Igniting Career Transformations: Aligning Employee And Organizational Values With Tonia Martinez

ACAN 43 | Career Transformations

 

Why is it that a majority of employees find their work disengaging and unfulfilling? The ultimate answer to that is a lack of career introspection and the inability to place the right people at the right job. This process has gotten more frustrating over the years, both from the standpoint of the job seeker and the organizations trying to build a team. Tonia Martinez is the founder of Career Transformations and she has had her foot set on both sides. Tonia talks to Stephen Jaye about this continuous struggle of presenting opportunities to the right people. Learn more as Tonia shares how she manages to ignite career transformations across organizational hierarchies.

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Igniting Career Transformations: Aligning Employee And Organizational Values With Tonia Martinez

One way, a lot of people settle for less is in their jobs and careers. I have seen some conflicting numbers around what percentage of people are satisfied with their jobs but all of them have shown that the majority of people here are disengaged and dissatisfied in some way. It will be great to find a way to better place people at the right job and that involves a little bit of effort on both sides. The process has gotten a little bit frustrating both from the standpoint of the job seeker as well as from the organizations trying to build a team.

Interpersonal transformation journeys that we are all on or hopefully you are on, based on reading this, there are going to be some of you that are looking for a new job and some of you that are building an organization. Building an organization involves hiring and bringing in the right team. My guest, Tonia Martinez is the Founder of Career Transformations, and she has her foot in both sides of this. She helps both the organizations find the right people as well as people looking for a job and career transformation. She should have a lot of good insights to say about this whole process from both ends.

Tonia, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for having me, Stephen.

Thank you for joining us. Let’s begin with the Career Transformations and your personal story. What prompted you to start this organization and what were your experiences, and all that?

My background is 22 years of HR. For most of those years, I primarily focused on the talent acquisition space. Recruiting for organizations here in Colorado. Also in HR, you wear a lot of hats. I have helped design onboarding and orientation programs, as well as help train managers on how do we interview, how do we bring the right talent, and having a consistent process has been a lot of focus throughout my career. My passion is helping people find jobs that they are happy and passionate about and will go back the next day, and also helping clients find the right fit for the organization, so they avoid turnover.

There’s a concern in the hiring process on both ends the organization wanting to have the person that’s going to love the job and the person wanted to have the organization that’s going to love them back, whether the job was the right fit. What do you think is the factor now that is contributing to why we see so many people in the wrong job? I covered in a previous episode, this idea that our culture is based around people dreading to work. The whole, I have a case of the Mondays, Taco Tuesdays, Happy Hour on Fridays is all based on the idea on Monday something to be dreaded as opposed to something that’s joyous or happier.

It’s twofold and maybe threefold, there’s a level of digging and finding out deep in your heart and your soul, what you want to do or want to be when you grow up. A lot of times people are pressed for finding a position because they are financially strapped, laid off on the fly or for whatever reason. There are lots of reasons that you would jump into another position and not do your homework sometimes and put a time to learn about the company, the culture, the leadership team, the compensation, and everything you can. It’s a lot of work and time.

You'll learn a lot about what people want, what they're not happy with, why are they leaving, what can we do to change that. You'll uncover problems that you didn't even know you had. Share on X

If you don’t put that time in, you are going to oftentimes make the wrong decision. Going with your gut is not always the right thing to do. It serves some people well but digging deep to find out, “What you want to do? Who do you want to work for? What do that culture and environment look like?” On the corporation side, I have been in the position too many times where we have mis-hired. Oftentimes, I can reflect and find out the reasons pretty quickly.

A lot of times, we are hiring quickly as well from a corporate perspective. We may not have trained our managers the way they should have been trained. Maybe we didn’t have a process or leadership didn’t want a process, they just wanted to interview with their gut. A lot of times, you don’t do that preparation and also do your homework the same as a candidate would do on you, you fail. You mis-hire and go with your gut or sometimes you have too many people involved or too many hands in the pot that have a say in it. There are a lot of factors on both sides. I hope that helps.

