Devyn Mikell [00:00:03]:

Hey, this is Devyn Mikell with the Hire Quality podcast. Super excited to be interviewing you. So could you introduce yourself, your role in the company that you work at?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:00:13]:

Hi, everyone, I am Jeanette Leeds. I'm the executive vice president, managing director at AMS for hourly and high volume solutions. So for those that don't know ams, we are primarily an RPO company, recruiting process, outsourcing company, and what I do there is focus on combining the best of people, process tech in our high volume and hourly practice.

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Devyn Mikell [00:00:40]:

What is top of mind for you as a talent leader at your organization?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:00:44]:

The thing that's most top of mind for me right now is how to harness chat, GPT, Genii, you know, the buzzwords we're hearing so much about and reading all about, and so figuring out how to use this in a really meaningful way, which is not necessarily to replace people, but to really enhance what we're doing. So that is totally top of mind right now for me.

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Devyn Mikell [00:01:09]:

What is something you wish you knew about leading talent that you didn't know when you first started?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:01:15]:

The biggest thing I didn't really know at the time when I first became a manager, which was a number of years ago, was you don't have to have all the answers. So you might be leading a meeting or trying to figure out a solution or whatnot. And you as that leader, you don't have to have all the answers. Lean on your team, listen to what people's perspectives are and ideas, and then you bring that all together and then you figure out what to do. But you don't have to have all the answers. So don't be afraid of that. It's okay.

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Devyn Mikell [00:01:44]:

What's something unique about you as a talent leader at your organization that makes you a perfect fit for that job?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:01:51]:

I've been in so many different roles, so I've been called a utility player. So whether I was the actual recruiter or actually doing tech things or doing sales and marketing and implementing or customer success, I think having that broad perspective and experiences makes it really unique for me now being at AMS to help organizations scale by combining in the people side, right, the operation side, the process, making sure the process is good and technology, because I've had, for better or worse, 20 something years of experience doing this. And so that's what makes it unique and perfect for the role I'm in today.

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Devyn Mikell [00:02:33]:

We made it to the last question, and this one's a fun one. What is the worst question you've ever been asked in an interview?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:02:42]:

The questions around, as a female woman who's worked on Wall street for many years, who's worked in technology, all very male dominated industries. Questions around, are you married? Do you have kids? Are you planning on having kids soon? All these questions which most people in recruiting know, hey, you can't ask those questions. That's not legal. But not all hiring managers know that. And those are the worst because it doesn't matter if you're married or you're going to have kids or you have kids, because that is not a core competency to whether you can do the job. And that's really key.

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Devyn Mikell [00:03:22]:

What's up everyone? I'm Devyn Mikell, host of the Hire Quality podcast and founder at qualify. I'm joined today by Jeanette Leeds, who you just heard on the pre interview, but now she's here for a higher quality conversation. Jeanette, thanks so much for being here today.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:03:36]:

Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

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Devyn Mikell [00:03:40]:

Absolutely. Jeanette, I know you as the EVP of hourly and high volume solutions at AMS, and we just joked about this off off cam off recording that I'm probably not going to be able to get out AMS's whole spiel. Well, so I'm going to kick it to you to say a little bit more about what you do, who you are, and who AMS is. For those who don't know, perfect what.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:04:01]:

We were saying, we're like, who is AMS? I think the simplest way to describe is we're an RPO at our core. We also have advisory, otherwise known as consulting services, professional services around that. But effectively, what I'm focusing on at AMS is our hourly and high volume practice, which really combines the best of people, meaning recruiting process, the actual people and process and tech, whether it's our own tech or our friends tech partners. Because for me, what I think the key is and what I think we're doing that's so special is that you could have the best people and maybe the wrong process and the right tech. Like when we have all three together, that's when things really get cooking. And so we'll help our clients. Typically enterprise, large enterprise clients, scale at their people so they can hire. Gotcha.

