Breaking Barriers: Pioneering Gender Equity in AI – Tech.Strong.Women. EP 24

Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Techstrong Women, where we feature amazing women doing amazing things in tech. I'm Jody Ashley, executive producer here at Techstrong, and I'm here with my co-host, Tracy Reagan, creator, and c e o of Deploy Hub.

Hey, Tracy, what's on your mind today? Hey, Jody. Well, you know, I'm always thinking, I'm always reading articles on, um, ai.

It's an area I've always been interested in, and one came up last week, and then when I, I realized who our guest was gonna be today, I dug it up. Um, it's an interesting topic because it is written, um, it comes from a website called DI Leaders, and the title of the article is, could Artificial Intelligence Help D and I Achieve Its Goals? And of course, that attracted my attention and reading through it.

Um, one of the individuals that they interviewed who happens to be the Chief Innovation Officer at Manpower Group, and I believe his name is, uh, said Dr. Thomas Camaro Prussic, he talks about, uh, how artifi show intelligence after we begin being able to gather data. Data is always the issue.

And I always tell people data, data, data, but if we begin gathering the data and being able to actually evaluate everybody's role in an organization, then it becomes more democratized. Because instead of having somebody who looks like you and you promote them for that reason, or you have befriended somebody who is a upper level person because you're going out golfing with them or whatever it might be, it's the data that, that, that brings forward the talent. And I found this to be a fascinating topic, and he talks about, um, like Uber, how with Uber, it's your customers who are rating you.

So you are, you're, you're basically, basically being promoted based on the data. And more and more companies are looking at how to use that data to track how efficient somebody is, how much work somebody completes, which might be hard to do, but in an AI world, it's possible using diagnostic tools if we have the data. So I felt it was a really interesting article around diversity and inclusion.

They interviewed several individuals on the topic, and all of them agree that gathering this kind of data and evaluating people on this kind of data would be a good thing. I'm sure we can have a conversation, um, about how there could be bad things about it, but all in all, it seems like, you know, a work, a job well done, always sh it should always be recognized. And I know it's not that way in corporate America today.

So maybe we have a future where a work well done is going to be acknowledged because we have AI diagnostic tools raising the flag and saying, Hey, this person's doing a really good job. And those people will get promoted as opposed to others. So just something to think about.

Tracy, I I love that you chose Tomas to pull that article. You may or may not know this about me, but I spent 22 years of my career at Manpower Group. I did know that.

That's why I dug out, that's Why she grabbed it. I just read it last week. I literally saw this last week, and I used to be at, during college.

I was a, a Remedy temporary sales rep. So coming, coming from Manpower, I was, and then I saw your resume, and of course I had to, I had to dig that article up. It's a really good article.

It's a very interesting read. So everybody, before we get going, I wanna introduce Paula Lib. Um, she jumped right in, which I love, and we're very excited to have her.

Please continue your thought, Paula. Yeah, so, um, tomos is brilliant and I love that he always brings interesting aspects, um, to, to fruition, to, to get people to think about things differently, especially hot topics like AI where there's a lot of concern around de and i around AI as, as in general. And I've been on a lot of shows recently and, and had a lot of opportunities to talk about the fact that there was concerned about gender bias because many of our developers in the AI space were, were men.

And so were we adding enough female thought leadership so that I AI could be more gender neutral and ensure that we were putting the female voice. So I love when we, and I, I do think that's a risk. So I will just candidly say, yeah, that's a risk of course.

But with all emerging technologies, I think there are risks and there are rewards, and Tomas definitely has, um, tapped in on one where there is a reward. There can be ways to use AI in a positive way and to kinda get some gender neutrality on really performance evaluation of staff and using great data analytics. Um, because oftentimes that's hard to measure.

