S4 E43 | Moments that Matter with Carmen Hudson

Sit back and listen as William Wiggins leans in and gets Carmen Hudson to share her experiences with inequality and racism in a way that only a life partner could.

Announcer 0:02
You’re listening to Moments That Matter. A special CXR podcast series where leaders and talent professionals share their own experiences with varying aspects of discrimination and inequality. Here on Moments That Matter, we are dedicated to creating connected conversations around specific moments. These are moments that matter.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 0:26
Good afternoon everyone, this is William Wiggins, coming to you from CareerXroads. In our series, that we’re called Moments That Matter. moments that matter are experiences that we’re communicating to our public that have been recorded or remembered by black, brown and people of diversity, where they first experienced, we’re calling it woke moments in the workplace, it would be an experience that they’ve had, or something that they have had done to them or set them where they realize, hmm, not in Kansas anymore. And my experience is very different from that of the people that I work with. I interviewed just three weeks ago, Shelia Grey from quadron. And we had a really, really good conversation about moments that matter, I hope you tuned in. And I hope you enjoy what we have to say. And this week, I have the pleasure of interviewing my wife, Carmen Hudson, who has experienced many moments that matter as well. I’m hoping that this will be a good and fruitful interview for everyone, because Carmen and I have been together for 25 years. And we have experienced each other’s moments that matter. She’s been there when I’ve come home cursing or almost in tears, about things that have happened to me and I have been there for her as well. And so today, I hope you enjoy what we have to say and more importantly, I hope that you can gather, get something from what we have to say. And perhaps it might impact your experience in your workplace and how you treat people that are working alongside you. Welcome, Carmen

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 2:05
How are you?

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 2:06
I’m doing well.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 2:08
How are you in the other room?

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 2:11
I’m doing well.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 2:13
That’s good.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 2:14
Okay,

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 2:15
This is funny. I’m ready

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 2:18
Let’s get started. I want you to. I probably know every moment that matters that you’ve had, you know, all the moments that matter that I’ve had, but I want you to give us an instance when you were in the workplace. I think I know a couple but I want to hear from you, I want you to give us an incident where you first realized that this is going to be a struggle. Give us a story something that is your unique experience where you you it was a woke moment for you woke in terms of them. When I say woke, woke in terms of you realize, like I said you’re not in Kansas anymore, my experience is going to be very different here than someone else’s experience is going to be. And I’d like to hear from you what that is or what those are.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 3:05
I think for me, my very first, or at least the first woke moment that I remember, was probably after college, and I moved from Detroit to Chicago went to school, in outside of Chicago, then I moved home for a little bit and then I moved back and I was excited to move back and start my life as an adult. And I partied, of course and use up all my money until very last moment. So I had to go and get a temp job. That’s that’s where it started. So I went to my my temp assignment, I signed up and I gotten an assignment. I’m very excited because I got to my first assignment was at an architectural firm, and I was going to be I don’t know, the front desk person or whatever there. And I was excited just to go because I was interested in architecture. And I thought, well, this could be the beginning of a great career and very excited to go. And I went and I let them know I was there. And they told me to sit in the lobby and I sat in the lobby that in the lobby for about 10-15 minutes and said, Hey, just to remind you that I’m here. Oh, we got it sat there for an hour. And still nothing from anyone that there for another hour. And finally I was told it’s okay, well, we’ll pay you for the day. But we decided that we don’t need you. So I walked out of there just not knowing what happened. And I went back to to the firm that it placed me there and said, hey, they said that they don’t need me, despite you telling you that you need it before week. And they’re like don’t worry about it. You know, we’ll pay you. Bye-bye. You know, it was just sort of weird. To this day. I have no answer. I have no idea. So you know how I was treated or why I was treated that way. And I have my guesses. But it began, in me just a desire to ensure that people knew how they were being treated and why they were being treated in a certain way. And to, to the extent that I had available to me, to the extent that I could ensure that, that no one is treated in the way that I was treated that day,

