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Topic: Meet Scott Wilde, Sourcing & Diversity Specialist at American Family Insurance: Profile • Personal Blog: http://amfamcareerblog.wordpress.com Scott Wilde is a Sourcing & Diversity Specialist at American Family Insurance. Hisfocus is workforce planning, strategic sourcing, project management, community and college outreach, and diversity programs. Recent projects that he has led include designing an employee referral program, Web 2.0/social networking and a national diversity recruitment strategy. More specifically, Scott has led project and program teams that led to increased volume of candidates through employee referrals and diversity channels. The employee referral program showed a 495% annual increase in referrals and a 5% increase in the number of hires. He provides Research and identifies candidate sourcing avenues while evaluating effectiveness based on successful recruiting. Scott provides guidance to Staffing Specialists to provide guidance and direction to develop depth and diversity within candidate pools. In addition, Scott Leads activities which support school and community outreach including membership of executive committees and best practice consortiums Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Scott. Scott: I have been married for 12 years to my lovely wife, Melissa. If anyone else out there married a person they met on a blind date, let me know. It was not what I expected from a blind date, but she is the best. Since then the family has grown to include two strong willed young girls who make me laugh and turn my hair gray. Mostly a lot of laughing at the humor they have along with the way they constantly challenge my thoughts - and are right. While most of my free time is reading, I also love to travel. Most of the recent trips have been to water parks in Wisconsin, but my most memorable trip was to the Soviet Union before it disbanded. If you can picture me in a large glass room in the middle of a foreign airport, that was my introduction to international travel. Who knew that wrong visa dates would be that much of a problem? LOL. Well since then there have been other trips mostly to the warm weather Caribbean. Oh yeah, a few trip to northern Wisconsin is sub zero temperatures too. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Scott: It has been ten years of recruiting. I still remember when I was offered the position in 1999 to be a corporate recruiter. When I walked in on my first day, the receptionist asked if I was here to interview for an internship. Well, I did end up hiring many interns. She and I still laugh about this. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Scott: My start as a recruiter was interesting. My wife took a position in the headquarters for the company so we got the opportunity to move to Madison, WI. At the same time a staffing position was listed in the same office. I applied, interviewed, and got the position. It was somewhat of a mystery to me what a recruiter did, but I found out quickly. Since that start, I have hired for just about anything. Some of the areas have been finance, actuaries, accounting, claims, customer service, marketing, human resources, and legal. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Scott: The event that had the biggest impact on me was in my first few months as a recruiter, I was asked to lead a project to hire 80 people. This was a great honor to be asked and it gave me additional confidence in my ability as a recruiter. Being able to create a strategy, lead coworkers, and guide several managers in the process was all new to me. Many things were just as we had planned and many were not. It was the best opportunity to learn through mistakes and recognize that I really loved this. There were a lot of long hours and hard work to get this completed, but I had a smile on my face every day. At that point, I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my career. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Scott: I do have a mentor. She and I have known each other since the first day I started as a recruiter. She was one of the four people who interviewed me when I was first hired into Human Resources. Since then she has been a teacher, coach, guide, manager, and most of all, a good friend. She has always been there with a positive attitude while being direct and honest. I could not see myself in the same place without her. Thanks Lori. Six Degrees: Tell us about your position. Scott: I am a Sourcing and Diversity Specialist American Family Insurance. My focus is to understand the talent needs of the company and build relationships with people and organizations to find the talent needed. I also am involved with the referral program and web 2.0 efforts in LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogs. What I love about the position is networking and building relationships across industries and across the nation. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? <<strong>Scott: I really admire a company with a good college internship program that compliments professional level hiring. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Scott: The most impactful trend is the downturn in the economy. This has touched every aspect of recruitment. There are fewer positions available while more people are looking for a job. Six Degrees:Tell us about your involvement at speaking events, awards, publications, where you have you represented your company: Scott: Recently I have spoken at the New Economic Opportunity Network (NEON) luncheon in Illinois. In the near future I will be presenting social networking to a few conferences, but I need to get those presentations ready yet. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Scott: My next career goal is to get into a role that combines recruitment with talent management. It is exciting to understand the trends for a company and build a strategy to meet those needs. To get there I need to continue building on my understanding of the complete talent management cycle to integrate it with recruitment activities. “HOW DOES SCOTT DO IT?” Six Degrees: What is the source of the "Most Hires" collected from at your present employer? (In terms of Quantity #) Scott: Referrals are a great source of hires. Most other recruiters I talk with agree this is the best source for hires. Six Degrees: What is the source of your "LOWEST COST OF HIRES" - (least amount of invested resources for the easiest hires, regardless of quality) at your present employer? Scott: Referrals again. Referrals should be a strong focus in any organization. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Scott: I target any skill set that related to insurance. The good news is there are many careers in insurance that most people I talk with would fit well in the industry. Claims, actuaries, underwriting and sales are careers people often relate to insurance, but there are so many more positions as well. Over the years, I have been fortunate to hire for every part of insurance. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Scott: AIRS, ERE webinars, conferences, SHRM events and many more. Training is key to keeping up with new trends. Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment activities & do they translate effectively within all of the different countries where you recruit? Scott: The tool that I use most often in recruitment is Linked. I also use an applicant tracking system and plenty of homebuilt spreadsheets. I am not sure how these tool translate in different countries, but I have built relationship with candidates all over the world. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Scott: I love this question. When I started, there were still paper requests from managers to fill a position. Today I cannot even imagine waiting for a manager to fill out a form and sent it to me. The communication from the managers to me is now instantaneous. Six Degrees: How did your expectations of being a recruiter compare to the actual, first time you got on the phone or in the cubicle? In your opinion, how do people's assumptions about our vocation differ from reality? Scott: When I started recruiting, my thought was all I would need to do is talk to people. Well, I do talk to a lot of people, but there is so much to recruiting. The actual interviews are just one small slice of what a recruiter does. There is planning, metrics, project management, reporting, advertising, networking, public speaking, and a whole list of other things. One person who job shadowed with me could not believe all the work that goes into recruiting. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Scott: I should have a good answer for you since I have had plenty of “Learning Experiences” in my career. One that comes to mind was a person I hired over eight years ago. I can still remember making the offer and taking about vacation time. I miscalculated the days off and offered an extra week of vacation. Everyone was happy, but five minutes after I hung up and realized my mistake, I was on the phone again. It was not an issue with this person, but it was embarrassing. To this day, one of my coworkers still gets me with this example. If he makes a mistake, he will say “at least I didn’t offer them an extra week off.” It is good to know old mistakes are not forgotten. Six Degrees: How do you personally expect to facilitate change within our industry, and/or at your place of work? If you started that process, outline the problem, your solutions, and the vision. This is not something new, but I really like to focus on data when looking at staffing efforts. Using data to understand trends and results helps guide my decisions. While there are many activities that are challenging to measure, I do try to put some type of measurement to it. It can be qualitative or quantitative as long as there is some way to measure success. Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? Scott: A best practice that I am most proud of was leading a great team of peers to revamp the referral program. The effort put out by each person was wonderful. In the end the new referral program showed results way ahead of anything we had seen in the past. Six Degrees: What are some of the frustrating aspects/obstacles to your day to day as a staffing professional and in general? Scott: The most frustrating aspect is there is so much to do and limited time to do it. This does not seem like an obstacle, but a good sign of the value being placed on recruitment. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? Scott: What inspires is helping people and the company at the same time. Nothing feels better than watching a manager and a new candidate really hit if off. When you know that you have helped someone find their dream career while making your company stronger is what I love. Six Degrees: What one thing do you ideally hope to accomplish in 2009? Scott: In 2009 the biggest accomplishment will be planning and attending the National Black MBA Association conference in New Orleans. Planning is well underway to attend. I can’t wait to meet some great people there. Six Degrees: How Are You Going To Change The Recruitment Industry? Scott: My view to change the Recruitment Industry is one contact at a time. While there is a need to communicate to large numbers of people, I strongly believe in making those times I talk with someone memorable and valuable. To me it all comes down to building a relationship. The question I need to ask every time I get involved in a sourcing/recruitment process is how am I going to add value to this person or process.…; Added by Dave Mendoza to Six Degrees at 3:53am on March 16, 2009

