The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Recruiting and Talent Acquisition Conversations
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The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Recruiting and Talent Acquisition Conversations
EP 191: Hiring Lessons from Mission Work and Global Service
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Jeramy Keetch, Director of Talent Acquisition at Nerdy, traces how his Midwestern upbringing and global service experiences shaped his leadership philosophy, one rooted in empathy and adaptability. He reflects on faith, family, and cross-cultural learning, connecting those lessons to AI-native talent practices that reveal potential beyond traditional résumés.
Books mentioned:
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
- Counseling With Our Councils by Elder Ballard
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Hey everyone, I'm here with Jeremy Keach today. Jeremy is uh currently in the role of director of talent acquisition over at Nerdy. Jeremy, thanks for joining us on the show today.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thanks, James. Happy to be here. So where are you from? Yeah, I'm from uh St. Louis. Grew up here in St. Louis and uh have been here for several years. So uh took a little bit of a hiatus elsewhere. And then um us mid-metwestern boys, we never get too far from where we grew up. So about 15 years ago when we moved back and have been here ever since.
SPEAKER_01:And I think where you currently work, Nerdy, are they also headquartered in St. Louis? They are. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So Nerdy, also known as varsity tutors. Um, yeah, we were founded here uh by our our CEO and founder, Chuck Cohn. Yeah, our corporate headquarters are here in St. Louis.
SPEAKER_01:So well, that's pretty cool. And you don't always see tech companies, platform companies, and headquarters in St. Louis, so that's pretty unique.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's pretty exciting. Yeah, we've we we're very proud of being based out of St. Louis and um being in the Midwest, right? Um where traditionally you see a lot of the startups on on the coast. We're very proud of our Midwestern roots for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Gotcha. Cool. So what were you like as a kid?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um I'd say generally I was a pretty happy kid. Grew up in a in a household that was um, you know, happy and very active. And we did sports, we did music and learned how to play the piano and loved baseball. Obviously, being in St. Louis, you have to be a Cardinals fan, right? So um grew up being a cards fan, and still am, obviously. But uh, but yeah, it was a it was a happy household, and overall it was it it was a good upbringing.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. And you said that your dad was a a doctor, right?
SPEAKER_00:So you feel like that too really instilled the work ethic and yeah, yeah, yeah, and and and actually my dad grew up on a farm out in Utah, and then he decided to go into the medical field, and obviously, you know, medical school is it's a pretty uh it it's not easy, right? And and then he moved from Utah to to St. Louis to do his residency at Washington University, and um, you know, 12 hour days and and multiple rotations in the hospital, just a lot to drive, lots of grit. And he brought that home to us and instilled strong work ethic, strong study habits, things like that. So yeah, that was the type of of uh upbringing that I had and the the values that he instilled in me.
SPEAKER_01:And then your mom, you said, was more the compassionate and focused on the more uh the empathy, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I mean, yeah, while my dad was going through medical school and you know, um earning a living for us, our mom was home with with us. I grew up with three other siblings. I'm the oldest of of four, and she was at home with us, right? And taught us how to be kind and and how to help people and how to be empathetic and to serve and um all those other attributes that are are as important as studying and and working hard and being driven.
SPEAKER_01:From a formative experience perspective, it sort of kind of makes sense how you ended up in talent acquisition and people, right? Because it's a combination of those things. You gotta work really hard and be consistent, and also you have to be focused on the human element, the empathy. Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I often tell people, you know, it's interesting as I talk to friends and family members and things like that. They ask me what I do, right? And I tell them I'm in talent acquisition, and then they say, well, what does that mean? And you know, you can give them the typical response of, oh, we just help recruit people. But when you really think about it, right, talent acquisition is it's sales, it's marketing, it's customer relations, it's operations, data analysis, right? All those different aspects of a company kind of put into a single function, right? And you have to, like you said, rely on a lot of those different skills and attributes to be an effective person within talent acquisition.
SPEAKER_01:Church was a bit a pretty big part of your life too, right?
SPEAKER_00:As a but I'm yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was foundational to my upbringing and you know, growing up in in a religious family and and going to church every week, um, being a part of the church youth program, all of that continued to teach me a lot of values that were bigger than myself, where I came from, what my goal in life is, who the type of person I really should strive to be, these kind of morals that that you know we live and abide by and that brings so much uh hope and joy and happiness in our lives, right? That was instilled into me from a very young age as well.
SPEAKER_01:What what church was it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yeah. Okay. Um, a lot of people have formerly known us as as Mormons, right? Which is kind of a past nickname for us, but uh yeah, we're known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
SPEAKER_01:And then as a a young adult, you you have a pretty interesting uh story of moving to France, right? And with with the church group.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it was interesting because so when I graduated from high school, um, I actually went to college for two semesters. Obviously, when you go into college, you find this newfound freedom and you start to decide who you really want to be, right? And I think for a lot of us, you know, freshman year is a year of self-discovery. So I took some classes, as most of us do. We stay up late, we have a good time, we play sports with our friends. But then I had the opportunity after those two semesters of college to go and and serve a mission for my church. Um, and I got called to serve in in the southern part of France for two years. Um, and it was quite the transition, right? You go from kind of having all this freedom and doing what you want to a very disciplined, very structured type of an environment, right? Where you're waking up at 6:30 every morning and you're working out and eating breakfast and then you're studying for an hour, and then by 9, 9.30, you're going out with your companion to go help teach and serve and just do various projects, you know, in this in the southern part of France. So it was definitely a unique experience and a growing up period for me.