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 5:28
And how have you used that experience? I know, right now, you do a lot of training of recruiters through Recruiting Toolbox, how have you use that experience in order to train and prepare the people that you, your clients and your your recruiters that you’re training to impact the candidate experience in a more positive way for diversity?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 5:57
I, I sometimes I share that story. Most often, I don’t, but I include an every probably every training that I’ve done. And who knows how many that is, at this point, I’ve been consulting now for 10 years. And prior to that had a nice long career in recruiting. But every opportunity I get, I try to ensure that people understand that a candidate is a person first, that a candidate is coming to you, either at a moment of great strength, or perhaps they don’t need the job. And this is just a nice to have, or at a moment of great weakness, where they really do need a job. And we as recruiters never know, what stage that person’s in whether it is here they are in between. And so it is our job to treat people. Well, that is, first and foremost, what we should do, it’s why I’ve been a member of the the committee on on treating people well and hiring for candidate experience. That makes sense, because I think that is both first and foremost. That doesn’t mean that you have to give anyone a job that doesn’t deserve the job. But it means that you have to treat every person who comes in front of you well, and I will tell you that that’s a struggle, that is a struggle, treating candidates with dignity and the respect that they deserve, is difficult for many organizations, many organizations are getting way more candidates, especially these days, then they can then they can help. At which point I tell people that it is it is really a part of our job to figure out how do we help them? How do we either get them to not apply? and point them to more resources that makes sense? Or how do we are in the midst of coming into contact with candidates? How do we make sure that they are being treated well, as part of the process?

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 8:10
I know that this was several years back, you were doing some type of training, I can’t remember specifically what the training was and you use to start the training off. By asking the people that you were doing the training for how many people thought that you were the administrative assistant, when you when they entered the room? Can you tell us a little bit about that exercise, and what some of the responses were.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 8:37
That was a that was a while ago, I haven’t done that in a while. But when I work for corporate America, I used to do trainings. And I was working for one organization and large delivery services service packages of all types throughout the world, I will say and one of the things that I would do is just sort of observe as I walked in the room, how people react react to me how people responded to me, I handed out the papers. And and most people I you know, were perfectly nice. But then I would start the class and just would have a bit of a shock that would happen as a result of my leaving and starting the class. And so I started asking people, I’m really just just actually not to indicate themselves, but to indicate just in some small way to themselves if they thought that I was in no way qualified to lead this class. And, you know, no one ever Well, I take that back there were a few who actually admitted to me that they had no idea that I was leading the class and they came clean and said, Yeah, you know, I see people in certain ways and I approach things in certain ways. But most people kind of quietly either acknowledge themselves or or, or didn’t acknowledge themselves how they thought of me when they entered that classroom. And that to me, is it was just a way to awaken people to the minds into their minds into the way that their prejudices get in the way of candidates all the time. Oh, all the time.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 10:21
I think and I think you’ll remember this too, because I stuck about a great deal. When I was a consultant, I had an office helper that would frequently go out with me to bring materials and helped me to get set up for meetings, I would do a lot of open enrollment meetings, a lot of healthcare meetings. And people would consistently he was a young white male, people would consistently go to him and introduce themselves and reach out to shake his hand and ask, Are you William? Rarely will they come to me first. And so I kind of experienced that when there is a perception or an expectation that if you are in a position where you consulting with someone a training, you might not be as qualified if you have this color of skin. In our meeting with my interview with Shelia, I was able to share a lot of experiences. And I backed them up in an article that I wrote subsequently, about the true experience in the workplace. One of which included when I was when we were living in California, I had my boss to jump up at a basketball game that we were enjoying and call one of the players, a effin monkey, about eight years later, he ended up calling me and apologizing for that, um, can you tell us about any experiences where you may have been sort of in the same situation, how the relationship was comfortable in the workplace, and had a similar experience that, you know, sort of, again, one of those woke moments that there was no denying, there is definitely a bias or prejudice or an out and out racist, sitting next to me that that I may have missed

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 12:12
I, I can count, but I can’t count actually, the number of times that has actually happened. And, and I will tell you, it falls into, you know, one of two or three categories. And one is, this is blatant racism. And I know what’s happening to me now, and I am quite aware, and there’s a category of I’m not sure what this is, but it feels like racism, and I’d be willing to bet a large sum of money that it actually is racism. And then there’s a third category of this is racism and or this might not be, or this might be racism that they don’t, they’re not quite aware of, but I can, I can recall quite a few scenarios, you know, down to all I’ll put it like this, since I work with the whole world of hiring, and I still work with some of these people. And, and I still admire them to some extent, because of what they’ve been able to share with me and what I’ve been able to learn from them. But I also learned that racism can rear its ugly head at any time. And that folks who are, for example, doing checks on you, but not doing checks on other people, that itself can account for some faction of racism. And so you don’t you pick and choose those times when you decide to call it out. And those times when you decide to endure it those times when you decide to leave a job, those times when you decide that this is a learning experiment for me. But yeah, all Yes, I have experience that

