The Importance of Networking and The True Benefit

Don’t miss this amazing conversation with Kristin Gupta, a professional networker, recruiter, and connector of people. Kristin is the founder of Defining Leaders a place for people to come together to collaborate and connect as people in order to grow as leaders. Kristin saw a need and was able to fill that gap. Join our conversation as we talk about the art of networking and the importance of genuine relationships. 

 

Leighann Lovely  00:20

HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:09

Welcome to another season of Let's Talk HR - Humanizing the Conversation. I'm so excited to have Kristin Gupta join me today. She has been an executive recruiter for over a decade now. And if there's one thing she has certainly learned through her time in the industry, the best way to find great opportunity is through networking. As a recruiter, a network enthusiast a coach, a speaker and a business culture fantastic. She loves growing her network and helping others do so as well. As an executive recruiter specializing in HR leadership. She has the opportunity to impact companies by helping them find their people leader. The person that keeps the ship moving takes care of employees and ensures business can be done because the right people are in the right seats with what they need to get the job done. As a speaker, coach networker and connection enthusiast, she believes that we can enjoy what we do it work and home, and we can find fulfilment in our careers, not just work for a paycheck. She believes that we all need to continually work on being better leaders, and creating a community of leaders. That is why in 2020, she created Defining Leaders, a community with the purpose to connect leaders and allow them to know one another. On a more personal basis. This group is about learning from each other. And a place where people can collaborate. they curate topics that inspire and drive one another to beat the best version of themselves. They meet on Wednesday at noon on Zoom to share their thoughts on leadership, this platform has become a place for growth as they believe together as better Anyone is welcome to join if you want to be a better leader, and this is going to be a fun conversation. Welcome Kristin, I am so excited to talk with you today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

 

Kistin Gupta  03:05

You too Leighann. You know, we've known each other's podcasts for so long. And we've known each other for so long. And I we keep we kept bumping back into each other which I loved because people kept saying we add you have to talk to Kristen and Kristen, you have to talk to Leanne. So now that we're finally on this together, it's it's like okay, this is finally happening. And it should have happened a while ago.

 

Leighann Lovely  03:28

Yes, it is very exciting.

 

Kistin Gupta  03:30

Yeah, so I am also a recruiter like Leighann, and my specialty is in the HR space. So I help companies, I call it my day job. And then I have a fly by night Batman job that my kids call it. But in my day job, I work for a recruitment firm called LHH, where recruit for HR professionals, especially at the executive level. And then at night, not actually at night, but also during the day, I helped to develop people because one of the things that I noticed is that so many of our companies don't have the inner capability to really work on developing leaders within their company, especially in EQ. We work a lot on EQ in our defining Leaders Group. Unfortunately, not everybody's available to come and meet us on Wednesdays at noon. So we decided to create a podcast with some of the learnings that we have from those defining leader sessions. So we talk about things that are tough, we get deep we get vulnerable and talk about things that really matter to developing yourself professionally for all

 

Leighann Lovely  04:38

That's awesome that's in your right not all too often. We don't spend enough time working on ourselves. When when we need to we need to continuously try to level up and try to and not just try to level up it's it's more sometimes it It's more just taking a step back and taking a look, you know, on a mental health or on a, you know, just leveling your own brain out to take a deep breath and make sure that you're doing everything that you need to do to keep yourself sane, I guess would be the word right.

 

Kistin Gupta  05:21

Even can be actually talks about this quite a bit in in his seventh habit, which is sharpen the saw. And how many people don't take the time to practice the seventh habit? Because they're too busy cutting down trees with adult blade. Right, right. Yeah, how often are we so busy cutting down trees with adult blade that we don't take that second to sit and sharpen our saw, and then realize how much faster we can cut down those trees. But I'm too busy to do it. Right?

 

Leighann Lovely  05:50

You know what I say that to my husband all the time will recommend. And I bring this up because you know, I see your little one unit running behind you and my little one, right before we started talking. I say this all the time, when we're struggling with behavioral things with my child, my husband will say hey, I listened to this awesome podcast about parenting and I'll say, Oh, I just don't have time for that.

 

Kistin Gupta  06:17

And why don't we have time for it? Because we're not listening to the podcast about parenting.

