Barb Ruess, CXR 
Is that fair? College kids always have better place.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:03
Way better? Well, I don’t know if anybody knows this Olivia is almost my neighbor.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 0:12
Almost

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:15
Olivia do you want to share where you live? No street address obviously.

Olivia Cohen 0:20
Of course. Um, it’s a suburb of Austin, Texas. It’s called Cedar Park. So it’s about a 20 minute drive from downtown without traffic, like an hour with traffic,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:30
Yeah they are doing a lot of construction. They’re building bridges for us and Elon Musk is building Snellville or what I think they should call it Muskville. But they call it I don’t know what it is slug snail or something really dumb. It’d be exciting to new city. Did you know Olivia? they’re putting a movie studio out here.

Olivia Cohen 0:48
Really? I did not know that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:52
I’m gonna go petition every day that I can be on something on Netflix. Every day, it’s my productivity is going to tank All right, well, is everybody ready to get started? Okay, we’re gonna do it.

CXR Announcer 1:07
Welcome to the CXR channel, our premier podcast for Talent Acquisition and Talent Management. listen in as the CXR community discusses a wide range of topics focused on attracting, engaging and retaining the best talent, we’re glad you’re here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:36
Okay, good morning, good evening, and good night, or wherever you may be. This is probably one of my favorite additions that we do. This is not the first one that we’ve done. We do one annually. I’m super excited about this particular podcast. And I want to welcome you you are listening or watching the recruiting community podcast about a 20 minute chat, where typically we will bring in heads of talent acquisition or practitioners in the space to talk about what’s keeping them up at night, what’s top of mind for them, or if they’re just doing something cool, and we want to shine a light on it. But this one is a little bit different. Every year, well, actually, you know what I’m just gonna bring in where’s our committee chair, there she is. Barb, welcome back to the show. Thank you. So Barb Ruess, who’s our VP of Operations at CareerXroads. Barb and I are both as as some of our other guests we’re gonna bring them in from the green room and a part of the CXR foundation that is a nonprofit that’s been around closing in on five years. And we do these cool activities, whether it’s CXR cares whether we do something CXR cares, which is in a local market, or we do recruiters, recruiting recruiters, we have the TA talk tank that is up now the mentoring platform has come out or an annual scholarship and Barb, you are the committee chair, on that particular piece for the scholarship. Can you before we bring everybody in? Can you kind of set the stage around what that is? And what does that program do?

Barb Ruess, CXR 3:01
Sure, sure, I’d be excited to. So really, the CXR foundation is all about supporting our industry, the industry of talent acquisition. And there’s many different ways to speak and pick up and we’re always open to ideas about that. But one of the things that we’ve been able to do, as you said, three years now in a row is providing a $10,000 scholarship to a student who is connected in some way typically related to someone in the field of talent acquisition. It is I am proud to be the committee chair, I think that scholarship makes a huge impact on a student’s life. And I think it’s a really nice way for us to contribute back to the talent acquisition industry. So we’ve we’ve had some fantastic winners, all of which are tied into wanting to build community or again, looking to work in the field of talent acquisition in one way or another. And I’m very excited to introduce our winner this year on today’s podcast.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:52
That’s great. So while she’s thinking about how that may or may not have a huge impact, she’s definitely on the hook now to sort of share that with us. Let’s bring in the folks who were also part of that program who helped you out. So who do you want me to bring in first, I’m just the string puller today.

Barb Ruess, CXR 4:07
That’s wonderful. I do have a fantastic committee of six individuals, two of whom were able to join us today. So let’s go ahead and bring in Curtis Dorsey since he’s also on the foundation board.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:17
All right, there we go. I’m also gonna bring in Gerry on there as well. There we go. Curtis, do you want to introduce yourself?

Barb Ruess, CXR 4:29
That as always good on podcast.

Curtis Dorsey, Salesforce 4:32
Hey, Curtis Dorsey. I’m a director of tech recruiting at Salesforce. And as was mentioned that the scholarship each year is one of my most favorite favorite things that we do. And it’s always exciting to see how the talent has gotten better and better each year. And it’s always great to invest back into into the TA community.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:56
Love that and we’ve got one other person in queue. Let’s bring her In

Barb Ruess, CXR 5:00
We do you know, we had over 1000 applicants today and without people like Loren helping us go through those, we would not be able we would not be wearing that scholarship yet. That’s for sure.

Loren Bunche, Endeavor 5:11
Hi, everyone.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:13
Hey, Lauren. So a quick introduction of yourself there, Lauren. Yes, sure.

