CareerXroads & Lori Chartrand: Live from The Shaker Vision Lab at UNLEASH America

All [Music] right, everybody. Welcome. Uh, this is the CXR recruiting community podcast. We’re super excited to have you here. Whether you’re watching uh live on the LinkedIn or the wherever you may be watching from or maybe you’re on a treadmill, I don’t know, you’re just listening. So, for that, we apologize. Lots of visual gags in this one and you’re going to miss them. Uh, if you’re interested in more of the podcast, you want to check those out, you can go to cxr.org/mpodcast. We keep that pretty simple. Uh we’re having a good time today. If you if you do happen to be watching and you are not on a treadmill, please be careful. Uh you’ll notice we are not actually in our in our usual environment. So uh we are at Unleash in Las Vegas today. Uh and Shaker Recruitment Marketing uh has been nice enough to sponsor a little place for us to kind of hang out and ask questions of people that we kind of want to just talk with like like you comfy seats are comfy. Yes. Can we and it’s hard to find when you’re in conferences. So I’m happy about that. And this floor is not a real floor. It’s squishy and I love it. Ah, yes. I have cut corners a few times and I’m like, “Yes, I’ll have to go back to that booth.” Do Do you know what else I’m really happy about in this booth? Can we talk Can we talk about these pillows for a minute? I know. Sorry if you’re on the treadmill. These pillows, if you hadn’t noticed, they’re faces, but they’re also the the shaker. This is brilliant. Pillows are Oh, you do match. This is great. Totally not planned. Oh my god. What? Where were we? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Unleash. Unleash. We’re at Unleash. We’re talking about AI. Everybody’s talking about AI. Uh but we are we do this every week. We do a podcast where uh we’re bringing insights to you and what we think is a it’s a fun conversation for us. The listeners are probably miserable, but we’re we’re happy everybody dials in. I have with me today Lorie Chartran from Edward Jones. Lori, it’s so good to see you. Thank you for having me here. Always a good time to come back. Yeah. Fun fun time. And I know you love the desert weather. I know you’re a big fan of the Vegas weather. Yeah. You know, me and Heat, we go hand in hand. Oh, chef’s kiss. Why don’t you kind of give us give us an overview? Give us a lay of the land on the kind of work that you do so we can get a sort of a little context for our conversation. Right. Well, I work at Edward Jones. I am the director for our home office talent acquisition and I just moved to this role actually in February. So, I led our field hiring for the support roles and now I have responsibility for traditional corporate roles um except for executive. My friend Kirk handles that. And then I also manage our university recruiting and our contingent workforce program which we have branded flex talent. Oh, that’s very snappy. Woo. And how’s that going? New role, exciting, new learning thing. Great. Yes. Um, as usual, typical info by fire hose. It’s teaching you well um how to just handle things. And I’ve got a great leadership team that I can lean on to say, here’s what I’m thinking. Can you gut check me? What would you do? And they have great answers. So, it’s made it a breeze. I love it. Well, it makes all the difference. Yes, it certainly does. Uh, so, okay. So, I have a couple of questions for you. So, you’ve seen you’ve been to some sessions, you walk on the floor, you’re in a new role, so it’s a new lens for you to be kind of walking through this. Is there anything sort of that stands out maybe just from a practice standpoint uh that you that you’ve had an aha moment yet? And if not, that’s okay. But anything that stands out you tell people who who weren’t able to come to Unleash? Yes. Uh, that kind of thing. I think um a couple of things is seeing some of the different technology and how they’re talking about AI, how they’re building it in um certainly the hot topic there. Um what I’ve appreciated so far is the blend of information. It’s from a talent perspective, a TA perspective. Um so one of my favorite that I told you about so far was um on how to manage anxiety. Like it’s prevalent. It’s going to be here. So how to embrace it, make it a positive. So that’s what you did too. Yeah, there are some softer there’s some softer content here that I had not anticipated. Right. Uh I love the I love the presentation that was talking about how deep fakes while we’re all worried, we’re all scared of these deep fakes, there’s actually there’s some some really brilliant and quite touching use cases for these for people who maybe have disabilities, they are unable to communicate clearly, unable to do video call with kind of put these together. So was absolutely not expecting