Let’s begin from the job seeker side since it’s a little bit less complex given that theoretically, the person looking for a job or looking to change jobs is completely in control. There’s no other people’s input. We all know examples of overbearing parents, etc. For example, it’s just one person and they are looking for what job they want to apply for and put some energy into. What should these people be doing? What is the homework that someone should be doing, whether they starting a career or realizing, “I need to undergo a career transformation?”

My number one tip would be if you don’t have a career coach or leadership executive coach that you get one. It’s important because you want to make the right decision and go down the right path. Sometimes some work needs to be done before figuring that out and you don’t even know. A coach will help get you aligned to where you need to be. They uncover so much and you learn about yourself through the process.

If you can’t afford a coach, do your homework, get out there online, talk with people, do your networking, and research to learn more about what it is you want to do. What company do you want to work for? What industry do you want to be in? What are you passionate about? What are you good at? Looking at all of those areas a little bit deeper and maybe with a little more of a microscopic look.

It’s interesting to think about what someone is passionate about. Oftentimes, the start of that process for most people is you go to college and pick a major. Do you think that there is somewhere that gets miscommunicated? If someone is looking at a list of majors and saying, “I want to study this. I like this subject in high school or middle school,” versus figuring out what the passion is. What drives you? What gets you out of bed saying, “I want to do this?”

That’s learning. It takes time. You could be in college as a young student and not know and pick a degree. That’s not necessarily where you want to be. It’s what your parents did or a friend did it. You picked something but it’s not what you want. You have to have some experience to see different fields, roles, and industries to figure out what you want to do, what you are passionate about, and what speaks to you.

That’s a good lesson in almost self-forgiveness because there are a lot of people who will go into a field and realize it’s not for them and thinks, “I messed up. I screwed something up. I picked the wrong major. Now I’ve got five years of experience in this field and I don’t want to do this job function anymore. I have to go back to the drawing board.” That seems like somewhat, you are saying more humans and people should give themselves a little bit more grace for having gone through that experience of being in that position.

That happens often, unfortunately.

From the organizational side, it gets a little bit more complex. What does an organization need to do? I have been, and a lot of other people are in situations where the job posting does not match what they want or you get there and it turns out what they want is something different. What does the organization need to do given all the people involved to make sure that the job posting when they go into posting it, recruiting for it, and interviewing people for the position that they know what they want and make an accomplished decision?

That’s where it starts. A lot of companies don’t do what I call a kickoff call or a kickoff meeting for an opening. It’s super critical because this gives you the opportunity to bring all of the players that are going to be involved in this process that know what this role is about, know what it takes to do this role effectively, and sell the position.

You also have to have people not only that know about it but that know also how to interview. You want people involved that are going to sell the company, culture, position, and everything. There are processes that companies can implement to make sure that everybody is on the same page but that’s a lot of times where organizations go wrong is that they are not on the same page.

ACAN 43 | Career Transformations
Career Transformations: A lot of times people are pressed for finding a position because they’re financially strapped or because they were laid off on the fly. But really putting time in to learn about the company and the culture keeps you from making the wrong decision.

 

I remember some organizations I have worked for in the past that we were having an interview at 3:00 and one manager got stuck in a meeting and he can’t show up. “Let’s grab Sally. Sally could jump in on the interview,” but Sally had never interviewed before. She does not know anything about the position. She might be able to talk to culture a little bit but she’s not adequately equipped to be in an interview. It happens all too often. My take is getting a structured process that allows the company to be successful.

Is this structured process as important in the case of a simple replacement hire? We know the examples. This person unexpectedly quit but we were happy with that particular individual. We want someone that’s going to be like them to get back to the work that we were doing before. When that’s the case, can someone bypass this process or do you think it is still as important?

If not more important because you went wrong the first time, not that was the company’s fault. It may have been something that happened in that person’s life and they had to leave the organization but either way, it’s more important to tune in, find out what went wrong, and how can we change this going forward and prevent this from happening again.

It sounds like both sides of this entire hiring process require a little bit more reflection than a lot of people that go right into it. In the case of the individual, some coaching to ask some of those questions that you don’t want. One of the other questions that I’m wondering about from the organizational side is I have referred to building a team as fitting together pieces of the puzzle because what you need sometimes depends on what you already have. How often do you see organizations take that into consideration?