Loren Bunche, Endeavor 5:16
Hello, my name is Loren Bunche, and I oversee recruiting at Endeavor, based here in New York City. And just it was really great to be a part of this process. We talked to a number of really talented individuals, and good to go through the profiles, go through the resumes and then talk for the folks who have sent in their application. So thanks for having me joined today.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:45
Well, Barb, do you want to do you wanna introduce our winner?

Barb Ruess, CXR 5:47
Oh, I would love to our guest of honor hailing from Austin, Texas, Olivia Cohen.

So Olivia wants to go ahead and tell us where your students what you’re studying. And I know you have an internship that you’re starting pretty soon. So you can tell us about that, too?

Olivia Cohen 6:08
Yes. Um, so currently, I am a student at Texas A&M University. If you don’t know where it is. It’s, I think it’s East Texas area. And it’s actually the largest college in the US. I just learned that recently. And then I’m a business major. They’re hoping to have a concentration in management of information systems. And yeah, when I’m when I’m not a college, I’m here in Austin, Texas. My internship. Okay. I have an internship this summer, which I’m super excited for. It’s it’s called NXP Semiconductors is the company and I’m going to be doing kind of it analysis and helping them with their web design and just things like that. So very, very excited.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:01
Right? And are you? Are you? Are you familiar with all the whoop and the Gigamon? All the fun

Olivia Cohen 7:09
The hand sign? Yes. I drink the Kool Aid for sure.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:13
Yeah, well, it is. I mean, my son, my daughter graduated from Texas a&m, my oldest, it is a cult that I have put a lot of money into.

Olivia Cohen 7:21
Yeah, it is. We got a lot of spirit here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:26
Indeed, so what are the Olivia, let me ask you, what are you most excited about it kind of as you’re going forward? I mean, it’s from either career opportunities, or just, you know, continuing your education? I mean, is there a certain aspect of all this that just kind of just really keeps you pumped.

Olivia Cohen 7:42
Um, I guess just coming into college, I was very, very excited for the independence, I couldn’t wait to live on my own and just kind of, you know, reinvent myself and just learn more about myself. And, of course, like, also, looking forward to learning more about the business world and more like exploring where I want to take my career and just everything though, I just I’m loving College, just meeting new people and having that community and it’s great.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:12
I love that. Did you know that there were 1000s of of applicants that you were up against?

Olivia Cohen 8:18
I did not know that at all. That was a shock for sure to hear that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:23
You should feel pretty good about that. I think. And I don’t know, Barb, if you want to I know you ran the committee. So I don’t need to be running the conversation. But was there anything I call out or ask the other participants?

Barb Ruess, CXR 8:35
So you know, it was interesting. Olivia, I’ll let you go. But I’m gonna call on Loren. So Olivia, you are one of 12 finalists. And I know Loren and Curtis got to have some conversations with some of the other finalists. And then we all had a had a meeting where it was a very difficult decision to try to pick our are the finalists that we present to the board. But But Loren, I was wondering if you could just talk about not just the students that you talk to, but the students that we’ve talked about as a group, some of the things that kind of stood out to you throughout this whole scholarship process.

Loren Bunche, Endeavor 9:04
Sure. So I think, you know, when you work on these types of important initiatives, thinking back to when I was in school, and just starting out and thinking about career, what I might like to do, certainly thought about that is we talked with each of the students and you know, some of the things that stood out was the activities and involvement that so many of them were into thinking about next steps and careers even so early and in their college education. I think that’s often really hard to do, just to start to, you know, think through that. And we’ve talked with a lot of really impressive students who already have some ideas around what they want to explore and what they want to learn, and you don’t have to have it all figured out yet, and it’s just, you know, such it’s, it takes us back. Right. So it’s, it was a great process just to remember what it was like to be in that time in your life and have the world ahead of you. So Olivia, just really happy for you. Congratulations and all of the students that applied and also got to second phases. It’s a really hard decision. But you know, there’s only one, you got to pick one.

Barb Ruess, CXR 10:34
Yeah, it was definitely not an easy choice. But Olivia, we’re all very excited for you. So, Curtis, you’ve done this alongside me now for a couple years. Do you have anything to add about the growth of our scholarship? And what’s been going on with it?