 

Leighann Lovely  06:21

Right? And then, you know, he looks at me and he goes, you know, as she's acting out, and he goes, you know, the podcasts that I listened to, and I'm like, Oh, okay. Okay. And really, really, it's, it's extremely important. Like, in order to be a completely whole person, you need to you need to take care of your yourself in all aspects, professionally, mental, mental wellness, as well as the home life in order to be a whole person. Right. I mean, it's so yeah, I mean, that's, it's we too often forget to what you were saying sharpen the saw. And it's not just professionally, it's it's everywhere, but definitely professionally. So. And I'm, I am a lifelong learner. I love to continue to learn new things. But it's, it is often that sometimes they forget to take a deep look at myself in the mirror and you realize, especially when you work remote, oh my god, I haven't taken a shower in two days. Did I just say that out loud? Okay, moving on from that. Yeah.

 

Kistin Gupta  07:37

And you're talking about two days, sometimes. It can be up to a week. First day that I took a shower last week,

 

Leighann Lovely  07:48

what do you what do you love it? Was it? Oh, that's a week. You know, I was talking to my brother the other day. And he said the same thing. He goes, my wife will look at me and go. When was the last time you changed? or shower?

 

Kistin Gupta  08:05

I think this is a COVID issue though, too, because so many of us in professional roles. We started working from home and when you work from home and you don't go anywhere. It happens, right? Our dress code is leggings and T shirts. Yep. Instead of what we used to wear to the office. I don't think any of those clothes exists in my closet now that we've done the purge.

 

Leighann Lovely  08:27

By Yeah, all of my business suits moved into the spare bedroom. And then slowly, I needed space and I went wind do I wear it? Like, do I ever wear these? I'm like, I think I need to get rid of them. And this slowly, they just kept like, Oh, this one's cute. Maybe I should keep it in eventually. I think I have like three or four just just in case when I mean, I used to have an entire wardrobe. Right? Exactly. You know, like a month's worth of business suits. Exactly. Yeah. So much wasted money. So

 

Kistin Gupta  09:08

go ahead, man. What were you gonna say?

 

Leighann Lovely  09:11

Well, I was just gonna say so why don't why don't we talk a little bit about you know, what you do for your, your, your day job. And then we'll talk a little bit more about your your night job you're fly by. You're so funny because I was Batman job. Yes, you can. Yes. So, you know, obviously the recruiting the hiring world has, like you said, you know, pandemic, everything, you know, things have drastically changed. And if I were to go back to when I first started in this industry, obviously things change year by year. We're used to it slowly changing. But we've experienced, you know, just change that sped up a great deal. because of what we experienced during the pandemic, what are you seeing?

 

Kistin Gupta  10:08

In 2021, one of the things that we saw was this uptick in hiring that was expected by economists for a really long time. And that expectation was because baby boomers are starting to retire in droves. And the next generations to take over rule, literally less people than those that were retiring. So the backfill replacements were less than the job openings. And the economists had been warning us for a while that this was going, that this was coming that this was coming in 2020 Through it all for a loop. I think that that was a really interesting time for a lot of people, which caused some wage gap issues, when those that were moving, were asking and able to get 20, 30, 40% bumps in order to move and sometimes expecting it. When students that were graduating from school were expecting, instead of what you and I maybe graduated with maybe 50 to $60,000, outside of school, and that was a really good wage now demanding 70 and getting it right when hiring from the from university or from school. And then 2022 had been a continuation of that. But now here's what's interesting is, there's also massive layoffs happening in the entire country. And in the past, these massive layoffs have always happened. And a lot of people don't realize this. But it's different now. Because we know about it, because it's publicized. And it's not just publicized by the news. It's publicized by the people that are getting laid off. And a lot of us, like candidates especially are feeling this sense of uncertainty. Why should I leave something that I feel secure? And that I feel sure in for something that I might get laid off? Or what is this industry really going through? Right? By the way, here's just a word word of advice, their massive layoffs have always happened, right? It's just more public now. And you're hearing it over and over and over again, from all these different places, there is still still a talent shortage, that's not going away anytime in the near future, the next five to 10 years minimum, we're going to be facing this. And so me and you and I are very much in need. And in demand recruiters are needed right now. And I hope for those of you that are recruiters and wondering, like, yes, we're very much needed right now. But also, there are less people for the jobs that are out there, even when we hear this bad news. So it's worth keeping your ear open. It's worth looking at what else is out there. And it's also worth seeing if there might be a better culture or if there might be a better opportunity for creating it internally.