SPEAKER_01:What city or region were you in?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so if you kind of look at France, it was like the bottom third of France, and I started in a place called Toulon, which is uh a naval city, um, right along the coast of southern France. Um, so I started off there for a couple of months, and then every couple of months I'd move to different cities. I served in a place called Aix-en-Provence and Perpignon and um uh Montpellier, and then I ended up in a place called Toulouse, which is one of the bigger cities in France. So, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's uh a pretty nice area to be uh stationed.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if you got it. The weather is very nice, the it's it's beautiful, beautiful scenery, beautiful people. Um, I often tell people, you know, the southern part of France, at least back then, is is kind of a melting pot, right? You got a lot of people coming in from from Africa and South America and Asia, and obviously the French. And so you get to meet a lot of people from various countries and various cultures, and it was very eye-opening kind of multicultural experience for me being being in the southern part of France.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I guess it's probably a a really cool experience coming from the Midwest to be able to have quite quite the contrast. Yeah, absolutely. A little bit, yeah. Yeah, that's uh and you you said it was two years or two years, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I lived yeah, we lived there for two years. Um, like I said, moving, you know, from city to city every couple of months, depending on where the assignment came from. But yeah, it was there for a full two years.
SPEAKER_01:So how how does that work? It's um so every couple months you're assigned to a new city, or do you have a couple of years?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so yeah, exactly. So you have what we call a mission president. Um, so it's you know, typically an older gentleman and his wife, they they oversee the mission, right? Which was um it was called the the France Toulouse mission. And you have about 150 missionaries who are assigned to go and serve in that particular geographical area, and then you're partnered up with a companion and you just live in different apartments and things like that. And then um every six weeks, the mission president would decide whether you're staying in that particular area or whether you would move to different areas. And so, um, like I said, for me, I it differed for every person, but like for me, I you know, I got what we call transferred to different parts of of southern France every couple of months. I think the longest place I stayed at was in Toulouse, and I was there for probably I think seven or eight months was the place I was in the longest.
SPEAKER_01:So, how do they determine like shifting people around? If I mean, if there's it sounds like there's a lot of folks in the similar region, right? Or you have to go 50 to 100 people, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So every city typically had either two or like four missionaries assigned to it, right, throughout all of the southern France. And you know, obviously you would get a new group of incoming missionaries who would come in every six weeks, and then you'd have people who would leave. And so there's always this kind of shifting process and mixing process that would happen. A lot of it was done through inspiration, right? Um, but a lot of it was based on need. We have an outgoing missionary, and so we need somebody to fill in here, and we didn't always take the newest missionaries, but sometimes, you know, if I was in a particular place for six months, it might be good for a change of scenery to meet new people and to learn new things. And so once again, it was under the inspiration of the mission president and his wife.
SPEAKER_01:That's really cool. That's really cool. And and so I I know there was some really impactful opportunities for you to to help others, and you uh told me about a story uh specifically of some young men you met in a park. Um could you tell us about that story?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So this is when I was serving in in Montpellier. Uh, once again, this is on the kind of southwestern side, close to the coast of France. Often, you know, we'd go out into parks or to, you know, city squares and try to just meet people and then help people. And um, there was a time in Montpellier where um we were walking through a park and we came across these nine young men um from Liberia, um, and they were sleeping in the trees and they were sleeping on cardboard boxes or on cardboard underneath the trees, and we got to meet them and kind of hear their story. And and the story was, you know, this is during the time of the Liberia Civil War, right? Um where the rebel army was going to different villages and basically kidnapping and taking young men and putting them into their armies, right? Well, these nine young men um had seen the rebel army coming, um, just you know, grabbed whatever they could and literally ran from their homes uh to the coast. They jumped onto a ship that was going to the southern part of France and it docked and they jumped off and and basically found themselves into this park in in Montpellier, right? And they were, you know, they literally fled um a a country of turmoil and and civil war, and they are trying to figure out what to do next. It was a unique experience for me because once again, coming from a very, I'd say, sheltered, protected Midwestern life culture, opened my eyes up to the really the very real challenges that people throughout the world were going through, right? Um, much bigger than my own, right? It was a very humbling experience. And so, long story short, we had the opportunity to help them find food and eventually get shelter. And then we taught them how to um find a job, right? And and to get uh some type of income coming in and um how to interview for those jobs and and how to once again just start their lives, right? And to to gain some level of success that put them on a path to greater happiness in their life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a really really cool story. Did you keep in touch with anyone?
SPEAKER_00:Some of them, yeah. Some for a couple of years after that, you know, we kept in touch, but then you know, as as life gets in the way, things start to trail off. So, and this was back in the day. This was this was back in 2003, right? So I'm trying to I don't even think Facebook was was invented back then. So um, you know, not as as many social media connections that you could make back then, definitely kind of the old school relationships that you have to that you created back in person, then you do phone calls or emails, and that was about it. But uh, we kept in touch for a little while and then things just kind of faded off from there.
SPEAKER_01:So after the the South of France, did you do any more traveling with the church, or was that the conclusion of Yeah?
SPEAKER_00:So after two years, um I came back and continued my my studies in in college. I went to Brigham Young University, Idaho. I had ambitions to um go to law school, and so I had heard that you know majoring in English to become a very strong writer would help me to be a successful lawyer, and so came back home and and uh continued my my studies in in college.
