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Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:17Everybody, welcome to another episode of CXR's eXpert Tease. I'm Chris Hoyt, President at CareerXroads. And this is a special segment of our podcast where I grab about 10 minutes with an industry practitioner or a leader and we get them to share just one thing with our listeners. Now, that one thing might be a lesson learned or career hurdle or victory, there really are no rules outside of the idea that it should fall within categories that hundreds of talent acquisition leaders told us that CXR were important to their success or their leadership going forward. Now, that means we're typically talking about a range of topics spanning anything from employee wellness, to diversity, equity, inclusion, to industry ethics, or any number of trending items in our space. If you're interested, and weighing in on what's important moving forward in 2021, you can take part in our 2021 priorities benchmark survey that is open to everyone. And it is actually found within the research and Reports section of CXR.works. Now. If you're attending live today, you can participate via the chat feature of our broadcast, anyone should feel free to ask our guests a question or two. And if we've got the time, we'll make sure to try and answer them. If we don't have time, or you think of something later, you'd like to ask, you can always join us and our open and free exchange found at CXR.works/talent talks. So with all of that, I'm pleased to introduce today's guest and a pretty fun topic. So with me is Jim D'Amico, who is the Global Head of talent at Celanese and who, for the last four years, has been the board president for the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals. Jim, welcome to this expertise.

Jim D'Amico, Celanese 1:50Thanks for having me, Chris. Happy to be here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:53Yeah, it's always good to see you.

Jim D'Amico, Celanese 1:56Agree. Good to see you as well.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:59Jim, we've got a topic today that is actually from being really honest, it's actually one I really used to enjoy getting into with leaders when we would travel live, this is a really great happy hour topic, I think. And I'm excited to chat you up about it. Obviously, the idea being how we or where people fall into recruiting as a profession, and why that's okay. And then maybe a little bit of discussion around if we think there should be a better way to find recruiting rockstars, or if we're just fine the way it is.

Jim D'Amico, Celanese 2:34So I'll answer the last question. First, there has to be a better way, right? I mean, just this, this random falling in that we all go through. Seems seems a bit rough. And for me, it was a series of failures that led me to success. And I think that that's, that's often true for folks. But you know, my background is, is really kind of different. So I started in the military, I was in the army. I was certainly not the greatest soldier ever produced by the army and really thought it was much more of a lover than a fighter. So, you know, after that, look, I figured I don't have a lot of skills. But I'm at least think I'm a little funny. So I got into stand up comedy. And you've probably not seen me in many movies or Netflix specials, because I also was not really good at that. You know, and from there, I fell into sales. And from there is how I finally got into recruiting. Because you know, at some point, you eventually have to have money to eat. If you want to go out on dates, the person you're taking out usually appreciates money, you know, bust out with those 241 coupons is never a great move. So, but you know, I as I look back, I learned so many great lessons from these different things. I mean, in the army again,