So I don't think it's perfect yet, but I do think it can absolutely assist us in the future going forward. Um, the other thing I'll say is I think women have a tendency for newer technologies, especially like this, where it could be around language or it could be around writing or art. You have more female consumers or women that are consuming the AI products that are out there today, which I love, which I always believe when you see that in technology, especially emerging technologies, you tend to see women, um, migrate towards those jobs.

So it gives me a lot of, um, optimism to think that we'll see a lot more women technologists in the AI space because of them consuming the space. So, uh, rapidly since it's been kind of mainstream. Well, and to your point, it's so important that we really think about that.

The, the diversity part and equity and inclusion early it's part, it's my daughter's an actor, and one of the things that film industry, because they're going on strike, is they're concerned about how AI is going to impact them as an industry. And the the industry's saying, ah, it's not even happening yet. And they're saying, yeah, exactly the point.

We wanna keep it from happening, so we wanna talk about it. So I love the idea that we really need to be, let's do it from the beginning. Let's get everyone involved, women, everyone that's diverse, and, and start that way so that we're not, you know, behind the curve.

Like we always are behind the ball on this stuff, right? We're trying to fix it later. Absolutely.

Paula, tell us about yourself, um, what you're passionate about, what you're up to. We'd love to hear all that. Well, Thank you, Jody.

So, um, like I said, I spent 22 years of my career at Manpower Group, and it was amazing, um, great corporate environment, but a Fortune 500 headquartered in the Midwest. And as you can imagine, um, you know, there was a lot of diversity challenges, mostly a lot of males at the exec executive level. Um, a lot of females in the industry and in their organization, but they were middle management.

And as I continued to push my way up the ladder, I found myself often in a room, primarily surrounded by men. Um, they're making huge strides. I love their c e o, um, Jonas ing, he put out an initiative of, I, gosh, 10 years ago to get 50% of women on their board and 50% of women in executive leadership roles.

So there are making strides, but I spent a lot of my career in environments like a lot of women where, you know, your voice wasn't heard, or if it was heard, it was certainly more celebrated if the idea, uh, in a executive forum came from one of your male colleagues. So for a variety of reasons, during the pandemic, we were all off the road. I wasn't traveling.

And in my role there, I did travel extensively and I just did a lot of soul searching, what is it I wanna do? Um, and, and really felt like I wanted more purposeful work. I wanted something with a mission.

I went into staffing to change people's lives, which they do every day. I had elevated my career to, I wasn't as close to it. And so I had this amazing opportunity to come and really co-found and start, um, kind of restart a brand called Women in Pac Tech.

They had been around in 2018 and 19, shut down during Pandemic. 'cause we were an events company that wasn't really feasible during the pandemic. And so I helped revitalize this brand, uh, co-founded and really restarted the brand.

We focused in 2021, um, or 22, an execution of seven events around the country to elevate women and to help women really feel empowered to elevate their careers in technology. And at the same time, to propel corporations to really advance equity and inclusion in their tech departments. So we worked on both sides.

We hosted in seven, um, different states or seven different cities around the country. And then just this year, many of our sponsors said, Hey, it's great, Paula, when you drop in a city, you bring all these amazing mid-level, um, women in technology to these conferences for us to network and talk to them about innovation and driving their career. It would be so helpful if you could help us year round because we're having gender equity issues all the time and we really need support.

So we've instituted a membership platform to help corporations and individuals with networking with other, um, females and other executives in tech that are trying to, you know, do better with gender equality. And then we also launched Talent Solutions where we're hosting, um, private talent acquisition events in people's headquarters, bringing a lot of diverse candidates to the table for them, as well as traditional staffing services, contract labor, perm placements. Um, and I'm proud to say we just got our N G L C C certification.

So we're a certified L G B T business, and we're working on our women's, um, business certification as well so that we can serve, um, supplier diversity focus for a lot of our Fortune 1000 clients. So how do we measure our success? You know, we, I, KPIs are so important, um, and we, I don't know how much good data that we really do have about if our D N I efforts are making a difference.

