EP 190: A Philosophical Approach to Hiring and Team Design

Nicole Hirsch, Sr. Director of TA & People Operations at Lattice, explores how a foundation in philosophy and early leadership as an RA shaped her people-first approach. Nicole and James talk about parallels between Plato and Confucius, and modern hiring. They discuss why investing in people, and redefining success beyond a linear ladder matter most during a major career and life transitions. 

Content mentioned:  

- The Big Questions of Philosophy by Professor Kyle Johnson

- Sci-Phi: Science Fiction as Philosophy by Professor Kyle Johnson

Connect with host James Mackey on LinkedIn! 

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Transcript

New Format And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in today. We have Nicole Hirsch with us. Nicole is currently in the role of Senior Director of Town Acquisition and People Operations over at a company you may have heard of called Lattice. But, anyways, Nicole, thanks for joining me today. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah, James, thanks so much for having me. This is such a cool format, and I feel really, really honored. You've had amazing guests. So honored to be a part of those guests.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. I think it truly is the most exciting time to come on the show because we've we switched over to this new format, I think I told you about like 10 episodes ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And so no pressure then, right? No, no pressure at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

No, it's uh I think it's uh probably even like less pressure, right? Because it's like a very genuine organic conversation. But yeah, it's gonna be a good time.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Yeah, so to start us out, we'd love to learn more about you. Could you tell us where you're from?

Roots, Family, And Early Education

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm currently based in the in the New York metro area on the New Jersey side. So this is the first time that I've lived in New Jersey. I've been here for about four months now. Originally grew up in Pennsylvania and have lived in awesome places like Philadelphia and Baltimore and DC and San Francisco and most recently in the Austin, Texas area before coming back home to the East Coast. Really glad to be back. And we're actually in groundhog day, which I was reminded of first thing this morning. And supposedly, even though we've got at least a foot of snow on the ground, apparently we're we're getting quite a bit more winter.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

So yeah, yeah, it looks that way. We were talking about the snowstorm uh a little bit earlier, but uh it doesn't seem like the snow is gonna be melting anytime soon because it's like 10 degrees on the east coast.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

So at best, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Yeah, seriously. So did you have siblings growing up?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Do I have a younger brother? So we're five years apart. He came along, and at the time I was begging my parents for a puppy, and I said I would totally settle for a little sister. And then my little brother comes along, and I was so crestfallen. Ended up being one of the best things that ever happened because I got to live out the kid life quite a bit longer, you know, as he was as he was growing up. So we've remained really close. We ended up going to the same undergrad. His wife went to the same undergrad. And other than my time living on the West Coast, we've always lived within about two hours of each other, which is pretty neat.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

So did he meet his wife at undergrad?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

He did, yeah. Immediate approval from me. She uh, you know, she picked the school that I went to as well. She ended up doing all the same extracurriculars that I did. So she was just uh an immediate, immediate match for our family.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Well, so didn't you meet your husband at graduate school?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

I did. We're we're one of those annoyingly academic families. So I feel we've uh among us we've got a lot of advanced degrees.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

So it sounds like uh you and your brother might have a thing or two in common there.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So yeah, no kidding. What's funny is that he and I both have one graduate degree and our spouses have two graduate degrees. So he and I are he and I are outgunned in terms of uh in terms of our spouses.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

So you guys are gonna have smart kids, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Oh, hope so.

Dance, Discipline, And Community

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Yeah, um, okay, cool. So you were telling me a bit about your uh childhood, and I I think you mentioned that um dance was a a big part of your life. Was that all the way through high school or how long were you involved?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, all the way through high school started in the first grade. I was a bit of a bookworm, and I think my mom was feeling a little worried because the summer in between kindergarten and first grade, she I think she gave me uh like a dollar for every chapter book I read. I took that really seriously, and then it was just like this self-fulfilling cycle, and I kept reading and reading, and I was loving it. She was like, Oh no, I need to make sure I keep this kid active too. So uh we looked into some things and it was before this was this was I don't want to say exactly when it was, but anyways, it was at the time before all of the uh the things were happening year-round with kids' sports. So we it was it was dance and I was interested in that. It was close to home, uh, and I loved it. And it became a really formative part of who I was, and it was interesting because I didn't end up doing the sports through school and whatnot, but it was neat because I was with a whole bunch of kids who were from all different grade schools and middle schools and high schools in uh in the area. So I ended up having a broader network as a youngster than just kind of like my immediate, you know, middle school and uh and high school. And I loved it. It was it took a ton of time, took a ton of discipline. It was one of those pretty competitive type things, but ended up getting to go on stage at some pretty famous, pretty cool places.

Academic Drive And Changing Interests

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Oh, that's awesome. Wonderful. And like your education has been something that you feel has been like pretty influential. I remember you were telling me that in in high school, um, it sounds like you were really thriving as a as a student as well. Something you really cared about.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah, definitely. My parents instilled that in me pretty early about like your education is the most important thing. As a kid, that's your job. Like that's the most important. So it was, you know, it was no TV during the weeks and it was homework, and it was being at school on time and paying attention. And and yeah, I mean, academics came pretty easily to me when I was a when I was a kid. I mean, I had to work for it, certainly. I wasn't one of those savant kids that was just, you know, showing up but didn't have to study. Like definitely had to put the work in, but always enjoyed it too. It was fun. And it my my favorite subject just changed, I think, every year. You know, some some years it was math, some years it was literature, some years it was science. So I was pretty interested in all of it. I think it probably depended on on what the teacher was especially good at, and that's what I took to.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

That I think also gives some context to maybe why. I mean, I know you did a triple major in in your undergrad because you liked to be and one of them is is philosophy, which seems like a common trade of people who are into philosophy as well as they're just pretty intellectually curious and learning a broad spectrum of things. So I can see the early kind of roots or foundation to you uh going into undergrad.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Probably. It probably came from that. So yeah.

