Sometimes making an impact comes down to finding the perfect person for the job. A self-described “recruiting geek” and a woman of many hats, Carmen Hudson is an impact-maker in every sense. She has enjoyed a prestigious career recruiting for Amazon, Starbucks, Yahoo! and Microsoft, and even founded her own social recruiting tech company. Carmen now shares her immense knowledge with her clients through her work at the Recruiting ToolboxSM.
Everyone has an origin story. Before diving into the details of her life today, Carmen talks about her history and early career dreams. She describes how she landed in Seattle at Amazon and why her unique skills enabled her to carve out her role as a sourcer at the company.
What does expert recruiting look like in the digital age? Carmen gives some insight into her methods of finding top-level talent and how she can find anyone anywhere!
Every opportunity can be a stepping stone to something greater. Carmen talks about her journey from Amazon to Starbucks to Yahoo! and some of the highlights of the Silicon Valley leg of her journey.
Carmen was one of the first to recognize the potential of Twitter for recruitment. In 2009, she bravely stepped out on her own and founded Tweet-a-Job, a technology company that connects job-seekers with employers. But a recession is a forced to be reckoned with; after a tough three years, Carmen sunsetted the company and moved forward.
But how does someone accomplish so much when they haven’t got two pennies to rub together? Carmen describes what founding a tech company with no technology background was like, interacting with investors and technology types as a black woman, and the invaluable lessons she learned from the experience.
After Tweet-a-job, what was next for Carmen? Carmen talks about how she ended up as a Principal Consultant and Trainer at Recruiting ToolboxSM and describes the diversity of clients and projects that she has worked on. From educational and financial institutions to thinktanks and startups to big commercial brands, Carmen has helped her clients develop their recruiting tools and practices to secure the best talent around.
Gender and pay equity are issues close to Carmen’s heart. Jennifer and Carmen talk about the glaring gender disparities of our contemporary society and discuss the importance of transparency. New regulations, technologies and individual negotiating efforts – undertaken by both women and men in the workplace, are of key importance to Carmen.
Telling your story openly and proudly can inspire others to step into the spotlight. Despite the flak that social media platforms get these days, Carmen reminds us of the power they hold to sharing one’s successes and failures in order to inform and inspire others.
As a woman of color working in recruiting, Carmen has seen her fair share of lackluster diversity initiatives. She offers her thoughts on the contemporary state of diversity hiring regimes, why they so often yield meager results, and what kind of approach is needed for a serious commitment towards true diversity in the workplace. She also talks about how both a sour hiring experience early in her career and the encouragement of a mentor has informed this perspective.
A woman of many hats indeed! Jennifer asks Carmen about her work with Seattle’s homeless youth initiative called YouthCare and where you can find her on the internet. Check out some of the links below.