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Devyn Mikell [00:04:56]:

And you said something that was super interesting in the pre interview that I'm going to bring to the full top of mind for you was AI, how to utilize it. So it sounds like you lean more towards the tech side when you're thinking like day to day. It sounds like that might be a focus area for you. But just tell me about, like, why is that the thing that's top of mind, given that you just said it, like, the cross of people and tech, why is the tech and the AI side top of mind at the moment?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:05:26]:

So the way my brain works is I think of tech first, which this is not always the right case, but it's like tech first, and then let's figure out what people go around it and the process, what actually you should be really, really thinking about is like, what's the use case? What problem are you trying to solve? And then take all three of those and then you get something really. But my brain just instantly goes to me because my passion has always been tech. And so because it's so transformative, what we're seeing in the market, how people are starting to use chat, GPT and Genai, just in general. Like, there's so many things that we can do with that from a recruiting standpoint to streamline to help. This has been going on. I've been doing this for, what year is it? 2024. So almost 24, 25 years. Like, the admin burden in recruiting is.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:06:15]:

So there's so much administration and just stuff that, like, no one wants to be doing. Like, no one wants to be doing phone interviews. Phone interviews. No one wants to phone interviews, right. Like, no one wants to do that, right. You can get tech to just take care of some of the stuff that allows then people, humans to do, like, what we do best, but just connecting, right? Connecting, talking, like, personalizing, making things real. And so with using chat GPT, that takes away in so many different use cases, some of this admin burden, even we look at writing a job description instead of sitting down, like, oh, my God, I have to start from scratch. Just throw it in there, and then you have a base.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:07:03]:

It's like, everyone has this assistant. And so that's where I'm constantly thinking of, how do we push that envelope to remove that admin burden so we can, like, do the fun stuff, right?

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Devyn Mikell [00:07:14]:

Yeah, absolutely. So what's been, like, some of the things that you've seen as early for everything, obviously, but what have you seen executed on your end? Maybe it's even for yourself. Like, you're like, here's how I use one, and it's pretty cool. Have you done anything that you're like, I couldn't do this before. And since I've known about chat GPT or whatever it may be now, I can do this.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:07:36]:

So just like a real person. Like, I take a really long time to write, so there's times where I literally have gone on chat GPG and be like, hey, can you write this? Right? And there's different ways of learning how to get out what you need. And they're calling it, I think, the term prompting. Prompting a prompt engineer. Right, classes or things. And so I've actually started to take personally a deep dive into that a bit more to understand, like, how I can use this. So that is an example. And I will say, okay, so I'm gonna just put on the compliance app for a second.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:08:09]:

So if you're at a company and you don't like, and it's not within your systems, you don't wanna put any confidential information into chat GPT unless you have it where that's been sanctioned by your company. So that was just compliance a second. So whether that's, I've done it for some emails, I've done it for blog posts, it just makes things go faster. So there's so many different ways where we can use it individually in our day to day jobs versus, let's look at, like, at scale, right? Where we can really take this and let's insert it into a piece of technology or insert it into our process where you have, I don't know, 100 recruiters, 50 recruiters, ten recruiters. I know it's this big transformation that's starting to come and that's scary. And so for me, what I always think is it's like just pilot it, use it in little things, get comfortable, and then you can roll it out more broadly. It's just those baby steps I think are really, really important.

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Devyn Mikell [00:09:01]:

Yeah, no, I agree. So right now you're leading hourly and high volume solutions, one you know as well as I do. Like, high volume means something different to dang near everyone. Right? You mentioned enterprise, so that gives us some clarity there. But when you think about kind of like the perfect people that you work with, I use this example every time, like McDonald's. If you pass a background check, you're probably hireable. But then there's other high volume where it's like, no, there's a little more that we need to do. So it could be different.