Double Life: Business vs Philosophy

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Well, so what was that transition like going from high school to undergrad for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

It was a bit of a tricky transition, and I was a I was like a really on the straight and narrow kid. Like I was I was a bit of a party pooper, to be honest with you. I wasn't like, oh, a freshman college and going out drinking and things like that. I I had plenty of fun in college, but not at first. I was really focused on making sure that I was focused on school and I wanted to make sure that I was doing what I needed to do to keep grades up because it was good school and it was uh funded through scholarships and financial aid and being a student worker, and then in the second half of school being an RA. And I was so I was really focused on like, okay, gotta hit all these things, gotta do really well, and put a lot of pressure on. And, you know, to be honest, in my freshman year, I didn't do so well academically. I mean, I didn't do badly academically, but I certainly wasn't in the in the you know, wasn't getting those great grades that I had gotten from the first grade all the way up through being a senior in high school. And that was a bit of a blow to the point that um my professor, my philosophy professor, who also ran this honors program. So my university, not a very big school, about 4,000 undergrads. Um, every freshman incoming class, they invited about 60 students to join an honors program. And that was where the philosophy minor major came in. Um, so this professor ran this philosophy program, this honors program, that later my brother and come to be sister-in-law ended up doing as well. So we have we have a bunch of fun with that, you know, now that we're all in our 30s. But uh at the end of my my first year, one of the conditions of staying in this program for the whole four years is keeping your grades up. And he sat me down and he was like, Look, you did great in your philosophy classes and things like that. Are you sure you really want to study business? Because those are the classes that you're not really doing so well in. Like, I'm not gonna kick you out of the program yet. Like, we're gonna give you, you know, another semester or two to get your grades back up. But um, are you sure that that's what you want to do? And that was a bit of a theme uh throughout. I had this kind of push, this push and pull of the business school professor saying, Are you sure you want to study philosophy? And the philosophy professor saying, Are you sure you want to study business? And it was, it wasn't coming from a malicious place. It was just more of a, it was a less common combination than some of the other uh combinations that you that you might see.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

So yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, I I remember when I was in college, people were really pushing me toward the the business path. Uh, I was very interested in philosophy. That's really where I wanted to focus on. But it was interesting from a value perspective how it seemed that most people were like, well, no, you need the the business degree to get the job to set you up for success. Um but I have to say, what I learned in philosophy is a lot more defining for me as a person, not only the concepts, but in terms of how I think through problem solving and how um I think through content that I I see in the world and how I process it. And I feel like it's done a lot for me to be able to really uncover circular reasoning or faulty reasoning and get to the truth, or at least know that I don't know. Right. Um I'm curious to get your thoughts. When you were studying philosophy, were your business teachers or people in your life telling you, like, hey, this isn't a good use of your your time or energy, or what did you hear from people?

Honors Program And Tough Feedback

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, and I'd be curious to know. I mean, you you've you mentioned some really good ones there with this your own study of philosophy. I'm curious if you feel as though it's also had an impact on how you interact with others, approach others, understand other people, because for me that was a that was a big part of it too. And what we studied, and this is probably coming from the fact that I went to a Jesuit school too, is that we would study things and you know, it was you you could tell them people wouldn't agree with the with what was being said. I mean, you're like the university probably doesn't agree with with what some of these these writers are are saying from hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. But anyways, to answer your question, on the business school side, it was a little bit more indifference, I would say, than than active. It's a school that's really known for arts and sciences and and whatnot. Perfectly good business school, but known for that. So they're they weren't outwardly disdainful or discouraging or anything else like that. But it was more of a okay, it was it it wasn't it wasn't encouraged so much so as other things may have been, like getting involved in the business clubs and getting involved with local businesses and internships, like those were the things that were really valued as opposed to some of this other like philosophical study and discourse and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

So when you look back at your undergraduate studies, and you think has had a bigger impact in terms of who you've become as a person, maybe it's both equally the business side and philosophy, but does one stand out to you as more formative is in nature?