SPEAKER_01:So Okay, got it. And then from there, I I know you you ended up in New Zealand.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How how long after was that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that was that was about two years after I got home from France, and this was just happenstance. I saw a flyer for uh what was called an employment resource center internship. Once again, this was through the church, but they had employment centers built all throughout the world, and so they were offering an internship for a semester to go study study and work abroad at one of these employment centers. Um, and so you weren't sure where you were going to go, and you know, so I applied and just happened to get accepted. And luckily, I mean, yeah, Happenstance got selected to go to New Zealand, which was just boggled my mind. I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe that of all the places that they'd picked for me to go would be would be New Zealand. And so so yeah, had the opportunity to go to New Zealand and and work at it out of the employment uh resource center. So that must have been really cool. It was very cool, yeah. It just kind of built on on expanding my vision and my horizons of of what was out in the world and and the way that people lived. We had the opportunity to to live with a uh a Maori family, um, a very kind couple. Um, Sykes uh are their name and a name. They just very warmly welcomed us into our home and hosted us and fed us. And then at the same time, we worked at the Employment Resource Center. But, you know, working with um the Maori and and the Kiwis, as they're called, and a lot of Polynesian people was just a very sweet experience, right? Just so gracious and so humble and always wanting to help others. And they had such a great spirit of unity about them that really kind of opened my eyes up to, you know, when you're unified with whether it's a group or a companionship or a team or a company, just magical and awesome things can actually happen. So it was it was it was a phenomenal experience in New Zealand.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and how how long were you there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I was there for for about four months. Yeah, so from January to April is when I was there, yeah. Which was nice because in B at BOE, Idaho, those winters are pretty, pretty harsh. So it was a good opportunity for me to go in the southern hemisphere where the weather was you know basically summer and and it was it was one of these years.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, for sure. One of these years I'm gonna get that right. I'm actually it's mid-February for everybody tuning in when we're recording this, and uh I'm heading to New York in a couple of weeks, and it's like in the middle of February, I'm going north.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, well, it's funny because so today our talent acquisition team consists of US-based uh people, but we also have a couple of recruiters based in Brazil and Argentina and Chile, and they are just loving it because it's their summertime, right? So they're getting out, they're rock climbing, they're going to the beach. Meanwhile, we're hunkered here, you know, down here in the United States with these ice storms and snowstorms and um very different experience during this time of year for us.
SPEAKER_01:So did you guys get hit from the like the massive snowstorm that we did?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, luckily for us, it was snow, just snow. Uh we got about 10 inches of snow here in St. Louis, which is a lot for us. Usually it's it's a couple of inches, but then even then, a couple of inches kind of shut the city down. So, but it was a lot. Um, and you know, one of my colleagues, she got a lot of ice, and down in in Tennessee, they got hit pretty hard. So they've lost power and things like that. But luckily for us here in St. Louis, it was mostly snow. We got shut down for school and stuff for a couple of days, but mostly we're back, which is good.
SPEAKER_01:So I don't know if I told you, but I own my own company, and I have been thinking of this idea of like, I need to specifically target customers in like Southern California or Florida, just so I have more of a reason. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00:To travel down to the nicer climates, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um so hey, when you were in New Zealand, you told me that you learned something called a hedgehog concept. Yeah. Which uh I had never heard of before, but it'd be great to know what that is. And also I'm just curious to get a sense of like where that name comes from.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So um there's a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. It's a very well-known book about how to take companies from being good uh to being great. And during this internship, I had the opportunity to kind of read that book, and there was a lot of applicability to take from what he was applying to companies could be applied to individuals, right? As they're starting to dive into their careers and to their professions and trying to figure out you know what they want to do when they grow up, right? I think in to some extent we're still all trying to figure out what we want to do when we grow up. Any that anyway, this concept is it comes from a Greek parable. Um the parable goes, you know, the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing, right, about how to defend itself, right? So mock a fox, if you remember, is like very sly, right? And it'll try to attack its prey in many different ways. But the hedgehog does one thing really, really good, and that's defend itself with its spikes, right? And it excels and it survives and it it thrives in life because of that one dominant, really great thing that it can do, right? And so the applicability that Jim Collins, you know, provides to it is the hedgehog concept is basically three different things, right? So when you when you put this through the lens of your career, you want to pick something that you're passionate about, right? That you really love to do, something that you're talented at, right? Something that you think you can do really well. Um, and then thirdly, something that's gonna drive your economic engine, right? Something that's gonna be able to provide for yourself and your family in that way. And so the idea is to try to get as close to the center of those three areas as much as possible. Because if you can identify a career or a job or profession where you're doing something that you just you're highly passionate about, something that you're really good at, and something that drives your economic engine, that's where you're gonna really find true success and true happiness when it comes to not only your profession, but also life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's really cool. And for everybody tuning in, we're gonna drop the link uh to that book. We'll reference it in the description section for you. Well, yeah, I mean that that makes a a lot of sense to me. And I'm just sort of reflecting on my own life. And I I feel like I've ended up in a a place where I'm kind of hitting those three things, but I've never really thought about it, frankly. Um, the way that you've articulated it. So yeah, that sounds like an interesting book. And I also like the fact that it's named after an ancient Greek parable. That's uh it's kind of cool. It's kind of fun when you like something has a little bit more meaning and has like a pretty cool origin, right?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it's fun to apply these kind of ancient parables or or stories and seeing you know how the principles still relate to our modern society and how we live our lives, right? There's kind of universal truths that we find always cycling through generation after generation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. And so, I mean, you're very well traveled, right? So you were in uh you were in France for a couple of years and you ended up in New Zealand. How did you end up in China? How did that happen?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so uh so a year after that, so New Zealand was in 2006. Um, I I graduated from my undergrad at BOU Idaho in two thousand in spring of 2007. And this was a time where I was trying to figure out what to do. And one of the things that I wanted to continue my international experience, and and so I decided to go found a program where they would take you know, US students or graduates and help teach English over in China. I had the opportunity that summer to go over to China and you know join basically a summer camp, right, for kids, Chinese kids who were learning English. And so me and my sister at the time, we went over there together and we participated in the summer camp and we taught English and um just had a great time, right? And and you know, taught them a lot of kind of American songs and traditions, and we learned their traditions and songs, and it was this kind of mutual exchange of of ideas and lessons and cool things that we learned together. So yeah, it was cool. How long were you there? So I was there for about three months, yeah. So after that, my sister went back home and I decided to take on another contract through the government of training about 200 teachers in one of their uh uh cities. It was like a big conference, right? So they brought in all these English teachers together into a big conference for about uh about two weeks. Um, and so they brought us in to help not only teach English, but also just to train how to teach, right? Different teaching methods and how do you approach different students and um different methodologies and and things like that. And so had the opportunity to do that um for the rest of my time there and then went home shortly after that.