Now. When I worked at Remedy, we worked a lot with, if we found, if we had a woman walk through the door who was returning back to a workforce from being gone for three or four years and had an outstanding resume, I would hit, I would hit the streets looking for a place for, for her because it was like my, it was, that was like my mission in life was to allow these women to get back to work. And then the rest of them were men and more, more or less, uh, I would say, uh, blue collar jobs that we were filling for, you know, spiking seasons.

But I always wanted to know if we were really making a difference for those women. And from your experience, what you're doing now and what you did at Manpower, do we have good KPIs? If we look at the political climate, I feel like we're going backwards.

It is so interesting that you say that. So we did a lot of studies, I'll answer your question broadly in a moment, but just recently we did a lot of analysis about the layoffs that everybody heard about in fourth quarter and first quarter in the tech space. And unfortunately, um, those layoffs had a significant impact to women.

First and foremost, women were laid off in larger numbers, much like we saw during the pandemic as women exited the workforce. And then secondly, we saw de and i positions significantly impacted by layoffs during what we considered major tech layoffs. And they were unfortunately laying off a lot of de and i representatives that were instrumental in bringing a diverse workforce post pandemic and continuing to make strides in that space.

So you're feeling of, Hey, I feel like we're going backwards. It's real. It's definitely something we're seeing pretty prevalent in the markets.

It's good for our business because clients that are truly passionate about d and i and realize that they made cuts in that area, but it's still a passion for them. They are reaching out to good partners, and it is a good cost effective way, um, to, to still go after those goals. Unfortunately, what happens is you can still partner with great companies that will bring you diverse talent and diverse candidates.

However, studies to show time and time again, it's not necessarily getting the talent on board. That's the real challenge. You can do a good job hiring diverse candidates, not just women, but other underrepresented communities.

The challenge becomes do you have a culture? Do you create a culture in your organization for those individuals to really grow or thrive? We always like to say in their career, and that's where we feel that the rubber hits the road.

And unfortunately, companies that are dein investing in de and I initiatives don't have that layer of leadership supporting executives and, and middle management in their journey to help underrepresented communities and women succeed because their needs are slightly different. We know that primarily they're burdening the caregiving role, right? Whether that's kids or in some cases it's elderly parents, where whatever the life cycle is of that individual, if it's a woman, we know that their responsibility as a caregiver is typically three times that of their male care male colleagues in an environment.

So because they're taking on that burden to retain talent and to ensure their success, we have to have some more flexibility that your male colleagues may not need. And so, unless a company is building a culture where they're sensitive to that and they're putting in flexibility for working hours or flexibility around in-office hours versus remote working hours, if they aren't being sensitive to those issues, we are starting to see continued declines in females in the workplace, specifically in tech because they aren't creating a culture that's conducive for success for women in middle management and beyond. So where is it?

Where who's doing the right job? So for example, um, for years, uh, we did business with Computer Associates now Broadcom. Yeah.

And I would say that was the first place I started meeting women who were in higher level positions was at computer associates. Yeah. And if you look at what Computer Associates did, is they really did build a culture.

In fact, every large office they had, every regional large office they had on-premise they had a daycare. Yes. And so you could, and we're talking from infants until I think it was first grade.

Yeah. So you could bring your kid to work, you could go breastfeed if you need needed to, and literally the kid was at the job with you and you had somebody taking care of it across the parking lot. Yeah.

Um, and this really, they had many, there were a lot of women who wanted to work for computer associates because of that, and as a result they had a lot of women in higher roles. Yeah. Um, what in, so that's the tech industry.

And I know the tech industry is divided on this because I work with a lot of these companies and I see the, I see both sides. It's like night and day sometime. But are, is there any industry that's really doing a good job?

I mean, what I'm seeing, and mostly I'm working with tech today, but in the tech space, the industry that the industries that I'm seeing do this really, really well, consumer goods, like, it's not a space where you would think about, oh my gosh, that's a hot tech space. But they are putting an emphasis because they found, well, who typically does the consuming in a house? Well, I'm the one that does my chewy order at our house and have it delivered to the door.