Why Philosophy Shapes Thinking

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Oh, I mean it was the philosophy completely. And I and here's the thing too. I'm not I'm not putting one study over the other. I think it was very much how it was approached by the university and the instructors and whatnot, because it was also a very community-based form of learning, right? So we were, like I mentioned, I was in this program with 60 students, and you know, I think that they expect anywhere from 25 to maybe up to 50% of students to not stick with it for four years. So I I had ended up having a pretty good sized class. So there were like 46 or 47 of us that made it all the way through to the end. And then my brother's class was only like 32, something like that. But um, anyways, it was this, it was this very community-based study. You're with the same folks, the same students the entire time through. So it's also part of the intent is to learn from each other. The school recognizes that some students are going to be more involved, less involved, understand certain types of topics better than others. And you could see a bit of an ebb and a flow of who was more comfortable with the subject matter over the course of four years. So I think that that in and of itself, like, yeah, I mean, the course of study, I mean, I loved it. I could talk about it for hours and hours and hours, but I think it was also just the way in which instruction was approached. And this is very community-based, kind of like old school, almost like I I mean, I don't know this for sure, but almost the way you might imagine, like the ancient philosophers were like hanging around and their symposiums and the togas and and whatnot, to the point that as a matter of fact, one of the um one of the courses, it was called the Trivium. And everyone who went to the University of Scranton is familiar with it because for one week every semester, because the the class was split up into two, it's like 30 students each, at the end of uh the semester, your final exam is you're you're doing these recitations and you're describing Plato's symposium. And all the students, so you know, like 19, 20 year old students are all dressed up in togas, walking around campus. And the intent of the professor is to is for the students to be distracted as they're talking about the, you know, this, you know, this this Play Doh and the dialogue and everything else like that. And it seems so goofy, but imagine being out on campus, wrapped up in one of your dorm room bedsheets and wearing a, you know, like a you know, crown on and things like that, and like talking about philosophy when you're, you know, your your pals who are pre med or pre-law or you know, physics or something like that are just walking by, like, what the heck is going on? But but then people are also trying to distract you, people who are upperclassmen who've already been through this class. And the intent is you're supposed to not be distracted, and that's supposed to give you this high watermark so that way in life, because there's always gonna be distractions when you're speaking or engaging and things like that, it's knowing when to be able to stay dialed in, things are gonna distract from your attention. How do you make sure you kind of continue this thought? So, like there's all these experiences that you go through, and uh, and yeah, it was really formative. I mean, I I probably couldn't tell you what happened in my calculus class that same semester, but I know what the grass smelled like that day, things like that. So yeah.

Jesuit Teaching And Open Debate

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Yeah, I mean, definitely for me, just like a little bit about my stories. Uh I actually even college dropout. Um, I I felt a lot of pressure to go down the business path. I ironically, as an entrepreneur, I found it quite boring. I really was interested in philosophy, but pretty young, I suppose I just figured, okay, well, you know, people say business is what matters. And I wasn't really interested in that. So I was like, you know what, I really just want to start my own company and really do it. And so I just dropped out and and went on the path of entrepreneurship pretty quickly. Philosophy is very important to me. So what I ended up doing later in life is um have you ever seen the great courses on Amazon? Uh no, I haven't. Okay. Well, so the great courses, it's like a$3 a month subscription, because I guess like people don't value this stuff uh as much. But um, you know, we do, right? There's a lot of people like us, but you know what I mean. Uh there's there's courses, the big questions of philosophy. And Kyle Johnson is a professor from King's College, Jesuit University, King's College, is the professor that does this like series. So a lot of these shows are they're all like courses essentially, and they're broken up into like 30-minute segments across like 20, 30 episodes. So there's this entire course on philosophy. There's a couple. There's one on I think metaphysics, the big questions of philosophy. There's another one that I watched that I love that Kyle Johnson did called uh there's like sci-fi movies in philosophy. So the assignment of every episode was to watch a movie, and then in the the next episode, he would discuss the philosophical concepts behind the movie.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Oh, neat. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Yeah, you'd probably really enjoy it. And for me, I'm like a sci-fi fantasy nerd as well. So, like being able to couple that with philosophy was like a dream come true.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

See, my husband would love this because he's a big sci-fi nerd and is always trying to get me to watch more sci-fi movies. So this might be a beautiful compromise.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Right. Well, yeah, this would pull you in, right? Because you get to like you get to in some of the movies you've heard of, but some of them are like really obscure and not great movies, but they have like really deep philosophical undertones that are exciting. You'll enjoy that part of it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 17:40

I don't know. He likes pretty obscure stuff, so we might be we might be on the right track here.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Right, right. Well, so I like I enjoyed those so much. I actually reached out to Kyle Johnson on LinkedIn, you know, as a recruiter would. And I I reached out to was like, hey, would you do one-on-one tutoring? Like, I I did some philosophy in undergrad. I ended up, you know, dropping out. I I would really love to learn more. I don't have like the time or the bandwidth to go back to school full time, and nor at this point do I really want to do undergraduate work because I'd want to be highly specialized. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna reach out to him and just tell him the things I'm really interested in studying, and let's see if he'll just tutor me one-on-one. And so he he said yes. That's awesome. Yeah. So I basically I got to create my own curriculum, and we talked about the things that I found I was most passionate about, like uh, for instance, like free will, um, uh theories for and against like the belief in God, John Raw's a theory on justice, if you're familiar with big terms of how to structure society, um, you know, those types of things. And so I for about a year I met with him about once a week, and I just had this like personalized, and he'd send me all these academic papers and all these types of things.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

And um I feel like I should uh pull some books off my bookshelf. I'm looking at them right now, like some Emmanuel Kant. I got some Martin Heidegger that I can just send your way that you would really enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Yeah, yeah. Heidegger, he was the one who talked about um language being the foundation for like the life experiences we have, how we perceive the world is based on the language we speak, or something like that, based on the different vocabulary and language we speak. There's some kind of really interesting. I remember reading about that. It was fascinating.

