Building a Legacy, Executive Development and Talent Management - Mary Meston from Concentrix


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Dec 09 2020 30 mins   1

Welcome to the Recruitment Hackers podcast, a show about innovation, technology and leaders in the recruitment industry brought to you by Talkpush the leading recruitment automation platform.


Max: Hello, and welcome back to the recruitment hackers podcast. I'm your host Max. And today I'm honored and pleased to welcome on the show Miss Mary Meston from Concentrix. Mary, welcome to the show.


Mary: Thank you, Max. Thanks for inviting me. I'm happy to be here.


Max: Great to have you. So Mary is the VP for talent management at Concentrix. Concentrix is currently part of the Synnex group, but they're separating at the moment. I hope I'm not divulging any confidential information.


Mary: No, you're not. It is public knowledge and we've reported out, and the board recently approved that. So we're still projecting we're about a month out from spinning out and being on our own and being our own entity. And we are gonna miss Synnex. We're still very, very close, but we're all very excited.


Max: And you were together for a couple of years only?


Mary: No, Synnex actually, if you look at where Concentrix came from, it's been out for 16 years. It was a small little group. Concentrix has grown by acquisition. Substantially. And now we are substantially a large player in the industry, quite a large player, and absolutely would like to be on our own. And it just makes business sense. You know?


Max: Well, It is indeed a huge company. I am today working with some of your entities, but I understand Concentrix globally is, well, over 200,000 headcount, maybe 300,000, maybe more.


Mary: We're North of 250,000 right now. And with you helping us there in, certain divisions could be 260 for all I know right now.


Max: Yeah. It changes every day. And then certainly around this time of year there is always a big ramp up before the Christmas holiday, lots of hiring going on. But you're not in those trenches anymore Mary, I think that our audience will get something a little bit different today. Mary is working more on the executive development and talent management at the executive level at the moment. Well, tell us a little bit more about your role in Concentrix.


Mary: I'd love to thank you. Yes. I've been in the recruitment trenches. It was called recruitment then, and now it's talent acquisition. So that ages me quite a bit.


Max: You were saying head hunting before.


Mary: I know head hunting. I think about that now it's like, so politically not correct. Right?


Max: It used to be fun. We used to take our rifles and go out and hunt for heads.


Mary: That's a really aggressive talent acquisition strategy, right? Yeah, I progressed through all of the focuses in HR. I mean, I started as a benefits clerk, a payroll clerk, actually moved into recruiting and helped establish a number of firms many moons ago. Some of the first, software development firms and actually H1B hiring and really focusing on that. I worked in California, and progressed through all the phases and all the functions in HR and I really love the fact that I've been able to bring all that together and really we're focused now with our executive set. Really working on optimizing our talent because as we all know how difficult it is to find that right person, let's talk about time, process, costs, all of that. Once you have them, you don't want to lose them. Right? And it's really important to continue to develop them. Not only helps employee engagement, but that helps move a company forward. Right? If you can grow all those quote unquote human assets, it helps the company move forward. And that's one of the levers in our innovation. Is grow your talent!


Max: It can be so heartbreaking as a business owner when you lose a top talent. And I'm sure it's heartbreaking even if you're not the business owner, the heads-up, you've got somebody who you've invested so much time that leaves, you know, I'm now in my forties, but 20 years ago, I remember thinking my allegiance is to my career and I need to keep moving. Every two, three years, go get another job, expose myself to something new and keep growing.


And I think studies have been made that that's one way to optimize for salary growth, especially at the early stages of your career. But now I have a bit of a different perspective where I think, you know, life is too short to be sending out resumes every two years. What do you think about sort of job mobility for people as they get to maybe the middle of their career or their golden years?


Mary: Hopefully the middle isn't the golden years now, because come on the new 40 is 60, so let's move the scale up. Yeah, I think about it very much. You have spoken about the time in one's career and what the best strategy is, and it is very true. I did this one in my younger days, to jump every two to three years. Some of it, I lived in the Silicon Valley and worked in the Silicon Valley during the dot com days. And if your company wasn't purchased or purchasing someone every two years, you know, that provided that career growth, that career jump. And that was really a strategy.


I too am a believer. Mid-career when you kind of top out and we have a really solid set of expertise, then it's great to find a place where you can grow and grow with the company and grow that expertise with the company. And not necessarily just look for the next, you know, 5% increase. There's much more of a different strategy. And then when I talk with people early in their careers, they're in a learning stage. So you're learning, growing, get what I can, let's move on. If I'm not getting the growth, I'm going to jump!


Then there is the kind of mid career people. I call it the listening stage. As where you start listening to yourself, as well as listening to those you work with. So it's the listening leader approach. It's key to being a really successful leader. Being able to hear others be collaborative and to be very self-aware.


And then there's the capstone of your career. I call it the legacy and that's what I work with really senior executives, not necessarily just in age, but in career. Where they're like, I want to leave something behind. What does that look like? And in working with senior executives that are at that stage, and it's not necessarily an age issue, but it is more about what they feel they've accomplished. That's where it's really a great time to work with senior executives to that's where they're, I want to leave an innovation. I want to change something up. I want to make a difference, you know, and that's, it's a great place to, at least for me to spend with these senior leaders, because there's, that's where some of the most influential, even simple decisions are made.


Max: That legacy translates. I often imagine an ideology, like a vision that they want to materialize.


Mary: Absolutely. You're in a longer time to learn your skill set and you've performed and you know what you do. What do I want to leave that's beyond me? Being an ideology, an impact, and innovation. I know p...