 

Leighann Lovely  13:01

So that's what I'm saying. And it's it's so interesting that you you know, you're completely right, layoffs have I mean, businesses, depending on depending on the economy. And it's funny, because even during the pandemic, there were some businesses that thrived. They were hiring like crazy. They, they were thriving, they did amazing, they did better during the pandemic than they had ever done. So no matter what the state of the economy, there are always going to be businesses that are hiring, it may not be something that's in your area of expertise. Now, I'm not saying that the pandemic didn't cause, you know, mostly mayhem and mass quantities of people to to lose their jobs, because that's what it I mean, that's what it did. We shut down we literally shut down the world. But even during that time, there were still businesses that had no choice but to continue to run, because they were essential. Businesses, right. And so you make a valid point about layoffs continuing to, you know, they've always happened. And, yeah, people just didn't notice. But this is the world of social media. This is the world of pretty much laying your entire life out on. Online. We know.

 

Kistin Gupta  14:19

More importantly than us judging ourselves against that social media and having it be our truth, when it's only a partial truth. And so many of us don't like it's hard to disconnect ourselves and realize that that's just a partial truth and not the full truth. We judge whether or not we should look at for a job against massive layoffs happening in California. Does that really affect you here are massive layoffs happening in Texas, and in a different industry than yours, right? Not really going to affect how you look at things, but it does affect how you perceive right So I found that to be really impactful is to understand this is my perception right now, because this is all I can see.

 

Leighann Lovely  15:08

Right. And, and when you say here, here for us is, is Wisconsin. So you, you know, information is is only as good as, you know, the whole picture, I guess, I mean is probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But it's it's, it's all relative to where you're at I mean, where you're at if you're getting information from Yeah, the state of Wisconsin, but you live in California or vice versa. It it doesn't mean anything unless you're, you're getting the whole picture. Absolutely.

 

Kistin Gupta  15:44

Right. One other point that I want to make here, too, is some some of our listeners might be thinking because they're working in their day job, and they're not happy in their day job right now, as by the way that's true for 80% of people, unfortunately, is that they're not happy in their day job, because they're not getting the development, they're not getting that fulfillment that they really want to get. And the expectation is often if I leave this job, the grass must be greener on the other side. Or if I were to find a different company, it must be better there. Sometimes we actually have to look internal a little bit and see, how can I make this better. And so one of the things that we talk a lot about in our leadership development courses, is victimhood is when you look at everything that's going on around you, and saying it's because of that, or it's because of them, we we played the Day card a lot. They should be better at this. We're in the face right now of your interviews, or in our reviews right now. And a lot of our companies, and I put up some polls and that type of thing. And what a lot of our and a poll that we put out there is is the annual review, keep robust? Is it something that we should continue to do? Or is it something that we should get rid of? And 72% of respondents said, Yes, we need to keep it. But 46% of respondents said we need to keep it but it needs to be better. When I asked the question, how do we make it better? 2% of people responded. So how do we make it better? Let's not say they anymore, right? Let's, I can do this? Right? Once we take that power, we'll find something interesting. And that is that our job does get better. Your relationships get better, that we find fulfillment, as long as we continue to play that they card will always be the victim, the grass will never be greener, no matter how many times we move.

 

Leighann Lovely  17:47

Right. And, and we also have a generation of of individuals. You know who you are, that, that that believe, you know, that they believe they're entitled to it's the entitlement, I'm entitled to this. And they should be giving this and providing this to me. And, unfortunately, because of and I don't want to say it's the entire I hate grouping. I really dislike grouping an entire generation. There's there's always exceptions to the rule. But for the most part, the way that you know, certain generations have been deemed there has been a group now that have, you know, that entitlement piece, and part of this whole cultural shift, because of the pandemic and companies realizing that it's time for them and try and figure out how to say this without saying they are them or but no, it's

 

Kistin Gupta  19:02

It's a hard language shift.

 

Leighann Lovely  19:04

Yeah. But it's time time for all of us to start putting in effort to change the way that we are at work, right. And it takes it it takes, obviously senior leadership to to really start to implement that. But it takes buy in from everybody. I think the newest generation coming in is going to be the true advocates for that. I mean, they they truly are the pushers of that.