The Symposium Toga Tradition

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah. I'm out of practice on all of this. So this is gonna make me uh pull pull some of these books down and go uh go revisit them.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

So yeah, yeah, for sure. I would say philosophy, I think is incredibly impactful. And frankly, there's value, and of course, a lot of different degrees. And and I I do think though, a lot of the business you can learn business on the job. I think it's it's something where it's um, you know, you're gonna be doing it all day, every day for a lot of people for the rest of your life. So it's branching out and topics like philosophy or psychology or uh even like mathematics or some of these degrees where I mean, at least traditionally might be changing out. People say, like, oh, you know, go with the business degree. It's um some of these other ones can actually be the most valuable, right? Because it expands your mind.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Can be. I think it's cool when you pair some of those things together too. And some of them, I mean, it's you there's definitely things to learn. I think about something like accounting where there's all these practices and uh and whatnot, too. So I think it's the I I think that what becomes really interesting is uh the power of and, right? And it's like better, better together. And I mean, gosh, my own experience of even having that very friendly conflict. I even hate to use the word conflict there of but seeing the juxtaposition of what my experience was as a student of both of these schools within the same, you know, relatively like-minded university.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Well, so I have a question for you. Like, let's just talk about the Jesuit background. Because I mean, again, my philosophy teacher was at King's College. I'm also an advisor at Georgetown University, their business school and entrepreneurship program, which is a Jesuit university.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah, done as a grade school.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Right at Georgetown. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it is. So it's always interesting, like philosophy, which is very um, you know, it questions a lot of themes, particularly like uh belief in God. Was it interesting? I don't know, did you ever did you study, I'm assuming, arguments for and against belief in God and study a bit about religion. And what was that like studying those things at a a Jesuit university?

Eastern And Western Philosophy Gaps

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna take it one step further because a lot of the professors as a part of the philosophy program, including that first professor that I was talking about, were Jesuit priests. And you know, my mind was kind of blown because I was like, what? You just said mass on Sunday, right? You know, so that was that was that was very interesting. And I had no concept of who the Jesuits were before I went to and I went to the University of Scranton. I had no concept of who they were and uh and what they were all about and and so on. And um and you know, that was a really interesting experience of exactly that. And the other thing too is that uh I think that most of us, well, I'll speak for myself, a lot of people my for like my community, you know, you see priests at church on Sunday and they wear, you know, they got the the all-black outfit on and the Roman collar or the you know the vestments and whatnot. And these professors just these priests who are professors just look like professors, you know, they were in their their button-down shirts and their khakis and their uh you know, snow boots in the wintertime and their sperries in the summertime, and you know, they looked they looked just like the they dressed just like the the lay professors. So that was that was an interesting experience. And uh yeah, I mean I I learned all about the the Jesuit tradition, and it's much more liberal, that's a lot less uh traditional in a lot of ways. So It the idea is meeting people where they are. And not it's not, you know, it has to be this way and very dogmatic. It's all about communication and education. And that's why there's this is a nerdy moment, but there's 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States. Um, one of my best friends who I went to undergrad with, um, he and his wife both work in education uh up in Boston, uh, and he can rattle off all 28 of them. I can't. I think I can get like half of them. Um, but that's uh that's pretty funny. So it's this very, it's this very forward-thinking way of instruction. So you've got this juxtaposition that's going on on campus all night long. I mean, the president is always uh, again, like a Jesuit priest too, and they're the ones who are um, there's this concept called eloquentia perfecta, which is just Latin for perfect eloquence. And the idea is it's not just that it's being a great orator, but it's it's speaking to a crowd, whether the crowd is 10 people or the crowd is 500 people, and something about your message can reach everyone who's there, regardless of like the different, you know, states of distraction or focus that people might be in or things that they're thinking about. But the message is one that can really meet people where they are.

Confucius, Junzi, And Modern Work

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Yeah. I I'm wondering though, and maybe maybe this wasn't as impactful, so we can just kind of freeze by it. But do you remember anything in terms of how they talked about arguments for and against God?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Like how they would handle that, or because it I just were so comfortable, like they were like you could see. Well, the thing was that you could see it was like 50-50 of the students, because I mean most of the students there, you know, were raised as you know, like a kind of like a traditional Catholic household, and you could see some students squirming, being like, ah, and you could see some of the students being like, Yes, cool, finally we can talk about this. And they just they just talked about it very matter-of-factly, but with a lot of empathy. So, in terms of what the arguments were, this is more than 20 years ago, so I'd have to I don't know. I remember more of what the experience was, and I remember like not knowing which way to feel, and just I remember observing my classmates and seeing the levels of either kind of like comfort or discomfort, to be honest with you. So I think that was the thing that that stood out the most, and they just pressed forward and they gave space and gave room for people to express like questions and discomfort and dissent and so on. So that was really what stood out to me.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Yeah, well, that's that's the way it should be done, definitely. And I want to do a refresher as well on just different arguments, uh, for and against God. It's always interesting as a like for these philosophy professors because there's there's flaws in in all in all the arguments. It's it's hard to find something definitive. Of course, it's like one of the biggest questions of of all time that we can ask.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Um, so yeah, I will say as as a as a Catholic university too, though, I think I think we always ended up coming around to like being for God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Right. Yeah. There's always probably there's a little bit of um, I'm sure that that's probably objective in terms of sharing all the different perspectives. There might be you know a little bit layer at the end there. By the way, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

I think that the one that was actually that became even tougher for some students that felt even more unseated was when we got into philosophy of east and west, because you get into some of like the eastern religions and the like the orientation of like nuts, like you know, you go from monotheistic to polytheistic kind of situations, and that's when stuff started to really, you know, get interesting in the in the classroom debates.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Yeah, so I actually um that's that's interesting because you know what's kind of wild is like if you go to Google or you go to even chat or you ask a lot of people and you ask like greatest philosophers of all time, a lot of lists will only give you Western philosophers.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

You can't trust those kinds of things, you gotta go talk to a professor.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