I'm the one that's planning vacations. Yeah. So people that are in consumer goods that industry have recognized, when women come into their tech roles, they're really brilliantly successful because they know the background of consumers.

They think like consumers. The majority of their consumers often are women for online consumers. Yeah.

They are their consumer. They, that's right. They themselves are the consumer.

So they're being really successful. And because they're seeing that success, they're building benefit strategies, they're building flexibility, and they're focusing on hiring and bringing in women and diverse women at that. We're also seeing it at other organizations.

I hate to say you kind of hit the nail on the head from a leadership perspective, um, but we are seeing even gaming companies that are led by female executives. A a woman at the C-suite who looks down and says, Hey, I know if I can change the dynamics of my population and get 50% of women in tech that I know I can impact the rest of society. Like she believes because gaming is, you know, as big as movies in Hollywood today, her whole philosophy is around bringing women to ensure she has the 50 50 diversification of our workforce so that she emulates society and puts product out that is stimulating to everyone that's a consumer for her.

And I, it's crazy. You know, I came up in the, you know, in a time where not every female leader I had believed that they should reach down and elevate you. You know, they felt like, gosh, I have the bruises and the scars and the scratches, and you need to go through those trenches and get the same.

But what we're finding is when you get really strong women at the helm, whether it's at the C-suite or certainly at a director level or higher, the ones that really understand the impact that you can have on a business profitability wise and success in overall market share, they're the ones that are elevating women faster, um, and ensuring that they surround themselves with, you know, equity. And believe it or not, they're also paying more equitable wages. They're trying to close that wage gap knowing that women in tech specifically are still making 10% less than their male counterparts.

And it's crazy. It is this exact same work. So go back to your ai, data tech is easy to track the numbers and get the, the data.

And so if you could use AI or another technology to truly promote by data alone, what you'll find is women are outperforming their male colleagues, especially in the tech environment, because they often are working, even if they're not working in their office more hours, they're working more hours, they, they find themselves passionate about their work and as passionate about being a mom as they are about being at work. And so their work typically is higher quality work, and yet they're still being paid 10% less. Well, I love what you're saying about women elevating other women because yeah, 15, 10, 15, 20 years ago, Tracy and I have had this conversation more than once on this show where some of our least favorite bosses were women.

And you would, you would think, wow, I'm gonna work for a woman. This is gonna be great. And they were some of the worst bosses ever because like you said, they felt like they had no choice and they just kicked it.

I never thought of it the same way of, of maybe the mentality they had that, well, I had to pay my dues. So, so do you I never really looked at it that way until you pointed that out. So that's kind of a huge eyeopener for me.

Yeah. I just knew that they were not fun to work for. Yeah.

Yeah. So The idea that we're, we're not only we're being more aware of that and we're, we're training and educating these women to be like, you can lift everyone up with you. You know?

Exactly. I love that idea. Yeah.

That's awesome. Well, and the other thing that you know, is a little bit frustrating to me in tech, we're seeing women at the director level for every director level that's moving up in an organization and elevating their career to are leaving tech altogether. So we can't catch up.

Right? I mean, its extremely frustrating. There's so few women in technology as it is.

And then once they hit a certain level, we're seeing them drop like flies. But part of that is women are compassionate. They get better scores on empathy type of leadership.

They are focused on diversity. It is a priority, but studies will show you time and time again, female leaders that focus on diversity are not rewarded for that. Mm-hmm.

It's not something that we typically, in the Fortune 1000 put an emphasis on rewarding behaviors for elevation of career. It is an expectation and they want it around PR work, but we aren't rewarding that work through advancement of career. So that becomes frustrating, especially if it's part of your d n a as a female leader, you're empathetic.

You drive diversity results not because the company's telling you to, but because intuitively you know, it's the right thing to do, right. For your people and for the company. So you spend time and emphasis, but it's not prioritized for advancement of your career.