 

Kistin Gupta  19:38

I'm glad that you brought up the generational piece, man because we've done some study on this as a group as well. And it's actually the reason why defining leaders, the podcast and the leadership development group that I run continues to exist today. And that is this generational gap in a way and we talked about this When when we talked about recruiting and what the world of HR looks like today and this need for talent, why is this talent gap here? I get this question I'm sure you do every day. Why can't I find anyone? Why does no one want to go back to work? Or Why does no one want to work? That's not actually the case. There are a lot of people that want to work. But the truth is, there's less workers than people retiring right now, literally less numbers of people that are in the workforce today than were in the workforce yesterday. And therefore, there's a gap. And economists have known this happening for a while. But therefore, there is a gap in how many employees to fill seats,

 

Leighann Lovely  20:46

Wasn't there? What is there, like average household number of babies being born is like 1.4, something,

 

Kistin Gupta  20:54

Two and a half, six years ago, right? And before that,

 

Leighann Lovely  20:57

it was like 3.5, or something like that, or 3.8.

 

Kistin Gupta  21:03

My grandparents farming age, it was like 3.5, and my grandparents filled right with 10. Growth household, right. But there are less babies being born today. Right? Then you are born before. And we're 30 years after certain things happen in the world. Already? Actually, no, we're beyond that. After certain things happen in the world where less babies could be born. Right? So what's happening is, less seats are able to be filled, because there's less people to fill them. Right. A couple other things are happening. The baby boomers that are retiring felt lucky to have a job and they had loyalty, not just because they're a generation known for loyalty. But because there was more competition for spots being filled. Right. In other words, they were lucky to have their job and were less likely to move because it was a higher risk move. The next generations after that are more likely to move because their seats open. Right? We all know that seat hog are in the game of it's not merry go round. But what it what does that game where you always take the away. Chair, musical chairs, musical chairs, that like sits in every single seat, and maybe they're gonna win the game. That's unfortunately, the baby boomer generation to degree is they never get out of their seat because they're afraid that if I get out, I won't find another seat. The three generations after that don't have that fear. Because that seats still exists.

 

Leighann Lovely  22:43

Right? So what's wildly interesting is that there was a time when we implemented the, you know, the AI the, you know, technology came and baby boomers, and I'm actually I don't know, if it was baby boomers or it was baby boomers started getting extremely nervous about the idea that robots were going to take away their jobs. And there was going to be no work left for humans that that. Right. Do you I mean, do you remember hearing about obviously, I was not. I was really little. I was really little at this time. But it was this this huge, like fear based, oh, my gosh, technology is going to take away all of our jobs. And what happened was the opposite. It created more jobs, because now we have to have somebody to create the technology write the code, in order to create all of these different things. So we've actually created more jobs with less people.

 

Kistin Gupta  22:46

Enlisted for many years to the cotton gin, simple machines, that type of thing. I'm sure there was always about every generation looked at the next and looked at every single technology advancement. And we're like this is going to take away jobs, right? What it often does not always, but what it often does is it creates better quality, higher level jobs for people where you might need a little bit more training, you might need a little bit more development in order to get into these skilled jobs, like CNC machinists, which are really hard to find. So if you're looking for a field to go into CNC machining would be right field.

 

Leighann Lovely  24:38

And that brings up another thing is that for the longest time, it was especially in during the time that I was coming up or growing up, it was you have to go to college, you have to get a four year degree, otherwise you're not going to be able to find a job. So that created another gap in our economy, which was the the To the machinists, I mean all of the the, the labor gap right? So now you have all of these these parents pushing their kids to you have to go to college, or you're not going to be able to find a good paying job. And I don't know that people realize that a, a highly skilled CNC machinist makes a very, very good living. And if you I mean the other thing that I truly believe was a major mistake is that they got rid of, you know, in, not internships apprenticeships, apprenticeships, apprenticeships now there are companies out there still doing apprenticeships, but very, very few other countries, they still do apprenticeships. This country.