Right, yeah, but it's just kind of wild like to think about that. Like, okay, we hear about Socrates and Aristotle's and Plato, and we think about all these individuals, and it's like, well, hey, let's let's slow down, let's talk about Confucius. Maybe we should not you know breeze over that one.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Yeah, no, so I mean, again, give it up for the university for having a really well-rounded curriculum and giving things airtime that probably wouldn't have had airti in other types of settings.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Yeah, I think that there's probably a lot of almost top programs or what programs that are considered reputable that really don't touch on Eastern philosophy. It's kind of interesting. It's like a massive blind spot, like a really massive blind spot.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Which is a shame too, because there's things that can be learned. And I mean, that's what the like St. Ignatius was actually all about. Like he sent he sent missionaries back in the you know 1500 and 1600s pretty far and wide. So I think that this is also like rooted in the Jesuit tradition, too.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

So yeah, yeah, for sure. Um well, I I spent uh a fair amount of time studying Confucius as well. So that's had a a pretty big impact on my life philosophies and how I approach like my personal and professional life. So I know this was a while ago, but um Confucius had a concept called Junza, uh, which I is pronounced in several different ways. I don't know the actual proper way. I've seen a lot of things online, but it's uh J-U-N-Z-I. Um it says concept of junza, which is of a noble person. So he kind of flipped the term noble person on its head, where um, you know, people nobility was considered like you were born into it, right? Um, but he he changed it into this concept of like morals, where a noble person is somebody who acted ethically. And that was like at the time, he really talked about roles within community and acts of service and how to like help you know people respect and help people grow and contributing meaningfully to society. And you know, of course, some of this stuff is a little dated, but like it's all very applicable uh to modern day life. Um, but that had such a huge impact on me. My software company is called June, and I actually took the name from Jones. I took it and applied it and called the company June because his teachings were so formative in terms of how I think about life and business. So, not not a lot of people know that, but yeah, that's a really cool connection.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

That's awesome. Yeah, we split our time across um Confucius's teaching teachings along with uh like Buddhism and Taoism and so on. It wasn't exactly an even an even split. It was so if anything, it was an invitation, if you will, to to study more of those things because you think about this was I you know give it a lot of credit, but this was one course in you know in one semester, and it still had to be. So it was pretty concentrated. So some of those concepts, you know, I've got I've got a couple of them that are top of mind, but that one that's a really interesting one. And it sounds like it's been touched on in a couple of others as well. Uh, but that's really cool to hear about.

Professionalism And Early Leadership

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Yeah, it's cool. And I, you know, I one thing I want to talk to you about, because I I know you're clearly very ambitious, very, clearly very intellectually curious, uh triple major, um, philosophy major, which I think is awesome. And um, but you were also working through school as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

It was some of it was, you know, being a student worker, and then some of it was working as an RA, um, which was that was a challenging balance to uh to strike, but it was also important from a financial perspective. So I wasn't fortunately didn't get to do any study abroad when I was an undergrad had to really stay focused on uh on the academics and making sure the school bills were uh covered. But yeah, that was another interesting juxtaposition of you know becoming an upperclassman. So I had different different undergrad um or different like lowerclassmen work than I did when I was a you know moving into junior and senior year. But yeah, then it was also this professional work outside of this, you know, very, very heavy academic uh work that I was doing.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Yeah, I 100%. And your your manager was was the professor that you talked about, right? Or was this different manager?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

So I had a manager who was a university alumna. So they had um had all of the RAs report up to one of like four managers of the RAs who were they had full-time, full-time staff and whatnot who were responsible for managing the managing the RAs. And it was great. He's actually still at the university, uh, which is really cool. So he's you know, he started, he was an undergrad there and was doing other stuff, came back to the university, and then has been there again. I'm I'm dating my he's been working there for 20 years in various positions and is in a pretty cool role right now um in uh in leadership there.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

So that's really cool. And I I think he had pretty big impact on you, right? I think uh just on terms of values and perspective in terms of how you think about life, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Enter Recruiting During A Crisis

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah, well, what was pretty cool was that this was uh he was someone who was similarly academically uh motivated and minded and whatnot, and was I believe it was pre-med when he was an undergrad, but then did that same philosophy honors program. So, which most of the some of the RAs were a part of, but but not it wasn't, you know, the the then diagram that I mean you had plenty of plenty of RAs who were you know who were involved in in other things. He didn't take any excuses from me about all school so hard or oh this and that held me to the same standard of uh you know of everyone else. It wasn't like this is your choice to be to be doing all of this, and uh, and definitely had an impact in terms of it it's tough. I mean, you think about these um these managers who were early 20s, who've got probably less than five years in age from a separation perspective than the students, the paraprofessionals who they're managing. So it's kind of a tough position to be in of like, how do you draw a line of you know, making sure that you command respect as a young professional yourself, who's a manager of gosh, probably 20 plus students. And these, you know, these RAs who are still students are then responsible for anywhere from like 15 to 30 students themselves who are living in on-campus housing. So he really drew the line of like deadlines, professionalism, like not just doing casual emails. It was always professional emails were expected, and he held one-on-ones and like you know, everything was carried out in a very professional way. So it set this standard of how to conduct yourself, even as someone who is young or early in their career. Like, just because we're on a college campus doesn't mean we need to be like everything needs to be casual. Like, and so he taught us a lot about not just me, but he taught he taught my um my peers and me a lot about professionalism. And then in turn, about how it's not just for you, but how it garners respect for the position that you're in, for the university, for you know, how how these students, you know, treated themselves. And I stayed in touch with, I mean, it I I gotta give it up to him. I mean, it really worked. I mean, these youngsters who were two years younger than I was, it was really nice. They really did look up to me, and I maintained relationships with a lot of them, um, you know, throughout, even after I had graduated and so on.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

So that's really cool. And so let's talk a little bit about recruiting. Uh yeah, let's do it. Yeah, so um I I find your story really interesting in that it it sounds like you didn't necessarily like recruiting for for quite a while. Um, do you feel like maybe it was partially because of the initial impression of starting recruiting during the financial crisis?