Topic: Meet Scott Wilde, Sourcing & Diversity Specialist at American Family Insurance: Profile • Personal Blog: http://amfamcareerblog.wordpress.com Scott Wilde is a Sourcing & Diversity Specialist at American Family Insurance. Hisfocus is workforce planning, strategic sourcing, project management, community and college outreach, and diversity programs. Recent projects that he has led include designing an employee referral program, Web 2.0/social networking and a national diversity recruitment strategy. More specifically, Scott has led project and program teams that led to increased volume of candidates through employee referrals and diversity channels. The employee referral program showed a 495% annual increase in referrals and a 5% increase in the number of hires. He provides Research and identifies candidate sourcing avenues while evaluating effectiveness based on successful recruiting. Scott provides guidance to Staffing Specialists to provide guidance and direction to develop depth and diversity within candidate pools. In addition, Scott Leads activities which support school and community outreach including membership of executive committees and best practice consortiums Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Scott. Scott: I have been married for 12 years to my lovely wife, Melissa. If anyone else out there married a person they met on a blind date, let me know. It was not what I expected from a blind date, but she is the best. Since then the family has grown to include two strong willed young girls who make me laugh and turn my hair gray. Mostly a lot of laughing at the humor they have along with the way they constantly challenge my thoughts - and are right. While most of my free time is reading, I also love to travel. Most of the recent trips have been to water parks in Wisconsin, but my most memorable trip was to the Soviet Union before it disbanded. If you can picture me in a large glass room in the middle of a foreign airport, that was my introduction to international travel. Who knew that wrong visa dates would be that much of a problem? LOL. Well since then there have been other trips mostly to the warm weather Caribbean. Oh yeah, a few trip to northern Wisconsin is sub zero temperatures too. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Scott: It has been ten years of recruiting. I still remember when I was offered the position in 1999 to be a corporate recruiter. When I walked in on my first day, the receptionist asked if I was here to interview for an internship. Well, I did end up hiring many interns. She and I still laugh about this. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Scott: My start as a recruiter was interesting. My wife took a position in the headquarters for the company so we got the opportunity to move to Madison, WI. At the same time a staffing position was listed in the same office. I applied, interviewed, and got the position. It was somewhat of a mystery to me what a recruiter did, but I found out quickly. Since that start, I have hired for just about anything. Some of the areas have been finance, actuaries, accounting, claims, customer service, marketing, human resources, and legal. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Scott: The event that had the biggest impact on me was in my first few months as a recruiter, I was asked to lead a project to hire 80 people. This was a great honor to be asked and it gave me additional confidence in my ability as a recruiter. Being able to create a strategy, lead coworkers, and guide several managers in the process was all new to me. Many things were just as we had planned and many were not. It was the best opportunity to learn through mistakes and recognize that I really loved this. There were a lot of long hours and hard work to get this completed, but I had a smile on my face every day. At that point, I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my career. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Scott: I do have a mentor. She and I have known each other since the first day I started as a recruiter. She was one of the four people who interviewed me when I was first hired into Human Resources. Since then she has been a teacher, coach, guide, manager, and most of all, a good friend. She has always been there with a positive attitude while being direct and honest. I could not see myself in the same place without her. Thanks Lori. Six Degrees: Tell us about your position. Scott: I am a Sourcing and Diversity Specialist American Family Insurance. My focus is to understand the talent needs of the company and build relationships with people and organizations to find the talent needed. I also am involved with the referral program and web 2.0 efforts in LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogs. What I love about the position is networking and building relationships across industries and across the nation. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? <<strong>Scott: I really admire a company with a good college internship program that compliments professional level hiring. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Scott: The most impactful trend is the downturn in the economy. This has touched every aspect of recruitment. There are fewer positions available while more people are looking for a job. Six Degrees:Tell us about your involvement at speaking events, awards, publications, where you have you represented your company: Scott: Recently I have spoken at the New Economic Opportunity Network (NEON) luncheon in Illinois. In the near future I will be presenting social networking to a few conferences, but I need to get those presentations ready yet. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Scott: My next career goal is to get into a role that combines recruitment with talent management. It is exciting to understand the trends for a company and build a strategy to meet those needs. To get there I need to continue building on my understanding of the complete talent management cycle to integrate it with recruitment activities. “HOW DOES SCOTT DO IT?” Six Degrees: What is the source of the "Most Hires" collected from at your present employer? (In terms of Quantity #) Scott: Referrals are a great source of hires. Most other recruiters I talk with agree this is the best source for hires. Six Degrees: What is the source of your "LOWEST COST OF HIRES" - (least amount of invested resources for the easiest hires, regardless of quality) at your present employer? Scott: Referrals again. Referrals should be a strong focus in any organization. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Scott: I target any skill set that related to insurance. The good news is there are many careers in insurance that most people I talk with would fit well in the industry. Claims, actuaries, underwriting and sales are careers people often relate to insurance, but there are so many more positions as well. Over the years, I have been fortunate to hire for every part of insurance. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Scott: AIRS, ERE webinars, conferences, SHRM events and many more. Training is key to keeping up with new trends. Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment activities & do they translate effectively within all of the different countries where you recruit? Scott: The tool that I use most often in recruitment is Linked. I also use an applicant tracking system and plenty of homebuilt spreadsheets. I am not sure how these tool translate in different countries, but I have built relationship with candidates all over the world. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Scott: I love this question. When I started, there were still paper requests from managers to fill a position. Today I cannot even imagine waiting for a manager to fill out a form and sent it to me. The communication from the managers to me is now instantaneous. Six Degrees: How did your expectations of being a recruiter compare to the actual, first time you got on the phone or in the cubicle? In your opinion, how do people's assumptions about our vocation differ from reality? Scott: When I started recruiting, my thought was all I would need to do is talk to people. Well, I do talk to a lot of people, but there is so much to recruiting. The actual interviews are just one small slice of what a recruiter does. There is planning, metrics, project management, reporting, advertising, networking, public speaking, and a whole list of other things. One person who job shadowed with me could not believe all the work that goes into recruiting. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Scott: I should have a good answer for you since I have had plenty of “Learning Experiences” in my career. One that comes to mind was a person I hired over eight years ago. I can still remember making the offer and taking about vacation time. I miscalculated the days off and offered an extra week of vacation. Everyone was happy, but five minutes after I hung up and realized my mistake, I was on the phone again. It was not an issue with this person, but it was embarrassing. To this day, one of my coworkers still gets me with this example. If he makes a mistake, he will say “at least I didn’t offer them an extra week off.” It is good to know old mistakes are not forgotten. Six Degrees: How do you personally expect to facilitate change within our industry, and/or at your place of work? If you started that process, outline the problem, your solutions, and the vision. This is not something new, but I really like to focus on data when looking at staffing efforts. Using data to understand trends and results helps guide my decisions. While there are many activities that are challenging to measure, I do try to put some type of measurement to it. It can be qualitative or quantitative as long as there is some way to measure success. Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? Scott: A best practice that I am most proud of was leading a great team of peers to revamp the referral program. The effort put out by each person was wonderful. In the end the new referral program showed results way ahead of anything we had seen in the past. Six Degrees: What are some of the frustrating aspects/obstacles to your day to day as a staffing professional and in general? Scott: The most frustrating aspect is there is so much to do and limited time to do it. This does not seem like an obstacle, but a good sign of the value being placed on recruitment. Six Degrees: Considering all of the frustrations you have experienced in your career as a recruiter, -- what inspires you as you continue in your career? Scott: What inspires is helping people and the company at the same time. Nothing feels better than watching a manager and a new candidate really hit if off. When you know that you have helped someone find their dream career while making your company stronger is what I love. Six Degrees: What one thing do you ideally hope to accomplish in 2009? Scott: In 2009 the biggest accomplishment will be planning and attending the National Black MBA Association conference in New Orleans. Planning is well underway to attend. I can’t wait to meet some great people there. Six Degrees: How Are You Going To Change The Recruitment Industry? Scott: My view to change the Recruitment Industry is one contact at a time. While there is a need to communicate to large numbers of people, I strongly believe in making those times I talk with someone memorable and valuable. To me it all comes down to building a relationship. The question I need to ask every time I get involved in a sourcing/recruitment process is how am I going to add value to this person or process.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 2:13pm on March 16, 2009

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOEKsQVvqfM

It was one of those weeks that describes,…

Added by Mike Rasmussen at 2:55am on October 12, 2013

Blog Post: Best Practices For The Next Tech-Driven Graduate Student Recruitment: Where Should New-Age Recruiters Focus On First?