SPEAKER_01:And so what city were you in while you were there?
SPEAKER_00:So the summer camp was in Hufei, um, right in the heart of China, and then the training opportunity that I took on was in Ishing City, um, a little bit to the east of Hufei. So right, but right in the heart, smack dab in the heart of of China.
SPEAKER_01:You were telling me about this time that you were in uh was it like the the subway in the station? Yeah, the train station, yeah. Literally turned around and lost. How did how did that happen? So what's the backstory to that? How'd you end up in that situation?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just in front of the listeners out there, just to level set a little bit. So I did not know Chinese at all, right? Um, completely foreign to me. Obviously, I had learned French in France and obviously English, and I had this perception in my mind that there was a lot. More English being spoken or you know on signs and stuff in China. But I very quickly learned when I got to China that that was not the case, especially when you go into Heartland, China, right? Everything's in Chinese, very little English. Most you know, when you're talking to the students and the teachers, yes, they do pretty good at speaking English, but you're definitely in the heart of an area that is very foreign, right? And when you travel to like Europe, they use you know Latin languages, right? So you can at least understand the letters. Well, in China, you know, all the characters are completely different. So you have no, you can't even, you know, deduce what that sign might mean or what they might be saying. So it was definitely it was probably one of the bigger cultural shocks I've had throughout my life, despite all my international traveling. So um at the very end of my time there um in Yixing City, I was going to basically take a train up to Beijing and just kind of see the sites there and then fly home, right? And so I had a taxi cab kind of pick me up from the hotel and drop me off at the train station. And when I got to the train station and I walked in, everything was in Chinese, right? And there were literally thousands of people walking in this lot in this terminal. And I kind of went into panic mode. I had no idea, I didn't know where to go. I didn't, I couldn't read signs, even the numbers, right? Like their numbers are in different characters, right? No idea what to do. I went into full panic mode, and I kind of just sat there for a little while, just looking around, trying to like interpret my ticket, and then all of a sudden, right? And I still I feel like this is divinely uh inspired, but all of a sudden it was like this sea of people parted, right? And all of a sudden, a young man walks up towards me and in almost perfect English says, Hey, you look like you're lost. Can I help you out? And I think I was almost in tears at this point, but I said, Yes, yes, I need help. I don't know where to go. What do I do? And I showed him my ticket, and then he just said, Follow me. So I grabbed my bag and I we went up like two escalators and down this big corridor, and then he led me into this waiting room where everybody's just kind of sitting, right? And he said, Oh yeah, your train doesn't leave for a couple of hours. This is where you wait. And then he just he just sat with me and we I talked about America and he would talk about China and his, I think he was a university student at the time, and just kind of shared some of what was going on in his life. And he sat with me for the full, I think it was two hours that you know we had to say for sit and wait for my train. And and then it came time for me to finally go get on my train, and he wrote down on a piece of paper exactly where to go. And I'm not kidding you, on the paper, it was like a maze, right? You have to walk down this hallway, you go through this door, and then there's another gate you have to go through, and then you finally walk up these stairs and onto the train platform, and this is the train you actually get on. And I was so grateful. I I my my family jokes, I tell the story all the time, because I really think he was my guardian angel. You know, he just he saved me, right? He he helped me to to find my way, he taught me how to navigate this this maze of a of a train station in in Heartland, China. And uh eventually I got on my train and was on my way, and you know, unfortunately never never found out who he was or never saw him again. But it was a remarkable experience of a somebody who I don't know, unbeknownst to him, really taught me and guided me and helped me to feel not lost.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, that's uh that was really incredibly nice of him to particularly to wait.