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Oh, absolutely. Combined with the fact that I didn't want to be in recruiting, I wanted to be in marketing. I studied marketing. Like I the very grim reality was that I wasn't getting a marketing job, not a paid one.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Some of my some of my friends who I respect enormously, you know, took some jobs that I just couldn't afford to take. So I didn't get that. I think I was also like a tiny bit resentful about that, if I'm being completely honest about uh how I was feeling about things, combined with the whole, you know, Great Recession thing and that being not putting me on a specially steady footing, because okay, to put the Great Recession in context, and it was like it was the financial crisis, the mortgage-backed securities was the big thing that was going on. I was recruiting from mortgage companies in Philadelphia. So this was like this wasn't like some peripheral thing. I was I was in it as a you know, 22-year-old and not really having a good sense of what was going on, having to learn fast and knowing that things were not good, even if I didn't understand all of the details of why it was so bad.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Yeah, yeah, that sounds uh incredibly stressful.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

It was it wasn't great.

Finding Purpose In Technical Recruiting

SPEAKER_03 35:59

So you said that you kind of like this is kind of wild to me. You said you didn't really like recruiting for a decade, like 10 years. No, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

I thought I was trying to I was trying to move out of recruiting for a decade. I actually loved it after the first like year and a half after that because I moved into more technical recruiting after like a like not even a year, and then I was like, oh, this is really fun. This isn't just making 120 phone calls a day. I can actually get to know people and connect them with with with roles that they're going to succeed in, and so on. And I mean, I I follow the people who I placed on on LinkedIn from almost 20 years ago, and there's some people who've been at their jobs for you know eight years, 12 years, things like that. It was it was the first year that I didn't like it, but it was over the course of 10 years that I was like, no, I'm going back to education, I'm gonna work on a college campus. No, but I I loved the work.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Yeah, I gotcha. And so, okay, so you did it for a decade, and maybe there was always that part of you kind of at the beginning of your career where you thought you were gonna go down a different path. So you you explored that, right? Was this at uh to you when you went to student success, the director of student success, or when it was so yeah, yeah, that was that was an interesting one.

Pivot To EdTech And Student Success

SPEAKER_01 37:19

So to you is an education technology company that's focused entirely on higher education, and and they've they've branched out since that and I've I've haven't worked there in some time, but um, I I made the switch to this student success, which was in a traditional B2B SaaS company. This is the equivalent of like a director of customer success, if that if that helps. So I was the one working directly with to use university partners and really good university partners too, like institutions that I had a huge amount of respect for, such as uh such as Harvard, Berkeley, Washiu and St. Louis, American University. There's a couple others that are escaping me right now, but like really great, storied academic institutions. And I moved into that role and I was really excited to work so closely with the folks who were on campus. And it was a combination of folks who were program administrators and academic instructors. And I was just over the moon to have that opportunity. And I was working with really talented teams who were work who were the ones working actually directly with students on what their graduate uh journey was like. And yeah, as as much of a being a dream, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna be a dean of students one day. And this is the kind of like leapfrog that I need to get there. I gotta be honest, I didn't like I didn't find it it was rewarding in the theory, but the work itself was not rewarding at all. I didn't like it. I did it for almost two years, so I gave it the old college try.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

There you go. And then you decided that you wanted to go back to talent acquisition. Maybe did did your perspective at all shift on talent acquisition during that chapter?

SPEAKER_01 39:06

It did. It did very much. My perspective also changed on what I brought to the work because I invested a lot, like leading up to the the brief two-year transition that I made, I invested tremendously in my team and their development and growth, team structures. I invested in my own growth. I invested hugely in my network, which was a testament to a manager I had for about seven years. I actually just talked with her uh last week too. And she was the one who encouraged me. She's like, you need to go talk to other people who are doing this job in other companies. Like, you don't have true peers within the organization. You got to go talk to people who are out there doing it. Um, and the investment that I made in tooling and technology. So it was all of these things that I just thought when I was in it for the first 10 years, that it was like, this is what you got to do. This is part of the job. It's just, it's just, you know, matter of course. And the opportunity that I had to reflect was like, oh, I've actually done things that are ahead of what some of the industry is doing. And these are investments and building blocks and all of these things that are actually aligned with what I enjoy, what I'm good at, what I value in myself and in others. That's where I had the opportunity to do that work. And I think I I was doing all of it. And without having had the opportunity to reflect on it, I was like, yeah, this is just what you do. And yet it was it was these huge investments that I that I was making and just didn't see at the time because I was just focused on doing.

Returning To TA With New Perspective

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Yeah, sometimes it seems like when we step away for a little while, it allows kind of the dust to settle and and we come back with a fresh perspective. Right. Exactly. So now you've had an incredibly successful career to date. You're uh senior director over at Lattice, which I think pretty much everyone tuning in is gonna know who your employer is, you're still gonna you're not even close to where you're gonna end up professionally. I can already tell that. Um you're such an intellectually curious person and ambitious. So I'm I'm looking forward to doing this show again, by the way, a few years from now. But um what are like from a town acquisition leader perspective, you know, for other leaders tuning in, whether they're running TA or maybe they're chief of staff or maybe they're even a CEO, what advice or feedback do you have on on what you think is like most important takeaways at this point in your career?