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 13:58
You can use names after we retire and get that boat. What determines when you decide to endure it to kick it behind you? And when you decide to take it on? No or even exit as a result of it?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 14:15
Um, well, I think that as I get older, it’s a different, you know, as I have more control over my career, and I care a lot less about what someone thinks or what someone feels. I, I think that when I was younger, I probably would swallow among a lot more things that I would now. Now there are people that I just won’t work with, and I don’t feel any need to explain to people why I won’t work with them. I just have decided that I won’t or there are companies that I’ve decided that I won’t work with. And there are, you know, individuals that I’ve decided I won’t work with In the past, when I was younger, it was it, you know, it really did depend. And I probably I probably exercise some of that discretion, probably more loudly than I would now. Now, I would just simply say no, and keep moving. Back then if I didn’t say no, it was probably pretty loud, and probably with a great deal of, of language attached to it. And that probably made some impressions. And it probably hurt me in some areas. You know, who knows.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 15:35
Well speaking of language and making impressions. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what happened at the advertising agency? Oh, sorry. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what happened at the advertising agency, when you experienced racism? And did they ever get the case resolved?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 15:52
Ah well? I am not at liberty to say

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 15:59
Cat got your tongue on that. Say more about the rear coins place that you worked at. on that on that fateful night when you

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 16:11
Wow, you’re going all the way back

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 16:13
Realizing an extreme racist action.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 16:18
Well, that that was a that had accumulated after so many different experiences. And that was an interesting form of racism on on top of it. But um, yeah, that was way back when I was working in Chicago, I was, I was not an HR at that point. And I didn’t know didn’t have a great sense of what my rights were, I did have a really good sense of what I would tolerate and what I wouldn’t tolerate. And thank you. Thank you for helping me figure that out. And I’ll tell the story. You know, the story was just around this person who decided to, and unleash all of what they were feeling about me and about their situation, which had nothing to do with me in a way that I felt was inappropriate. And I came home crying about it. And William was the one who said why are you crying about it? Why are you why would you even return to that job, and I did return to the job. But then I I subsequently walked off with a job because that I should not have to put up with what that person was saying. So yeah, so I thank you for giving me that courage.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 17:45
Well, you’re welcome. And so was that a peaceful party? Right?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 17:50
You are trying to get something out of me people, but I’m not gonna give it.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 17:59
We’ll write that story when I retire and get that book to

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 18:05
It’s going to be a big boat.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 18:07
I think it’s interesting. You I last last few weeks ago, when I wrote the article that was published on fiscal talent. I gave a series of snippets or stories or real life experiences that I’d had everything from that one of sitting next to my boss, who I considered a friend at that point, who jumped up and called a another black man that looked like me a monkey for missing a shot to being chased around the desk, literally, by a C-suite executive who always wondered, is it black all over quote, unquote. And so I remember the reaction of people when I wrote that I had a lot of people to reach out to me, or people of color to reach out to me and the reaction was, was mostly, I can’t believe you wrote that. I can’t believe you share those stories. Aren’t you scared? Aren’t you afraid to rock the boat? And you said something that was pretty poignant. I think when you get to a certain age of a certain level in your career, you cease being concerned about what looks what’s going to rock the boat. And it’s there’s something liberating about that where you feel like you paid your dues, and you’re not paying any more dues. And so I think that it’s interesting that you the two that you use that I want to know from you, since you’re talking about the the the, the two cases that that I just tried to do I tried to get the status of out of real clearly you you are out and free. Um, but let’s continue. I want to know from you, I know that you guys in your group over at Recruiting Toolbox do a great deal of training on, you know how to become better recruiters does tackling unconscious bias can you go into what you guys do. I think that is a huge one, that people are always surprised, even recruiters are always surprised that they actually struggle with.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 20:19
Yeah, that is, and it’s becoming more and more it’s, it’s part of what we do naturally. And we embed that into every training that we have, for the most part with recruiters and with hiring managers who are interviewing applicants. And it is now being pulled out as something that people want more training on, they want that they want to understand bias, and they want to understand how they might be being bias, they want to understand how to overcome it, they want to understand what parts of the progress of the process that might actually be tied and tied up in, in in bias and really thinking through being thoughtful about the questions that they’re asking, and the decisions that they’re making. And I love doing this kind of training, this is exactly, I think, you know, one of the reasons I was put on this earth was to help people understand their role as an interviewer and to understand, really, that to interview well starts way further back in the process, than most of us come to it. So most of us come to this idea that we have to interview someone, and we come up with some questions on the fly, and we rush in and we interview someone. And I think that if you’re doing that, you’re very likely cutting a candidate short, you are not getting the best of that candidate, it’s very likely that your process has not been applied consistently across applicants. And it’s very likely that you’ve given an impression to the candidate that you really don’t care. And that your involvement in this is such that you would not even prepare for the candidate. So all of that is what I put into my training every single time and now even, we have clients that want to pull that out, and really respond to that and react to that and to to take a look at themselves and really figure out where could they be better?