And so we see these women exiting because they can't make the impact. They don't see the same, they don't see women like them that, that they can aspire to grow to be. We see fewer and fewer, um, c e o or c i o level females in the marketplace that we can emulate and, and aspire to take their career journeys.

So it's challenging. And then Jody, back to your, or Tracy, back to your point, when you think about how remiss we are on benefit packages, you know, I hear companies talk about, oh my gosh, I'm giving, um, unlimited p t o as an example. Well, that sounds great in concept, but when you execute on unlimited p t o without putting in flexible schedule, well, I never know when my kids are gonna get sick.

It's not like I can put in p t o time. It just happens. And so now I have to stay home on a Thursday.

So companies that are great about putting flex schedules, letting you work remote, um, and I'm not saying that has to be the every single day process, but we, we, we have proven through pandemic, almost all the work is remote. If you have the right culture around you to really successfully manage remote workforce and ensure that you're coupling that with sponsorship of, you know, underrepresented talent as well as female talent, if you build the right, um, culture and the right sponsorship of that talent, you'll see, you know, unparalleled success from that talent. Well, and What what frustrates me is that they talk about how many more single moms there are.

And just post covid think a lot of marriages went the dumper because people were stuck at home with each other. Um, and so they realize, wow, this, this may not work. And what I don't understand, and I I guess I should 'cause it's been this way, is that if there's more single moms, then guess what?

There's more single dads who need the daycare at the office who need the flexibility. And it seems like when men say, Hey, I gotta run, pick my kid up. They get patted on the back.

Good job, dad. But when mom does it, it's, oh, really? Again, you know what I'm saying?

They, they, it's the same thing. If they're single women or single moms, they're single debts. Same situation, but it's not perceived the same.

When we need to make that break to do something and men do it, it's just not, And Jody, it's crazy. We surveyed our network of female and, um, women technologists and like 40% came back and said they burdened 100% of the responsibility for childcare. Mm-hmm.

100%. And so, you know, we're not diving into are they divorced or share custody. Right.

But they do burden and feel that responsibility, even if there's the shared custody situation, that if it's a childcare emergency and someone has to be home from work, women burden that, uh, at, you know, a pretty alarming rate that we feel the burden and responsibility that we are the ones that need to step in and make sure that that's right for our children. And it's really hard for women to say, I'm not gonna take that burden. Yes.

It's Very difficult. It's almost impossible. Almost.

It's almost impossible. Almost Impossible. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. I'll tell you time and time again that it, given the forced responsibility, women will choose children.

If you just look at the mass exodus during pandemic, I mean, basically the whole state of Iowa exit, 800,000 women exited compared to 200,000 men that exited the workforce. So that's all you have to look at from a true understanding. You know, when children now had to be homeschooled, they couldn't go into a classroom, women could no longer go to work, they had to be home.

And if they had, and if they didn't have a very flexible schedule where they could work remote, they had to give up the workforce to be home to, you know, take care of remote learning with their children. I mean, it, it's really astronomical the difference that women were impacted pandemic and post pandemic versus men. Um, and we haven't spent a lot of time covering it, although I still think that some of the lag you see in the jobs report has to do with women that exited the workforce and haven't gone back.

Oh, I'm sure I'm sure of it. 'cause I, I know Pliny myself that left the workforce during that time and they, for whatever reason, they didn't, uh, get, didn't go back. So on that note, then I wanna ask you about resumes.

Okay. I'm sure you have seen your share of resumes. I recently just helped a couple of college kids work on a resume and I was, uh, somewhat astonished to buy what was in them.

Yes. Um, you know, I I I've, I, I gave 'em rockstar resumes, let's just put it that way. What can you tell women who really want to, um, how should a resume really be structured for someone to take a, make a jump?

Let's assume that some of our listeners, listeners are looking forward. Okay, it's time to take a, you know, jump my career. What is in the resume?