Say, “We have a lot of more passive people. We need someone that’s a little bit more direct. We have a lot of direct people. We don’t need four alphas in the room.” All these examples of how someone could theoretically be a good fit for a position on paper but when you look at how you are trying to build and round out a team, maybe you need a different personality type or someone that comes across a little bit different to compliment the traits that you already have on that team.

It goes back to the kickoff call and getting everybody on board and laying out what are those characteristics. Who is it that we need for this role? That way your recruiters or sourcers are fully equipped to go find this person, drill in and ask interview questions that are based around those characteristics and make sure that they are aligned to what the company is looking for. That’s important. It saves a lot of time.

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I also want to cover a little bit about your personal story, Career Transformations. What prompted you to found your own organization as opposed to continuing to work with the other established structures that you were in before?

I have always been in Corporate America and I loved my career as an HR professional. It’s equipped me for so many things that I’m experiencing as a business owner as I build for Career Transformations. What prompted me to start my own business was to challenge myself for one because I worked on the other side and with the external recruiters, and knew what their roles were in. I also knew the type of income that was potential for me. That was another factor.

The third factor is recruiters are not generating revenue. Oftentimes, they are the first to be cut when an organization goes through a restructure, merger and acquisition, a budget cut or whatever it may be. I have been impacted because of that. I didn’t want that to happen again throughout my career because it’s not fun starting over.

When you have decided to start Career Transformation or to start on your own, what was going through your head and what were you hearing from some of the other people around you, whether it would be the people you worked with, the people in your personal network, and all those things? Did people encourage you? Did they say anything interesting to you on your journey?

I have a lot of friends and colleagues that are recruiters. At first, it was like, “What are you thinking?” I’ve got a couple of those but for the most part, I have a supportive community, my family, and friends. Everybody has faith in me. I have faith in myself. I know I can do this. The only thing that I didn’t foresee was that it would take so long.

COVID added a few years or whatever timeframe we have been in COVID, that impacts that for sure because a lot of companies weren’t hiring and were careful on their budgets to not expend extra money hiring a recruiter to do their hiring. There are lots of changes. A lot went into that and I’m subtracting out that timeframe. It takes a while to build a business. I’m patient and determined, so it will happen. It might take a couple more years.

In addition to COVID, which is interesting that you brought that up, one of the aftershocks of it is some people referring to as The Great Resignation, a lot of people’s thoughts on how work is going to work in the future are influx. People have different ideas, standards, and thoughts. How do you see that impacting your line of business and how you approach your day?

I see it more on the candidate side. I pipeline people all the time and I’m seeing a lot of people are looking for either hybrid or remote positions. I see on the other side that clients are not willing to make rules and are not able to transition rules from in the office type of position to a remote or hybrid. There’s going to be a lot of learning and adjusting in the future with organizations because this is not going away anytime soon. Companies can’t continue to operate the way they do. There’s going to have to be a lot of work in this area on both candidates and clients.

ACAN 43 | Career Transformations
Career Transformations: A lot of people who go into a field and realize it’s not for them think that they messed up. But they should give themselves a little bit more grace for going through that experience and being in that position.

 

The thing that I find interesting and a little bit perplexing is the organizations who have gone through the experiment where during the early days of COVID, we all had to do all our jobs from home and they quickly transitioned. I kept reading articles that claim that people were just as productive, if not a little bit more productive when they were working from home than when they were working from the office.

I understand the counter-argument that sometimes the relationships had already been built in the pre-COVID period and so they already knew how to relate to each other and that may be a full remote going forward for eternity might not work or you might need something. What do you think people are thinking, the organizations that had everyone working remotely at some point during 2020, and now want to go back to something along the lines of that before COVID, long ago, traditional, you have to be here from 8:00 to 5:00 type of setup?

I’m not quite sure. I’m sure that there are so many challenges internally. I have been out of corporate a little while now, so I’m not sure. I feel that there need to be bigger conversations about this because it’s clear that we are not going back 100% anytime soon with the additional viruses that are out.

From the candidate side, maybe it can be referred to as play devil’s advocate as a newfound idealism that they need an adjustment to find a place where everyone’s needs are met. What needs do you see on the side of the organization as well as on the side of the candidate, job seekers, employees, however you want to classify it, that everyone should be thinking about, “I need this and I need that type of thing?”