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 22:39
Can you give us some common examples of subconscious or unconscious bias in interviewing?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 22:46
Um, I can so um, I just think of a of, you know, a typical question that you might ask a candidate, and out, what you want to do is be certain that that is a question that you ask every candidate, if you ask one candidate about the details of doing a specific job, that’s a pretty specific ask. And if you find yourself only asking women candidates, or only asking black candidates or only asking candidates of any stripe or or or really focusing that question to specific groups of people, then what you are doing is typically a really applying some some bias that you have that you have developed over time. And so stopping and spending time thinking about position that for which you are recruiting, and understanding what are what are those things that are most important to getting the work done, and understanding what your biases are. And we all walk through this phase of life. And we all take shortcuts, and we all have biases to understand what they are beforehand and to set them aside. So I might have a belief that a woman’s going to be a better childcare provider, right? And that very well may not be true. And so I have to set aside my biases and acknowledge what they are and set them aside and then question the person in front of me in the same way so that I can get the same set of data that I think it’s important for understanding this candidate for this childcare job, obviously, I have to get that same set of data from each person. And that means I have to sit down and think about what’s the data that I need? What are the answers that I’m looking for that are going to make me say yes or no, that’s where a lot of difficulty actually happens. People actually analysis the answers differently to questions. So what are the answers that are going to make me say yes? So what are the answers that are gonna make them say no? And what are my? What’s the minimum level of answers? If I don’t get the minimum level of answers to these three or four questions, then I’m going to say that this person’s out, and it takes a lot of hard work to get that right. And it takes a lot of time to get that right. Because what we do is, we we meet people, we’re like, that person’s more like me, I like that person. And I think that I can get along with this person, I think I can work with this person, but that may not have any bearing bearing on whether or not that is the right person for the job, what is going to be most important is really where you put that that thought and that effort into questioning the person.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 25:50
I can’t tell you how often or actually, I have told you how often because we talk about it every day that I have reviewed applicants with recruiters and asked questions like, in I was remembering one that was a gentleman who was perfectly qualified for this role, by far well above anyone else that they had interviewed. And so I asked the applicant, I’m sorry, ask a recruiter. Why was he not hired mine was not sent on. And she said that the feedback that she got from the first, from the first hiring manager, the first time managers is that, because it was an organization that had a lot of females, young, white females, this was a very well educated, tall, large black men. But because it was an organization that employed a lot of young white females, the first two hiring managers thought that he was a little imposing and a bit intimidating. And so that’s why they didn’t refer him on. I’ve also shared with you stories about working in organizations where we had referral programs, where people we did seem like we had a small number of people that were doing the same number of people that were making all of the referrals, and somehow, all of the referrals that they brought in look acted dressed all like the same way. Because largely because they were all part of the same school, they were all a part of the same sorority, they were all part of the same community. And so I do encourage people, by recruiters, as you’re interviewing, sort of remove those biases, because someone is large and dark skinned, doesn’t make them a predator. And I’m pretty, pretty direct about pointing that out. I’ve also pointed out in that case, in publicly in a meeting, the reason why everybody looks like acts like we don’t have a whole lot of diversity is because we’re only taking referrals from two directors in they’re, all of their friends, and they’re all literally in the sororities and fraternities. And so I try to call those those situations out when I see them. What are some words or fixes or something that you would advise someone, as an HR leader like me who is accountable for the recruiting function? How would you advise a leader? Of course, you do unconscious bias training, but what are some tips words that you would instill in everyone to sort of catch themselves as they’re engaging, you know, sort of in decisions that involve bias? What is something that you would advise,

