon society in the future. Yeah, because yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:57

It is a little scary Because, yeah, it is a little scary. Yolo, yeah, all for universal income. It's like figuring this out Because, to your good point, the room to negotiate is getting smaller and smaller and I think most organizations don't even know yet what this looks like for them. So it's like in five years time, what world are we going to be living in? Your company, Almas Insights, you are building technology. You have technology that helps remove inherent bias in resume review, referrals, interviews. Can you tell us more about that tech?

Speaker 1: 47:31

Yeah, absolutely, and I'll give some thank yous here as well. So the essence of our technology is we put someone in a digital work sample for 45 minutes and they go through a variety of situations like you will experience in the workplace and demonstrate their preferences and behaviors and capabilities and how they respond and how they react and that's all cool, but that's not actually what we do. What we actually do is all the data on the other side where we say what kinds of people are being successful in this role at this organization, and that all happens automatically in the data. So a company just baselines it. The statistical significant things basically highlight in that and the machine learning algorithm matches that with people who are applying or people who already exist in that job who have also taken the measurement. So all of that becomes automated and it says this person is likely to stay with your firm for a long time If you hire them. This person is likely to be high potential in this role, and it's all objective data.

Speaker 1: 48:34

But what we did and I think what proved to be one of the important aspects of how we approach this was we put it in a fully contextualized environment. So when I say digital work sample. I don't just mean situational questions. There are avatars on screen. You see what's going on. You have full context of the experience towards Deloitte and also the University of Washington. There was a validation study that doesn't eliminate all other biases, and it did so. Level of education didn't matter. What someone's current job was didn't matter they could be an Uber driver or a Deloitte consultant because they had so much context. And then people said, hey, this was like the most accurate thing that I've seen for a Sethi and myself.

Speaker 2: 49:22

This is going to completely remove all bias about your match to this role and how powerful for talent acquisition to find the right people for the right jobs at the right time. That helps with workforce planning. That helps with so many things. So kudos to you, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 49:40

I'm excited about it. Vision here is, as you look at unemployment right and you look at some of these people who are very talented and on the fringe and being overlooked, having something that can give employers confidence and giving people like that opportunity is what the world needs more of.

Speaker 2: 50:00

Yeah, that's huge and giving those people confidence as well. Totally brayden, we like to close out each episode with a rapid round. These don't have to be one word answers, but maybe one sentence, and it's just to get your like immediate reaction to some of these questions. How does that?

Speaker 1: 50:38

all right, let's see.

Speaker 2: 50:40

Okay, if you could change one workplace process or rule nationwide for everyone, what would it be?

Speaker 1: 50:48

I guess I go to ban the degree or forget the degree thing.

Speaker 2: 50:52

What's one book everyone should read on this topic.

Speaker 1: 50:57

It's so hard. I would say, if they're interested in just the economics and reality of what's happening capitalism in the 21st century by pickety if they are interested in the political concepts, that we should probably be listening more to a theory of justice by rawls. And of course, I would be amiss to not mention I also have a book on the topic which is Twilight of the Idols, an American Story which gets into. How is this impacting, in particular, young American lives today?

Speaker 2: 51:29

Yeah, we'll link to that. We'll link to that in the show notes for everyone. What's the biggest barrier to workplace equality?

Speaker 1: 51:37

Two words, but downstream consequences. Tell me more equality Two words, but downstream consequences, tell me more. Yeah, well, so we can't start fixing it in the workplace? It starts with kindergarten, right? And so the downstream consequence of having someone, as we talked about, not confident, or having someone who couldn't get a college degree, or having someone, and then the downstream consequence on the other side of this is going to be the primary determinant of their children's future. It's a downstream consequence problem. I don't think we could just say the workplace fixes this.

Speaker 2: 52:06

What was your first job and what did it teach you about socioeconomic bias?

Speaker 1: 52:11

Working in the school cafeteria to pay for my college degree. That's my first like real job and people look at you different. That's what I learned. There's the kids who need to do that and the kids who don't need to do that, and I learned real quick that people look at you different when you are serving them their food. And it's just heartbreaking to know that.

Speaker 1: 52:31

They're your peers. So it's like it's one thing if it's the local Taco Bell or something, but if it's like it's you and your classmates and they're out behind the cafeteria and you are behind the cafeteria, yeah.

Speaker 2: 52:43

Yeah. What's one myth about this topic that you want to bust today for everybody?

Speaker 1: 52:49

It's just the insignificance of it. It's that it is the single most determining factor of someone's future and we need to organize around that. We are in this together.

Speaker 2: 53:00

What's one piece of advice you would give to your younger self? And we need to organize around that we are in this together. What's one piece of advice you would?

Speaker 1: 53:05

give to your younger self. This one's hard, it's just hard feedback to give. But I think I would tell my younger self play the game, Don't lose your soul. And then give it all away. And I probably could have gone a lot further, a lot faster, if this didn't enrage me so much. But but I wanted to beat the system or prove it a different way. And the system is the way the system is. If you have influence, help break it, but you have to have the influence first.

Speaker 2: 53:40

We're glad you were enraged because you're doing good things. Last question future of work. Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

Speaker 1: 53:48

I think short-term, long-term, short-term pessimistic, long-term optimistic Pessimistic because what are the things happening and what is the direction they're going, but optimistic because movement towards public benefit, corporations, triple bottom lines, intentional communities which probably no one on this, or a lot of these people, are not going to be aware of.

Speaker 1: 54:10

So I will just say there, these groups there's more than 10,000 in the world now. I had no idea how many, but there's like an example, twin Oaks in Virginia and it's a group of people, a couple hundred people that live and work together and they sell like tofu and hammocks and stuff like that. But everybody makes the same money, they all live comfortably, they have stipends they can spend on whatever they want, they have 600,000 in profit every year that they invest in their community and it's very much how indigenous tribes live. I had the opportunity to live with one for a couple of weeks, which is amazing. But there are all these models emerging where people are taking care of each other and thinking about business differently. We've never really seen culture sustain economic inequality as long as we are seeing here. So change is bound to happen, and hopefully really positive and really soon.

Speaker 2: 55:10

Brayden, we're glad you are working towards helping to change that little by little in what you're doing, because eventually that will become what is it take one bite and suddenly the whole meal is done right, like it'll be a bigger impact long-term so excited to see it and we really appreciate you talking about this with us today.

Speaker 1: 55:29

Thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker 3: 55:34

Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriends.com. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work, friends, bye.