ROTR - James Callender
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[00:00:00] This is Recruiters on the Rise, and I'm Colleen Gallagher. Join me for candid conversations with talent leaders as we explore the work that drives them, the lessons they've learned, and how they're helping people find careers they love. This show is sponsored by Lavalier, an interview intelligence platform built by Textio.
Colleen Gallagher: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Recruiters on The Rise. I'm so excited to have today's guest with me. He has built his career in the kinds of industries where hiring isn't just hard, it's physical. Manufacturing floors, construction sites, field crews, and, you know, long weeks working in the heat.
He's also held HR and talent roles across financial services and utilities, and now he leads workforce strategy for a company operating in 10 states. Uh, he has a belief I think more people in talent acquisition need to hear, which is that finance is the language of business, and if you don't understand it, you can't be a real partners [00:01:00] to the leaders you support.
He's currently the VP of Workforce at EPC. Welcome to the show, James.
James Callender: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Colleen Gallagher: So I love to start off with what is the one thing or one action that sets the best recruiters apart from the rest?
James Callender: understanding the business. Under-- Truly understanding the business, right? So it's-- I, I'm a huge sports fan, as we've talked about before, but
Yeah. And it's understanding what gets you there. And I, I-- You know, truly understanding the business and like you touched on during the intro, the finance.
So understanding the business, the ins and outs and the technical aspects of the business, but understanding how the business makes money, how it truly makes money. And then if you, if you put those pieces together, I think as a, as a strong TA partner, you really... All, all the other pieces just become secondary, and they're a lot easier because [00:02:00] everything makes sense then.
Colleen Gallagher: And what do you think-- how do you think that shows up in, um, you know, in a talent acquisition professional's day-to-day? Like, what do you, you know, what recommendations or advice would you have to folks who are, um, in that role now and how they bring that out?
James Callender: Yeah. My ex- my experience is how it shows up as, uh, your, your stronger TA partners have a quicker time to fill. They're, they're understanding that you're not going through the churn and burn of candidacy as, as much as you are with somebody that is just shooting for maybe words on a paper, right?
Somebody said, "I'm looking for somebody with this degree or this certification or this, this buzzword, keyword or whatever." And you're actually understanding the business, and you are going and finding the person that has done these things or has done these things on a higher level or that are, are true top performers.
Because as a TA partner, that's really what we're striving for, right? We, we all want the A [00:03:00] players. Um, there are times where we have to, we have to go down and, and find Bs and B pluses. Uh, maybe certain things aren't, aren't aligning, maybe compensation, different things come into play. But we all want A players.
So a, a strong TA partner, somebody that really understands the business, really understands how the business make money, they can go out and find that person who also understands the business and understands the industry and understands how money is made. Even if that's not a financial role, that might be a quality role, right?
A quality leader or a CI leader or operations leader. But when they truly understand the finances and how things click in an organization, and I think from the TA piece, if you understand that, know if somebody's really knows or not, right? So that's really helpful in that, that recruitment process.
Colleen Gallagher: One of the things you, you also shared with me is that you have a strong belief in, um, transparency and honesty, and that some of that was shaped by your first job out of college. [00:04:00] And so can you take us back to that experience and, and tell us how it shaped your thinking on this?
James Callender: I wish I could tell you that I don't wanna go back to that experience because it was so bad. Uh, I actually had a conversation with a,
Right.
Colleagues earlier about that specific job. But the reality, and I'll tell anyone that'll listen, it was the worst job and the worst company I've ever worked for. But the other side of the coin, it's the best job I've ever had because, one, I know what bad looks like,
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: right? So I know what poor culture looks like. I know what poor recruiting practices look like. I know what difficult work days look like. I know what, you know, unknown expectations look like. I know what those things are, so I can model my whole strategy from a organizational development perspective, the opposite side of that spectrum. But at the same time, it has really shaped who I am as a business professional because I don't wanna be those things. I've [00:05:00] been recruited. I think I, I shared with you that it was one of those things that you got suites to NFL games and you got, uh, you got multiple weeks of stays
Okay.