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 28:50
I wish I had the magic words, I’ve done everything in my career from just ensuring that every interview loop had a diverse person so that the interviewers are or at least diverse, when that’s possible. I’ve done things like diversify the candidates that folks got to see. And that would have varying results. I have done things such as ensured that every candidate that folks would see as part of interviewing for a specific position was diverse, though, if I thought a woman should be part of a group, I would just send women and wait for comments. And I will tell you, I’ve had instances where there were no comments and a hire was made. And I’ve had instances where it was, hey, what’s going on, and only seeing women as part of this interview group. So what’s happening here, and so, and I would have very frank, very open conversations about this. At any point, one of the things that I decided to take advantage of because I’m a black woman is that when people wanted to have a conversation about diversity with me, I was prepared to go there with them. So if they were complaining about the fact that they’d only seen women in their department was 90%. men, I would very respectfully and nicely point that out and talk about what are the problems with hiring women and get them to and not with, one of the things that I have always done is, in order to further the conversation, had to leave behind some of the professional expectations. And so you would see a recruiting leader who’s black woman, oh, my God, I better not talk about diversity, or I’m getting in trouble. And so I would try very hard to get leaders to leave that behind. And let’s talk about what’s real, it’s not about what’s on the table, it’s not talking about that, it just sent you three candidates who were women, and they all three were no, I’m not going to send you any more telling understand your no’s, right, I’m not going to send you a man or woman until you understand your no’s. And a lot of it was they weren’t good at recruiting. And I’ve never been asked to be good at recruiting. And so they were much better at identifying people with whom I would have a better time going golfing with. And so getting them to get that on the table. And to understand that work is not golf. And let’s figure out what works best in this scenario for work. And let’s figure out if it is some of the candidates that we’ve seen, or do we need to see additional candidates. And let’s understand why we’re not bringing in the diversity that we need. Um, I have a, you know, to be all, you know, to be honest about that. I’ve had some success and some not success. I’ve had some hiring managers go around me, I’ve had some hiring managers who fell in line. So I can’t say that it was all successful. But I can say that, we can continue to call it out. And we can continue to, to make, to get hiring managers to get interviewers to get recruiters to call upon their own biases that are coming into play, and to set them aside and to really figure out why you are evaluating candidates in the way that you are evaluating.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 32:37
Hey, let me do this another moment that mattered in your career. Otherwise, I talked about the beauty supply store incident when you were a reporter in Detroit.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 32:50
We’re not talking, we’re not going all the way back there, because I don’t remember. I don’t remember. But I will tell you a moment that matter for me. And this was as a consultant, recruiting toolbox. And so I was not a member of this company. But I had been consulting for this company and training at this company for quite some time. And I had, I had a manager just stay behind. And finally, after everyone else had left, I said, I just, you know, I want to I just want to talk about my experience, essentially, it’s what he wanted to do. And he wanted to talk about it first, sort of, you know, why he had hired the last person you’d hire he hired, he was a white male and hired a white male. And I, you know, couldn’t find any fault with that. And I said that, that that seems like it was the right decision. He’s like, Yeah, but as I think about every single candidate of color that I’ve had, I have decided not to hire them. And for me, I think I’m recognizing something in myself. And I said that that is quite possible. I said, the thing that you you have to go back and do is understand what’s that minimum level of competence that you’re looking for when hiring a person and making the effort. So if you are, you know, quite comfortable with hiring white males. Tell your recruiter that you are open to diversity, that your organization as a matter of fact, is not going to win without diversity. Your recruiter will likely work very hard to get you the diversity that you need. In fact, you know, a lot of times we hear this idea that diversity slows us down, when in fact, it can speed things up, it can actually make us less aware of those physical characteristics and move people ahead, based on what we know we need in their organizations. And I think that that for me was was a recent, just, aha, there are people out there who want to do better know that they’ve done poorly, who don’t know how. So that’s why I get, you know, I’m always excited to do my work because I, you know, I get to encounter people like that all the time.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 35:36
Well, you know, we have this new social justice movement, which is, I call it new, but it’s actually not new. It’s just a continuation of the ongoing social justice movement. As far as I’m concerned. It is, however, new to a lot of people, which surprises me. But I digress. Um,

