The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Recruiting and Talent Acquisition Conversations

EP 192: Aligning Who You Are with How You Lead

• James Mackey: Recruiting, Talent Acquisition, Hiring, SaaS, Tech, Startups, growth-stage, RPO, James Mackey, Diversity and Inclusion, HR, Human Resources, business, Retention Strategies, Onboarding Process, Recruitment Metrics, Job Boards, Social Media Re

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Jaasiel Bulnes, VP of Global Talent Acquisition at Workiva, reveals how growing up amid Miami’s constant motion and being raised in an immigrant household shaped Jasi’s resilience, resourcefulness, and commitment to earning trust. He reflects on the sponsors who advocated for him, the feedback that sharpened his self-awareness, and the shift from driving results himself to building leaders who can scale impact. The conversation positions talent acquisition as a business function where context drives the right metrics, and long-term value outweighs speed alone.

Books mentioned:

- Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Connect with host James Mackey on LinkedIn! 


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Miami’s Energy And Transience

SPEAKER_01

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show. I got Hasi Bulnez here with us today. Really excited to talk with you, Hasi. Thanks for coming on with me.

SPEAKER_02

James, uh, this is awesome. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. I'm looking forward to the convo we're gonna have.

SPEAKER_01

Me too.

SPEAKER_02

What was it like growing up in Miami? I am for better or worse, determined and kind of built by the all things Miami. I think people have like an image of Miami like in the 80s, Miami Vice days. And like a lot of that is actually really true. If you were from that era, that's my era. But there is a certain level of grit and a certain level of like determination that you come out of from uh I think being raised in a place where people go to vacation. There's like a transient nature to it. It's hard to build deep roots when people are coming in and out, whether it's you know, friends, whether it's just acquaintances, people in general, like I'm gonna go visit you in Miami. Um, and then so like you it's hard to you know land these deep roots with some folks. So there's like so you get all these things, right? You get uh Miami has a very cool and at the same time chaotic tone about itself. It's almost like it's very palpable. Like if you land in the airport in Miami, you automatically know you're somewhere else from where you're from, whether it's the food, the smells, the noises that you're hearing. And at the same time, when you leave Miami, you're like, oof, that was that was a lot. Okay, yeah, sure. Pretty damn tired. So I don't know. That like microcosm probably bottles up most of the people who are from Miami.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I somehow went most of my life without ever going to Miami, and then I had to go twice for work within a month. Really random, very random. I had a a customer the first time, a customer was like, Hey, you should come out with me and my family for New Year's Eve. And then so that was my first very first experience in Miami was arriving on New Year's Eve and going out in a brickle.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, that's that's that's my hood. That's where I spent like 15 years there. Okay, that's an awesome place. Yeah, I mean, that's like a boy, that's a that's a heck of a sauce to open up, right?

SPEAKER_01

Like it was like you know, very first experience was like Miami had steroids, right? Uh and then I went one month later or three weeks later for a speaking engagement that I had. It was cool. I got to like speak for like 90 tech CEOs, and it was like a really special experience. So that was number two. But yeah, I mean, my takeaway was I and I told people this, I felt like I was in a different country.

Roots, Institutions, And COVID Boom

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, 100%. And by the way, I would say you were probably in in those two instances, like New Year's Eve on Brickle, and then speaking of tech CEOs, you're probably in two different countries just in that, just in that setting alone. It really much is, and it's wild because like it Miami is a melting pot, but it's not necessarily a melting pot of a bunch of different uh cultures. It's a it's a melting pot of a lot of different Hispanic cultures for the most part. Yeah, and you get all kinds of flavor. That's like my analogy of you land in the airport, you just like and you listen, and it's just everything from from the people, the warmth, the energy, uh, and that's really what you get. A lot of energy, a lot of a lot of people just trying to figure things out. Um, but again, it's hard when it's hard when you don't have that root system in place because it's so transient. So yeah, you're getting you're like different country, 100%, different set of bylaws of how we operate too.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know what's interesting is um I never really thought about this, but it's kind of weird to think about like it in a way it felt like a different country, but then also I probably in both situations, it I think the majority of people I was around weren't actually from the area, like to your point. Yeah, maybe that was just like the neighborhoods I was in or like the you know the places I went to, but I don't know how much of an actual cultural experience I had getting to know the city around folks that actually grew up in the area, you know.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's it's it well, you mean it's like a hundred-year-old city, so it's you're not gonna have like grandparents of grandparents, you know, kind of that are rooted here, right? And so it extends across so many different dimensions. So, like sports, for example. If you talk to folks like, let's say my age or older, and you ask them their favorite baseball team, they probably say the Yankees, because that's the team, even though the Marlins have won a bunch of titles, they associate baseball with just the transient nature of northerners who are moving down here. There's little these pockets from a cultural educational perspective. There's some good colleges, universities, but not really that many yet. So there's commuter schools, and then there's you know, the Urus Miami as a pillar private school. But for the most part, it doesn't have for as large of a city as it is, for as well-known of a city as it is, it doesn't have goes back to those root systems, it doesn't have those embedded deep root systems of you know, 150-year-old institutions or corporations that have built trenches. If anything, the corporations even that come up here, which is why so many people are, you know, kind of coming around, is um the corporations are using Miami as an outpost for like Latin America. And so you get a lot of regional offices. So, like, you know, SAP will have a regional office here, or Xerox will have a regional office, or Microsoft will have a regional office, but it's not really like, okay, we're setting up a corporate shop here. Um very few organizations or companies have done that, partly because the transient nature is tough, the educational systems are tough, like there's not many feeder pools. And so you have a really interesting microcosm of a really big city growing like crazy, uh, infrastructure probably not in place to grow like crazy, but you know, critical mass. COVID was like the biggest boom to Miami in the last like 50 years, probably. Um, where people were like, well, I get this, I can go live in the warmth. And the cost of living at the time was relatively low. Now it's super expensive. So I got all these different things are hitting. Um, so it's a really interesting city because of that. It's a very new city, also, because of that. Even if you you drive through, all you see is like brand new sky rises going up. Um, but they're all condos, they're not really they're not really like big office buildings going up.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I it seems like I know more and more people who are traveling to Miami or buying condos in Miami.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. Then businesses that are setting up that are building out route systems, you know, to be here for the next leg of their own growth.