I'm straight out of college. I have-- I've never had... I've worked as a, as a, uh, admin, admin at the rec center at college for four years,
Yeah.
In my family to go to college. I didn't know what all that stuff meant. If I got the chance to go back and do it all again, I'd spend 10 years in college.
But, uh, as, as, uh, possible to do now. But the reality is that That's not-- I, I'm, I'm so truthful with candidates when I talk to them. And, and you know what? Sometimes as TA partners, as HR partners, as business partners in organizations, sometimes we get assignments we don't like. You know, that's just the reality of it.
We get a role that we have to fill that we know [00:06:00] is a difficult manager to work for, a difficult function within the organization, a difficult department. It's just a high turnover role. We know those things coming in. Again, if we're keyed into the business and keyed into the finances and keyed into how the business operates, we should know those things as a strong TA partner. We get those assignments that we don't like, and we know that they're not going to be exciting. But I have found in my career that the success in those difficult roles and in filling those difficult roles and having longevity with a candidate is just transparency, right? It, it's, it's when you're having that process, you're, you know, "Hey, you know what?
This is a tough role. This is a tough job. You're gonna have long hours. You're gonna have this. You're gonna have that. These things are going to be inconvenient while you're here. That's just how this role is, and that's, you know, that's the reality of the role is the hours or this or that." not to say that, "Hey, I got a terrible culture.
You just gotta deal with it." That's not it at all, because I don't believe pizza parties are the success of organizations, and, and that's not how [00:07:00] you build culture.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: but there are realities of a job, the day-to-day, the ins and outs, uh, the, the difficulties we experience, and just having that complete transparency with candidates, in my experience, has a l- or attributed to a lot more success and a lot longer tenure with people that come into the roles.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, I mean, I-- that resonates a lot when I was in consulting and the, the group I was in, we traveled quite a bit and, um, it was often last minute. And when we would interview people, we were very upfront about it and, you know, there was always like a, a bit of a tell if somebody was like, "I love to travel."
And I was like, "No, no, no, no, no. This is like you're
James Callender: exploring.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, you're going to sit in a windowless conference room somewhere. You're gonna be working 16 to 18 hours a day, and it's great because a couple times a year you can take a really nice vacation with the miles. But like, this is hard work. You're gonna learn a ton, but like, that's what you have to be up for.
It's not about like, you know, [00:08:00] you loving travel."
James Callender: Yeah. It's not sightseeing. It's work.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: work.
Colleen Gallagher: exactly.
James Callender: And then so many people miss that, right, on, on the travel piece. And, and that's a good example. I, I tell people all the time, some of my roles might require 20% travel. I'll tell them 50%. It might-- This could be up to 50%. You could be going every other week. Well, then if they're only going once a month, they're like, "Hey, this job isn't so bad." But if I tell them, "Hey, you're typically only traveling once a month," and then months they've gotta travel twice, they'll be like, "Hey, I didn't sign up for this. They told me once a month. This is all I was doing." You know what?
And that's, that's that transparency and the reality, and I'd rather err on the side of what you don't like rather than the, the, the more fun side of it, and then you hate things because of it.
Colleen Gallagher: I know you talked about this recently on, um, your YouTube series, which is called HR View for folks, uh, watching this one. And you talked about how the interview starts at the application, not when you sit down. And so what are some of the signals that you're picking up on, [00:09:00] um, before you've ever asked a question?
James Callender: I tell... So I have two HR partners that work for me now or work with me. I don't like the for piece
Yes.
We're a team, and that's not how it is. But I, I tell them that the, the process of, of candidacy or job application, whatever, really starts for the-- from the first interaction that that person has had with the organization, whether that be an application or whether they walk in the door, "Hey, are you guys hiring?" Those, those interactions are all part of the, the interview process for me, and I always take that into consideration, because that's, that's who you are, right? And, and so many candidates will come into an interaction with a, with a employer or representative of the employer, and when it's planned, those are typically more polished,
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
James Callender: right?