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Devyn Mikell [00:09:31]:

So what's like the sweet spot for your guys? Technology and what you do and what you provide.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:09:36]:

Yeah. So it's interesting. So it's not just like the tech piece and it's really the people, right. We will become the recruiters for the high volume recruiters for an organization or just in general, like all the recruiters. So you think you're actually, like, talking to someone at company x, you know, like, let's say Delta, you're using clay detendants. It's actually an AMS employee, right. Like nine times out of ten, depending on those roles, we can. I don't want to say do it all because I think that's like, yeah, no one can do it all.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:10:04]:

Let's be clear. And anyone who's saying that is like, I'm not trying to believe that, but we're really, really good at is some of those, you know, simple type of roles where, you know, as you're saying, like, are you over 18? Can you lift 15 pounds or not? 1550 pounds for 8 hours? Great. Okay. You can work in a warehouse and you can breathe. You're good. Pass. But like, done. Adjusted.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:10:24]:

Right. That versus some more of those high volume roles that are. I don't want to say more skills based. Cause I think that's unfair. It's different types of skills. Like, more like specific skills. So things of that nature all the way through to which I don't think is high volume per se, as most people define it. But even things like campus recruiting, we actually have a whole area of outsource campus, which you could say that, to me, that's almost a blend of what people think of like high volume hourly and professional hiring.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:10:55]:

Because it's like mass, right? Like we need an organization we work with needs to hire 4000 students in a year. So that's high volume.

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Devyn Mikell [00:11:03]:

Right.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:11:03]:

But that's not how people define it, to your point around definition. So again, is it like tons of applicants, tons of hires? To me, it's like when you have to hire the same profile of candidate over and over and over were really good. So it's a whole, whole variety and some, again, we have tech that can help support that and streamline that and most of the time we don't. Right. That's why we bring in, bring in partners. It really depends on that use case.

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Devyn Mikell [00:11:28]:

Gotcha. And so you started there in 2022. When you started, was that like a renewed focus on high volume or was it already running?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:11:36]:

If we think about high volume, we were putting campus, which again, like AMS has always been known for that. That's actually how I knew of them. Like 1520 years ago. Like long, long time ago in terms of the high volume, more traditionally how we've more defined that. That's been a focus in recent years for AMS. We weren't always known for that at all. And that's something that we've been really pushing out towards and have a number of new clients in that area. There's such a pain point in the market.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:12:02]:

Right. People are, you know, we saw that during COVID So many frontline workers. That's where, like, people need to get hired. There's a talent shortage, labor shortage. It's just like I always found, and one of the reasons that I really wanted to, like, dive really deeper into that this space is I've been on the other side. Right. As a practitioner, where you have hiring managers, heads of business, freaking out at you times. Right.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:12:27]:

And so I'm like, if I could help solve a little bit of that pain and just make it a bit easier, that would be amazing. You know, that's, I guess, me personally, but also. And then when joining ams, which is, yeah, a little over two years ago, it's been a good focus to meet the needs of the market.

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Devyn Mikell [00:12:44]:

Yeah, for sure. You brought it up. That's my segue, too. But, like, you weren't always in. I mean, we'll call it, like, vendor side versus client side, but you started off in, well, you started off as a marketing intern, from what I could see. But.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:12:57]:

I did. I did.

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Devyn Mikell [00:12:59]:

I would love to go back. Yeah, we're going way back.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:13:01]:

So bad marketing, advertising. Those are brute.

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Devyn Mikell [00:13:05]:

Exactly. So, like, how did you get into recruiting? And where did recruiting as a role take you?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:13:10]:

That's a good question. I haven't been asked that question in a while, so I'll joke around. Like, I feel like I had a midlife crisis, like, two years out of undergrad, where I was, like, working at an ad agency. I just didn't love what I was doing. And I think at the time, I, like, missed being on college campus, and I discovered the world of campus recruiting. Like, I didn't really know about that because I wasn't on any career track where at the time, lots of companies would go and recruit. And so I find out about this campus recruiting job, and I want to travel, too. So I was like, you know, a couple years at undergrad, want to travel.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:13:42]:

I didn't want to just be in an office. And so I got a job at Lehman Brothers as a campus recruiter. I'm like, okay, I'll go work for an investment bank. It won't be as, like, cool and hip as an ad agency, but I'll be doing what I wanted to be doing. And it was one of those, like, key changes in my career early on because I started to. The other thing that, that I should also say is when I started to think of what I wanted to do, it wasn't that, hey, I just wanted to travel. And I missed college, which was true, but I also realized I was always more interested in the hiring and the recruiting. So my father is an entrepreneur and started his own company.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:14:18]:

And I remember as a kid him always coming home with resumes and he would mark them up and he would grade them. They got an a or a b or a c. And I just remember as a kid and he would like, be like, hey, you check these out. And I always was fascinated by that. So it was sort of that combination of a variety of things coming together that drove me to really making that early. I don't want to say career change. I do believe that both recruiting and marketing, I mean, it's one and the same, right? So that's how it got me into being a practitioner or actually being, being a recruiter. So I was at Lehman.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:14:52]:

I was recruiting MBA students, decided that I wanted to, like, know what they were learning. So I went actually to Columbia business school to like, get my MBA because I was like, I was recruiting them for years and years. And so that summer between 1st, 2nd year, I went to work for IBM as like an intern giant company bigger than the time of Lehman before they were no longer and got job offers to go back. But I didn't love it. And so I think it was important to just know I didn't like this big giant organization. And so after that, I went back to Lehman again. It spoke to my tech piece that I hadn't yet fully delved into. But it's the combination of beginning stages of that tech.

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Devyn Mikell [00:15:31]:

Yeah. You went from being a campus recruiter to ultimately leading your VP of campus recruiting at Lehman Brothers.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:15:38]:

Right.

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Devyn Mikell [00:15:39]:

That's pretty dope. And I wonder, like, you kind of made that move kind of relatively quick to VP level. The question that's coming right now is like, what made you so great at that?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:15:50]:

I really wanted it. Having that drive of, I wanted to just keep moving up in the organization. And I'll tell you, like, sort of an interesting story was at like a lot of the banks and a lot of organizations, the promotion criteria and the way it's like a process, you get promotions happen once a year. It's like there's committees, there's forms and all of that. And I didn't really fully understand that early on in my career. And I remember one year promotions came out and I thought that I would be promoted to VP, and I wasn't. And I was seriously, I was devastated. Like, I went to the bathroom and cried.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:16:32]:

And then I was like, okay, what do I need to do to get promoted? And one of the first things that I realized was I had to ask for it. I had to ask for it. Like, you can't just like, assume that people know that organizations know that someone wants to be promoted. You got to have that confidence to be like, hey, I want to be promoted to VP. What do I need to get there for next year? During that? Let's talk about that again. It was pretty early in my career, but having that aha. Moment of I gotta ask for things, and then it's sort of an interesting where I always remember that years later when I made the switch over to the vendor side, the dark side, some people say, and I was at Olio and I was brought in, I was the first employee in the US for them. And I wanted to be on the executive committee.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:17:19]:

And I felt like what I was doing in the US and building out, like, was deserving. And I asked and I was like, hey, put me on the exec committee. And, you know, it, it was like, literally almost like a water cool conversation. They were like, okay, that was it. I think some of it is just like asking for things, which is sounds.

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Devyn Mikell [00:17:37]:

Simple, but that's real, though.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:17:38]:

Yeah, it's real. People are not mind readers.