It’s such a balance now. We have so many issues at hand. People don’t want to go back into the office because of COVID and all these other viruses, I understand that. I would be fearful of it too because then you can get it, spread it to your family. Hybrid schedules might be an option, maybe organizations could look a little bit deeper into offering convenience.

If we have 50 people, maybe 10 come now and 10 come in the other day and trying to set up some success to be able to bring people back into the office. There are daycare issues as well. These daycares are closing down because kids are now contracting the virus. Again, parents, especially mothers have to come back to the home and take care of the kid. There are some single parents that do it all by themselves. They have got a boatload of challenges on both sides.

That sounds like a crazy challenge. I was looking at all the things that happen during COVID, all the ways we adjust, and some things are going to stay, some things are going to go away even long after the threat of getting the virus goes away. One of the things that I’m most hopeful about is this idea of still showing up when you are sick going away forever.

One of the things that humble a lot of people is understanding that there is always a lot more going on than what you individually see. Share on X

One of the things is that COVID came and it is going to go at some point or it’s going to fade away into what they call an endemic but they are still cold, flu, and all these things. There’s hope on my part that we are recognizing that the idea of still showing up when you are sick is a little bit counterproductive because then you get everyone else sick. That would be more acceptable to say, “If you are sick, stay home, and don’t get anyone else sick, and you are not even going to be that effective at your job anyway.

I wish that it were that easy. Unfortunately, it’s not. I’m not closely involved with Corporate America in that sense to know what’s going on the inside but I do feel that we all need to be a little bit more understanding now. If there are plans that organizations could put in place to be a little bit more flexible, we need to try to get there but I also get it from the corporate perspective that it’s not always possible, due to a lot of factors. You have got a lot of personal data and paperwork out there. There are so many factors or reasons why corporations can’t do it.

I sometimes succumb to this idealism a little bit myself about work culture as well as other areas of life and one of the things that I feel like humbles a lot of people is understanding that there are always a lot more factors. A great example as a job seeker will oftentimes wonder, “Why did I not get this job?”

We are talking about the different personalities, what they were looking for or in some of the more frustrating cases, there are those jobs that are posted when they had someone in mind the whole time but for bureaucratic reasons, they had to hire. They had to post it and everything like that but it does help to understand that there is a lot more going on than what you individually see. Is that something that you are seeing more people recognize or do you feel like people are still in their narrow perspectives?

I do. Unfortunately, it’s tough now on many levels in the world we live in. Giving grace and being flexible when you can is helpful.

ACAN 43 | Career Transformations
Career Transformations: Both sides of this entire hiring process require a little bit more reflection than just going right into it.

 

It’s a tough period now. One of the things that motivated me to do this show is thinking about all the people that are in the jobs that they are not satisfied with and having the idea to do something else. One of the things I heard about the Great Resignation is also that a lot of people saw COVID and they were like, “There’s more to life than being miserable at this job day in and day out.” What do you think should be on the minds of people to have a balanced perspective on this and say, “I want to do something else. I want to completely change things but I also need to work with the world as it is as opposed to as my idealist’s brain wants it to be?”

People need to dig a little bit deeper into what they want to do, what they are good at, and where their talents best fit them. Talk with others and learn. It is important to be happy in what you do, where you go, and who you work for. Now, leadership is important. Knowing the leaders in the organization, how they lead that organization, what their values are, and not only is it written etched in stone if you will but do they live by that? That’s important.

As I talked to a lot of executive candidates, sourcing for a few different positions, I’m also learning that it’s more important for them. Maybe more important now than it was before. They don’t want to work 60 to 70 hours a week anymore. I don’t know why they did before but now the family is more important. People lost a lot of people in their families and friends. Life is a little bit more delicate and important now than ever.

That’s consistent with what I was reading before about how people like, “Life is delicate and short,” and saying what it is that you want out of life. You are talking about people who are transitioning into leadership positions. What I’m wondering is as someone who has never been in a leadership position, what adjustments do you think people need to make? What if someone says, “Leadership is what’s calling me?”