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Big data changing your campus recruiting strategy?

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Topic: Meet Susan Burns, Industry Thought Leader at Talent Synchronicity: to her presentations, or heard of fellow colleagues speak glowingly of her capabilities – needless to say I have been impressed consistently with her public figure. I can also say with pleasure that we all share our admiration for Susan’s consistent weekly live chat contributions to RecruitingBlogs.com, the Recruiting Roadshow and her upcoming session at RecruitFest in Toronto. It must be said, that having walked the streets of Amsterdam past midnight or dined, commiserated, and having corresponded with Susan Burns, “the person,” that my admiration is far more substantial in the compelling impact she makes as both a colleague and a dear friend. Her multi-faceted personality, conviction, and brilliance as a candid, thought-provoking, socially conscious friend and colleague are ever present. She is passionate in all things in life, and it is omnipresent when she evangelizes architecture aspects of Strategic Talent Planning, employment branding, and metrics that we as an industry excel through her contributions and it is in her valued friendship, that her gifts never cease to bring value. I applaud all her contributions in our industry – she lives and breathes “pay it forward” and it is a pleasure to know that the RecruitingBlogs Community have an opportunity to share the many value propositions Susan offers so selflessly and with such passion that Jason Davis and I so often witness on a personal level. Susan Burns is the “real deal” – and the community is richer for all she contributes. Susan, today as a friend, an advisor to SixDegreesfromDave.com, a personal mentor, and a thought leader we salute you, and it is ever so well deserved. Q&A with Susan Burns Six Degrees: Tell us of your Home World Susan Susan: I find a nice balance between taking on challenging physical activities and challenging career endeavors. Yoga, hiking and travel are among my deepest passions outside of work and when I can bring them all together its ideal. Two of my favorite hikes included a 100-mile trek through Torres Del Paine National Park in Southern Chile and a trip to Peru that included hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. I’ve traveled to Mexico, Costa Rica and British Columbia for yoga retreats and find the week long immersions an incredible rebalancing to the stresses of life – even though the retreats often include 5 to 6 hours of physical yoga each day. Yoga is also part of my everyday life and an area of growing interest and commitment. In fact, I’m about to undertake a 200-hour, 3 week teacher training in the Berkshires this July. There are also many areas in which yoga philosophy and practice can carry over into enhancing business practices. The very act of being “present”, focusing on the mind-body connection, and building a sense of community are just a few areas that could add value to the business world. I’m planning on exploring these further through my yoga studies and practice. Six Degrees: How did you get started in talent management? Susan: When I began my career I was in general management. I managed specialty stores and then made the transition into department stores. I loved the hum and buzz of the business and, over time, as I took on assignments of increasing volume and scope the challenges of creating community within a store environment were quite enticing. In my last store manager assignment I was responsible for over $40 million in annual revenue, an employee population of over 350 and a management team of about 16. But, one thing was missing – the company invested little in development efforts and I was intellectually bored. So, I decided to take a bit of a sabbatical and go to graduate school. I actually thought I would leave retail but found I liked the interconnectedness of strategy, product and tangible results. There is something very unique about this within a retail environment and when you’re playing in high volume you can see these three come together quite quickly. After graduate school I joined Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s Inc.). At the time Federated owned Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s and generated about $15 billion in annual sales. Initially, my role was to lead the development of a centralized college recruitment and relations strategy. Federated hired about 550 college graduates each year and another 300 as summer interns. The year was 1998 and there was a lot of change occurring because of the Internet. One of the first things I had the opportunity to do was secure support to develop a website. I think there were about 6 people on the original development team and together we mapped out the strategy for what was to become Retailology.com. The timing was right and I was fortunate to have a really talented group to work with. We saw the impact and growing value of the site in a relatively short period of time, and could demonstrate to