Cindy Castille

I think I know how to influence people, I know how to listen. And I know how to ask the right questions to lead people to where I want them to go. Whether it's a candidate or a client. You know, I ask questions, I educate them. And I think they respect me at the end of the day. I say no to them a lot, too. Like, if something if they think they can get something for what they want to pay, I tell them no, and then I usually follow up with data.

I actually received it from my father, and he told me at a young age never burn a bridge. And so throughout my career, even though I've had jobs where I didn't like my boss, or something wasn't quite right, I've never burned a bridge. I've always maintained professionalism throughout my career. Also, too, I did have somebody I respected very much, a woman who I worked for, she always told me to listen. You know, when I'm in meetings with people. I think people tend to talk too much. And so, whenever I go into a meeting to this day, I'll write on the top right-hand corner, listen, and be 100% present to try to get every to retain all the information.

I think as a young woman, I think you have to be have resilience in today's world, and I think you have to kind of have a thick skin when working in corporate America. There's gonna be a lot of ups and downs throughout your career, and if things don't go your way, to know that this too shall pass, right? You know, there's good days, bad days. As a recruiter, I talk to a lot of young girls right now who are graduating from college, and they're looking for a job, and they're frustrated because they can't find anything right now. And just maybe to be patient in life, I think. I think your network matters. I always say your network is your net worth. Because if you hang out with the right people, and you go to the right networking events, those are the people that will help you.

My biggest challenge right now is working with AI companies, because they don't understand how competitive it is when hiring engineers. And when you're competing with an anthropic, or ChatGPT. Those companies are paying a lot of money, and everybody thinks, oh, you know, $160K is great and options, but they don't realize that they're making $250K, so at other clients. So, it's, I think, probably salary negotiation, or educating my clients on what what's truth, and what's, you know, what they can get for what they want to pay?

For me, honesty, and if you say you're gonna do something, you do it. When I would hire people, you know, if they say, oh, you know, in the interview, I do this, I do that, and then they show up for work, and they don't actually execute on what they say they were gonna do. I think that's it's a character flaw. Honesty and doing what you say you're gonna do.