SPEAKER_01

Are you are you seeing an increase in business? I mean, it sounds though that there still is an increase in the businesses coming to Miami as well.

Startups, Tech Scene, And City Dichotomies

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's it is it is again, it goes back to like the heart of I think the the vibrancy of the city, more scrappy startups. So, like just by nature, I think from a value system, you get like people from Miami tend to be very gritty, very resourceful. And then the companies that are spawning out are very similar. So you do from a tech perspective, you start seeing a good rising growth from smaller stage, earlier stage companies. And then from there, you start seeing the different mushrooms that come out. But I think it's always gonna be like a, you know, like either you're really, really well dressed, right? Because you're going out and you're partying, or you're walking around in sandals and you're hanging out because it's a beach town still in many respects. And you have those kind of like two dichotomies of of of life here.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. So also I want to talk to you more about just what it was like growing up. Um, what were you like as a kid?

SPEAKER_02

Uh what was that like as a kid? So, I mean, so like maybe maybe go a little step back. Um, so my mother, which is super relevant in this like where we're now time-wise, but like my mother immigrated here from Cuba um with my grandmother 1969. And so if you picture like escaping oppression, escaping communism with like nothing and coming to a place that was for the most part nothing, Miami really started accelerating and growing in the 80s. So, in that time, if you had a little vision and you had a little money, you probably could set up yourself for life. Um, but so few people had the vision and the money, right? So this is just a place where people were starting to arrive and figuring out what do you do next. And so I think um, I think growing up in that era, it was really rooted around like a certain sense of responsibility, um, a certain sense of like pride that you're at at this place that doesn't allow or or that is so different and stark from your prior place, especially um a culture of a bunch of different land communities coming together, all probably arriving for the exact same purpose and goals. I think that's the baseline. That's a baseline, probably for um my earlier childhood too, was anchoring on certain levels of grit, determination, focus, and then marry to pragmatism. Like you have to do this because this is in front of you right now, kind of thing.

Immigrant Story And Early Values

SPEAKER_01

What do you think it was like for your mom and your grandmother to come over? I think you said your mom was 19, right?

Assimilation, Language, And Identity Tensions

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, 19 years old. Uh, I mean, it's almost like I would say it's almost like if you're blind and all of a sudden like you're able to see when you come from an environment where you know what they came from, right? I can I can't even relate, but what they came from, oppression, they were, you know, pretty well off um early on, and then the castor regime came in and just pretty much took everything from people, and then now you don't have anything. So you grew up in a certain way. You didn't really grow up in a way where you had to work for things as much as you probably could normally be, right? Decent society, decent class level, and then you have nothing. You have essentially the clothes in your back. And so that was tough. I mean, my grandmother at the time, I would say she was probably in her 50s, and she was working, you know, picking tomatoes in the fields, and and my mom was, you know, just going working whatever jobs that she could to essentially support herself, my grandmother at the time, and then you know, my brothers when they were when when they were born, and then you know, obviously myself. So, like being a pillar, I think for her, I mean, unimaginable to me, that sense of responsibility where there's so many different like the culture is different, the nuances are different, how your your value systems are different. When my mom eventually became a teacher, she raised us, she'd always be mad when we would speak Spanish um in the house, and she would say, We're here. Um, assimilate to here. And so she would speak to us in English um always. And so we would speak Spanish. Of course, my grandmother, my father spoke Spanish, but but my mom was hardcore with like, nope, you gotta you gotta assimilate to here. When we grew up, Thanksgiving was the holiday that we observed the most. Uh, my brother went to college, he would come down, my mother would do Thanksgiving in you know July, uh, before he would go back to school in the in the fall, just to make sure that this is the cultures of this country, and we have to assimilate here, otherwise, we might as well go back um to to our country. And that's and so that mindset that growing up with that kind of constant, almost like a weight on your shoulder that, like, okay, assimilate, focus, you know, be present here while you're also feeling the strains of like the rest of Miami doesn't operate that way. Still, like I if I go to the store right now, like before anybody and you know talks to me in English, they're thinking they're speaking to me in Spanish. Um, and so like it's a really interesting spot to find yourself as a kid growing up and you're speaking in English and everybody else is around you speaking in Spanish, and I, you know, didn't really speak Spanish all that much. And so, yeah, I mean it's a it's a twist and turn kind of thing because it it kind of helps ground you on some things that are important. At the same time, it it creates a little bit of friction because you're not necessarily able to adapt to the norms that you see everybody else adapting to.

SPEAKER_01

It sounds like your mom really felt that doing this and as you put it, assimilating to more so maybe what she considered a traditional US culture at the time would help you set you up for success in life.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean, I I think it's I think it's the uh also the observant of the struggle. So, like um, you know, teachers, you know, shout out to teachers. I was a former teacher who just won't get paid enough. So she would teach in the morning, you know, before school, teach and and then teach, and then do after school, and then do and then after school teaching, then go do night school to like a vocational, like uh English for for Spanish speakers. And so I would, you know, you know, I wouldn't see her sometimes, like from you know, I wouldn't see her on my way to school. She was already out, and then I get home to school, do stuff, and then she comes home at eight o'clock at night, nine o'clock at night, essentially probably dead tired, and then just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Um, she would she volunteered to take uh jobs in schools in in the inner city because they were willing to pay teachers more if they were working in those domains. Um, and so she saw it as in a super pragmatic way. Like, I don't really want to fully do this, but I feel like I have to do this. Um, and so you know that that creates a sense of appreciation, but also creates it like an like a weird sense of like that can't happen to me. I'm not that strong. I can't do that. I can't, you know, work 12 hours a day, every single day, dealing with traffic and deal with this and then come home, get kids, all this stuff. It also created a little bit of sense of independence, um, I think probably for me uh and my brothers in that not really around, not in a bad way, um, in a in a really uplifting way. You see, you know, your parents really working hard to put food on the table, but they're not around as much. And so you have to figure things out. Um, you have to really listen to the environment that you're in to be able to get to a place that is going to be uniquely for you and then figure it out. Goes back to like the Miami upbringing, right? Like grit, determination, some vision sprinkled in, but really it's like what's in front of you right now, how do you execute on that?