SPEAKER_00:Went out of his way, right? To a complete stranger in the middle of a train station. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's a great story. I'm sure that was pretty impactful as well. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So at this point, you've been around a minute, right? You in terms of professionally, personally, you've traveled um, you know, to uh travel the world uh west and east, right? Um you got a lot of different formative experiences. You have your your education, you have a doctorate, right? Um you got uh you know well traveled, your religion, your church, it's very close to close to you, remains so now. Um and you're you're successful in your career. For leaders that are tuning in, talent acquisition leaders, I would love to hear your thoughts on like top takeaways because it you know, I think our values, our experiences and our values and principles, everything that we've gone through in life, all these different influences impact how we think about leadership and decision making. And I'm curious to get a sense for based on your life experiences, like what do you find to be and your professional experiences, of course, what do you think is most important for leaders tuning in, like in terms of being successful in their roles?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I think I mean, not even just in talent acquisition, but leaders in general. True leadership comes from those who recognize where people are at and go meet them where they're at, right? And walk with them as they kind of go through their own journeys and experiences and grow and develop into what they are striving to be. This example of the young man in China. If you think of the parallel there to life, right, and to our even our professions or even within talent acquisition, you're basically that young man, he saw that I was lost or confused or um weak, let's just call it, right? Or inexperienced. You know, I didn't know Chinese, I should have, right? I should have done a job preparing. But he came and he met with me where I was at, and he walked with me to that waiting room. And then he taught me how to actually get to where I was trying to get to. In talent acquisition and in leadership in general, that's not too different, right? True leaders can see when people are struggling and the challenges that they're facing and go to them and meet them where they're at, and then they walk with them and teach them how to overcome the obstacles that are in their way and help them navigate the maze of life or the maze of a career and the ups and downs. You know, over the last couple of years, it's you know, the market's been tough, right? For a lot of people. People have lost jobs, there's been a ton of reductions, and people are going out trying to explore new areas. You talk about James about you know, starting this podcast a couple of years ago, right? And how that's feeding your passion for what you really love to do. And people are out there still trying to navigate that, right? So true leaders are the ones who see those people, meet them where they're at, and then help guide them along their journey.
SPEAKER_01:You also talk to me a lot about adaptability.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What does that mean to you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I think true leaders, true success comes from your ability to adapt to different situations, right? I'll give you an example from my experience working here at RC Tutors or Nerdy. So in 2020, when COVID hit, it was an interesting time for a lot of us for a lot of different ways, right? Um and those of us in talent acquisition, at least for me, will remember that when COVID hit, recruiting came to a screeching halt. And you know, the market went crazy. We didn't know what was going to happen in the future, and companies started shutting down, right? Or just stopping and pausing and figuring out, okay, what are we going to do with this? Right. Well, fortunately for us, varsity tutors are nerdy. We saw the opportunity to revolutionize how people learn, right? Now that everybody was, they were learning online, right? They were at home, right? They weren't in schools as much anymore. And um, and so we took advantage of that opportunity. For me, I had some really good leaders who saw an opportunity for me to do something different outside of talent acquisition. And so I was put in charge of our newly created what we called class operations team. So one of the products that we are trying to develop to help people during these COVID years was lots of different live classes that students could take to supplement their education. This was in spring, right, of 2020. So uh the class operations team was responsible for coming up with hundreds of different um virtual summer camps across enrichment topics, across academic subjects, as well as different types of courses, small group size, large group size, et cetera. And obviously, yeah, I've done a little bit of operations work before, but I've never done like I've never developed a product like that like that before, right? I never knew how to manage a team of people who put together the product and then how to go and find instructors for for the classes and then get students to enroll and then get the classes going successfully. We did that in a matter of months and we scaled an entire new product line in a matter of months because, you know, I learned how to adapt. I learned how to take the skills that I had learned from talent acquisition and apply them in a different environment. And it was tough. It was probably one of the toughest times of my career. But because I was able to adapt, I was able to show that I could, I could survive, right? I could, I could thrive in a very new environment. And I learned a ton from it. Eventually we got back and we started recruiting again, and I went back to my normal function of TA. But true leaders and people who want to have success learn how to adapt to different situations. So that's what I mean by adaptability.