People Development As A Core Strategy

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Yeah, and this this applies this applies to myself as well. So I don't I I hate the idea of dishing out any advice that I'm not actively doing it myself and or and or wouldn't be willing to do myself, depending on the circumstances, timing, and so on. I'd say the absolute most important thing is investing in people and their growth. People are so I think about recruiters and um like early recruiting leaders, and I think about the potential that they have to do incredible things. And I mean that's where the most like satisfaction has come from my career, and it's also where the most growth has come for my own career. So it's it's one of these things that it's it's a total win-win. Like I didn't see it as good for my own growth. I've never done it for my own growth, but I can tell you definitively the thing that has helped me grow the most is invest in others. So what I mean by that, really specifically, is this is where it's like we're gonna have a through line here, James, of like meeting people where they are. We've been talking about that with all the academic pieces, is meeting people where they are. And the the thing that I uh was really lucky to learn very early on as a manager was it's important to hire people who are different from you. And when I say different, I mean complimentary, complimentary with an E. Uh people who are going to kind of bring that the differences of what you bring to the table and what you're really strong in versus what they're really strong in. And I didn't know this until there was someone who I was managing who I had just kind of pegged everyone on my team as like, we're recruiters, we're the cheerleaders, we're the extroverts. We did one of those Myers Briggs exercises as kind of like a team like growth moment. And I had this one person who came out as an introvert. I was like, You're an introvert. And she was like, Yeah. I was like, oh my gosh. And and that doesn't seem like a really big deal now, but for me, as a, you know, like I'm two years into managing people, maybe three. And I realized that I was treating everyone the same way. And and knowing this about this person who was reporting to me, who, by the way, this person is brilliant and you know, very charming and incredibly good at what she does. And realizing that I was like, oh my gosh, like what's gonna motivate this person is actually different than what's gonna motivate, you know, these these folks over here, and different than what's going to motivate me. And and this was when I started thinking about everything differently about how I approach people on my team and really cultivating growth paths for them. So that's a very, very long-winded way of me saying that the most important thing to do is invest in people and listen to what they're saying to you and not put on them with just what you want, but look for opportunities to allow them to grow. Push them a little bit, push them a little outside of their comfort zones, you know, have them do things that aren't just exactly what they're doing, um, but giving them the opportunity and then giving them a little room to fail. As well. You know, it's like kind of like give them room to fail safely, give them a little bit more room, more room. And you're gonna see people really rise to the occasion. The more these people rise to the occasion, that means the more that you can do too. I love working myself out of a job because that means that I get to go do more things and hopefully like forge some of that path so that way they can come do more things too.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Yeah, I think um learning how to be individuals that are wired differently is it's a really important skill. It's a really important skill. And uh it takes, I think also, I mean, it takes a lot of I think skills that kind of lead into it. Um, like patience, understanding, like really listening, not trying to force people into certain communication modes or maybe even to certain responsibilities that they're just not gonna thrive in based on how they're wired, and at the same time helping them stretch and grow and trying to through communication, then hopefully through our own experience, trying to get a pulse on where and how they're gonna thrive. And it's it's always it can be it can feel the easiest when somebody's very similar to us, right? But it's you know, it's like it's kind of interesting too. It's like in psychology when folks refer to like the easy child versus the difficult child. It's like, well, sometimes really what that is, is the easy, quote unquote easy child is the one that's more like you, right? And and uh can be, yeah. And of course leadership's very different, but there are interesting parallels when we look at family dynamics and and work, and sometimes it's like the people that are easy to communicate with, or okay, they're like us, or uh there's a tendency in human nature. I don't know if you've heard this, but people tend to think people are smart who are similar to them. Like this person really gets it. You know, they really they really understand this really well. So it takes somebody to have a lot of self-awareness to break free of that mold and to do what you're doing. It's a senior level skill set, I think. For most people, I don't know if it comes naturally.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

It might not come naturally, but I would say that it can be learned.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

Yeah, for sure.

Managing Differences And Motivation

SPEAKER_01 46:45

I would say that it can be learned and it it's you can choose to focus on it. So it's it's not one of those things that you either got it or you don't. And it's like if if you feel like you don't have that right now, and that's something that's interesting, like that's one thing I think that's really cool is uh we use the uh the disk methodology at Lattice, and we're huge fans of it. It's it's one of those things that my LD team has done a good job of sharing. One of the reasons that we find it to be so useful and helpful is that I'm gonna get the exact terminology wrong, but basically it's like if someone takes the test over again, there's not gonna be a lot of variation. It's like your style is your style. Uh and something that I've been really proud of is that my talent acquisition team, like we like last year, it was a year ago, we were all in person together. And um I was just I was really proud of this because I didn't, it's not like I gave them personality tests when I was houring them or anything, but we were across the whole disc wheel. And everyone, like as people let's assume, and we were in there with the rest of our HR team, our people team, but as people were getting onto the floor, we had like you know, masking taped off and stuff like that. I was like, oh yeah, that checks out, that checks out, that checks out. And it was just really cool to see how these folks bring these different perspectives and different styles to their work. And you think about what we do in talent acquisition, you think about all of the people we come into contact with versus uh, I mean, sure, like I'm sure sales teams probably come in contact with as many people, maybe more in some cases, but the talent acquisition team is going to come in contact with so many people compared to what probably most of people, most of the people at an organization are going to come into contact with. Don't you want a recruiting team who has the potential to relate to the most possible people, to bring them into your organization, to create an organization that is diverse in thought and experience and approach and whatnot? So, like I think about those types of things uh too. And I just I remember it was a year ago and I was looking around at my team and I was I was really proud. And uh and I knew that I was hiring complimentary people, but seeing how they they showed up on this disc wheel uh in these different places was like good, we're doing it right.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

Love it. So moving forward based on where you are today, I I would love to talk about sort of like where you're at today. Um, and in terms of like psychologically or your professional and personal journey in life. First off, has your definition of success changed over the years? Or do you feel like it's it's pretty consistent?