People at the organization, the bottom levels, if you want to call it that, tend to be the ones that build the things. You have the managers that build workflows, and then you have the leaders that build people. Someone might be saying, “I’m more into building people.” What approach do you think people who want to emerge and become a leader need to take?

There's more to life than being miserable at a job day in and day out. Share on X

Having a mentor internally at the organization, if you are still with an organization and talking with that person, scheduling lunch, trying to get on their radar to pick their brain about management, leadership, and learn, “Am I a fit for this? Is this what I want?” Going back to having a coach to help steer you and help you identify, “Is this a good fit for me,” exploring yourself and your options, and doing maybe some assessments out there, is important. There are a lot of different assessments that might help you. I don’t use them personally because I’m not a career coach but those are helpful for people to dig a little bit deeper to find out, “Do I have what it takes?”

What are your thoughts on the whole idea of apprenticeship or shadowing types of scenarios where people get to see what the job is? “I’m going to do this job or watch someone do this job for a week and decide. Do I see myself doing this for another 5 to 10 years, however long we expect our roles to go?”

Hands down, that’s the best way to go if you can do that. Apprenticeship, internship, shadowing or whatever it may be, if you have an opportunity to peek into what it’s like day-to-day to sit at this desk or go out in the field and work this role, that’s important if you can do that. Before you even apply to that position, do that. Make sure you talk with people to understand what it’s all about, what it takes, and see if you have it.

You have done a lot of recruiting. You are transitioning to some placement stuff and some career transformation. What do you think is the impact that you are trying to have? What drives you to start and expand your business, and work within your community?

I want to reiterate that recruiting is one source of the business, that’s one side of it. Outsourcing is the other side of it. To me, it’s onboarding and offboarding. How you are hiring and how you are letting go because offboarding is as important, if not more important because sometimes you are forced to offboard individuals through layoffs, mergers, and acquisitions, whatever it may be but they may not have necessarily wanted to let go of that person.

Knowing that you could have that person back at a different time is a good option. I like the part of helping people hire better, smarter, and then offboard better and smarter. It’s equally as important. You do want to protect your brand and you want to sell your brands. I liked the idea of being a firm that can help onboard and offboard, both very critical in the hiring and exiting process.

Offboarding oftentimes gets a little bit less attention because people think, “I have this job. I’m done.” First thing is, “I’ve got to like go back and search for a new job,” and things like that. What is the biggest danger in say a poorly executed offboarding process or someone that has a process that’s not very done well?

Your brand is at risk. Everything you worked so hard to build is at risk because you laid a person off or you fired a person. Companies should have a process in place. HR is not always the place that someone wants to go. If they are not comfortable going to HR, that’s a problem. You want people to be comfortable and trust HR, so that way when there is a problem, that’s the first person they are going to. That HR person will then take it up and make a change. You have to have that team in place and that communication.

Having those processes along the way from hiring to firing or laying off is important. It takes a little bit of time to build but when you have that process in place, people will give you the data you need, and then that’s going to equip you to make a change in the organization. You will learn a lot about what people want, what they are not happy with, why are they leaving, what can we do to change that. You will uncover problems that you didn’t even know you had.

If someone has a bad offboarding process, they can easily have their brand tarnished. Say someone was laid off and they have the bad things to say about the company on Glassdoor and some of those other algorithms, what about the process where you are laying someone off because they were not a good employee? Is there a necessity for a tactful way to do that?

ACAN 43 | Career Transformations
Career Transformations: There’s going to be a lot of learning and adjusting in the future because organizations can’t continue to operate the way they do.

 

If they are leaving on their own terms because they found a different opportunity, you still want to gather that data of why they left. On the flip side of that, when you have to let someone go, it’s so important to provide some type of package because you do want them to leave on a good note. If you say, “We are sorry. It had to end this way.” If you are eligible for severance check, “Here’s your check but in addition, let us help you land on your feet through a career coach, and help you get your resume updated.”

That person may need some coaching that you never provided as their employer. They may need some guidance and if you could change the way you have hired or you fired in the past, and give them a different experience to live in the organization, they are less likely to go onto Glassdoor or wherever and post bad comments about the manager, the HR, leadership team and the company. They are more than likely to go on and say, “I’ve got to let go but this company did this for me. They gave me this.” They will be thankful.