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Devyn Mikell [00:17:41]:

When did you make the leap over? Right, so you just said dark side switch. Like, what was your last role before moving to vendorside?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:17:50]:

At Credit Suisse, I was the coo of global campus recruiting. I at the time, so, like, getting personal at the time. I just had my second child, so working big global job on wall street. When my daughter was, I think, five months old, I was asked to go to India to run training. And, you know, sometimes when you're asked at these organizations, they're not really asking you. And for me, I was trying to, like, figure out how do I have this career and job in the way I want and also be there for my kids in the way that made sense for me and what I wanted. And so trying to, like, figure that out is challenging, tough. At both Credswiss and Lehman, I'd worked with Olio at the time.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:18:29]:

It was called WCN as my tech vendor, tech partner to run the campus recruiting through all the tech. So I'd gotten to know that organization really well. I think I knew like two thirds of the people there. And so that was sort of what parlayed me into making that switch, which sort of sounds crazy because it's like, wait, you went from this big global role, you know, which crazy travel and intense to like running a startup in the US for an existing company, but like, that's intense too. But it gave me a lot of flexibility at the time. Like it was just the jump and it was because I knew the company, the CEO really well and he was like, why don't you just come work for me? I took that leap. It was like, wait a second. Like, I know this product really well.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:19:12]:

I know it's great. Again, as we said earlier, like, recruiting is so similar to, it's the same like sales marketing funnel of running a business. Like, there's such similarities there. And I was like, I don't know what's the worst that could happen? What's the worst that could happen? I could always go back to being a practitioner. What's the worst thing? And I took this like crazy career relief at the time, but again, sort of that next where it was like taking a risk and yeah, it's been so much fun.

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Devyn Mikell [00:19:38]:

I honestly didn't realize until looking through your stuff that you are so deeply ingrained in campus. Let's talk to the campus recruiters of the world. Like, what are the things that you innovated on in places that you to this day see people falling short on when it comes to, like, being successful in that world?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:19:55]:

That's a good, good question. So you know what's crazy? Just mentioning some of what we were talking about earlier with scheduling, interviews and the admin burden. I still talk to organizations that are doing some of this stuff manually. So I'm flipping around like it blows my mind that all these years later from when I started in campus are still doing manual. There is tech out there that can do this talking as an example. Right. It is insane to me. And so I use it as an example because sometimes it doesn't have to be the most innovative.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:20:33]:

Like sometimes it's just these little, small things and making a little change will have a big impact. And it doesn't have to be like something brand new and crazy. Yeah, you don't want to get left behind and start using some of these new tools or think about process and just start somewhere.

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Devyn Mikell [00:20:52]:

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I talk with talent leaders all the time and they'll be like, we're looking at AI heavy or we want to do AI is my favorite. And yeah, they don't even have a calendaring solution in place. Their application still sucks. I think people point to this new flashy stuff and rightfully so. But like, if you skip over the fact that your candidate experience is like poor poor today. Like, there's things you could just be fixing already. It's like putting a new skin on a dead animal or something like that.

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Devyn Mikell [00:21:21]:

Right?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:21:21]:

Like lipstick on a pig. I mean, it's so interesting to me. Like, how many people, how many recruiters, have they actually done their own candidate application process?

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Devyn Mikell [00:21:32]:

That's a good question because I've done them, and they suck.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:21:35]:

Yeah, I know. Again, which is, like, so amazing to me. I'm like, how is this still an issue? But it's like, for tons of companies, it's fascinating to me. And, yes, you got to be looking at that. You got to do AI, but, like, you got it. Like, some of these basic things will make a big, big difference. And then it's not just the tech. It's like thinking about some of the process.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:22:00]:

Do you have a really bad process that's creating bottlenecks? That's huge. Sometimes we just do things because we've. Organizations always done it that a certain way. And it's like, oh, hold up, hold up. And don't take a bad process. And then try and make the tech.

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Devyn Mikell [00:22:16]:

Do the bad process. Exactly. And then especially, you're talking about campus. You're talking about people that are 21 years old, and they're used to fast.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:22:25]:

Like, they're used to super, super fast. And that's the, that's the great thing now. I mean, I remember, like, years ago, there was all this concern of, like, oh, we're going to do video interviews or phone interviews or anything, right? And it was like, oh, no, no, no. People are gonna be freaked out. But now, like, everyone, it's all here. And so really thinking about the candidates and their experience. What's amazing to me is seeing the change over the years. So a lot of schools, for certain types of organizations, they really own that student experience, and you have to go through the career centers, and it's like a set on process.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:23:03]:

