Rocki Howard is the Chief Diversity Officer at SmartRecruiters, an overall bold diversity advocate, and a passionate voice for the underrepresented. Rocki has put over 20 years of relentless work into the recruitment industry, and has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Minority Executives two years in a row. Rocki climbed her way from entry level to executive leadership, and she is on a mission to help her customers disrupt the intersection of diversity and recruitment. Key- Takeaways: - At age 20, Rocki left her job as a store manager after she had been robbed at gunpoint 5 separate times-- leading to her first front desk job and exposure to the recruiting world. - Rocki’s ideal scenario for diversity recruiting is to always pick the best candidate, regardless of factors like race, gender, neurodiversity, and so on-- so long as the initial search for a talent pool is conducted in a truly inclusive and exhaustive manner. - Speaking to her husband about leaving her mid-level management job to pursue her passion “When I called home and said ‘I’m never gonna make more than this, we were willing to accept the consequences of it-- and honestly, what happened was I opened myself up and great things came from that” - On one of the most essential steps companies can take towards equity, Rocki describes her baseline change: “If I’m a black woman, and you’re a white man, if we’re both doing the same job and we have the same level of experience, we should be paid the same. If we could get companies to just cover that piece of equity, we’d be sailing along. - She’s had the unique experience of working at the same company as her oldest daughter, who let her know that her greatest talent was her ability to “make something out of nothing.” If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review/rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/thepozcast The POZCast is brought to you by our friends at Interseller – the prospecting + outreach platform of recruiters and sellers. Whether you’re doubling down on business development or recruiting talent, Interseller does all the heavy lifting of finding contact data, automating the email and follow-up process, and syncs all that rich data into 20+ CRMs and ATSs. Reach out and get going in a 2-week *free* trial today and let them know you heard about them from Adam on the POZCast. Check out a free demo today! https://bit.ly/2Fbm/BZ
2:03 - How did Rocki get into People Business
6:30 - Helping Others
7:15 - Early Lessons that helped built the foundation
10:04 - Aspiration to be on the top
12:20 - Office Politics
14:19 - Risk Adverse/Safety Net
14:46 - Journey with Smart Recruiters
15:57 - Getting into Diversity Role
16:59 - What is DEI&B?
18:26 - Treat everyone equally
19:42 - Define Diversity
22:30 - Hiring Diverse people
27:33 - How to remove/reduce bias in recruitment
31:10 - Role of Strong Leadership
33:00 - Doing the right thing
34:44 - Inclusion and Belonging
35:30 - Biggest Challenge faced in bringing change
37:40 - Main Objective of Rocki's Show
39:53 - Rocki's Dream Guest
40:41 - Golden Piece of Advice
42:09 - Greatest Piece of Advice given
42:55 - Rocki's Super Power
45:54 - Rocki's North Star