Jennifer Tate

I am a recruiting professional with over 25 years of progressive experience leading teams across multi-site operations in industries including banking, IT, marketing, healthcare, aviation, and call centers. I began my career in the call center industry before transitioning to HR and advancing into talent acquisition leadership roles. Currently, I serve as Manager of Talent Acquisition at Brigham Young University, overseeing hiring for more than 5,400 staff and 16,000 student positions—including C-level and white-collar roles—while managing the university’s social media presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Throughout my career, I have transformed recruiting departments, most notably at Guardian Flight, where I built a team from a two-person operation into a nationwide recruitment function supporting 38,000 employees. I implemented innovative processes to improve efficiency, including training managers on technical interviewing and expanding teams to prevent burnout, always ensuring high-quality hires. I am known as an organized, take-charge leader with strong problem-solving and decision-making skills, and I am passionate about developing managers and teams, fostering collaboration, and making a meaningful impact both professionally and in my community.

When asked about the people who had made the biggest impact in Jennifer's life, she highlighted her late mother Barbara who was the most influential person in her world. She passed away in 2022 but was such an incredible woman and her legacy is held dear by her family. Barbara was able to manage a career while Jennifer was growing up, in a home of four children. She was involved in her community and many different activities there was truly nothing she couldn't do so she was an incredible inspiration to Jennifer appeared she was incredibly loving and supportive and was somebody who had an incredibly loving energy. People would chat her up in the store and sometimes Jennifer would think it was somebody from her past but she would just end up being a stranger because people gravitated toward her because she had such an amazing personality that made people feel comfortable and approachable. Jennifer is ever grateful for the incredible impact her mother had in her life, and we are honored to highlight her as an incredibly influential and inspiring woman.

I've always had this philosophy to never let an opportunity pass me by. If there's an opportunity placed in front of me, then I take it, even if it might be scary. We've got BYU students that work in our office pursuing a career in HR, and I've had the opportunity to watch and guide them. My advice is: if you have an idea or an opportunity, jump into it. I had the opportunity to go skydiving, and I'm actually afraid of heights, but I had to do it because I had that philosophy deep in my mind. It's led to other things like swimming with sharks off of North Shore, just kind of doing some things way out of my comfort zone that I normally wouldn't do, but because the opportunity was there, I took it. You can do it, just put your mind to it, and take that leap.

Jennifer would be jumping in to add more detail regarding her career path and what inspired her journey, Outlining any detail regarding the people who have impacted her life as mentors or support, how she would like to connect with other incredible women within our network and how she would like to inspire our readers, what she first sees in the future and what she's looking forward to as the next chapter of her journey continues, She will add details regarding the things that bring her joy in life regarding her family, interests and hobbies, and any additional details she'd like to add to bring her profile to life and share her accomplishments and accolades.

Integrity is top of the list for me, both in my work and my personal life. Having that integrity and following through with what you say you're going to do, I think is key. Communication definitely goes a long way as well, for personal life as well as work. Family is very important to me - I love being with family and spending time with them. I have two boys and a stepson who are grown and in their early 20s, so it's been a transition going from having kids and all your focus on kids to now having a lot more free time and being able to focus on myself. I'm very service oriented, so there's a charity that I support called Christmas Box House, which is a temporary shelter here in Utah that supports kids when they're taken out of homes or dangerous situations. It's just a phenomenal charity, and I love to be involved with that and just serving and helping others wherever I can. I think a lot of that comes from the church that I'm in and the background that we have.