Curtis Dorsey, Salesforce 10:48
Yeah, you know, you know, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, it really has been quite the journey to see not only the the volume of interest and the scholarship, but also the caliber of folks that are, are coming forward and, and even how they are already at such an early stage in their in their lives, really thinking through, you know, how they’re wanting to explore their path forward, I think back to when I was where they are. And many of them, many of the folks that we had an opportunity to talk to, are so much further in their thinking and thought process. And even as you look at how they’re giving back, they’re giving back in ways that that was just really impressive.

Barb Ruess, CXR 11:34
Yeah, I think so too. So Olivia, I’ll put you back on the spot for a minute here, we did ask every one of our applicants to write a very short essay, just talking about what this scholarship might do for them and what kind of an effect it might have on your life. And I would love it if you could share some of your story.

Olivia Cohen 11:53
So, I mean, I, I have to pay for my own tuition. So I, you know, I, I guess I was looking for opportunities to help me through that. Because I’ve I’ve really big goals for my life. And, you know, I want to make an impact in the community. So I just was looking for something to kind of help me out with that. And so the scholarship will really, really help me be able to pour more into my academics and serving the community and in my organizations that I’m involved in, and it’s really just, I’m super grateful for it, because it’ll Yeah, it’ll help me just continue pursuing my passions. And that’s, it’s just amazing that I get to do this

Gerry Crispin, CXR 12:42
high expectations for you Olivia so that you know, 10 years from now we want to call back call you back and hear that change to it you know, or and or its impact on human resources. So now we’re, I want you to be a real loose cannon.

Curtis Dorsey, Salesforce 12:58
I’d love to see on the on the scholarship committee.

Barb Ruess, CXR 13:03
There you go. There you go. You’re established to reach back out, you can give back with a

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:10
Love that well, it’s good luck is an exciting time for you, Olivia. It’s a what a wonderful part of your life that you’re in. I mean, you are you are literally writing your own chapters. So we’re super excited for you. We could not be more proud of you for winning, out of literally out of 1000s of people who submitted the applications. And it wasn’t easy. The finalists came to the entire board for a vote. And I have to tell you, it’s tough because there were a lot of really great candidates in there. But we’re just super excited that you kind of elbowed and nudged your way out of there. And you’ve got a terrific story, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you do with it. That’s good stuff.

Barb Ruess, CXR 13:45
So Chris. Before we wrap this up. I don’t know if you had another question for the group. Before you wrap this up. I would love to take this opportunity. Because this podcast might be the first time anybody’s even heard about this scholarship. It is an annual scholarship, we will open up the applications for the 2024 Scholarship right after Thanksgiving. So you can be looking for that late November, early December. Those applicants are typically open until the end of January. And then that’s when the people Loren and Curtis’s and the rest of our wonderful committee do the heavy lifting, as far as the interview process, so we can order it in the spring. But again, it is open to anyone who is connected to the world of talent acquisition. So Louis, I think it was your parents maybe that work in their world a TA but you know, people listening to this probably are connected to all the TA so anybody listening, if you have a student or you know of a student who fits the bill, we would love to have them apply in the Fall.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 14:39
I said I said it earlier and I think we got a hashtag that’s out there. This is community. When we talk about what we mean when talent acquisition and talent acquisition community I think I think this is it and paying it forward and reaching out doing the charity work we do on the street doing fun and exciting things to help young people move forward in their space and help maybe relieve a little bit of the pressure, some of that responsibility comes with with those families. I think this is an exciting opportunity. And I think we’re just, we’re all just so privileged to be in such a great space. Great.

All right, really quickly, I’m gonna slowly drop each of you back into the green room. And I’m just gonna, there we go, we got everybody. Just a real quick reminder, again, you know, we do these podcasts every week that come out at cx.org/podcast. We try to keep it simple, where you can check that out, you can see previous podcasts. And you can see future podcasts what’s on the schedule that is ahead. But I also want to remind everybody again, I know we put it on the screen, we didn’t really talk about it CXR.foundation. Yes, that is actually a URL and a domain. It’s CXR.foundation, you can learn more about the scholarship that’s coming up. As Barb mentioned earlier, we’ve got that opening up here just after Thanksgiving. But we’ve also got a series of really cool stuff that the foundation takes on and that that board is driving forward. I’ve got a call this afternoon for one and 2024 You’re gonna want to be all in for that particular project as it comes up. But we’re really looking forward to it, you can be a part of the foundation, you can be a part of that volunteer work in those committees. Just let us know that you’re interested. There’s an interest form out there again at CXR.foundation. Until then, we will see everybody next week. Good bye, folks.

CXR Announcer 16:23
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