the organization the value of being online. One of the coolest things about Retailology is that it not only benefited Federated but it also became a tool to teach students about the retail industry. A couple of years later as Internet recruiting was growing quickly in popularity and the task of sourcing/hiring via the job boards was overwhelming, I had the opportunity to present Retailology as a strategic solution for hiring across Federated – which included hourly, management positions across every function, and college recruiting. We won the support of the divisions and quickly undertook the challenge of building 12 recruitment sites on the Retailology platform. The company had an autonomous culture and the structure and branding strategy at the time required individual branded sites. As a whole, the company hired about 110,000 people annually so this was a very cool opportunity. The change implications for this were huge – we would be moving from 100% paper-based processes to taking everything online. There were several key events that created tipping points along this journey and by the time I left Federated in January, 2006, the Retailology corporate strategy had generated over 38% of the company’s total hires and touched just about every functional area and position up to director/VP. Taking on a broader role also advanced my position with the company and allowed me to take on a greater scope of work that included employment initiatives, employment branding, recruitment technology – both selection and development, change management initiatives, recruiter education and development. The role became that of an internal consultant and over the 7+ years I was with Federated I had the opportunity to work with a number of very talented and committed colleagues. While it was a difficult decision to leave Federated I was at a point in my career where I wanted to take on a broader challenge. I had a hunger to experience another industry, immerse myself in a global business and take on a more holistic role in talent management. I was recruited to head up global staffing for Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (WE). WE is the second largest independent PR agency. They are the PR agency of record for Microsoft and also have growing practice areas in public affairs, healthcare, and consumer. Once again, I was fortunate to work with a very talented team of recruiters. While I only stayed with WE for about 18 months, great headway was made with advising the Board on workforce/talent planning initiatives, sourcing strategies, recruiting structure and processes, and introducing CRM technology. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Susan: There wasn’t a single event or mentor but a string of events and experiences that have influenced how I think about talent management. First, my role in store management. In retail you are uniquely dependent on talent. Whether it be the product design, assortment selection by the buyer, distribution by the planner, merchandising in-store, leading a department/selling team, or the last “12 inches” between the sales associate and the customer – its talent that makes the ultimate difference. Retail is also a business environment where you can see people’s careers move quickly. Seeing a sales associate promoted to sales manager or an assistant buyer promoted to divisional merchandise manager and eventually on to roles of increasing scope and responsibility is very rewarding! Second, coming out of graduate school I heard the same thing time and time again from my classmates – getting through to anyone in recruiting/hr was incredibly frustrating - whether callbacks, email responses, or just answering their phones. Many of my classmates were looking to make a career transition and getting a recruiter to look at their past experience and future potential was insanely challenging. The same thing would happen on informational interviews – hiring managers only wanted people who had done the job. Well, there’s evidence that indicates taking people with the potential and placing them in new environments leads to more creative thinking, innovation, personal growth and……better business results. And, while I couldn’t impact thinking across every aspect of an organization I could make a difference in how job seekers felt about their experience. I’ve been fortunate to have several mentors during my career. Mostly in the earlier days but that’s when I also think its most important. As I was “growing up” in retail it was at a time when mentor relationships developed more naturally. They not only helped me to understand the business at a more strategic level but to think broadly and creatively about building partnerships and getting results. Both of them were also terrific leaders and had their own unique way of building teams and camaraderie. Two of these mentors are still my closest friends today and are still the first people I turn to for guidance. THOUGHT LEADERSHIP RECOMMENDATIONS “Susan is smart, analytical and a great client. She knew what she wanted and was able to communicate that in an effective way. She brings