SPEAKER_01

You talked to me about a few of your core values or something that was a common theme, like just through the discussions you've had thus far. Grit, determination, accountability, edginess, as you put it, like Miami edginess uh culturally. Um do you feel like those are foundational to how far you've made it in your career? Because you've you've accomplished a lot professionally. I mean, you global talent leader for Facebook, uh, senior director over at LinkedIn, currently in a VP role at Workiva. You know, these are premium category, and previous to that, Citrix. These are category leading, category-defining organizations. Do you feel like this value system and these things that your mom taught you are how you essentially have gotten to where you are?

Grit At Home: A Teacher Mom’s Sacrifice

SPEAKER_02

Or uh, you know, there's one actually that that uh I think is you know even on top of all those and probably embeds within those, and that is uh legitness. So there's an edginess component, right? But I call it legitness, which is you can't also be afraid of who you are, because if you are, then eventually that will come out. And you can create a little bit of a false narrative sometimes to get you from point A to point B, maybe from point B to point C, but to thread the needle fully, you have to be yourself and you have to not be afraid to be yourself, which is really tough, especially navigating the corporate landscape of companies, and whether it's in South Florida or any place in general. If you can't be yourself, um, eventually it's exhausting. And so, so you have to be legit and you have to be okay with that. And I think that probably for me, navigating the you know, the corporate landscapes of these companies, I latched onto that early on. Like I embraced, all right, here's who I am, I don't have enough energy to work really, really hard and also not be myself. So I'm just gonna walk in and be myself from the get-go. And then that allows me to focus all my energy on the tasks at hand that have in front of me. Now that you do miss, I think, uh like vision a little bit because you you can't really zoom out quite as much when you're thinking that way. Um but it does let you really focus um on stuff and and then you know, again, in you know, for better or for worse, and apologetically yourself. I think you have to be. And so you have to surround yourself with people that understand that early on. Uh uh, one of my old uh my really my first boss in TA, Melissa Thompson, shout out to MT. She would always uh she would always, you know, tell me, like, Nasi, you say some pretty stupid shit, but but you're really good at what you do. So I'm I'm I'm letting it ride. And we had this open relationship where I could tell her, apologize for the curse word, but you I could tell her whatever I wanted to, whenever like whatever was on my mind. And and she knew it was genuine. She knew if I'm saying it to her, if I'm bringing it forward, it was important to me, it was important to her, it was important to the team. And so all these these ways of like you bringing yourself. So legitness is also that one overlaying uh value.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's um a really good way of uh way of putting it. It's like a a trust building motion as well, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because because you know what to expect from me. I don't have to tell you, like I'm gonna be myself. I was uh I was on a call last week with uh with our CMO and we just did sales kickoff, and they must have worked so hard to pull that event off. Like he's on stage, there's so much planning that goes to an event like that. And so he and I get on a call, and I say to him, Hey, while you were vacationing last week uh in San Diego, here's all this work that I was doing. And it's like this I would assume that uh he would not expect anything less of me coming in like, well, you're you're you're hanging out over here. This is who you are, right? And this is like the things that you know come to mind for you as a person, forget as a leader, right? But as a as a person, if you can't bring your personality into the things that you're doing, you're probably doing the wrong things. Don't run away from that. I think that that's the that's what you know makes you unique. That's what's gonna give you the uh the edge that you need probably to complete your tasks.

Legitness: Being Yourself At Work

SPEAKER_01

I I feel like um, you know, it's interesting is like since we changed the format of the show, I told you we've made a pivot from like more of a tactical town acquisition podcast into really focusing on our guest journey. Honestly, I didn't even know that I would come to this conclusion after 10 episodes, but something that I feel like I'm learning and and I'm learning how to articulate to our guests as well. I think the way that we think about professional development is very incomplete or development generally as a person. I think when leaders similar to ourselves, a lot of the times, at least I'll speak for myself and I but I think this is like I can make a reasonable assumption that we've all been here. When we think about developing ourselves professionally, we might at times have a tendency to look at very to exclusively focus on very tactical things like becoming AI native or implementing XYZ or integrating a tech stack or whatever else. But I think one thing that I've been putting more emphasis on lately for myself is coming to the understanding that in order to be the best version of myself in any area of my life, I have to become better holistically as an entire person. I can't be the best version of myself professionally if I don't work on myself holistically. For instance, like I can't be the best version of myself professionally if I'm not healthy, if I'm not working out, if I'm not balancing those things. Being a parent has made me a better leader at work. So it's like these different things, the elements that advancing holistically as a human enables us to be the best version of ourselves in any one particular area of our life. And so I feel like what I'm trying to do on the show is to help people develop the whole person and this emphasis on our guests' life and their journey and their values, they they impact who we become professionally. So I think it's like a lot of people have had the experience of studying somebody super successful where they kind of want to get to, but maybe have had trouble closing the gap. And I'm wondering, it's like because they might be so focused on the tactical aspects that maybe they're not looking at the entire person because there's so much we have to learn from the entire person across the board in order to get to that point, because our values and our principles and our worldviews are going to impact how we make decisions, how we communicate professionally too, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean, totally. And this goes back to the legitimate part, right? Because can you imagine having to like the level of exhaustion that you would feel having to follow a path that you think is the path and emulating somebody else's path when the experiences and or values and or alignments are are not yours, you're just checking boxes. Okay, well, this person did this, or this learning path says I should do this. So let me just go do that. And now I am certified. I have this certification that says I know how to do X. And it doesn't work that way because your path is going to be different and the pressures that you're feeling are going to be different, and your life experiences are different. And so if you can't bring who you are, um, and then apply those scenarios maybe to how you would handle them, sure, it may mean your path is not as linear, but I don't think anybody's path is linear. Your your path is gonna have a bunch of squiggly lines. I would always say too, like, my path is, you know, it's it's like a bad stock chart and it goes up and down and it crashes and then it jumps up. And your ability to just understand that and stay focused on you know what you're working through. I think that the tie-in is that vision piece, but like your ability to navigate that for you and for who you are, because that's what at the end of the day, when you shut your laptop, when you go play with your kids, when you spend time with your loved ones, uh it's you. It's not the corporation that you're tied to, it's not the label that you are, is you know, who are you and how you're gonna apply these things to make sense for you and the learnings and paths. And so anything that is so linear in purpose and execution, um, yes, I think some of the things you have to do, you have to become AI native. Sure. You have to understand how to do some tactical aspects of your work. But if you can't bring your little sizzle to it, boy, that's gonna be really boring.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And I think when I'm learning going through this journey, speaking with individuals similar to yourself that are you know at the top of your industry, top of your game, uh, in terms of being like incredibly successful as a talent acquisition leader. Is that there's there's congruency across their entire lives in terms of how they operate. So when you say like legitness, I think about consistency and congruency. That's what it means to me. Across different areas of your life. Like you don't appear to be the type of person that's different at home per se than at work. Of course, there's like different emphasis, and like being a good boss is not the same as being a good husband. Or like, that's not exactly what I mean. But in terms of like your value system, it's very congruent. When you talk about your childhood to when you talk about like how you think about success professionally or at home, like from the conversations we've had, there's this level of like you're solid in terms of your value system and like who you are as a person. And then that radiates out into every area of your life.