A couple of other things I’m wondering about this offboarding process. Towards the beginning, you talked about possibly getting the employees back. What I’m wondering is, especially when certain budget restraints cause you to lay off people, you did not want to lay off. How often does that occur? My impression has always been that if you lay someone off if they were a good employee, they are probably gone to someone else within a couple of months.

It depends on a lot of things but the relationship and experience they had will bring someone back if it was all positive. Maybe they went somewhere where they are not so happy or maybe they had to leave, got laid off or something, they had some change that put them back on the market but you can also source that talent. As you open up a position later down the road and reach out to those people, there’s nothing wrong with that. If they had a good experience, they will come back. If they did not, they are probably not coming back.

The other thing I’m wondering about off-boarding is you talked about collecting data. One of the things I’m wondering is how often is the case that this offboarding data is usable to identify a problematic manager? Let’s say, there’s a manager who loses a lot of employees because this particular individual has some form of bad behavior or they piss people off, and no one likes working for them. Does that data ever get used to eliminating that manager or that particular person?

It does. It’s very important to get that data up to leadership. If they don’t, then they are not doing a good job. That information is critical to an organization, especially if they are realizing we are losing a lot of people and we don’t know why. If you are not looking at that data closely and figuring out with the leadership team and potentially manager of your team, “What’s the problem here? Are we getting bad feedback on a certain manager? If we are, let’s look at that manager’s performance. Let’s evaluate what needs to happen with this manager.”

“Do they need a coach themselves or help to become a better manager and save this organization from losing people? Do we need to let go of that manager?” It’s a question that you sometimes don’t want to know, especially if they are good in performance. They do a good job. They know the industry. When you have that problem, it’s challenging but most importantly, your brand is at risk if you keep that person onboard.

Life is short, and you’re not promised tomorrow by any means. So, you have to figure out what you want to do, where you want to be, and who you want to work for. Share on X

Enough people will go onto the Glassdoor or whichever and say like, “This is not a good place to work.” These processes, the intentional hiring and offboarding, if someone is starting an organization now or someone is starting to think about scaling up and only has a couple of employees, or it’s only a few people working together. At what stage during that development process would someone want to be thinking about these processes? How do they want to go about doing this hiring and offboarding?

Right away. It’s so much easier when you have little to work with, to put together a process that sticks and everybody believes in and is on the same page. It’s so much easier to start it when you are small and then continue to build and grow as you get bigger.

One of the things that I have observed throughout my life is that the world is moving faster. People need to update their skills faster. People often say, “Many years ago, someone would oftentimes get a job and stay at that same organization for their entire 50-year career, move up the ranks, get whatever golden watch at the end.” The average length of time, if someone is at a particular job, is down to a little bit over four years.

As we move into this world where people are moving in and out, what can we all be doing or anticipating to make this process a lot more seamless? If someone is looking to hire that this person is going to be at your organization for 15 to 20 years is something that people need to get out of their head a little bit more, or is there another way we can make the process of switching jobs, switching tracks or switching roles, a little bit more seamless and something easier on everyone’s plate?

There are some organizations that don’t care for some individuals that are tenured, ten years plus at an organization. It depends on the individuals and the goals of the company but it’s so important to hear the story of someone that might have a job-hopping resume, where they bounced a little bit more than someone may have wanted. It’s important to understand their story and why they made those shifts. Sometimes it’s out of their hands and if your performance is well and you can tell that story, and someone will listen, you may have yourself a great candidate and you don’t know it because you are looking at their tenure.

I like to think that the right organization will find the right person if people are open to it. One of the other aspects of this whole system that can be frustrating sometimes is the amount of noise. You post a job and you will get hundreds of applications. Some of them will be “spam” or some of them will be people who have no business applying. You want to find a way to narrow it down in an intelligent way to consider all these people that may have job-hopping resumes or some other type of aspect of their resume that’s traditionally a red flag without having to dig down and look through all 500 particular applications that are out there.

The same thing goes on the job seeker side that there are so many organizations to work for. How do you pick what you want to apply for? Do you see people developing better systems to narrow that down in an intelligent way? My impression is that now, in most software cases, it’s primarily, keywords.