Building Complementary Teams With DiSC

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Uh that's a good question. I'd say definition of success has stayed relatively similar in terms of there's this combination of individual success and and organizational success, right? Like, are we is the organization succeeding? And are the individuals who are contributing to that are they being successful and are they growing in the work that they're doing, right? There was an executive who worked at Lattice for four and a half years. She was awesome. And I was fortunate to have a couple, not quite a year, but I had some overlap with her and she's she's amazing. And one of the things that she always says, she's one of those, she's one of those people who I really admire for her LinkedIn posts too, because they're always very professional because she always like speaks very directly, like in plain English too. And the thing that she says is run your own race, which my mother has been saying to me always in slightly different terminology, which is don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to your past self. Like, are you growing yourself? Right. So the idea of run your own race is okay, are you showing up better than you were a month ago? Are you showing up, are you building on that? Not maybe better is the wrong word, but like are you are you building and are you growing and and so on? Because this is where the the whole concept of careers, it's like, oh, everything's got to be up and to the right or up a ladder or something. No, this is why I love lattice, because your career is actually much more like a lattice. Sorry, had to plug. But um I I think about that success and it's this combination, but what gets tricky is your own individual growth and success should also be attuned to the business's ability to succeed. Like it shouldn't be uh neither of those things should be at odds with each other. So I've I've always had that that mentality, and and that'll continue.

SPEAKER_03 51:07

Yeah, I love that. What about personal? What does the next chapter look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Well, on a very personal, so I'd say like the the only other thing that I would say is I mean, on everything talent acquisition related, I would love to speak at LinkedIn Talent Connect. That's one of my like big hairy. I had two big hairy audacious goals when my mentor sat me down and talked with me about it. One was graduate school, and she kind of kicked my butt on that, and she was like, Cool, you're gonna start writing your essays, you're applying in the spring. And here we are. I've been graduated now for uh for six years. So she she did a good job. I started that 10 years ago. Uh, but my other one is speaking at LinkedIn Talent Connect. So I would I would love to do that because uh no ego in that. It's just because I have a huge amount of respect for the the conference that they put on, for the speakers that they bring in, um, for how those speakers have influenced how I've thought about approaching talent acquisition and people leadership and uh how inspiring it is. So I if I can contribute to that, I would love to be able to contribute to that. So that's the one. And then on a very personal note, I'm also um I'm seven months pregnant. So it that's a that's gonna be a new chapter of balancing being a parent and a working professional. And I'd say the thing there for me that I'm gonna have to do a better job of figuring out that I haven't had to really, is um setting some boundaries. I'm looking forward to that. That's gonna be uh that's gonna be very different from some of these other challenges that I've uh taken on.

SPEAKER_03 52:41

That's that's really exciting. And this is uh is this your first?

SPEAKER_01 52:45

This is my first.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

Oh that's a game changer right there.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Oh yeah. So we're uh yeah, we're it's coming up fast.

Success As Personal And Organizational

SPEAKER_03 52:53

Yeah, I mean finding that balance and boundaries is uh it's challenging. I think it's challenging for for everyone, but you know, you find a way. And one theme that you you've brought up with me on a couple occasions, it's done versus perfect, or uh you just sort of like roll with it and and do the best you can. I think it's something that I've I've been learning how to do over the past six years, and I can't say I've ever gotten it perfect. Um, I just I can't, but it's it's something where it's like a constant thing that I'm like thinking about and I'm trying to like I I adjust based on the chapter and the week and the month, and it's very, very fluid. But yeah, that's gonna be interesting. That must you must be so excited.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Oh yeah. We're uh husband and I are very excited, but that's the thing. To your point, it's the thing that you can't stop thinking about. So like it's it's always gonna be there. So work you can work you can turn off sometimes. Well, some people can sometimes, but uh, but but parenting, not not so much. So yeah, we're we're we're very, very excited about that.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Yeah, that's awesome. And uh again, we we have to do this again sometime in the future. And I'm looking forward to hearing all about this upcoming chapter and and more about like your thoughts on balancing and navigating corporate life with being a mom. That's gonna be a really fun conversation, too, if you're up for it.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Oh, yeah, we'll see, we'll see how I'm doing at that point. Maybe everything will have changed at that point.

SPEAKER_03 54:17

Yeah, yeah, who knows? A lot, yeah, a lot could definitely change. Um, well, hey, Nicole, this has been a really fascinating conversation. I was like just incredibly engaged and interested in this this whole recording with you. You seem like a very well-rounded person, and you've had so many different types of life experiences, professionally and academic. And I feel like we covered a lot of ground in a lot of different directions. So I just want to say thank you for coming on and joining me on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Well, likewise, it's it's really rare that I get to talk about philosophy when anything is about when anything is about recruiting. Most people are kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Like let's let's let's talk about this and talk about that. So it's been uh it's been a lot of fun to to go in this direction. So we're gonna have to we're gonna have to swap some books, it sounds like, too.

Big Goals, Boundaries, And Motherhood

SPEAKER_03 55:05

Yeah, oh definitely. We're there's many more follow up conversations that I would actually love to have. Um well look for everybody tuning in, I I did one one call out. I mentioned that King's College is a Jesuit university. It's actually not, it's a private Catholic university, but I just wanted to correct myself real fast. But other than that, thank you very much for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time. Take care.