And again, this sounds crazy, especially through COVID. Like, you can just get to students in so many different ways to hire them. And so I think the big challenge continues to be is how do you keep them engaged? And the whole process starts earlier and earlier. So it used to be like, okay, you talked to juniors in your junior year to have the intern for the summer coming off, coming forward, but now it's like, it used to be sophomores earlier, and now it's like, okay, let's just start them when they're in the kindergarten. And there's definitely high school programs out there, so, which is good, but it's that balance of how do you keep those potential candidates, it engaged, especially in high volume.

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Devyn Mikell [00:23:42]:

A high school program makes sense in my mind. If you think about like, you know, we work a lot with healthcare.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:23:48]:

Yeah.

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Devyn Mikell [00:23:49]:

There's a lot of talk right now with different talent leaders I've talked to. It's like the shortage isn't slowing down and the college level isn't giving us enough. So we might have to build our own education programs and then that can start in high school. They go straight to our educational programs where we upskill them to be a nurse or something like that.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:24:10]:

Yeah.

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Devyn Mikell [00:24:11]:

And then now we have nurses. Right. So I think reality is, like, for high volume, at least in certain worlds, high school is going to be where turns into campus, you know?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:24:21]:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, a lot of organizations are starting to use that term, like early career because it's not just about campus, but it speaks to that, like, at the very beginning stages. And I think that's really interesting because you think about when you're in high school, you also don't even know. Like, you don't know what you don't know. And so I think also, like having students, like, aware of, hey, there's all these different career opportunities and start training for some of this now. And, hey, you don't have to go to college to be successful.

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Devyn Mikell [00:24:48]:

You really don't. I have a son who is 18 years away from that decision. But I bet you by the time it comes, I'm still going to have, like, a little bit of bias towards going.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:24:58]:

And it's hard to break down that bias. It really, really is. Yet logically, we know that you don't need that. So it just, again, depends on what path, what you want to do.

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Devyn Mikell [00:25:09]:

Yeah. Like I told my mom going in, I was not a bad student. I was actually a pretty good student. But my take to her was like, hey, I am never going to use this. I was like, I'm telling you right now, I'm not getting a job the normal way. Look, mom, we made it. I see. It depends on the person and also depends on the roles.

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Devyn Mikell [00:25:31]:

But yes, I think people, even companies are becoming more hip. So, like, why is the college degree a requirement for this position? Not.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:25:39]:

It's not. Some of the best people that I've ever worked with did not go to college like that for me, for the world I grew up in. That was like, crazy. Yeah, crazy. Again, that was like, you know, it's almost like, shame on me, right? And then also, then going into, like, working at an investment bank, where it was all like, okay, let's. Let's go and go after, like, you know, top Ivy leagues and what. But just being like, whoa, whoa. There are amazing people who don't go to college, and if you go to college, it doesn't have to be ivy, right? Like, so I ran.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:26:09]:

You know, we called it, like, non target, non core, like, effort, non core schools, right? So it's basically, like, all those great candidates that aren't going to the Ivys, and it was like, great. So it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't matter. There's so much about who the person is and their mindset and their drive and some of these other types of skills. And it's so interesting to me that you knew, like, going into. You knew, like, hey, I'm not going a normal route. I'm going to do some of this traditional normal. But you knew.

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Devyn Mikell [00:26:36]:

I think it's possible for people to know. I also think it's very possible for them not to know. So I'm not going to discredit that. What's funny is I even got hit with, like, shiny objects. Like, I had a way better opportunity outside, like, out of college to go do a job instead of running my food truck for $20,000 a year. But I was like, no part of it was just pride. I'm like, I said, I'm doing this. I'm doing it.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:26:58]:

It's a balance. You have to know, like, where it's like, follow your passion, follow your dream. But then it's also, like, when do you throw in the towel? Because in the end, it's like, you still need to be, like, a self sustaining adult. Someone said to me once where there's a lot of talk of, like, okay, when you want to figure out what you want to do, you know, with your life, you got to do something you're passionate about and you love. Which is true. I've been reading and talking to people about is, like, if you do something that you're also really good at, maybe you don't love it. That could then translate into something that then allows you to do some other hobbies that you're passionate about. So it's like, if you do what you're really good at, I mean, it's amazing if you're also passionate and you love it, you know? So there's an interesting balance of, like, oh, just follow your passion versus, like, wait, what am I really good at? And it's hard to sometimes figure that out.