So I go into that and I'm, I'm dressed nice because it's a scheduled interview and I, I do those things. But when I send in that [00:10:00] resume and when I make that interaction and I'm on social media or I go into their office or whatever, those are all parts... For me, those are all parts of the interview because I wanna know who you really are when the camera isn't rolling.
I wanna know those things and because that's who you're going to be when you're working for me. Because when- once you start working for me, the metaphorical interview camera is not rolling anymore. You've got the job. So who are you really the scenes when things are difficult, when tensions are high, when pressure's high?
Who are you? And those type of other-- those other type of interactions that are the, the non-candid interactions are the ones that are going to really paint me a good picture on those things. So are you-- do you pay attention to detail? Are you, you know, timely? Are-- Do you have good time management? Do you have good communication skills?
Do you have good presentation skills? All those things go into that, and they're not captured on the resume.
Colleen Gallagher: I guess one, one thing you talked about as well, and I [00:11:00] think you're in a unique, um, you know, role because you do... You know, we've talked a little bit about this, um, before, but a lot of the roles that you're hiring for are in construction. And so there is more of that in-person element to hiring, um, than a lot of companies, you know, in the tech sector where I'm s- sort of surrounded by that on the, on the West Coast here.
Um, how do you think about-- But you've also worked at, you know, financial services, large financial services organizations like JPMorgan, um, Chase. So, like, how are those two things similar, even though we might think on paper they're very different? And, and where do you see some of the differences really show up in terms of, like, how you approach hiring and talent management in general?
James Callender: I, I try to, to personalize it all, or I try to, to really, uh, bring it back down to earth, if you will. And, and, uh, I love technology. I'm a huge tech nerd, and, um, many people in HR... I say many. A lot of people in [00:12:00] HR are gonna tell you that, you know, they don't like AI. That it's all these fears, right? I love AI.
I would sit here... I could get lost in 40 hours, 50 hours, 60 hours a week with AI and technology and software and all of that, and I just love that. But there is a, a piece of, of the hiring process, of the interview and the onboarding process that I do, I always wanna keep personal. I wanna bring that in.
And, and virtual or Skype interviews make that difficult. We're, we're actually operating in, uh, 10 to 12 states right now, so 95-plus percent of my interviews are all virtual right
Yeah.
So I don't have that in-person element a lot of times, especially with the phone screens and stuff like that. I, I make an effort to bring it all back to video so that I can at least have that interaction,
Yeah. Yeah.
That face-to-face interaction, and try to make it feel, you know, we schedule times.
It's not just a random phone call. It's not, you know, those things. It's, it's a formal setting, and [00:13:00] it's trying to, trying to bring things back into, you know, just, just a one-on-one, the personal connection, instead of just being a number or a system or a program or, you know, a text message even. Like we're getting that type of technology now, where you're getting...
You're chatting with a bot about a job and going through that process, and then sending in a three to five-minute video answering a couple questions, and who knows if those ever even get seen.
Yeah.
Um, as, as exciting as, technology and AI really, uh, are, it's scary that we're taking the personal element out of a lot of those decisions.
And don't know the research or the numbers, but I, I would, I would be curious to see how many companies actually hire people that they don't really have any physical contact or interaction with, even face-to-face virtual, real interaction with prior to onboarding,
Yeah.
Because they're using technology or something in place of that.
Colleen Gallagher: I mean, my sense from, [00:14:00] um, you know, trying to stay close to the market on stuff like this is-- and you're hearing sort of a lot of hype about, you know, AI bots showing up in the interviewing process. But I think what it's really meant to solve is the, um, you know, in a lot of places, and obviously our, our, our, um, employment market is in a very weird spot right now.