SPEAKER_01:So I I want to talk to you about what's next, how you want to continue to develop as a person. One of the things I've been talking about recently is um I think a lot of people when they initially tune into a show like this or or anything like B2B focused, we have this way of looking at what professional development is. And often we fall into this habit of focusing on tactical skill development. Um, you know, the 10 steps to X, Y, Z, right? Um of course, like there's a place for that. There's actually there, and there's so much content out there, right? But I think sometimes people have a hard time getting to the goals or the outcomes that they want. And I think it's because we have a misconception on what we need to learn and how we need to grow as a person to get there. Because the reality is that the tactical skills are probably the easiest part. I think what we have to do is we have to develop holistically as a person. And when we develop holistically as a person, we can level up. Um, you know, this is why on this show, like we focused on so many of the personal stories and values and principles, because they drive so much of who we are and how we lead and how we think about making decisions and how we think about lifelong learning and intellectual curiosity and helping others and all of these types of things, right? Of course, there's professional stories that help us develop in these ways too. But uh, the purpose of this show is like becoming more and more clear to me of like how do we develop the entire person, right? And and how can we create that type of content in terms of who you're becoming? I know from a talent acquisition perspective, I want to touch on something, but you actually have this other incredible life experience uh as a bishop for your church. And I would like to spend more of the time there because you're talking about leadership and helping others. There's, I feel like so many lessons learned there that are applicable to people in leadership roles that I really would would love to learn from you there. But nonetheless, like I do really want to get your thoughts on something a little bit more tactical, TA focused first on how to become more AI native. You mentioned that that's like one of your goals as a leader is like really to understand how to implement AI into TA programs. And there's some different areas I think you had mentioned, like sourcing, uh, you know, outreach to candidates, candidate experience. When you think about your developing yourself in your way, you said this is one of your biggest goals over the next few years. Like based on the research you've done, are there specific areas that you think are most impactful, or or how are you approaching AI implementation into your organization?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't remember who said it, but you know, there's been this fear throughout the market of like, oh, AI is gonna take our jobs and he's gonna, you know, take over everything that we do. But uh in reality, it's it's not that. It's those who learn how to use AI are the ones that you're going to have to worry about, right? And this has been true through all of humankind. Those who learn how to, and speaking of adaptability, those who learn how to adapt the technology to empower them are the ones who are going to have the most amount of success, right? And obviously, we're in the midst, and this is being talked about all by IX experts much higher than me, but how the AI revolution is at hand, right? And it's impacting every sector, every industry across the market. And those who, within their function, learn how to best utilize the technology to, within talent acquisition, find great talent for their organizations who will bring the biggest impact are those who are going to have help their companies thrive, right? And so at nerdy, we are pushing to become as AI native as possible. And what I mean that is, you know, AI is our superpower. We we control it, we, we, you know, directionally aim it at different parts of our process to number one, enhance the candidate experience to make sure that they are finding jobs and finding an opportunity that best match their goals and objectives. We talked about the Hedgehog concept, right? Part of our job as talent acquisition partners is to help people find that center of the trifecta. And we do that, and we can do that much more effectively with the use of AI, helping them to understand the job very thoroughly, showing demos of like, so for example, a sales rep, here's exactly what you're gonna do, and here's a virtual environment you can kind of go into to see what's happening, right? So they can kind of get a reality of like, hey, is this something I want to do or not? And then from our end of you know, the ability to screen and to identify people who like honestly, we're very close, and if not already there, where resumes are a thing of the past, right? AI allows us to go deeper into individuals to understand what their skills are, their values, their innate abilities that would match with the needs of a business or or a company. And AI can help us do that on a much deeper level than we've ever been able to do before. And so as you insert AI, like you said, into sourcing, into screening, into driving the automations of the process, um, that will allow us to make much deeper level matches between company and individuals, and thereby getting people into a job, a profession that's going to take them on this major journey throughout the rest of their life. I have many examples of people that I've hired over the years who have come into varsity tutors who have thrived, developed into strong, strong leaders and developed skills that are not only impactful to the company, but impactful to their families, to their communities, and that they take with them if if they leave the company. So that's those are kind of the things that I'm trying to do as a leader. And it's not just about the new technology, it's about transforming people's lives using the technology as they hit our function.
SPEAKER_01:So I want to take the rest of the episode to talk about your development as the entire person and what you're doing right now as a bishop for your church congregation. And I I know you said that you're you're really focused on becoming a better leader across the board, helping people. And when we were talking about your role with the church, one of the things you had mentioned is how to help people work through traumatic experiences. And I suppose at times you you know you had mentioned use it for some to find a way to grow. And I'm sure other times a way to cope and other times a way to process. Could you talk to us more about how you help people do that? Like if something really traumatic happens or something that's very challenging, how do you help as a leader help people navigate through that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, in just a little context on that, in our church, we're not paid. Um, we're a lay ministry, is what they call it, right? And so we're we're asked at different times of our lives by church leaders to to serve in various callings. Um, about a year and a half ago, I was asked to serve as the bishop of our what we call a ward, which is basically a a church congregation of about three to four hundred members, right, of our church. I'm, you know, basically asked to be the spiritual leader of that congregation for about four to five years, is basically what the assignment is. And it's and it's all volunteered, it's all unpaid, but it's a unique opportunity to really get to know the struggles and the successes and the needs of the individual congregants. Um, and it's been a very humbling experience for me as people come into my office and just kind of pour out their hearts with things that they're struggling with, right? Losses of family members and anxiety or depression, or people with medical conditions and and physical ailments to spiritual ailments that they're dealing with, right? Struggles with testimony, struggles with faith, um, all these different ailments, right? And coming from a person like me who's not professionally trained as, you know, a therapist or a psychiatrist or whatever, we rely heavily on our relationship with Jesus Christ. And through that, we receive spiritual revelation and inspiration on how to help these people get through the very tough times in their lives. Um, but I think that the values that I've learned from this experience is, you know, number one, empathy, right? Empathizing with people's situation, going back to this young man in China, meeting them where they're at at a time that might feel very scary, where they're feeling very lost or just in a dark spot in their lives, right? Meeting them where they're at, and then taking them by the hand and walking them through that trial together, crying with them, celebrating with them, um, you know, step by step, helping them to get back into a situation where they can experience true joy and happiness and happiness in their lives. So empathy is a big one, active listening, learning how to listen with different types of situations is a big part of being a true leader. But overall, you know, relying on that relationship with Jesus Christ to help you help others is a big key for me as a bishop right now.