SPEAKER_02

The one time with that, like I tried, I tried some radical candor with my uh with my wife the other day, didn't land me too too well. So, like, so you have to, yes, I think the really interesting thing sometimes, even when you're going through this journey of this is who I am, this is how I show up. Um, it is also learning the down and distance in where you can be that way. And I think that what separates some people, and I'm blessed to have been surrounded by some amazing leaders and amazing teams I get to support, and they make me look good. And I just kind of get out of their way. And so, you know, I always feel like you've been successful. I mean, I'm working towards, you know, a set a level of success for my teams that I support and the people that I and the work that I have to do and my family and things, but I never want to think about, you know, you're you've reached a point. Um, there is no point. You are just doing great work and you're doing great work today, you're doing work tomorrow, and you're doing great your things at home. And that's like my mind share. But you have to understand the down and distance of when you can apply certain things. That's like the one, I think, common thread in being like in that level of congruency of who you are. Like radical candor ain't gonna work at home. Um that's a no-fly zone, right? And so, like, well, I'm supposed to give you positive feedback. I'm supposed to give you like, no, you're not actually. So, like, my wife doesn't actually want to hear that. I think understanding you know that moment, I think there's a there's a unique like meeting people where they are moment. There has to be, there also has to be an on-off switch to how you apply some of these things on your personal professional uh life as you're evolving as a person.

SPEAKER_01

So very situational based on the individual, the area of your life, like all these different elements. Another thing I've noticed from like people at the top of their game is they talk about meeting people where they're at a lot.

Holistic Growth Over Tactics

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. This is something that I've evolved more around because I'm a little bit dogged, um, some say probably too dogged andor determined on stuff. Maybe earlier in my career, I thought about um just get to the finish line. And and you realize that you can get to the finish line, but boy, you burned a lot of legions on the way there. The analogy I always say is like, did you get there and when you turned around, people were with you? Or when you got there, do they have a tattoo of a chain link fence on their on their face? Because you like literally just pulled something through a fence. Um, like I'm just gonna get you over across the finish line. And so, you know, my evolution on that is like I've been on both sides of that. I've been on there where I've pulled things through a chain link fence, and you show up and you get there, and it's like there's a there's a level of applauding that because you got there, sure, but but there's nobody behind you, and and so the evolution is that meeting people where they are, because you also need that too. And so you you you may not be all the way where somebody else is. And so that recognition of where are you in your curve, how can we work together to get to the next level will be a heck of a lot further than if I just try to pull you through a chain link fence of where I think you should be going. Because I could be wrong, right? And generally, usually I am wrong. So, like, you know, there's there that's the recognition I think of you know, that meeting people are, I think people scale, um, people think about or they lead large teams. That is always an underlying piece because you're not going to do anything alone. Your ability to bring people along for that journey depends on your ability to meet them, you know, in that moment. You think of like a teacher, it's the exact same thing. There's a thing called differentiated instruction, and you understand that people learn differently, people are at different points in their own journeys. How can you possibly teach somebody all the exact same way? You can't. So you have to learn that muscle of meeting people where they're at.

SPEAKER_01

You have you were packed with practical wisdom, man. Like there, there's so much uh amazing life advice here. I'm really enjoying this. I feel like also, in addition to everything that your mother instilled upon you, I think it seemed like a very natural progression for you to actually start off as a teacher too. I think it was like your was it was that your first job out of college?

SPEAKER_02

Like the first real, I guess. Yeah. I mean, like there's a you know, the South Florida thing that you're like, you're doing odd things here and there. So dad did some artists and analyst work, some some investment work. But my first real legit, um, I think it would be yeah, it was a teacher, and it was actually because my my wife we're pregnant with our first, and and she she basically she's so she's undoubtedly my better half. She said, Um, hey, listen, like you got to get something that's that's steady and consistent. And so I was like, okay, well, I looked over, like, what are you what's the example you have? You know, my mother's example. Okay, then I'm just gonna go teach. And there's like a natural gravitational pull to to some of that in general, but you know, maybe it's just seeing her, but just in me in general, I just get a lot of joy from that. And so I did that for a few years. I mentioned earlier, like I knew that I don't have the strength to do that, you know, for 30 years. I just I don't have that in me. And so I knew that as much as I enjoyed it, and I think my aspirations were to eventually maybe go into be a college professor or something. I always said, okay, when I'm really well off financially, I'll just go, you know, be a college professor, but I I can't do this now. There's a pocket of time where I'm gonna do it, um, and then I got to find something else, which actually pretty much.

SPEAKER_01

Can I ask you about that? Because you've said that like a couple of times now about me not having the strength to do that, but you've clearly been very successful in like really demanding environments. So I'm just curious why do you feel like that's the case?