Like, we're, we're adding-- there are certain sectors where they're still adding a lot of, of jobs, and then there are others where there's some, like, major contraction. So I think it's hard to make, um, broad stroke statements about, you know, the hiring market in general. But I think, um, in some of the sectors where there has been contraction, what I'm hearing from recruiters is that they're getting so much inbound application volume, and people are using AI to help them, that
Yeah.
You know, resumes have become more and more homogenized.
And so it's hard to really figure out who the right people are to screen. And so people are basically [00:15:00] substituting... It's not-- So it's not even necessarily meant to substitute the recruiter screen, 'cause I think people are still doing those. It's just helping them to sort of say, like, who meets the qualifications when you're getting 1,000 applicants.
But, you know, I think the thing I am hearing consistently from people is exactly what you said, which is we don't wanna lose the human element in recruiting and, you know... You know, I know we at Textio believe, um, pretty strongly in that as well, and it's been sort of a core tenet of, of our philosophy for a long time, and we really wanna make sure that people are, you know, using technology to make the humans better, um, and not replace them.
So
James Callender: And, and I, I wanna be very clear. I, I, I have twenty-plus recs right now that are open across the country, and
Totally. Yeah.
Quantity and quality are not the same thing. So you're [00:16:00] right. There's value in, in using it to make sure... But it has to be vetted. And I think that's-- If, if you follow the news, and I'm not gonna name any company names, but if you follow the news, some large HR systems have recently been in the news for AI and improper use of AI in their onboard or
Right.
Have as TA partners, as HR, as, as business leaders, we still have a responsibility to make sure are properly vetted and doing what they're supposed to be doing so that we're not disqualifying people that shouldn't be disqualified. I get plenty of people that are, you know, cashiers at McDonald's that are applying for my CFO role. I get that, right? Not the same job, not the same experience level. It's not the same thing. wrong with a cashier at McDonald's. It's a great role. It's not the same, uh, same level in the career experience as a CFO for an organization. So to have a system that's able to go through 150 applications and say, "Hey, these [00:17:00] 90 are not on, at, on the same
Yeah. Yeah.
As where you need to be," that's valuable. Highly valuable
Colleen Gallagher: yeah. Yeah, and I think you're right. Like, even, um, what I'm hearing from people though is because, you know, uh, it's-- they're seeing folks that are, you know, underqualified, significantly underqualified applying or just not, not qualified, but they're also just seeing a lot of fraud.
And so,
Oh,
it's sort of helping to identify that. And, you know, we've heard from some of our customers even that, um, they want, you know, video trans- transcription of an interview because they've literally hired people, and the person who shows up is a different human than, than who was on the virtual interviews.
And so there is, you know, a lot we can do around that. And, you know, hopefully those are edge cases, but, um,
James Callender: That's interesting.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, it's very, very odd, what-
James Callender: have not had that situation. Uh, we used to joke with a guy that we h- that I hired at [00:18:00] Chase, that worked with me at Chase, that, uh, he, he took over the life of the person that interviewed because they swore up and down it wasn't the same person. Great guy. He was a phenomenal guy to work with, and I loved him to death.
Uh, but we always... That's the only time I've ever even had that joke.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah.
James Callender: but it's interesting you say that because, um, I'd be curious to see how they handle, they handle those, uh, that first day.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, I don't know. That'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall for that, for sure. Um, you mentioned that you're, you know- You're using AI a lot and that you've been building some custom AI tools internally. So, um, what problems are you trying to solve, and what have you learned so far? Where are you liking it, and what, what's it doing well?
What's it not doing well for you?
James Callender: Yeah. So for me, it's, it's been more around visuals, uh, process automation, report automation, um, type of stuff. We have actually... I've got a couple, couple people internally that have used it [00:19:00] substantially for rewriting some software that we use. So we use a, a very software for project management internally.
We, we pay substantially for that software, and we've been looking at alternatives to write our own code and write our own... 'Cause I mean, you can, you can code now. You don't have to be a coder to do it, right? You can, you can build all these pieces into however you want it to, uh, for the inputs and the outputs and the visuals, and it's very, very nice.