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Devyn Mikell [00:27:42]:

My current take is similar to that. So, like, I used to be like, if I'm not passionate about it, I'm not doing it. I'm in recruiting. I wouldn't just be like, I am super passionate about high volume recruiting. Do I understand this space and I think I make an impact here? Absolutely. Like, I think we're building a really cool product and we're working with really cool people. Absolutely. Did I start off really passionate about this? No, I learned it, and now I feel like I understand it and I like it.

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Devyn Mikell [00:28:08]:

But what doing my work allows me to do is, coach. That's where I'm passionate. Like, I'm teaching over here on the side for fun. So, like you said, like, you, you, whatever you do, you should probably be able to do it with enjoyment. I don't know that you have to love, love, love everything about your job every time. Like, I agree with that. I do think you need to do something you love somewhere, though.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:28:30]:

It's something you have to. Yeah. Because otherwise it's like, life is short. It's like, come on. Like, you gotta have some fun, excitement and whatnot. And you can sort of translate that in where you're like, again, what you're doing. So for me, it's like, the passion is, even though I've been in recruiting for 24 years, like, I love building a business, getting teams together. That, to me, is so much fun.

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Devyn Mikell [00:28:49]:

Loving. The skill you bring to the table, I think is key. There's a couple segments in the show, one of which is coming, but I have one last question, which is, you work with arguably more talent leaders than I do. And I know there's things that I hear day in, day out that I'm like, you are so wrong about that. But I'm gonna let you be wrong. Cause, you know, people don't change their minds very easily. What are some of the things that you hear that you're just like, that's not right, like, you're wrong, or what are the things you come head to head against?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:29:21]:

Well, first of all, the client is always right, right. Let's just be clear, you know? So I think, like, the biggest thing that I feel like I'm just seeing is. And again, maybe because I'm just thinking a lot about tech, and again, related to processes, people are like, oh, my God, this piece of technology is the worst. And it's so interesting to me because when you dig into it, no company is the word. No company is going to be around for years and years, or even if it's just a little bit, not too long, it's like, what's wrong is actually how that tech is being used. What's that use case? So that's where it's wrong. Where people are like, oh, that, that's not going to work for us because it didn't work for this other company. Yeah, but the other company is, like, so different from you.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:30:08]:

That's where I get the, like, they're wrong.

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Devyn Mikell [00:30:10]:

Can't just tell them that, right?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:30:11]:

If you do, like, might not be your client. Actually done that before. It doesn't work out so well. It's almost like when you're hiring someone and not in a high volume role, let's just say, like, oh, okay. You have one super distinct type role, and you're like, okay. And you hear about someone and they're like, oh, they're a rockstar. They're other company. And.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:30:29]:

But that company is, like, totally different than yours. And you hire them and you're like, they're not good. They are good. They're amazing. They're just not the right fit for your organization or for your job. Like, it's the same thing with tech. So that's for those that are listening. That's my analogy with, like, recruiting to thinking about, like, the way you're recruiting people.

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Devyn Mikell [00:30:48]:

I like that. That's a really good analogy, actually. So we're now entering into the hot seat segment of the show, which is just five questions that come out fast, and then you just give a quick hit answer, whatever comes to mind first, and then we'll close it up. So are you ready for question one?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:31:07]:

Sure. Yes.