Congruence And Situational Candor

SPEAKER_02

Yes, demanding environments for sure. But if I think about like that pedestal that I you know, have like this in my mother on and the work that she did relative to the work that I've done, and as a teacher, recruiting is easy. Talking to people and you know, articulating a value proposition that's good for them, that they know it, that you believe in, otherwise you wouldn't be in the company yourself. That is easy. Navigating personalities, corporate environments, that's tough. But it's not the depth of, you know, when I was a teacher, I had 150 kids, first generation born in the US, probably gave a rat's ass about, you know, social studies where I was teaching. And yet you have to like that's your like you are there for the purpose of helping instill some sense of understanding of the material you're going to teach and other values. That's tough. Tapping into that, that's tough, and doing that over and over and over again. Um, so when I say like that level of work, and then you know, 10, 12, 13, 14 hours a day, uh, I mean, what I do is you know, gravy in comparison. My toughest day probably in recruiting is like maybe like would have been having like waffles and pancakes from my mom as a as a teacher.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, it just it sounds like your mom was uh sounds like a superhero, man.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, man, it's Wonder Woman for sure. I mean, I think all moms out there, man. Like that's like the superpower that you know that we have in nature. So shout out to all the moms out there for sure. But but yeah, my mom was Wonder Woman for sure.

SPEAKER_01

So I know that your college experience was formative in nature. You talked about challenges at times at a young age, lacking vision. Could you tell me what you you mean by that and and maybe give some context and then your journey of overcoming that?

Leading Without Burning Bridges

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So if I go back to you know, being in a pragmatic place, um, being in a place that's determined by grit and focusing on then what's in front of you right now, right? So, like very much that's one of the benefits of being pragmatic that you're able to focus on the right now, but sometimes one of the detriments of being super pragmatic in that you lose sight of, you know, maybe tomorrow or the day after. And so even when I was in college, I worked um full time the entire time. I worked in nightclub actually for the first part, and I worked in retail. And um, and while, yes, it helped me financially support myself through school, um, at the same time, I was surrounded by you know kids that were brilliant and professors that were brilliant and some that wanted to invest in me. So, like my mentor in college, uh Menton Becker, he was, you know, he was a brilliant man, super accomplished, was a juror forwards private counsel um when he was president. And so, like, that's an opportunity that so few people in this world get, you know, to have, to have access to. And I always talk about accessibility and visibility as a blessing and a curse. And it's a blessing if you recognize it and you're able to embrace it. It's a curse if you don't and you can't leverage it to the fullest. And so here I was doing really well. I was actually, he actually picked me to be a teacher's aide in a class where all the kids were probably far more brilliant than I was. But all these kids are super smart, they're all going to you know, law school at Harvard, Yale, on and on. I mean, the you know, name it, right? And so, like who's who of schools? And I'm helping them with the classwork, and yet books closed, I'm gonna work at you know what I knew for sure was not gonna be my future path. And yet I'm spending more time on that than probably where I probably could have been spending more time in scholastically, right? And focusing on academics. And I remember him him picking up the phone one day and calling me up and saying, um, is this what is this what you're gonna do? Like you're gonna work at you know, said store for the rest of your life, or is this or you want to go on this, like reap your benefits of all the things you have in front of you, take advantage of? And it was like, oh shoot. I literally walked to my boss at the time, I said, I quit. And it was like, and then it was like one of these moments. I think your your life is always defined by like what you do in a moment. Like one, recognize that you're in a moment, and then like your ability to recognize that, and then have some vision to what could be next, and then and then act, even if it's against you. Like, I'm not that person, I'm not like this super spontaneous. Anyone who knows me knows that's that's not me. And yet it was like, okay, I quit without any plan, without like I still have to financially support myself, but you know, here's a mentor of mine telling me that I needed to pick a path. Um, and so I think that that's part of maybe not having the full picture vision early on, then I think probably creates some pressures. But you know, hopefully you come out of that and you and you see that, you recognize the moment, and then you you you take the right, the right step there.

SPEAKER_01

So my first job, well, actually, I worked in a restaurant for a few months, but my first job that I had for years was working in a boxing gym. And yeah, so I started working in a boxing gym actually when I was in high school. And I was reflecting back on that time because I don't, as you could imagine, or I don't I don't know, actually, maybe this isn't something that folks not in that environment know, but you get a lot of different like people from different backgrounds and different life experiences. And one thing that I learned was that so much of life, particularly in those formative years, is no, and even like, no, even where we're at now, right, is recognizing opportunity, listening, paying attention, and capitalizing on an opportunity. But it's it's seeing it, it's being aware and seeing an opportunity, just like what you just said with that experience, because I remember there were some guys that I worked with that they felt like there were no opportunities around them. But the gym that we worked in was in Northern Virginia. And a lot of the people that came in, they weren't there to fight, they were there to get in great shape. And these individuals had money for personal training, they could pay up to 90 an hour for personal training. A lot of them had very successful corporate jobs, and we were constantly surrounded by these people. I felt like one thing that I was able to do was pay attention and develop those relationships. Like I got an opportunity to work at the White House, I got an opportunity for a sales internships, like for free, you know, starting out like an internship at the White House and an internship in sales. I this is how I got my foothold into recruiting. I got it my first after doing free internships for a year, a paid internship at Kforce, big staffing company. And it was all through working at a boxing gym, which I think a lot of people would have considered like a dead-end job.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Um, but I think it just came down to like fortunately, for whatever reason, like being able to pay attention to the environment and recognize opportunity and try to like take action on that.

