Shannyn Studstill

I have to say, my mentor, when I first got into recruiting. His name was Jim Fowler, and he taught me grassroots recruiting from the ground up. He took me to trainings and seminars. We did deep dives in books, and we would do a chapter a week and have study sessions and notes, and he really just taught me everything I know about recruiting. It's really just helping people - helping people find their next job, or helping a company find a really good employee. It's very fulfilling when you get to see somebody else shine. So it's just really helping people, and my mentor, Jim Fowler, who taught me everything.

I would say have confidence in your own abilities. I think as women, we tend to second-guess ourselves, but just know that you have what it takes to do it. I'm in a male-dominated industry right now, and kind of always have been. But you become a trusted advisor to others around you, so just soak it all in, learn as much as you can, and kind of find a mentor or a friend, and maybe somebody in leadership that you look up to, and try to emulate that. I would say just serving others has helped me tremendously. I'm a service leader, if you will, so I like to help others, and that in turn helps me, just organically. So I would say, being a cheerleader for other people's success. It's not a, oh, I'm better than you, or if I do this, then I'm gonna step on somebody along the way. It's more of building each other up, and helping everybody succeed - everybody around you succeed. And that's really where success comes from, is when you elevate others.

I would say I just believe in genuinely building relationships with people, with leaders, as well as candidates, because you never know when your paths are gonna cross again, or when you can help each other. And so, just gaining that trust to know that if I recommend somebody, they're gonna say, oh, well, if Shannon says this is a good person to hire, I should listen. And it's not just - I'm not just sending just anybody. I really do vet these candidates and get to know them, and what is their motivating factor for wanting to make a change in their career or life, and make the highest quality hires that I can. And I think that the thing that really helps me be able to do that is relationship building. That's probably one of my strengths is building relationships with the individuals that I interact with on a day-to-day basis, whether that's the senior leadership team, or the hiring managers, or the candidates.