And it, it's, uh, it's one of those things that it's a huge, uh, cost savings.
Yeah.
If I've got a half a million dollar software that I'm using for certain things, and I've got something else that can go out and do these things, and I can actually tweak it to have it 100% the way I like rather than 80% the way it's set up,
Yeah.
That's valuable.
But for me on the HR side, I've used it more of, uh, of report automation. You know, I can, I can drop some of my
Yeah. Yeah.
I can [00:20:00] basically drop master reports into the networks or the systems,
Yeah. Um,
it'll... It goes out and gets my KPIs, my metrics, all those things that
I
for, so I can report that out during my leadership. I can speak to those numbers, but I can also have them in visuals on daily, weekly, monthly so that I can lead the business based on where we are and what those trends look like. And then I can, I can obviously extrapolate those trends out for, you know, 6, 12 months, 24-month forecast to see if we continue at this route, this is, you know, what that looks like, and this is the impact on the organization bottom line and, and so on.
So it's been very helpful because I... I mean, you, you and I both know we can do that well, right? But it could take me days to put some of that stuff together.
You and
time savings just in those pieces. So that frees me up to focus on other areas, talent acquisition.
Colleen Gallagher: talked about this previously, and you said that, you know, with, with the various roles that you've had, [00:21:00] you've used pretty much every HRIS and ATS out there. Like, what, what do you wish these tools did better?
James Callender: it's like each of them do certain things really good, and they'll each have some, like one or two things that's just completely omitted
Yeah. Yeah.
That
Yeah.
Of it, right? So I, I think like if, if your top four just got in a room and there's...
and you took this massive poll of the users and said, "What does each do really good?" I think you'd see kind of a chart where each person is trending high on one or two things, and the other group is trending low on the others. And then just go through and say, "Okay, we want yours of this, yours of that, your part of this, and then your system here." And just bring those together. That would be really nice. Um, I, I mean, they... Some... me, the biggest flaw for all of them has been customer service.
Mm-hmm.
If there's the [00:22:00] support and, you know, uh, "I've got this system issue or that issue," or, "I need help with this. I need... How do I do that?" And it's just four, five days, weeks later, it's, "Hey, we're gonna close your ticket.
Thanks." Wait, this is the first interaction we've had.
Yeah.
That's been the biggest one for me,
Yeah.
With multiple, with many of them. others, you know, some, some are so robust that you do have to have a team dedicated to handling the technology side of it. I mean, we, we worked with one of the major players, and we had two or three HRIS analysts internally That
Yeah.
What they did.
It's...
they were system admins for the HR side, the IT side, 'cause it was a system of record for the company, large global manufacturer. So of course, but I mean, at the same time, you're talking, you're talking a lot of man-hours for, for the things that they were doing behind the scenes. So it's good and bad.
It's good because you can do whatever you want in a system like that, and you can [00:23:00] use it to do whatever you want, but it's bad because it does require a lot, a lot of dedicated resources to manage and, and push along outside of the end users.
Colleen Gallagher: I really like what you're saying around, like, the thing that resonates with me is, um, around the sort of like certain ones are better at certain things, but there's not sort of
Yeah.
One single player that's doing a lot of it well. Um, so it's a lot about making trade-offs. But hopefully that, that changes over the course of the next 24 months with, with what people have, um, available in terms of building and the new products.
James Callender: Like it's, it's like, oh, I think, you know, a new HR software would be great, and then they just go to market. It's like, did you not look at
Colleen Gallagher: yeah.
James Callender: 10 that were out there and, and poll, you the users or anyone? Like, "Hey, what's going good? What's going bad?"
And it's just... I don't know.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: maybe there's one or two that I haven't tried that just got it all right. I don't know.
Colleen Gallagher: I guess shifting gears a little bit, I'm curious, how did you end up [00:24:00] in this world? Was HR always the plan?