Vision, Work, And Missed Angles

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's angles, like the angles. You've seen the movie like Oceans 11, uh, where um George Pliny talks about like walking through and all he sees is like the angles of things. That's a different analogy of how he uses them, right? He uses them as a crook. But but the but the thinking is like it's in you, man. The the people that I've that I've known, at least that have you know that next gear, and they walk in a room or they're in front of something or they're talking to somebody, they understand the angles, they understand the moments that they're gonna get some pearls of wisdom that they can then put in a box and file it away for later, or you know, be aware, or be conscious of it. And I think probably one of the things that you know you'll probably all the people, the folks that you talk to, I'd be shocked if the most common thread wasn't ability to take feedback and action it, or ability to hear something and action it. And it doesn't matter if like it's a TA leader or it's a you know CEO or what their role is. I mean, this is what happens we're talking to TA folks, but like it's the same, it's really the same principles. I mean, ultimately it's they understood the angles, they understood uh the opportunities, and then they heard feedback come their way that they they understood in that moment I gotta, I'm gonna, I'm gonna file this, you know, wherever you're filing it in your head, but I'm gonna save that one for a rainy day where I need to be able to action something. If you can't do that, that goes back to the vision piece. If you're sowing the weeds of day-to-day, you probably will always be stuck in that box as well. So you have to be able to pull yourself out uh of some of those. And I got and I say it's like being a leader is is, you know, that's like again, that's like easy. It's just understanding the down and distance of you know the situation that you're in and being able to, you know, to maneuver around that, whether you're a leader or an IC, you know, it's it's really the same. Um, it's meeting people, understanding what what you can do to help support them and you come from that place versus you know box checking. I, you know, need to get to this level. So that means I need to have an organization that's this size. Like if you take that approach, it may get you somewhere, um, but it actually won't get you somewhere. It may get you a title, it may get you some kind of something, but it's actually not going to get you where it matters to you. Like you're you're tapping into the things that are important to you as a person. Um, and people will eventually see through that.

SPEAKER_01

The vision piece is interesting, and I think it's a probably a very common experience to still try to you're figuring out your vision when you're young. I think in a sense, it's like you talk about pragmatism and and focusing on what's right in front of you. And and I think to some extent there's taking logical steps forward. And when you're young, balancing on the needs of today and learning. For me, it's I it took it took some time to figure out. I think I knew to some extent I wanted to go an entrepreneurship path, but um, you know, I certainly didn't have long-term vision starting out. You know, I I'm curious to learn more about your journey developing that. I remember one thing you mentioned was maybe not having people in position of influence that were similar to you in terms of potentially background, maybe a lack of representation in some cases. Do you feel like that was a contributing factor to overcoming like developing? I suppose an initial hurdle to developing vision.

Mentors vs Sponsors: Rooms You’re Not In

SPEAKER_02

I do think that. I mean, I think there's a ceiling that you feel, and or at least that I felt. And while I was confident in the work I was doing, my capabilities to continue to just do good work and always anchoring on that, right? I was never, I never thought about, well, I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to get, I should get, I deserve to get. I never thought about those things, right? I always anchor on like what is the work. And I say it to Austin, I say Austin to the teams I support, which is like the the work is the work. And sometimes it you just have to, you know, drudge through it. But there is a ceiling when you look up and you say, like, boy, geez, like we're like who here looks like me um in this room. It's a legitimate thing for those who experience that. Um, and while I was, you know, blessed to have leaders that that believed in me, like I mentioned earlier, right? There are you know good five folks, right? And you know, rip them, rip their names off because I'm gonna give them their props um for shaping me. You know, Melissa Thompson, Brian Toner, David Samuelson, Cynthia Coutino, Emily Forrester. When people take a chance on you, it's because they believe you as a person first, and then and then the stuff that you've done. And you you so you create a space of okay, none of them look like me, and yet, you know, they believed in me. So there's your first step. But then your ability to surround yourself um and or find sponsors that you know can be in the room when you're not, you know, and I've been in those rooms. I've been in those rooms where I knew that somebody needed a sponsor um because I would hear the name and I would hear the reactions in the room, and I knew ooh, that person's not getting what they probably think that they deserve or support that they need because nobody in this room is their sponsor. But I know that I've also been the recipient of that, of not being in a room that probably the name came up. And some of the folks that I named in that were those sponsors that I needed um to help you know push me forward. And so I think that there is a ceiling that you feel, there's just there's a pressure that you feel, but then but then you go back to the pragmatism of well, you got to break through that because it's an artificial constraint um at the end of the day. Like there is a constraint that you're you're putting a burden on yourself. Some of that, there's some reality to it, but there's a constraint that you feel yourself. And there's always a first person that you know looks like you to get you to where you want to go. There's always first, um, whether it's a small team, a large team, large company, whatever it is, there's always a first. And it might as well just be you, but that's like the chip on your shoulder you take, right? So like you you you grab all these little micro experiences, you surround yourself with people that'll give it to you straight, especially when you don't want to hear it. And then and you listen. If I think about you know those breakthroughs, it is defined by some of that work, it is defined by a recognition, but then almost like a calling, man, that you have to like why can't I be that person for somebody else? Um, kind of kind of moment.

SPEAKER_01

So you feel like the the key to breaking through that, it could be a real barrier, it could also be a psychological barrier, is it sounds right? At times it could be either or or both. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Total. And like that probably fluctuates many times in without you even knowing it.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So you feel like the biggest part that helped you break through that was it sounds like almost surrounding yourself with people that were similar to who you wanted to become, were further along. It sounds like asking for help and and reaching out and asking questions and listening to feedback and learning from them. It was it was building those relationships, it sounds like, with people that were at maybe a little bit further along. Is that is that the takeaway I'm getting? 100% is because because ultimately, right?

SPEAKER_02

A mentor could be anybody. A mentor could just be he could even be a peer that is just seeing things a little bit differently and can help you both strategically but also tactically. A sponsor is has to be somebody that's in a room you're not in.

SPEAKER_01

Can you explain that to what do you mean a room that you're not in? Like yeah, so like the equivalent of a sales process having a champion or somebody vouching for you to help you get that next position, or totally, or or take a chance on this person, or take a chance on what they're selling, or I like this person is genuine, they're gonna be able to deliver all these buckets.