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Devyn Mikell [00:31:08]:

Here we go. One person that's changed your life in talent acquisition.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:31:12]:

I am going to say the CEO of Olio, who, when I went from working at Credit Swiss to go to the vendor side, took a chance. It was a big career change, and so wouldn't be where I am today without that. So we'll go with that awesome, most.

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Devyn Mikell [00:31:26]:

Challenging role you've ever had to recruit for.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:31:29]:

I'm going to go with a sales role. First time ever hiring a salesperson to work for me. That was tricky because, like, what motivates salesperson and, like, making sure it's the right skill set because salespeople can, like, talk the tough.

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Devyn Mikell [00:31:44]:

Yeah, they all make themselves sound good, right?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:31:45]:

Like, yeah. So it's like, hmm. You know, so that, that was, that was tricky. I've gotten much, much, much better at it over the years. But that first role, that was scary.

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Devyn Mikell [00:31:54]:

Where do you go to stay updated on the latest trends and changes in the Ta landscape?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:31:59]:

Well, a lot of podcasts. I really like listening to Chad and cheese podcasts. I think that there's awesome. Oh, a new one actually, I've been starting to listen to is Willie Timcup, Brian Leary. They have a new, new one out. Work defined, I think it is. So Madeline Larano and like Kyle Gunnar said, like, up to research. Their stuff is, like, solid.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:32:29]:

George Laroque's like, work tech. And then there's some, like, Facebook groups and stuff that I'm on. Harvard Business Review, actually. Like, we'll have once in a while topics on recruiting and talent acquisition, which are spot on.

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Devyn Mikell [00:32:42]:

Got it. What's your go to interview question? If you could only pick one.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:32:47]:

You know, one I really like is asking what someone's, like, greatest or biggest accomplishment is because you get really interesting answers. I remember once asking that to someone. They said they were the first in their family to go to college, and that was, like, not something you would find on a resume. And it was just, like, really impressive. Yeah, it's a good one. You never know what you'll get with that one.

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Devyn Mikell [00:33:08]:

True last question. What's a common talent acquisition activity that needs to die?

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Jeanette Leeds [00:33:14]:

Excel trackers.

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Devyn Mikell [00:33:18]:

I hope, I truly hope that's not still happening.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:33:21]:

That is totally 100% still happening. It's 2024. And, like, I bet if we did a poll of, like, anyone listening, do they have some sort of excel that is tracking something in their recruiting? 100%. There's excel. It's unbelievable to me.

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Devyn Mikell [00:33:38]:

Cool. Appreciate those answers. I'm sure people will have opinions, which is what I want.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:33:43]:

Exactly.

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Devyn Mikell [00:33:44]:

Yes. But no, I appreciate you hopping on the show. Time flew today, which is always a good sign. And so I want to kick it to you real fast to just give if you want to push anything, give you the floor, anything you're working on, anything cool and exciting and ways for people to keep in touch with you.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:34:01]:

Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. Everyone can find me on LinkedIn. That's always, like, the easiest. And Jeanette Leeds is spelled with two e's. Not like sales leads like an EA. If anyone is thinking about outsourcing, ams does a great job, like, really quickly sourcing, you know, helping with, like, sourcing and scaling up a team. So, again, I'm personally focused much on our high volume RPL, which combines all this fun stuff we've been talking about with people, process and tech.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:34:30]:

Or if you're like, what is RPL? Find me on LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn. I feel like that's always the this way, or if anyone just wants to talk best about anything. This has been awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

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Devyn Mikell [00:34:42]:

Absolutely. And for those listening, if you like this episode, there are many more like this. You can check them out and also many more to come. So make sure you like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it or watching it. And I'm Devyn Mikell, the host, and I've been joined by Jeanette Leeds, the EVP of high volume and hourly solutions at AMS. Jeanette, thanks so much for joining and have a good rest of your week and amazing me weekend since it's a Friday.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:35:08]:

Yes, it's Friday.

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Devyn Mikell [00:35:10]:

Awesome. See ya.

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Jeanette Leeds [00:35:12]:

Take care.

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