 

Kistin Gupta  25:52

I love this story, Leighann, I'm going to bring it up all the time on so many different podcasts. Adrienne Warner is the one that shared this story with me. And he was an engineering executive exiting GE at the time. He talked about a UK company and I can't remember the name of the company right now, who hires 150 interns a year into their internship program. By the way, they only convert two of those interns into employees. Wow, whatever. What do they do with the other 148? They have an internal placement system where they find positions for them in their vendors, companies? Oh my gosh, this has existed for over 100 years. That's amazing reasons why we won the World War was because they could come up with better quality planes faster. Why? Because when your supply chain makes sense, it's easier to get things out the door. Those of you in supply chain, we know what supply chain issues do to us today. Anybody tried to buy a car lately? Right? But when your supply chain makes sense, and when you have people internally in your supply chain that are big fans of your company, things go smoother. Right? So again, a great resource here is are you developing people? Are you developing your vendors? Are you developing your acolytes the people that really look up to what you do as an organization?

 

Leighann Lovely  27:23

You know, and that's interesting that you bring that up, are you developing your acolytes are you developing that is, you know, this, the number one way to damage your organization is to have somebody that you somebody at your company that that is mistreated, that is out there, bad talking your company, right? You're You're destroying your brand, you're, you want to hire people and keep people become the amazing brand. That company, I guarantee had no problem filling 150 spots for that internship program. Because, in turn, they turned around and got those people jobs. And then they were I mean, talked about nonstop about oh my gosh, how great is this company, I'm sure that they had massive loyalty by their vendors, they had massive loyalty by every single person they worked at, simply by running that program. And what a benefit to that company for having those. They have people who are working for them and learning from them. You want to create an amazing culture, treat your people awesome. And they will be out in the world, selling your product or singing your praises, and becoming acolytes for your company. And I don't, I don't understand why companies don't get this, you treat your employees like shit and they're going to be out there bad talking you and you're going to lose customers. And it is way harder to make your brand or reestablish or fix your brand than it is to just keep it going well from the beginning, it's a lot less expensive.

 

Kistin Gupta  29:12

So this is both from a company and a personal perspective to right. I want to tell you a little bit of a story about myself here. I wanted to specialize in executive level recruitment. I've been with my company now for 11 years. And I wanted to bring my level up from recruiting for everything like a generalist recruiter to recruiting sea level executives primarily. And so one of the things that I decided to do in order to do that was to help my executive level candidates land well, even if I couldn't place them, what do they need to do to land well, and I also know this and so do you, Lian. Often the best way to land well is through networking, and most people suck at it. Really, really suck at it. So why don't I introduce my candidate? As to each other, and they'll help each other and then they'll land. And there'll be what my husband lovingly refers to as Christian knights, or people that are acolytes of Christian Gupta, right. And so I started this group of my executive level candidates networking with one another. And then guess what happened. COVID happened, that we started this in March of 2020. Oh, God moment happened. I looked at the world and I looked at what was going on. And I was like, I have this great group. I can't just limit this to executives, I need to help people, because this is happening to everyone in the world today. And I could look at the world and say, this sucks, or I could do something about it, I want to do something about it. And so I opened up this group, I created two different levels, one for executives, because it does make sense for executives to network with executives, and then one for everyone. And that every one group turned into the thing that I spend the majority of my time and energy and effort on today, because it's so beautiful. But we had over 1000 people in 2020, come to one of our networking events, wow, 1000 people, and over 900 of them landed. Wow. The other account 100 landed in 2021. So 100% of them landed. But we had some people come through their land, that were looking for a job for one year for two years that were looking for a job for eight months that weren't sure how they were going to put food on the on the table for their family, and found some solutions through that. But also, what has that done for me, since it's paid off in spades. It didn't do it for what it could do to pay off. But I saw what was wrong. And I decided to do something about it. Right? How often do we see what's wrong? And then just see what's wrong, or complaint. Right, right. But you can do something little about things to which you and I are both doing one to this podcast that you do. Getting the word out there letting HR know that you're not alone in this, yes, we're all facing this too. You're not in this alone. Having that sense of community is so important. Right? Right. And for me getting my candidates together, and they refer me to business all the time I barely have to sell at this point is, is beautiful,

 