James Callender: I had no idea. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I, um, I ca- I grew up in a small school, a small town, small school, and I, I told you earlier, was the first in my family to go to college, so, didn't know what to expect. I went into college, Louisiana Tech, undeclared, and I-- they put me in a forestry class, a forestry orientation with, uh, it was a forestry professor. And so that he just got assigned the undeclared students, and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I, I thought I wanted to be a coach. I wanted to manage, to be, to, to coach baseball because I love baseball. And, uh, at point it really hit me, I don't know if it was family or if it's just I, I got sense or, and it's not a knock on an- anything 'cause my wife is a teacher, but at some point I was like, "I'm not gonna make a lot of money [00:25:00] coaching high school sports.
That's just not going to happen." again, it takes a special person to, to teach. And, uh, I admire that and respect that. I'm not that person. I cannot teach, uh, elementary, junior high, high school. I would love to teach college if I could kick them-- because I can kick them out. They're paying at that point.
I can kick them out if they're being goofy.
Yeah. Yeah.
But, you know, I didn't do it. I didn't know what to do. Couple years went by, I still didn't declare. But I, I alway- I kinda had this idea. I was like, "I'm gonna be in business." Because no matter what happens in the world, I could go be an engineer, and hypothetically, all engineering could, could cease to exist.
I don't know, technology or something takes over. But at the end of the day, all business will never cease to exist. There will still be transfer of goods. There will still be monetization of things. There was-- Business will always exist in some capacity. And so my mindset was like, "Well, let me go do something in business because that will always exist."
And I started taking classes in [00:26:00] human resources. I enjoy them. I think I shared with you that the compliance and the talent development are, are two big passions of mine. uh, I, I started taking employment law courses just randomly, and I got into the HR curriculum or HR, uh, uh, program, not formally, but just class perspective.
And I was actually-- I went and declared, and they-- I told them I wanted to do management 'cause I did not know there was an entrepreneurship management as well. So they just stuck me in entrepreneurship, and then I found out, like, the next quarter that I was in the wrong management. And so I just started taking HR classes still. And I would go in, he would give me the classes to take. Uh, he would open enrollment. I would go enroll in completely opposite classes. And then he wouldn't say a word, and I would come back the next quarter. I'd g- He'd give me the classes to take. I'd go enroll in completely different classes. No word was said.
And we did that for three quarters. Finally, you know, Dr. Inman, uh, the late Dr. Inman, [00:27:00] he, um... I, I go in there for the fourth time. I was like, "Look, Dr. Inman." I was like, "We, we both know that this isn't happening. I think I'm gonna change my major." He's like, "Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that." I go in there to change my major, and I kid you not, the-- I popped in there. Again, I'm scared to death. I've never been in the dean's office. I don't even know what to do. um, I said, "Hey, I, I just need to talk to someone about changing my major." And there was a handful of, of professors and admin people in there, and they asked what I wanted to change to. I said, "I, I wanna change to human resources." And I'll never forget, and it's really stuck with me in my career and, and kinda guided me to who I wanna be as an HR professional. asked me, somebody in the back was like, "Why would you ever wanna do human resources? They just sit in the back office and never see anybody." And I thought to myself, and I am-- I would describe myself as the most extroverted introvert
Mm-hmm.
Going to find.
I'm an introvert by heart, and, and doing things that are social [00:28:00] gatherings and all that stuff, that takes a lot of energy from me But I remember thinking, I was like, "Well, that's not what a true business partner is." You don't just get to sit in the back Right. anyone, and just like cr- I... If I wanted to do that, I'd go into finance, right?
I
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: getting finance professionals, I'm just kidding. the reality is that that's not who I wanted to be as a HR professional, and I, I don't... I think if you went back 30 years, that's probably what HR was, right? And that's what you hear. You hear so many people. That's where that transition from a HR manager, HR generalist, HR specialist to HR business partner, lead HR business partner, you're, you're transitioning people out of that role of sitting in the back desk and never being seen. it used to be a, a negative connotation when someone go to HR, right? It was kind of like being sent to the principal's office, and that's always was my, my intent was always to, to change that. That's not who I am. I, I have an open door policy. I usually have candy sitting on my desk, like, "Come chat.
