S4 E46 | CXR25: Carmen Hudson reminds Gerry how they met so many years ago

Announcer 0:00
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Gerry Crispin 0:20
I’m here with Carmen Hudson, who currently is just an extraordinary trainer and entrepreneur and just a friend. But once she’s, you know, once she was a member many, many, many years ago, I think, I think, um, you were with Microsoft when I met you, but I know because I know you had a previous gig at Amazon. But I think it was when you were Microsoft.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 0:53
I think I will actually, I was aware of you pre Amazon.

Gerry Crispin 0:59
Got it was

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 0:59
With Capital One.

Gerry Crispin 1:02
Oh, wow.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 1:02
Yes. And I think you did. You knew you guys did? And that wasn’t you and Chris. Yeah, what’s you and Mark, and you did a an event somewhere in Florida. And I went, I was working for Capital One. Ah, and that was my first you probably, I was just one of many of the crowd. So you probably didn’t even know me. But I knew of you? And then didn’t get to formally meet you until, ah, Microsoft.

Gerry Crispin 1:34
That’s cool. Yeah, probably, you and you, you know, kind of hung out, we hung out really, across a lot of different years. And I do one of the things that I remember most about you, because you always were always they’re always present able to articulate really interesting ideas and insights about where you were into what you were trying to do. But the one time I remember you the most was, and I think somehow I think it was with Yahoo. It might might have been Yahoo, or it might have been Starbucks. But what I remember most is that you. You were talking about Twitter, this this really weird thing that had just been created. And you’re already talking about recruiting on it, and I’m going, What the hell are you talking about? What that that sounds like the weirdest thing in the world to me. Why would you know, how could you possibly recruit with that? And I think you said something like, well, I just I just show up. And maybe it was Starbucks. I just show up on campus. I go to a Starbucks, and I let everybody in that in that college know, that, that I’m there and people show up. And I’m you know, I’m recruiting outside of the, you know, the campus or something. It was those kinds of things.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 3:08
That that was that sounds like that was either? Probably, uh, I think that that had to be it had to be a Yahoo. That sounds like that was around that time. Probably. I just probably made it to Yahoo. And yeah, that’s just because by that time, remember, I just would have my CareerXroads membership written into my offer letter.

Gerry Crispin 3:32
Yeah. I love that. You were you were a member in three or four different at least four different organizations that over the time until, of course, you went to the dark side. Left talent acquisition totally said, You know what? Maybe I could make a living some other way that are fun for you.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 3:53
Yeah,

Gerry Crispin 3:54
I’ve been How long have you been on your own? Um, I have, you know, with, you know, recruiting toolbox. Anything else?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 4:05
I think I left Yahoo in 2004-2003.

Gerry Crispin 4:14
Wow.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 4:15
Yeah, it’s been a while.

Gerry Crispin 4:18
It’s been a good while.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 4:19
It’s been a good one. No, no, I take that back. I left Yahoo in 2010

Gerry Crispin 4:24

10. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Okay. 10 years. You can never go back. Could you?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 4:32
I couldn’t. I’ve even said okay, I’ll try and then I have a conversation. I just started telling people the way that it should be. You know, all conversations just fizzle. Things go I don’t know what to do with it.

Gerry Crispin 4:45
I love it. I do love it. What do you have any reflections when you think about CSR, in those days when you were coming because you came to quite a few of our sessions,

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 5:02
I will tell you that every single meeting that I went to had some impact, some value, everything from just learning how to do my job a little bit better learning from people who were there, and befriending the people who were there. I mean, I didn’t make it to Yahoo, because I just made it to Yahoo. Yahoo, because I knew Carol who was part of the consortium. And so it just, you know, it had an impact on my professional life and ended up having an impact on my personal life and everything else.

Gerry Crispin 5:42
Well it’s great to hear. I mean, you know, that’s what our aspiration has always been as a community. And now with Chris, we are, you know, moving more and more to be able to put things together so people can engage on a whole range of things. We, today we had 80 people show up on zoom.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 6:04
Yeah,

Gerry Crispin 6:04
To talk about, you know, improving the issues around bias and recruiting.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 6:12
Yeah.

Gerry Crispin 6:13
So I mean, and I was shocked that there were that many that just showed up for a side conversation with three or four folks, one of several of whom, you know, like Noel was there now at Uber and she is so extraordinary. And, and really a incredible advocate. Now I so I just, I loved, love some of her conversations. And we had, and we had actually, there was one guy Ryan from I think it’s Advent Adventist, and he, his title, is Internal Movement Ambassador. And his ad, he sees his job, I mean, he’s really very mature, very, very strong from a counseling point of view. And he sees his role as an advocate for those individuals within the organization who want to grow and, and are willing to own it, as opposed to, hey, give me a job,

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 7:18
Right. Willing to do what it takes to get to the next. Yeah. And,

Gerry Crispin 7:26
And, you know, a lot of people just need that. That understanding, they need expectation set about what your responsibility is, what my responsibility is, in order to support you, I can’t support you simply by giving you something I need to support you, because you’re doing all the work, you deserve to get up to bat. And now I can advocate for that.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 7:48
And some people just don’t know how to do that on their own, just a little bit of help, and figuring out who should I talk to next, and especially

Gerry Crispin 7:59
They didn’t, they didn’t have the mentors, or they didn’t have the coaches, or they didn’t have the people or parents who set the, you know, set the stage for them. Most of us are, you know, pretty lucky that we had those people in our lives along the way, that that kind of edged us on and and helped us, you know, have that spot?

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 8:20
Yeah,

Gerry Crispin 8:21
So I’m so I’m just fascinated by some of the new tools and ways of thinking in terms of how we engage people at work, that hopefully will create more and more opportunity for sure.

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 8:36
I hope so. I hope so I think we are getting to a point where many of us are figuring out that the way that we’ve been has been intentionally, in some cases, in some cases unintentionally, but it’s been keeping people out and let’s just open the door. Let’s figure out what people need. Let’s get them to where they want to go. And that’s what we’re here for.

Gerry Crispin 8:58
I think the conversations that I’m seeing take place in CareerXroads really are becoming deeper, more meaningful, I think and I think questions and stories that we have not heard before we’re hearing more of

Carmen Hudson, Recruiting Toolbox 9:14
Yeah

Gerry Crispin 9:15
And that’s helping the learning really at all levels with all people so it’s kind of cool that point of view.

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Tagged as: cxr25.