What's that magic mix? So Tracy, I love this topic and we just recently, in the last probably three months, started doing personal branding and rebranding resume workshops at our conferences. And virtually, because this is such a hot topic and it's not just a challenge for women that are entering the workforce like some of the younger women that you might be working with that are entering the workforce.

This is a challenge for women that have been in the workforce for a while. Our primary population is that five to seven years experience. So this is challenge for everyone.

Um, and it's partially because the resume process has changed pretty significantly due to technology. A lot of companies use scanning technology just to get you to the next level. So if you haven't figured out how to at least work with the technologies that are doing that initial scan and limiting the number of resumes that get through, um, and you have, and this is the really big one, especially for women.

If you haven't built a strong network of women that will help you, um, work your network to get your resume past those screening and to a hiring manager, an executive, then you've got a double whammy. And we know that that's been an impact from the layoffs that we had in fourth and first quarter. We were, it took us, it took women almost twice as long to land a job as it did men.

And we know that based on our research, that's because they hadn't built their networks as effectively. We typically are so busy with that one life or work-life balance with the other responsibilities that women have. They don't build a network successfully to transfer their skills or transfer their job.

Um, and that comes with upward mobility in the same company as well. So I would say from a resume perspective, a few things. Number one, do not underestimate transferable skills.

Transferable skills are probably the number one reason that people that move into tech jobs are hired into tech jobs because they really have great transferable skills. Customer service is a really good one that if you have had brilliant customer service experience, people often will leave that off 'cause they feel like, Ugh, I was just a help desk representative. Well, those are transferable skills much needed in the workforce today.

Not just if you're helping outside, um, consumers of a company, but if just working with your own colleagues and other business owners in a business, that customer service mentality and skillset highly needed in the workplace. The other thing is, I tell women all the time, they, they're so hesitant to apply for a job because they don't have everything on the job description. And I say to them, here's the truth.

That job description was written with probably a fourth of the things they need for that job. There's probably still 75% of that job that it takes to be brilliantly successful that they didn't even write in that job description. Well, And what are the odds that the person who wrote it has never done the job and doesn't what they thought was important in that job description?

You get in there and that's not even what's important. That's, and they even list it. Yes, That's exactly right.

So I tell them, but there are some things that if they aren't going back to the automated processes, now with technology, if you don't get some of the critical buzzwords and you try to use the same resume for 17 jobs, you're going to fail because of the automated technologies they're using to screen. So it becomes imperative that you find a way to tie in some of the buzz and keywords in that job description into your resume. And they have to be there.

It's almost like a check for check process where you have to cover them. I'm not saying in any way they should lie on their resume, but they should find a way to go to an attribute or a skill through transferable skills if they haven't had experience and tie that verbiage into their resume, even if it's through transferable skills versus experience. So I think that's absolutely essential.

I think we think about writing the cover letter to fit the job, but we don't think about shifting the resume as well. Yes. Yeah.

And yeah, I, Yeah, I told 'em we gotta get the resumes down to a really concise one page and it has to be a, a agile resume where you can, you can tweak it based on the job you're applying for. Without lying. You're just rewriting Yeah.

You're just, you're just reframing it. Yes. For That particular job.

That's absolutely true. And I do think that if they can get those checkpoints down and figure out how to tie in enough of the critical buzzwords or keywords in the job description into their resume, that will get them through the screening process that's automated anyway. And then I would strongly encourage them when they get to the personal touch piece, there's usually a screener that will go through that first initial group to start setting up those initial interviews.

And a lot of times my experiences, that's where people blow it. They figure out how to get the buzzwords down, they figure out how to fix the resume. They get to that initial interview and they absolutely blow it.

And they blow it because they don't bring their authentic self to the table. And companies today truly are looking for diverse talent. And it's not just e it's not just gender or socioeconomic or racial background.

They're looking for diverse thinking. They're looking for innovation. Things that are really, you can put the buzz words in the, in the job description or in your resume, but you cannot put those buzz words in an effective interview process.