SPEAKER_01:So when people are going through these different life experiences that knock them off track, what advice do you share, if any? Is it all listening or empathy, or is it also kind of active guidance in terms of helping with the children?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely counseling how does that work? Yeah, definitely, once again, kind of guided by the spirit to, you know, um listen, yeah, to provide counseling and and help. A lot of it comes to understanding why we're here in this life. We're here to learn and to grow. And sometimes life's experiences, we all go through tough times, we all struggle, yeah. We all have, you know, hopefully successes and and achievements in our life, right? But you asked the question earlier about what it takes to be a true leader, um, including being in talent acquisition, it really comes down to relationships, right? There's only two things that you get to take with you when you die your knowledge, the skills, and the learning that you've gained. And number two, the relationships that you've built. And so I think our big learning as humans is learning how to get along with others. And when you're going through a trial or a very tough time with somebody else, or when you experience someone yourself, you develop empathy. So the next time you're dealing with somebody who's going through a similar trial, you're like, Yes, I understand you. I relate to you, I know how to help you walk through this. And even if you don't, the fact that you're showing saying that, hey, I'm with you on this, like develops this immediate bond. And you're able to share advice and tips and guidance for helping them get through very tough times in their lives. And through that, that unity, that unity of relationships allows you to experience true joy and happiness in this life despite all the tough things that we deal with.
SPEAKER_01:I I didn't learn that through religion or church, but I actually learned it more through uh Stephen Covey's uh Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Did you ever read that one? It's an old school.
SPEAKER_00:I did, yeah, a while back. That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Those things that he teaches in that book. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, what he talks about when it comes to like guiding and coaching is like nobody really wants to be told what to do or feel like judged, right? Which sometimes it's like if we kind of directly come out the gate saying, like, hey, this is you know, do this or do that, or I think you should. But one of the things he talked about was really just like listening and empathizing. And often what ends up happening is if you give the person the space to do that, then they might end up coming to you and say, like, so what do you think? Right, and kind of invite you to share your perspective. But most people are just so interested in getting the next thing out of their mouth to try to convince somebody that they don't give that person the space to really explain how they feel or what they think or their perspective. And yeah, I think there's like two things like you gotta listen long enough to really feel and understand where that person's coming from. If you don't get it, if you can't put yourself in the position to actually truly understand, maybe you don't like ultimately agree, but like if you can't get yourself to really feel and understand what they're saying, then you haven't listened enough to even give an appropriate response. Sometimes we think in shorthand, we have our own life experiences and we want to share them. But I that that's something that I always I'm working on as a leader and a father and a partner in the in these types of things, right? It's yeah, like slowing down and okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna do everything I can to actually truly feel and see this perspective, like way deeper than I had earlier in life. Yeah. And then I could be a better leader.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love what you just said there too. And I think you know, like I was listening to this YouTube video of a Harvard professor, the theme he was trying to teach us is basically embracing boredom. In our day today, I feel like life has accelerated because of social media and because of screens, and because we're just always on the go, right, with life and with kids' activities and work and school and whatever we have. We've lost the ability as humans to be still, and to your point, to to to reflect on a much deeper level and to really listen and tune in, to whether it's a spiritual component or letting your brain. Start to think more creatively in listening to your inner person and just taking a moment every day to be still and to listen, right? Will help you as an individual, but it'll also help you help you to help other people. So I love what you just said about learning how to, you know, actively listen, but to show empathy in the very quiet moments of our lives. And the other thing I want to touch on too that you just triggered a thought is within our church, we work in councils. So I have two counselors as part of our bishopric, right? And most many times when we have difficult situations or members that are dealing with stuff, we counsel with each other. And every person needs to speak up and shares thoughts and shares ideas. And we, we, we discuss how should we approach this? And then what happens is you start to feel this very sweet unity start to descend upon us. And we start to feel the truthfulness of a solution or a way to approach a person or a problem that we're dealing with. And through that counseling process, we become unified and supportive of one another as we try to help people within our congregation. So that principle of counseling together and driving unity, I think is a universal principle that if humanity would do more of that, there would be much more peace, much more happiness, less division as we see in our country and over the world today. Taking that time to be still, self-introspect, and then counseling together in unity, we could just do so much more. So not only as leaders, but just as as humanity.
SPEAKER_01:So counseling and unity. Could you share more on that process and how that works? And then like just directly in the at the church, like just actually really how that works. So then maybe I can ask you more about how to apply that and whether it's like in within a family or within uh that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I can touch on the on the counseling aspect a little bit more. So at every level of our church, we are formed into councils. So the head of our church is called the first presidency. There's you know, similar, like we have a prophet, president, and then two counselors, right? And they form a presidency, and then the quorum of the twelve apostles, and then all the way down to my bishopric, right? Over our congregation here in St. Louis, part of our part of St. Louis, right? Um, but within our even within our uh congregation, our ward is what we call it, we have what we call a ward council. It's representative of the different groups within our church. So we have a young women's organization, we have young men's organization, we have a what we call a women's organization called the Relief Society, we have an elders' quorum, which is you know the men's organization, and then we have a teaching organization. And all those presidents, we all come together to form what we call a ward council. And that's where we talk about a lot of the different uh challenges or issues or or things that we want to do as a ward. And the key, the some of the key principles. Um there's actually a book out there by he was a former apostle of us called uh Elder Ballard, but he he wrote a book called Counseling with Your Counsels, right? Or counseling by counsels. And he'll he'll draw dive a lot deeper into this. But the goal is that everybody gets an opportunity to speak, everybody gets to share opinions and to share what's on their mind. And then we discuss in a very safe place, right? You create a safe space where differing opinions are appreciated, are needed, and then the discussion evolves to come up with the right solution for everybody. And not the right solution for me, because that's my opinion. Oftentimes, as a leader, as the head leader of that council, I try to speak last, right? Because I don't want to influence those others' thoughts or opinions and develop groupthink. So I'll often let everybody speak first and start to have a bit of a conversation, a discussion. And, you know, sometimes I'll steer it in the right direction if it things kind of going off too off course to bring it back, but I help facilitate. And um, as we do that, we start to feel a sense of unity amongst ourselves. And then we come to a very common solution that is the most effective that maybe we hadn't thought of before. And then we implement it and we roll it out and we work together, and that generates a lot of unity within our council, but also within our congregation. So that's how we approach it.