Come have a chat. [00:29:00] Let's have... Let's, let's
Yeah.
Talk about things." And what I wanna be. I've always wanted to be a business partner, so getting out of that back room concept. And so that's where the HR piece took off. I, uh, I went into recruiting, and then into more recruiting, and then, um, I got into some, some business side, strategy side, but still a lot of recruiting. And then ended up getting to L&D, to the learning and development side, and I loved it. Spent a ton of time there in manufacturing in the L&D world. And one of my favorite roles to ever be in is the learning and development side, just, just helping people grow and teaching and, and developing. So as much as I said I couldn't be an elementary teacher or, or junior high, I do love teaching, and I, I'm really good at teaching and developing and coaching. but it's, it's... You know, I told you before, it's a two-way street. If the person doesn't wanna learn, they don't wanna grow, they don't wanna develop, I can't help you, you know? And, and that's... I tell my kids that all the time. "If you don't wanna do it, then I'm not going to waste my time, because you are not going to learn
Yep.
[00:30:00] Or retain the knowledge until you want it.
And then that point, now we can start learning. Now we can open that gap."
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, you talked about how you hate death by PowerPoint, so tell me how you approach, you know, L&D in a way to make it more inter- interactive and engaging so that you don't get people who are,
James Callender: So I did a, uh, shout-out to the, um, Association of Talent Development. They have a program that is, um... I'm trying to think. It's, uh, Master Trainer Certification, I think is what it is. I've always hated PowerPoint. I don't... I can read. You don't have to put something up on the screen and read it to me at the same time, and, and I don't enjoy that.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: so I went through their program. It's about a week-long program, and that was one of the, the focal points was that get the PowerPoint out of the classroom Their visual aids are still relevant, and they still need to be there. So when I build training and when I build content, one, you have to do a needs assessment.
What-- So whether that's the ADDIE model or whatever you're using, you need to go [00:31:00] in there and find out what the actual needs assessment for it is. So I love that piece, and we-- whether it's leadership development, whether it's technical training, whatever it might be, gonna build that assessment to understand my tar- target audience and then what we're looking for. From there, I d- my go-to or two of my go-tos, one is a, a book. I like for people to have a, a learner's guide so that we-- they can follow along, and they have something to take away from the classroom with them. But I use flip charts. I'm a flip chart person. I'm a breakout sessions. I'm an interaction, and, and I know that most of the time when people see me as the, as the, uh, as the instructor, uh, because I've been the student, and I know a lot of times it's like, "Oh, God, they're-- we're gonna do breakouts today." But that's... We do, and we have so much fun, but we always learn from each other because that, that peer sharing, that, that interaction, that support, that, "Oh, you know, I never thought of it from that angle. I never thought of it that perspective," those are some of the most valuable aha moments in the, in the L&D world. And it's not me teaching you something, it's you just [00:32:00] gain knowledge from a
Yeah.
From interaction. And then, and then we apply principle and stuff like that, right? So we, we go through that piece. But it's really drawing everybody out in those interact- interactions.
Colleen Gallagher: standing up in front of a, a, a group of adults is, uh, less likely just with a PowerPoint, less likely to yield, uh, you know, the, the outcomes you want, and people don't remember things that way, so...
James Callender: No. That's what I like to take home. That's why I said that, that workbook is my piece because they can take that with them,
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: they, you know... Uh, challenge of... We, we always use a 70/20/10 model. 70% of learning comes from, uh, like, actual hands-on s- items, right? So I'm actually on the job. we called it, um, we called it, uh, experiences, critical experiences.