So I tell people, before you even get to the interview, during the screening process, you've got to know what are your differentiators? Why are you different? And can add value to an organization that's going to be above and beyond the competition.

And I think that's really, people don't work on their elevator pitch. They don't know what makes them special. They can't tell you why they're better than seven people that graduated with them this year with the same degree.

And I think that's really important to help people understand what is their personal, um, pitch or brand that's gonna make them successful in an organization. They need to nail that too. Other thing.

Yeah. I don't say itself is hard. No, I think the other thing you see a lot is some of these jobs say that you need a bachelor's degree, but you don't.

Don't No, no. Absolutely not. You don't.

They just throw it in there and it's That's right. You can say Absolutely not necessary. You can say, working towards bachelor's degree and a bachelor's degree is a buzzword that's in there.

You just nailed it. It's going right through. And to your point, once you make it to the hiring manager, Jody, that hiring manager is more interested in how you bring diverse ideas, thinking mm-hmm.

Innovation and what can you do as an individual contributor to make his overall team and project more successful. That's what they're looking for. And that's where women often are so black and white and focused on just nailing exactly what's needed.

They don't sell themselves as truly the differentiators they should Raising my hand because I'm not very Yeah. But we're All that, I've learned a lot about it. I've learned so much in the last few years about that exact thing.

And I'm like, okay. And it's hard because you have to take the time to, you know, you just wanna shoot out a bunch of resumes. Yeah.

And you don't, you don't, you have to stop and really think through, is this a job I really want? And if it is, what am I bringing to the table? And make sure that that's stress.

Or even on LinkedIn, you know, it'll be like, you have four out of the 10 skills. And it always makes me laugh when it pops that stuff up. And I'm like, and then they're like, maybe if you add these, you'll be, you'll be higher up.

And I'm like, you could just spend your whole day juggling your whatever things in LinkedIn and drive yourself batty. Well, the, the authentic self is such an important part. And it's hard, you know, it's, it part of it.

And we talk about it, uh, finding your voice, but it goes beyond finding your voice. It's just how do you just be you? Yes.

It's really hard. I have a great example of that. When I was, um, I, I consulted for years.

I started consulting when I was 27 and I was in New York and I wanted to come back, go back to LA and there was a job opening at Farmer's Insurance. Um, and I flew out to interview for it. And I knew that there were a ton of people interviewing for it.

And this is when you had a briefcase, right? So I took my little briefcase to the interview and I was talking to the hiring manager and I said, well, I said, do you have my resume? He goes, no, I don't have it.

And I said, well, let me get a copy for you. I opened up my briefcase and I handed him a coffee and I loved eating mega warheads. They were these salty, sugary hot things.

I know them. And I, I would have, I had a few of my, my three tastes. And he goes, is that a candy?

And I said, yeah. And he said, um, I have, I have bad garlic breath, would you mind if I had it? And I thought, this will be really fun.

And I was like, sure, if you think you like it. He was like, of course I like it. So, Uh, oh, He was sitting there like trying to get, say, Crying through your rest of your interview.

I was laughing through the rest of my interview. You bonded though. He finally, he got it and he was like, okay, you're hired.

Just like, I was like, why, why are you saying that? No, I know you have better interviews. He goes, 'cause you have the balls to give that to me.

You're hired And that is perfect Tracy, because that has nothing. You were you. She just wanted somebody that would be aggressive and out there and different and not be afraid of anything Authentic.

Absolutely. I was, I was being authentic self. I was like, oh my God, if I don't get this job, this will be hilarious.

Anyway. 'cause I flew all the way from New York to interview for it. I couldn't pass up the moment.

I remember asking him, I said, do you know what a mega warhead is? No idea. Nothing good can come from a mega warhead.

I'm sorry. So don't be afraid to be you is the point of the story. Right.