original thinking and a wide network of information to any project she is part of. I have worked with Susan for several years including when she was at Macy's, Waggner and now at Talent Synchronicity. We have worked together on projects that involved selling concepts to senior management that were forward looking and not necessarily easy to get approved. Her combination of influencing skill, persistence and intelligence have led each project to a successful conclusion. She gets things done efficiently and effectively and is a good partner.” March 26, 2008 Kevin Wheeler, President/Founder, Global Learning Resources, Inc. “Susan puts recruitment process vision to work with quantifiable results. She tackled workforce planning, recruitment process and brand issues at Federated Department Stores by developing and implementing one of the first uniquely branded recruitment websites for the retail industry which resulted in tens of thousands of hires. Susan is top notch and I would use her to handle any workforce opportunity." February 22, 2008 Hank Stringer, Principal, QTalent Partners “Susan is a professional with a deep understanding of all three legs of the corporate HR platform: business strategy, HR process and leading-edge technology. Her depth of insight into ways to make HR a strategic business asset are both unique and extraordinary. It has been a real pleasure working with (and learning from) her.” January 7, 2005 Jeff Hunter, Senior Director, EA University at Electronic Arts “I've worked with Susan Burns for a little over a year now and I can say that she has the most strategic, forward-thinking and fresh approach to talent acquisition out of any leader that I've worked with in the industry. I've always said that I wanted to work with someone who I could learn from, who wasn't just pushing old ideas and who would challenge me in new ways. Susan has always managed to challenge me. She has a unique way of getting you to think about things differently. Susan is also amazingly connected in the industry and the relationships she has helped me form with thought leaders has been invaluable. She is an avid reader and spots trends and innovations before most people have adopted the known innovations. The talent acquisition community has mostly agreed that finding people with passion for their field is a key performance indicator. I've met few people with as much passion for our industry as Susan. She thinks way outside the box, outside the organization and outside the industry to come up with advances in our field that are truly innovating the way organizations acquire talent. Most notable is her work with retailology.com prior to joining Waggener Edstrom and the workforce planning work she is currently designing at our organization. If you work in our industry I hope you have an opportunity to meet Susan, collaborate with her, brainstorm, have her tell you to put on your kid glasses or just have a quick brainstorm with her. I think you will find that you walk away feeling like you have learned something new.” May 16, 2007 Steve Fogarty, Talent Manager, Adidas "Susan is a talented staffing and recruiting professional who brings a wealth of experience and expertise in the acquisition of talent and workforce planning. In her role with Waggener Edstrom, she was responsible for the global acquisition of talent and her work had a significant impact. Her passion and commitment were clearly evident and the results she guided were notable. A reduction in time-to-fill, a broad portfolio of sourcing vehicles, and several new creative staffing strategies and initiatives were all part of what Susan contributed to. Additionally, her leadership in guiding the Agency's Advisory Board through a workforce planning strategy advanced our staffing capability to positively impact the business. As a staffing industry leader she is broadly recognized for leading edge thinking and the perspective she offers to organizations and clients. Susan is smart, strategic and results-oriented. I see her as flourishing in an environment that has the management of talent as a critical business priority and where Susan can freely demonstrate her entrepreneurial and results-oriented talent." Daniele Joudene, SVP, People Services, Waggener Edstrom “Susan Burns is one of the most talented leaders in the talent management industry today -- smart, innovative, passionate, dedicated, and able to see and create solutions where most people can only identify challenges. Quite simply, she helped to make us better and more innovative as a company/partner, every step of the way. Our partnership in developing WetFeet Recruiter's Enterprise Interview Scheduling system, which delivered industry-first innovations in many areas, is just one example of one of her strongest personal assets: Susan gets results. The passion, energy, focus and commitment she brings to her work is simply extraordinary. What a joy to recommend her!” October 11, 2007 Gary Alpert, CEO, WetFeet Inc.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 2:05am on September 8, 2008

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