Self-Awareness And Transition To Leadership

SPEAKER_02

If you think about like at a very basic rudimentary level, right? We all have biases. If you think of like a calibration session where you're doing performance reviews, right? That's a setting where a sponsor has value because they know you and they can vouch for you, not just in a very professional setting. Like, did you complete these five things? If you didn't complete them, then there's no discussion, anyways, right? But if you completed them, but somebody didn't understand how you got there, or they didn't know that there was other constraints that you had to go through. So, but but your sponsor is in that room, and your sponsor can then almost vouch for, hey, I know this person, they're determined, they deserve to take take a shot on them. Um, even when you're not maybe hitting on 100%, but you're hitting on 95% or something like that. And so when I say like the rooms that you're not in, it's when you're not there, when you're when you can't defend your own work uh sometimes, or you can't talk to your work, you can't talk to the quality, or you can't talk to the relationship that you have, but somebody can. And that undeniably to me has always been different than a mentor because a mentor, again, Goes back to I'm working with you, you're coaching me, you're developing me. The sponsor isn't really taking that relationship with you. Sponsor is just I'm watching out for you. And if you can't, if you can't surround yourself with people that will watch out for you and also tell you the things that you don't necessarily want to hear, like the five people that I ripped off, like they all told me things I didn't want to hear about myself. And I leaned into that at every micro bit that I got, you know, sometimes I remember when I was a recruiter and I was just moving into leadership for the first time. Uh, you know, Brian came to me and, you know, he had just joined. And so he was my boss of like five minutes. And um, and so like, but he happened to join at a time where there was an off-site and like HR leadership offsite. And these are moments that you never forget. So he he joined, he had gotten a bunch of feedback, I'm sure, on me and you know, my peers, whomever he was absorbing on his team. I remember my first so five minutes in, I had one-on-one, I hit him between the eyes, and I'm like, okay, well, tell me a few things that you may have heard of me in this setting. And he says to me, he's like, Yeah, Hasi, um, everybody loves working with you. And I was like, Oh, you know, like you get this, like, oh, that's great. And he's like, I don't have any idea why. And I said, Wait, what? He's like, It sounds like you're doing a lot of shit for a lot of people, but it's not necessarily translating into like, I couldn't extract the outcome that all the work you're doing was actually driving towards. And you know, that in five minutes of knowing me, normally a boss would be like trying to build a relationship with their you know, new team member, and so they'll they'll just give you the good stuff, and then they'll worry about the the other stuff later. The fact that he was just willing to say, here's what it is, here's what I heard, here's how we have to change that narrative going forward in about five minutes of knowing you, I immediately gravitated towards that. I immediately gravitated towards like help me understand that. Help me understand like what you're talking about. Like, how do people, how do how does my work matter in a way that you can actually say what the outcome was? That's not just how I made you feel working with me, partnering with me, but that it translated into this. Um, and so like that's just like an instance of where I think about the value of a sponsor, the value of somebody who can really understand, knows you, and can be that voice for you, you know, when you're not in that room.

SPEAKER_01

So, do you think developing vision to some extent is for folks tuning in that maybe feel like they're at times struggling with that, like you were when you were starting out, like in the early days? We've talked about sponsors a lot. Maybe it's like breaking through that initial barrier for you as like a huge deal that opened up a world of possibilities once you started to see traction in your career. Did it develop naturally more so just from making progress in your career and then developing more confidence or saying, oh wow, like I've made it this far, I can go even further? Or was it a psychological shift? I guess that would be that could relate, that could turn into a psychological shift. But can you tell me more about like how you how did you make that transition?

Think Like A Business, Not A Function

SPEAKER_02

Um, I think actually, I actually think the psychological shift is is a really big component of this. Like there's a there's a recognition of when you're self-aware, and there's a recognition of when you're probably not. And so being self-aware of your gaps and leaning into the feedback and wanting it like raw and unfiltered, man. I'm not like, so tell me how I did this, and then walking away, like, yeah, whatever. No, like they're telling you, like trust into what they're telling you, take it at its face value. So I think that level of self-awareness is what then will I think and actioning it will help you move in a different direction. Um, and I think that that for me was that moment. It was, I think about like how I how I got into leadership, like why I became a you know, people leader. Um, I was I felt like super high functioning IC. I got so much like energy from being an IC. I was like, I thought I was gonna tattoo like I see for life on my arm, right? Like I was like, it just gave me so much because all my values of you know, grid determination, thinking about bringing things forward, I I was it was satisfying, like the work was satisfying me so much. Um, and like I thought I knew that career-wise, there's a ceiling to just being, you know, an IC uh in a in a role at least, at least where I where I worked at the time. And so I had this VP of Venge. Uh, you take me lunch, and he's like, you know, amazing year for us, obviously. You did, you know, like we've never had somebody that could do as much as you did for us. You know, all these people hired and travel, all the things. Um, and he's like, but you're never gonna have impact for us as an organization until you're able to scale yourself. And I was like, I double-clicked into it and I was like, What do you like, what do you what does that mean? Like when you say scale yourself. And he's like, Well, you can teach others to do things that you're doing. And I was like, Well, I'm a teacher, I can I could definitely do that. And he's I just don't want to do that. He's like, No, no, no. When you can teach others to do things better than you, like that's the part that I wasn't listening to, the better than you. And and that then spawned a competitive aspect of it. I like remember going to my boss's office at that time to listen. I was like, uh, I got this feedback. I need you, I need your help, you know, like what can I do? And she's like, uh, she's like, you always wanted to be an IC. And she gave me the budget to hire an intern. And I was like, I'm gonna make this person great. Like, I gotta do it, I gotta do it. And it was like this, like, I have to. And that's not like I wasn't listening to the feedback, right? Because if you're so focused on you making making it by yourself, as an IC, sometimes you're able to, I'm gonna get this over the finish line. And that mentality shift of it's not about you anymore, it's the person. Like invest in the person and understand the person, help them be better, not for your successes, but for their successes, which will then translate to your successes. That recognition, um, you know, it came. I mean, it punched me like Mike Tyson in the face in his prime. Like, I got so much joy out of that. And that moment of, oh, now I see. Like, you know, you get that Neo moment of, yeah, I mean, I still get, I still get jazzed when I'm doing like individual work, some uh where I'm working on something, whether it's a rec, whether it's a project that I'm just doing myself. Like I get jazzed about that. I get energy because I'm I'm ambitious, but nowhere near the level of satisfaction that I get from when I see others on my team shining. And so that recognition, that self-awareness moment of like, oh, I am wrong here. I got it. I need, I need to invest in this change. I need to like do some soul searching. I think that that's what gets you know folks through that thread.