Leighann Lovely  32:19

Right. And that's, I think that you hit it on the head, the most important thing. And it's not just, it's not just HR, it's not just in any business is the community that you surround yourself with, whether that be just the community at your individual company, but it I think that's what we all are truly looking for in a job, right. And you hope that when you accept a job, that that is that that's going to become your people, that's going to become your community. And by the way, you gave me goosebumps when you were telling me that story because it's it's beautiful. It's absolutely amazing what you what you do and how you help people. But the goal that we all I think most people I shouldn't say we all most people have is to find their, you know, find the right bus, and then hopefully find the right seat on that bus. And then have an awesome community of people that we can be part of. And for us serial networkers, our community of people or, you know, the people that we choose to, to surround ourselves with, you know, I have a wide variety of people that I mean, they're definitely my people I fit in I'm, I refer business, they refer business, and I've found my home with that community. And don't get me wrong, I have a variety of different communities within. But, I mean

 

Kistin Gupta  33:59

One of our presidents have rightly quoted this, okay, I'm gonna wrongly quote it because I don't remember which president said it, but don't ask what your country can do for you. But ask what you can do for your country. The thing that people look at wrong about networking, is they expect their network to work for them before they realize I have to work for my network. And so it's reverse. It's reverse thinking here.

 

Leighann Lovely  34:24

Yes, absolutely. And I, I was told when I first started networking, go in there and get as many business cards as you can, and don't come back out until you have a sale. And when I first started networking, I was like, God, I hate this. This is like the worst thing that I have to do. I don't know what I'm doing. I was I was just, I was like a fish out of water. I was floundering around just running around a room handing out my business card to trying to do my 22nd 32nd elevator pitch and I'm like, Why is nobody wanted to Talk to me. And then. So one day, I just got myself a drink. And I just stood at the bar and somebody approached me and they started talking to me. And I was just like, Screw it. I'm just gonna sit here and socialize. And all of the sudden, I started making friends. And I'm like, oh, like, Okay, fine. I'm just gonna make some friends today. And it started to dawn on me that

 

Kistin Gupta  35:21

That's not working.

 

Leighann Lovely  35:24

This is this is actually reading and writing. Right now, people want to actually set up a follow up meeting to learn more about what I do and who I am. And this is obviously years ago. And it dawned on me that maybe I was told to you know how to do this the wrong way. And so I completely changed the approach. And once I figured it out, and once I stepped into me, because it took me a while to truly and I think some professionals, it takes a little while for you to truly step into your whole self, right. And with, with the onset of the pandemic, I think there were a lot of people that just finally stepped into who they truly were. And once I did that, it was a game changer. Authenticity is a game changer. People want to know, you people want relationships, people buy from who they like, people ask advice from who they trust. And I know that people come to you, they trust, they like you. They come to me. That is the whole entire difference. But I also ask nothing of them ever,

 

Kistin Gupta  36:49

Right? Not doing something because the expectation is I will receive something, it's doing something for the sake of helping someone. Right, right? Again, ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country right now you can do for your country, therefore your country will pay you. Right? What's in what's so interesting is when you do that fully, and you do something for others, you feel fulfillment, before you even get anything out of it, right? Because the giving of the gift is the thing that makes you feel good right now is not even the receiving but it's the giving in which that feeling is there.

 

Leighann Lovely  37:33

And I found myself more frequently trying to find ways to help my network. Yeah, because I'm at home. What if I could connect those two people? Would that make sense? No, probably not. And I'm like, why am I going? Why am I going out of my way to do this? And it's like, because it becomes almost an addiction of, of how can I help more? How can I do more.

 

Kistin Gupta  38:03

I still remember Leighann, and I'm so grateful that I did this, because it came back to me years later, even the first person that I set up with a mentor. So Shane Bonner, is a wonderful human being. And I did not know him well. But when I met him, he was the president at a company. He'd only been there three months. And I was helping him with his HR need. And I asked for a tour of the manufacturing floor, when I'm helping him with an HR manager that's sitting in a nice office next day is when he's like, Oh, that's a wonderful idea. Idea. Let me take you on a walk. And he knew the first name and something about every single employee on that floor. And I was impressed, because he'd only been there a short number of months. And you could tell that he's out there every single day. And you can also tell by the way his employees interacted with him, that he's not out there as the president lording over you. He's out there as How can I help you as a servant leader, and it stuck with me? So a year later, when I met someone like him that was burgeoning in their career, he was a business unit manager within manufacturing. And I was like, You remind me of Shane. I made the introduction. I've never done this before. But I was like, I feel like I need to introduce the two of you. And so I did. And he Shane mentored this individual for a year. Oh, wow. Three years later, his wife joined my board of directors to run one of the executive level groups that I run, and she provided so much great insight. She became a speaker for our organization. And it was just such a great opportunity to see how it pays back in dividends. On the back end, did I enter into that relationship? Knowing that this is going to happen, no. Did it feel good to see the fruits of that labor years later?