SPEAKER_01:So, and maybe I don't know if it's like because everyone on your council has maybe a similar kind of whether it be upbringing or education or or philosophy toward this, or maybe it's more personality-based. But do you feel like often you can reach unity, or sometimes I'm sure there's you'll feel passionate emotion?
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of, yeah, even though we belong to the same church, there's a lot of diverse opinions, right? People who have not been part of the church for very long, people from very different socioeconomic backgrounds, you know, people not from St. Louis. We have international people as part of our congregation as well, right? And they bring a lot of different perspectives, but all of us are there like with the same overall goal. And obviously, from a religious standpoint, our our overall goal is to strengthen our relationship with Jesus Christ. And when that's the focus of everything that we're trying to do, and when we can tie it back to that, it it produces a much easier ability to unite behind ideas that might be different than our own. And obviously, there's a spiritual component that happens when you counsel together like that, even if it's very differing opinions. When you're, like I said, in a safe space and when you're looking out for the best interest of the person across the room from you, that approach allows people to build bridges and to cooperate and to get along and to support what the overall decision is. Now, the other responsibility of a leader is once you've taken all the input, you're ultimately the one who decides, okay, this is the approach that we're going to take. And everybody else kind of gets behind it. But if you approach it from the initial get-go of that, you know, safe space supporting mechanism, it's much easier to kind of get behind whatever eventually is decided upon.
SPEAKER_01:So would you say at work too? That's how is this congruent with how you leave your team? It's easy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's the same principle, right? And that's what a good leader does is you talked about this earlier, giving people the opportunity to speak and to even like you know, to struggle a little bit. I like part of it is delegating a responsibility. And sometimes we have to brace ourselves as leaders when we see that person maybe doing something a little bit differently than what you would do, or like struggling with something, allowing them to struggle a little bit allows them to learn and to grow and to develop the skills that they need. As I look back at my life, like big kudos and shout out to to Chuck One, our CEO. He's the one who hired me and you know has graciously kept me here for so long. But he did a remarkable job of allowing me to grow and to be challenged in the different experiences I had within talent acquisition. His patience and his support and understanding and empathy and active listening really allowed me to grow to who I am today as a leader. And so I tried to do that same thing with my direct reports and my team of active listening, empathy, allowing them to learn and grow a little bit on their own as you support and walk alongside them. There's this old, you know, there's this old story about the cocoon, right? You've probably heard this where, you know, when a caterpillar goes into a cocoon, there's an old man that um saw the butterfly start to come out. And he went up, he's like, oh, he's struggling, so let me open it up. Well, the butterfly came out and collapsed and died. Because within the cocoon, the whole part of building up the butterfly's wings is breaking, like struggling to break free of the cocoon so that its wings have enough strength to eventually then you know go and then fly away, right? So that principle applies to to leaders in helping people on your team to be challenged and to push themselves and to grow. And so eventually when they are free as future leaders or whatever, they're able to fly and be successful.
SPEAKER_01:I love that analogy. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a actually hadn't heard that one.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, there you go. Yeah, it's a fun one. So I I I I think of that one often, especially when I'm raising my kids. So we have four kids, and you definitely have to, you know, you want to micromanage everything, but you have to kind of back off and let them learn and let them scrape their knees and and whatever, but be there to to obviously support them along the way. So yeah, it's finding that balance, right? It is, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Jeremy, this has been an amazing conversation. I love when in these episodes I can learn a lot, and I just like takeaways that I can also like an additional audience. I feel like, okay, wow, there's some lessons here, like for my personal life as a father and as a leader and a business owner. And it's just beyond that, you just have a fascinating story. It's it's been really cool to learn about you, uh, your contribution to your church, to your uh your work, your employees, the travel experiences. Um so it's it's been great. Thank you for joining me today.
SPEAKER_00:No, I appreciate it, James. It's it's as I was telling you before this podcast, you know, it was a unique opportunity and experience for me to kind of reflect back upon my experiences, many of which I had not connected the dots to you know where I'm at today. So it was a great introspection for me. And you know, like I said, I I feel like I'm a pretty pretty ordinary guy, right? But who's been blessed with some remarkable experiences as I as I kind of reflect back. And I think that can apply to all of us, even if we do think we're kind of on an ordinary path. I think if you really dig deep and look and open your eyes, you'll see just how many unique experiences you've had in your life and and how all those experiences, negative or positive, can can and help you achieve success and join your life. So thank you, James. I appreciate being on here and and giving me an opportunity to kind of share share a little bit more about my experiences. Yeah, it's it's it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:I appreciate it. And for everybody tuning in, thank you for joining us today. And again, we're gonna drop all the the books that we talked about, everything, links in the description. All right, talk to you later.