that. Find those bright spots. Yeah, absolutely. But look, I have a couple of things here. big big piece of advice for TA leaders uh in the in the year ahead. Is there is there anything kind of top of mind for you frontal lobe about kind of that that space? I feel like it’s probably pretty basic but it’s so important is I would just say the development of your people. Um so how do you help understand what their career paths could be? That could be mastering their craft. It could be moving to new roles or preparing for leadership or more advanced responsibilities. And I think one of the greatest parts too is figuring out how to make that a reasonable and doable option. So how do you break that down into small pieces? So that’s what I feel like it’s focusing on develop because skills-based hiring everything that we’re talking about and so there’s there’s not a lack of learning to happen. Yeah. And I think that’s one of those things if you’ll forgive me that’s one of those things kind of super easier said than done. Yes. A lot of leaders want to say that they’re leaning in that direction or doing that work but that’s that is a heavier lift than I think maybe some young leaders may may realize. Right. I think it’s um trying to listen well to hear what is the route ask good questions because what they might have thought was their career path plan when you dig in a little bit more you end up finding out that that’s not the case and you find a different direction and then here’s the small steps that you can do that because it can feel very overwhelming or feel like it’s got to be this grandio certification degree and it could be as simple as how do you handle responses in a timely manner? How do I answer questions more quickly? things like that. Yeah, there’s an element. So, we get asked a lot of times about um leaders reach out and they’re talking about how do how do I get to the next level, right? How do I how am I moving my career forward? Give me some input uh moving to become a senior director. And there’s a piece I’d love your take on this. Okay. There’s kind of this cornerstone of advice I typically give and it was given to me a long time ago uh when I was still at PepsiCo. And it was that uh a a true leader, an inspirational leader isn’t just getting stuff done, taking people with them. Yes. Right. It’s not just about how many things you can crank out and check off the list. It’s how many people did you take with you on that journey. How many people went with you for that that piece of uh work or that that accomplishment, that delivery item. I 100% agree. Um one of my close friends says we thrive by lifting others. And um just when she said that it it was her and then one of my other peers who said the best thing a leader can do is to get out of the way. And sometimes that might mean that you have to move to a different role to create space for that person. Oh, see. And that was one of the most like selfless leader things I think I’ve ever heard. Now, we hear leaders all the time who are like, you know, take me, not my team. We see a lot of that where, you know, there’s some shifts going on and like I I’m I’m paid this much, this will help. Like, I’m happy to step out. I’m happy to step back. But that’s a really good call. We don’t hear that very often, right? Yeah. I love that. Exciting. So, I want to ask you uh a tactic or shift. We’ asked somebody this earlier. This a great conversation piece. Tactic or shift you think people are maybe underestimating right now? Does it have to be AI? Although I know that’s a hot one, but anything people are kind of overlooking or not giving enough attention to. What I will say in AI are two things. The first is helping other people embrace that curiosity versus the fear. A couple weekends ago, I spent time with my uh family. My dad was talking about it and I’m like, actually, you should embrace this. Here’s how I’m using it. And we actually did a case study together. He had a situation he needed to fix and I said, “Look, let’s do this together.” And we did it. He came up with a table, a spreadsheet, a business plan, and he was like, “Oh my gosh.” And then Easter weekend, he said, “I’ve been using AI more.” And I love that he’s caught the AI bug. Um I think the futuristic component though is my dream is how it will um democratize opportunity. So typically well-paying roles require certifications or degrees. And I think we might start looking for talent. What are the questions that you’re asking? How are you problem solving? How are you challenging the results you’re getting back from AI? How are can you communicating between humans and machines? And so I’m hopeful that that will change how we attract and select talent and bring those together, those degree non-deree, and help create better innovations. I love that there’s a there’s a leveling a little bit, right? Leveling a little bit there. But it is almost like there’s a a level of breadth that’s being added to how you have those discussions, right? Right. With the candidates who might otherwise not even be considered. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And so I think the question is going to be how are we going to figure out how do you assess that? How do you find that on a resume? What’s the best way to go about doing that in a non-biased way? And so lots of questions to answer. Yeah, it it really is. And I I think you’re not the only one cuz a lot of people and the startup groups here are nuts cuz they’re just at first I saw the little startup area over there like, “Oh, this is cute. There’s a couple startups.” But then as you walk around, they are everywhere. They surround the NR4 and there’s no shortage of people who have this idea of how they’re going to sort of help. I know it’s great. It is exciting. Exciting. I love it. All right. And then uh talent attraction strategy transformation. Have you had a shift in in that work that you guys are doing? Certainly in your new role. Yes. I would say two of them that we’ve got going on is our associate value proposition. Um we did a refresh to that and what I feel like was really great is um well I did not lead the effort. Sorry. We um keep talking about this juxtaposition between two different types of skill sets and how the people in the middle between those really thrive and so we got really bold to say actually here’s what we want to do this is our target attraction and then what is it that we actually deliver when we say here’s what it feels like to work at Edward Jones that’s exciting and then I am stoked about our human capital management overhaul that we are doing which will make us smarter faster create better experiences for everyone like that’s the reality It’s the candidates, it’s the recruiters, it’s the hiring leaders. And so that will be wonderful and better data at our fingertips, an integrated system. I’m a dreamer. I know it won’t fix everything. There are behaviors that we need to also manage through, but it will, I think, take what we do to a next level. Here, here, total side note. Here’s why I like talking to you. When we sit down and we catch up, whether the microphones are on or not, you have that vibe of this is somebody who is doing the job they’re supposed to be doing. TA is my jam. I love it. I tell you all the time. I probably need to get it tattooed. TA is my jam. Big big shoulder or arm tattoo. I’m thinking probably an arm. Maybe like a mom type of look. Could you do like a long like a like in a quote? I could. Might work. Read something upside down. I forgot what they call that. Princess Bride, isn’t it? The DVD cover for Princess Bride. My god, we haven’t even had a drink yet. This is little little absurd. We’re behaving. Yeah, we are. We’re being good. Okay. So, if you were going to write a book about every kind of everything you got going on, you know this, you know this question, Kelly, love this question. This is it’s one of our favorites. Yes. What do you think, Lori, you would title that book? So, I think giving all that’s gone on and actually in all of my TA uh experience, there’s always a joyful mess that’s happening. Yeah. And so, I um have been focusing really hard this year on managing my energy. So, I would call it managing your energy and the joyful mess of modern talent. Joyful mess. Joyful sounds like a second. Call it what it is. And it could be. I love it. Okay. And then here’s the bonus round. Yes. Present company excluded. Who would you give the first signed copy of your book to? I will say my partner Jesse because she is the one who helps manage my energy sometimes, too. and she’s a big contributor to getting through things and talking things out and figuring out what we’re going to do. So, I love her, man. Well, a good move. Yeah, really good move. Love it. Yeah. And I would be remiss if I don’t say like it’s my mom’s birthday today. So, happy birthday, mom. Happy birthday. Yeah. So, and she’s also into the GPT. Oh, yeah. Maybe her we can do like a parent GPT. There could be club. May maybe there’s a group. We can put them in a group or something. Yeah. Lots of planning, lots of stuff. It is. It is fun to hear other people sort of digging into those tools. Totally. I just love Yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah, lot of opportunity. All right, I know you’re super busy. I want to just say thank you so much with us for a few minutes. Uh again, we want to thank Shaker for the space today. Uh if you want to see more of the podcast, either uh future episodes or the past and cxr.orgodcast. Uh pretty simple. Other than that, we’ll see everybody next week. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you, Chris. Good thing. Bye, everyone.