SPEAKER_01

So you've made it pretty far in your career at this point. VP of town acquisition for Workiva. How many employees does the company have at this point? Uh about 3,300. 3,300. And I believe publicly traded? Publicly traded, yep. Okay. I'd love to learn more about the top takeaways. Now, I think we've already talked about it to some extent. One of your top takeaways of where you are today that you can share with our listeners is listening to feedback, taking it to heart, really like taking the time to listen, investing in people. So we've talked about that a fair amount. One of the other aspects you you talked about are the key takeaways is moving from seeing yourself as a talent acquisition leader to seeing yourself as a business owner, to go from understanding just the pain of like hiring or for your team to going to understanding fundamentally the pain of the business to really understand holistically as a company what needs to be done to move forward. Could you tell us more about that?

Next Version: Presence And Patience

SPEAKER_02

For sure. I think, I think as I've kind of grown myself, I guess is like the term in my career, I found myself latching on to leaders that think about their work as a business and you know, understand like what makes somebody a really good leader. When I was at LinkedIn, there are some leaders there that I looked up to that really understood their worlds, whether they were in engineering, whether they were in TA, um, but they understood the value that they would offer and the team that they would support as a business. And they look at problems as a business. So, like the example that I give is like, you know, I grew up in in tech recruiting, like hiring engineers and PMs and product marketing people. And that was my world for so long. And I got a lot of joy out of you know being on the tech side of the house. So much joy that I that I just closed the door to like the whole entire other world of the house, which is like you gotta sell products. You like you can build amazing products, but if you can't sell them, you can't go anywhere. I closed the door to that world because it just didn't feed my curiosity at the time. And and this recognition that you can't solve a problem if you don't really understand the full problem. So to me, the evolution as a as you know, looking at things as a business problem, um, and you know, sub team I support is a business. Um, and you know, my boss entrusts budget and resource power and capabilities into my team to then deliver a value add to our business. And if I can't look at, if I look at the team as, well, they're folks are just an execution on one or two things, that's not gonna help move us forward. It's not gonna help us build the resolution. I'm not gonna even understand the problem sets. So, like being able to zoom out and look at things holistically as a business, whether it's like you're supporting the tech side of the house or the go-to-market side of the house, you're you're solving for a business problem. And so, as a leader, your ability to zoom out a little bit and survey the business problem in front of you will gravitate towards different things. So, for example, I I never cared about time to fill as a TA profession because I was always working on the tech side, and very few engineering leaders would ever tell you, I just want to hire as fast as possible an engineer. The orders of magnitude of acceleration that you get from a world-class engineer versus just an average engineer is significant. And so I never thought about time to fill. And now when you support the go-to-market side of the house, it is definitely important to make sure that you you're filling sales roles as fast as possible. Of course, you just want to have the best talent possible, but the speed does matter. And it is a complete different problem to solve. And you're not going to be able to do that well if you are only thinking about the action of you know the one. If you're not listening, if you're not understanding, if you're not empathetic to the pain that the business you're solving is. And it doesn't matter if you're in recruiting, it doesn't matter actually if you have a plumbing business. You need to operate everything as a business problem that you're solving for and offer that value add. Um, otherwise, you're sunk in the marketplace.

SPEAKER_01

When you look toward the future, what does the next best version of yourself look like? Oof.

SPEAKER_02

Uh I think people that know me know I'm a manic. Um, like, and I and like, you know, for so long, right? I think values as a leader create clarity, but create energy, right? And I think that that's a trait that all successful leaders that I've looked up to, you know, did really, really well, you know, create energy. Um, and so as a manic, creating energy feels easy because you have it yourself and you're rambunctious and you just want to go. I think the next evolution of myself, and I've slowly started to, although my family won't agree to this, but is you know, being more present and patient. Um, because you can't possibly, especially now with technology moving as fast as it's moving, if you just jump all the time, you're gonna miss so many different opportunities. You're gonna miss so many different problems that you could be solving, or the right problems you could be solving. You're just gonna solve a problem, but it's not gonna be the most important. And so, like for me, this like evolution as a person, as a leader, professionally, leader of household, personally, um, it is this recognition that I need to be more present um and patient and that things won't happen when I want them to happen. Uh, things will happen when they're supposed to happen. And then are you finding the spots to make sure that you're you're there when they happen, um, that you're aware when they happen, that you're in you're present when they happen, right? Like my oldest son is about to enter a senior year in high school. You know, holy shit, right? So, like I feel like I feel like I was carrying him, you know, a minute ago. And so there's so many moments that I wasn't probably as present and or as patient for as I should have, but as I could have been. And so that that next chapter for me um has to be that, both as a, like I said, you know, personally with my family, but you know, professionally with my team. And I hope that it makes me a better leader. Um, I hope that it makes me just a better person to work with, that it's almost like uh reaching a Buddha state of things. Like you have to because things are happening so fast. Um, technology is moving so fast, so many different tools out there right now that you can you know leverage. And if you can't just be present in what you're trying to solve for with this or that, you're just gonna gloss over everything. Um, so that's my that's my meta moment of where I want to get to is that you know level of presence, awareness.

SPEAKER_01

Presence, awareness, patience.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. The patience isn't working process for.

Closing Reflections And Gratitude

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I get it. I I definitely get that one. Kids are uh it's a great opportunity to practice that skill set. We're still working on it.

SPEAKER_02

I I haven't figured it out a hundred times in a in a heck of a of a humbling moment too. Oh yeah, because they don't want to hear like, oh, I just you know, help like they don't know, like dad, I'll take the garbage out. Like very humbling moment.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, Hasi, hey, this has been a great time. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today and sharing your journey and story and lessons learned.

SPEAKER_02

James, thank you so much for having me. Like I this flew by much faster than I thought. It was like a little bit nervous coming into it. Uh, this is really awesome. You know, privilege that that you wanted to invest the time in talking to me.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, man. I I had a great time. Thanks, dude.

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James Mackey

Host