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 35:59
A lot of people are younger than us.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 36:02
I have to remember that, I have to remember that. Um, where do you see this going? We have had a sort of, um, I don’t want to call it a renewed interest. But we definitely have a lot of eyes on social justice right now, which also means inside the workplace as well. Lots of companies are calling for diversity training. Lots of lots of HR folks are starting to question some of their practices. Where do you see this going? Is this in your opinion, sort of a flash in the pan a fad? Or do you actually see us making strides?In this area, particularly in the workplace,

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 36:54
It’s so hard, it’s so easy to believe that, especially if you are our age, that there’s no progress being made, because we don’t don’t see the numbers that we see. But I also see it especially just given a client that I was recently working with. And I was in it was over Zoom. So you know, everything was different in usually I do trainings live, and so I can really kind of gauge where people are. But this was over Zoom. So it was a little bit different. They were more of a quiet group, they didn’t know each other. So they weren’t talking to each other very much over the chat function. So I really just have to work off what I was hearing and eventually worked through some of the responses that I get to the survey that we we send to follow up. And what I learned is that most people found it extremely found the training, extremely helpful. They were learning new things, things that I thought were, I might have thought, you know, were basic, but I was just given some heads up by some of the folks that I talked with, that even let’s start at the basics. And if they want to take it further, we can take it further. So I was struck by especially some of the young people who really want to figure this out, they really want to figure out how to get more people with more with diverse backgrounds into their organization. And it was a it was it was again, it was one of those situations where I was looking around going, well, it should be kind of obvious, but they were looking around going, we just didn’t recognize we didn’t recognize what had happened over the years for our company. And so now we want to fix it. And so that’s what they were. That’s why they engaged us. That’s what they are on the on the cusp of doing and so I have hope, I have hope that we will get there in the slower than you or I or any of our ancestors would like. But I think that there are that with each generation. People no people are, there are people in this country are recognizing that you take a person at their own worth and you figure out who they are and where they might fit in your organization. And that is the very best thing that you can do. And it has nothing to do with the color of someone’s skin or or their sex or their sexual preferences. None of that really impacts how someone is going to perform on the job.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 40:05
I think, and I probably shouldn’t say this, I am not as optimistic and I say that I’m only because I’ve been on this earth for almost 60 years. And I’ve been at this game for a long time, since I grew out of the cute little black boy stage. And so having said that, I don’t think we should stop trying because we owe it to those that have come along behind us in those that have a lot more years left here and in the workplaces to create a better situation and so I’m certainly in for the fight. Um, and I know that you are as well, Carmen

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 40:50
Well, being so significantly younger than you. I think they would prove I have a slight more bit of faith in young people. I do hope that things get better. I think that the unfortunate death of George Floyd and and many others, help people see something that you and I have been seeing for many, many years.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 41:21
I did marry a much younger woman.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 41:24
By two years.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 41:26
I know it’s been since college. I on the other hand, lost all kinds of here and again.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 41:34
Well, all this great. Thank you, William, this is a great conversation.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 41:41
It absolutely has thank you for for sharing some moments that matter. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about those two cases?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 41:49
Well, we’ll leave those for another time.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 41:51
Or what happened at the beauty supply store when you were an anchorwoman in Detroit?

Well, we’ll leave that for another time.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 42:01
When we go all the way back in the annals of history.

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 42:05
Did you ever resolve that case, by the way?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 42:08
Hi Barb

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 42:12
Hey, well, thank you, Carmen. Thank you, I really appreciate you. And I appreciate you as a as a partner, as a confidant and someone who has been a huge support to me as the black man. On days when I have come home ready to fight. You have kept me calm. And you have kept me steady. And I appreciate you and all of your perspective. So thank you for being a partner to CareerXroads, and I’m helping us to get these moments that matter. I’m really encouraged by them. And I’m hoping that our audience and our clients can learn from

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 42:53
Awesome,

William Wiggins, Virginia Mason Medical Center 42:54
Thank you.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 42:56
Helpful in any way.

Announcer 42:58
You’re listening to Moments That Matter. A special CXR podcast series where leaders and talent professionals share their own experiences with varying aspects of discrimination and inequality. Here on Moments That Matter, we are dedicated to creating connected conversations around specific moments. These are moments that matter.

Tagged as: moments that matter.