From a recruiter’s perspective, especially when you are sourcing say on LinkedIn or whatever job board, those keywords are important to narrow it down to the person that has what you are looking for. You can’t do that from a personality or characteristics point of view. It’s mostly based on skills and experience when you are sourcing that way. It’s not until you talk to the person to learn those other pieces.

Keywords are important. From the resume, you want to be short and sweet but still, tell a story, so very strategically written is key. It takes a lot of time to do that but when you can sell yourself in a very professional and strategic manner, you are more likely to be selected versus having paragraphs of information that someone has to read through because recruiters, don’t have a lot of times have the time to read through all of that information. They go to sleep when they are reading. We don’t always have the time that we want to read through a book.

TLDR is an acronym for a reason. There are tons of situations for people who are TLDR-ing. With your business journey, what organizations are you working with most frequently?

I have always been very industry agnostic and I prefer it that way. Throughout my 22 years, I have worked in a handful of different organizations and I love the variety. I always want to be able to work in a position in an industry that I know nothing about because it challenges me and it keeps me interested in what I’m doing and growing. I never want to stop working in whatever industry I can. I’m open to all.

As far as position this 2022, I have transitioned more into the executive space. I’m starting to work on positions that are manager, directors, senior CFO, vice presidents, and hope to stay in that space going forward. It’s where I’m comfortable. It’s where I’m good at or excels as well. I’m good at finding some good talent.

With that information, if anyone reading out there would want to get ahold of you, whether they are a candidate looking to move up into one of those executive positions or already in an executive position. If someone is building out their organization and they are getting some traction in the marketplace and want to look at having the right hiring processes, procedures, and stuff like that, how would anyone reading best get ahold of you?

They could email me directly. My email address is Info@CareerTransformationsDenver.com or they can go to my website, which is www.CareerTransformationsDenver.com and they could schedule time with me through my Calendly link.

If anyone reading out there is looking at careers in the HR or placement space, do you have any random pieces of advice or tips to give to these particular readers?

ACAN 43 | Career Transformations
Career Transformations: Knowing the leaders in the organization, how they lead that organization, what their values are, and whether they live by that is important.

 

Dig deep. Find out what you want to do. It’s important to be happy as we all know. Life can be short. We are not promised tomorrow by any means. Figure out what you want to do. Talk to people. You don’t have to pay someone hundreds of dollars to learn that you can do it on your own. It takes some time. Figure out what you want to do, where you want to be, and who you want to work for. It’s all very important and worth the investment.

It sounds like it’s worth the introspection, both from the perspective of those you all out there looking for jobs as well as those of you out there who are building your businesses and looking for, “Who do we want to hire on? Who do I want to share my journey with?” In a way, when you bring someone on if it’s a standard full-time job or anything resembling that you are sharing part of that journey and your success is a little bit tied to how successful these particular individuals are in the roles you placed them in.

Tonia, thank you so much for joining us on the show and giving us your thoughts on how to build the right team, how to introspect, how to figure out what it is that you want as well as the other side that people oftentimes don’t think about, which is what’s the best way to terminate a relationship with someone in a way that’s amiable and respectable for all parties involved.

Thank you so much for having me as a guest. I appreciate the time and hopefully if anyone feels they would like some help they would reach out.

Thank you to everyone out there reading. I would like to encourage you to introspect on yourself. Even if you are happy with where you are or you already made your business, it’s a good idea to introspect every once in a while. Stay tuned or tuned back into the show more fascinating interviews with people who have built their own little empires and an impact that they wanted to, went for it, and made their mark upon the world. Thank you.

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About Tonia Martinez

Career Transformations was formed in 2019 as a small woman-owned Colorado business.

We deliver a holistic approach to our hiring process bringing over 20 years of human resources experience, specializing in talent acquisition with over 19 years focused on recruiting.

We understand the entire process from onboarding to offboarding and we invest the necessary time hiring and terminating requires, so our clients can focus on managing their business.

We pride ourselves on giving management nearly 80% of their time back.

We embrace every phase of the hiring process and know the ROI you will receive.

We are industry agnostic, hiring nationally from management to the C-Suite and beyond.

We are a trusted partner who understands what you’re up against and are skilled in connecting great people with great companies.