Don't be afraid to be you. And oftentimes I think women have taught, been taught to be something that they aren't. Yeah.

Just don't be afraid to be you. Yeah. And we coach all the time, Tracy.

There are companies out there hiring. So don't be so worried that you have to fit in a box and fit in one organization. It will be short-lived anyway.

If you can't bring your authentic self, if you have to hide something about yourself to fit in with a culture, it, it's better to know that right up front so you don't waste your energy on things that aren't productive for yourself or for an organization. And that's part of the value we bring to our network of women is if you're in an organization where you can't bring your authentic self or you're not feeling that you can thrive in your career, I promise you in any given city, I can give you 15 companies that truly will embrace women in tech and help you advance your career. Go find one.

And we're bad. Like women are the worst. We don't like change.

We don't like having to go through upheaval like that. We're so busy at 50 other things. We think, oh God, I can't do that and create this, you know, uh, turn this apple cart in my one stability that I just go and do it every single day.

But I tell people not doing it is the bigger risk. Like you, there are so many great companies. We do at Women Impact Tech, we evaluate public data.

So like we go to public forums where women are talking about not just what people post on their website. 'cause companies can post some pretty brilliant things. But we go to these public forums where women are actually talking about their experience in a company.

Other underrepresented communities of employees are talking about their personal experience. We evaluate all of that. We evaluate their data, like their diversity data, if it's public.

And we actually give awards 100 companies that are doing diversity, right. For women in technology. And we recognize those companies.

So I tell women that come to us or give me feedback that they don't see 66% of our network, our network, say they don't see advancement opportunities. And I just say, why are you saying why, why, Why, why Are you saying if you know that there's no advancement opportunities, go to another organization that wants you to advance. They're looking for female leaders.

Um, and it's just hard, it's hard to convince women to make that type of major change in their lives, but it's rewarding for the ones that do it. Absolutely. Yeah.

So, you know, we had one of our other guest speakers, our, our guests, uh, on the show was, uh, Tricia Tim. Um, and she wrote a book called Embrace the Power of You. Uh, and I read some of the, uh, the kind of the, the chapters in, uh, Amazon.

I, I should read the whole book because it was fascinating, but it really discusses this being authentic self. Um, so for our readers out there, a reminder of a, you know, a previous guest speaker, Tricia Tim, uh, embrace the power of You. It's very, very, it's a very good book.

Uh, I'm sure what I've read was pretty fascinating and it really addresses this topic. You know, if you like to, if you want your, if you wanna have purple hair in the nose ring and that's who you are, then you, you should do that. Yes, absolutely.

And you should be in an environment where it's not, um, hidden or they're concerned that they truly think that that's the best. And they, they love, they want you to have a sense of belonging in their culture. Yes.

And she talked about that on that session. So you're interested, uh, Tricia, Tim, and I believe that she would've, we that's already been produced and out there. Yeah, it's out there.

Yeah. Well, Paula, I feel like we only touch the surface here. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you in a corner and say, I, I know Tracy will agree with me, and we wanna have you back.

Oh, I would love to, If you wanna talk some more, I know we focused a lot on resumes, so I can, I can truly see another episode where we can talk about, I mean, you're in the trenches and you can really communicate what, what you're seeing, what would be helpful. So I, I hope you will come back and join us again because I really think you have a really important message that our audience needs to hear. And I hope you would do that.

I would be thrilled. It would be an honor. Absolutely.

I know You can be picky. I heard you all have a great call. I would be honored to be back.

I, this is the first real pitch I've ever done that with Too Hump, Tracy. Yeah, no, it would be great. Your insights for women would their career.

Super helpful. Yeah. You just have so many things that you can hit on.

I would love, love to have you back. Um, everyone, thank you for, um, joining us for another episode of Text Strong Women. Paula, thank you for being with us, Tracy, as always my partner in crime.

Um, come back and see our next episode and stay tuned for a lot of great programming on Text Strong tv. Thanks. Have a great day.