 

Leighann Lovely  40:06

Absolutely. Right. Right. And that has happened to me, throughout the years where, you know, a connection happens, where you're just like, oh my gosh, if I would not have done this, this never would have happened. And it's amazing. We live in a, in a huge world, a gigantic world. But I truly, truly, truly believe. I guess to put it simply, I believe in karma 100%, what you do, does come back to you one way or another, the people you run into today, you have no idea how that or how you influence them, could eventually come back to influence you a year from now 10 years from now. So hey, just think about the next time you're having an interaction with somebody, you know, is it compassion? Is it empathy that you need to remember to use because you have no idea one, what's going on in their lives. And now I'm kind of putting on my HR hat. You know, when you're dealing with employees to you know, you know, be careful, you have no idea what's going on in their lives, and you have no idea what the future holds on an interaction that happens today, and how that might influence your life down the line. And I've had it happen multiple times where something that happened years ago comes back and I'm like, wow, how could this possibly have I've come full circle like this. And that, that's amazing. It's an amazing story. It's just, but that that is such as the world and it's, I shouldn't say it's such as the world, because I believe that you have you have the power to influence your surroundings. And I just, I truly believe in being a genuine good person. You know, there are there are assholes out there that we have to, you know, and they're found out but you know, I truly believe that people who who run their lives and live their lives with true good intent. They have good things happen.

 

Kistin Gupta  42:30

It's easy when life is easy. Yeah. When things are. It's real hard when things aren't good. Right? Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  42:37

I know. But at the, into the

 

Kistin Gupta  42:39

Victimhood, it's so easy to slip back into. It's all their faults, and now owning our truth, and not owning. So we're not saying that this is easy, no,

 

Leighann Lovely  42:49

but usually hard for me is the other way. But having people like you, and networks, makes it easier to stay accountable. And be reminded

 

Kistin Gupta  43:04

In our community to remind us.

 

Leighann Lovely  43:07

Yes, Oh, God, yes. What Christian, we are coming to time, if somebody wanted to reach out to you for help with employment or help with filling jobs, or they wanted to learn more about your podcast. How would they go about doing that?

 

43:24

There aren't a whole lot of Kristin Gupta's out there in the world. Yet. When I got married to my husband, I was the second Kristin Gupta that I could find when you googled it when I googled myself, so you can find my LinkedIn profile. You can also email me at Kristen that gupta@lhh.com l H H stands for Lee Hecht, Harrison and Kristen by the way I spelled the right way. Which is k r i s t i n for those of you that spell en ny n and every other which way you're okay to we are all the same family. That's Kristin.Gupta@lhh.com. And for more info on our Defining Leaders Group, you can go to Kristinadvising.com.

 

Leighann Lovely  44:17

Thank you. Excellent. And I have one more question Question of the season and you did not get a preview of this question. I am sorry I normally give previous. So the question that I am asking everybody this season if there is one thing that you could change about your job, if anything, what would it be?

 

Kistin Gupta  44:39

I love my job and love what I do. That's a really good question then and I will say I wish I'd had this sooner.

 

Leighann Lovely  44:51

That's awesome. I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. So for you out there who are considering jumping into a recruitment job. Hey, maybe the grass is greener awesome. Kristen, thank you so very much for talking with me today.

 

Kistin Gupta  45:09

Thank you. Yeah, great conversation.

 

Leighann Lovely  45:12

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day

 

Contact Info -

 

LinkedIN – linkedin.com/in/kristin-gupta

 

E-mail - Kristin.Gupta@lhh.com

 

Website - kristinadvising.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, company, job, pandemic, business, talk, massive layoffs, employees, years, hr, gupta, executive, happened, kristin, acolytes, hiring, generations, world, podcast, leaders

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