So I, I wanna become a director of finance or whatever. So I kinda start exploring that finance role and what that world [00:33:00] looks like and start taking on some finance projects and all. So that 70% of knowledge comes from actually doing jobs, and then only 20% is going to actually come from, or only 30%, so the 20 and the 10 are actually coming from the other pieces, so coaching, mentoring, and then classroom stuff.
Yeah.
reality is, is that that's such a small portion. So that knowledge retention is really difficult if you're not doing something to really bridge that gap between
Mm-hmm.
Telling you something and actually doing it. It's kinda like learning a new language, right?
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
James Callender: can read an entire Spanish dictionary But if I don't go out and start having conversations in Spanish, I'm not going to have any idea how to apply this.
So it's the same, it's
Yeah.
Thing.
Colleen Gallagher: Before I let you go, tell me more, um, about, you know, yourself and what do you like to do for fun outside of work?
James Callender: I like to golf, uh, but I never do it.
Yeah.
I tell people that. So when we do icebreakers for trainings, uh, it's always, you know, tell me you, where you're from and, and a hobby, and I [00:34:00] always tell people my, my hobby's golf. I love to golf, uh, but I never play. And so I, I, I do play. I play a little bit, but I don't play as competitive as I used to.
I've got a six-year-old
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
James Callender: and a four-year-old, and my... Eh, depends on when it is. My six-year-old likes some, s- likes sports some days and other days he doesn't. We did golf lessons for about two months and he loved them, and then unfortunately we went out there on a Saturday, it was about 102 degrees, and That was the last time he went.
Yeah.
Like, "Dad, I'm, I'm
Yeah.
I said, "Yeah, man, it is hot." Um, but we had had him playing. They were booked for like two weeks, and I was like, "Well, we can't cancel." I, I'm a, I'm a firm believer in like you do what you're committed to and. And so, um, so they, they both love to golf. They both have golf clubs. My six-year-old, my four-year-old love to go out to the course.
They love to go play. We have a, a garage. We have a golf bay in the shop, and they get out there and hit out there. They love to play baseball. They both like to play soccer. Uh, my six-year-old says he wants to play [00:35:00] football this, this fall. So they keep me pretty busy. And
That's
guess you could say they are my hobby now.
Colleen Gallagher: right. Yeah. It sound-- That's what I was gonna say. Your, your hobby is,
Yeah.
Uh, all the sports your children are getting into and activities that they wanna do.
James Callender: where it's going.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. Which, which is fun in and of itself. Um, it only happens for, for a short time, so I'm told, so.
James Callender: It goes fast.
Colleen Gallagher: where can people find you?
How do you want them to connect with you?
James Callender: LinkedIn, I'm, I'm very active on LinkedIn, so you can find me on LinkedIn. It's, it's just James Callender or it's Callender James, I think is what it is on LinkedIn. And then, um, I have a, a podcast as well, HR View Podcast, that we drop, uh, some, some different sessions from time to time. One of my colleagues and I get on there and we talk about workplace challenges, obstacles, uh, HR initiatives, efforts, goods and bads, business goods and bads, and you can find us on there as well.
Uh, that's on LinkedIn, it's on Facebook, and it's recorded and the videos are on YouTube.
Colleen Gallagher: [00:36:00] Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you being here, James. It was so great to have such a, a good conversation and, and learn a lot about your insights around, um, you know, what makes a good recruiter and just what makes a good talent management, um, organization overall.
James Callender: Thanks so much for having me. It's been a pleasure
Colleen Gallagher: Well, thank you to everyone who is watching or listening. If you learned something today or laughed, please tell somebody about this podcast. Thank you again to James for joining us, and this has been another exciting episode of Recruiters on the Rise. We will see you all next time.
And that wraps up another episode. Thank you for joining. For show notes and other episodes, visit us at recruitersontherise.com. Recruiters on The Rise is sponsored by Lavaliere, an interview intelligence platform. Lavaliere goes beyond basic note-takers to improve your ability to assess candidates with AI-powered interview questions, summaries, and transcription.
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