Ray Tavares’ career has largely been spent in one industry — financial services — not all that uncommon for Gen Xers. About 20 years ago, he pivoted into the HR tech domain, and has witnessed every conceivable transformation along the way. His kids jokingly accuse him of “HR-ing” them with fatherly advice.

That’s because of his passion for helping others succeed. In his senior level role at Truist, the Charlotte-based bank formed by the merger of SunTrust and BB&T, Tavares sees himself largely as a coach who helps fellow leaders navigate organizational blind spots.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” he explains why he loves work, but isn’t a workaholic.

Growing up a “Star Trek” fan, Ajay Patel marveled at boldly going where no one had gone before. It was only natural he would study astrophysics at university, but instead of building rockets and studying celestial bodies, his career pivoted to HR where he builds talent pipelines.

The figure-it-out mindset of an engineer came in handy when he arrived at Straumann Group in 2020 as vice president of talent acquisition. Though the Swiss dental equipment maker is more than 70 years old, the environment and culture felt decidedly like a startup. TA was a blank slate, with little in the way of established processes.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Patel traces the excitement he felt building a function from scratch to keep pace with a rapidly growing enterprise.

When Ed LaPerche first entered tech sales in the 1990s he witnessed the industry gradually evolve from old school mainframe computing to the client-server network model all the way through to cloud computing. Today, it’s all about artificial intelligence and agentic AI.

Transformation for a sales professional means never being satisfied with the status quo. Seeking out opportunities to learn and grow are important ways to keep tabs on the next big trends. Because one of the distinctive traits about the technology industry is that its pace of change is much more rapid than other sectors.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” LaPerche talks about the time he took three companies public, including Salesforce and Workday. Watching them grow from small startups to tech giants has been a rewarding part of his journey.

Greg Muccio naturally followed in the career footsteps of his dad and brothers as a sales rep before realizing it wasn’t for him. He didn’t enjoy the role and admittedly wasn’t good at it – not exactly a winning formula for long-term success.

Luckily he was working at a staffing company when the epiphany hit. A manager asked if he’d be interested in learning recruiting, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today he’s the head of talent acquisition at Southwest Airlines, overseeing a huge team of 300 recruiters.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Muccio talks about why he encourages his team to be thinking two roles ahead in their careers. He thinks of career growth as a lattice instead of a ladder.

Most talent professionals will say they didn’t grow up actively wanting to be a recruiter. Not Hung Lee. He was fascinated by the qualities that make one candidate stand out from others with similar resumes. It just took some time for that deep interest to develop.

That’s because HR would have been an unthinkable path in his teens when he actively avoided anything corporate. “Hell on earth” was putting on a suit and going into an office. Then came the “a-ha” moment that as one gets older, the more responsibilities begin to pile up, which constrain choice. Pivoting to recruitment became a conscious decision, then, as age and wisdom made him realize his own obligations.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Lee talks about the advice he would give to early career professionals (including his younger self).

Guest: Hung Lee, Editor, Recruiting Brainfood

There are few continents Neil Crumpton either hasn’t visited or recruited from. He even once did a search in Burkina Faso! Crumpton is a natural at navigating cultural boundaries.

His career as a global recruiting executive was forged in his early 20s when he led a multinational team comprised of different cultures, languages, and perspectives. The experience taught him how to find common ground and bring multiple nationalities together.

In this episode of “Unusual Attitudes,” Crumpton describes how assimilation is a part of understanding others, a crucial skill in recruiting.

The first title on Stephanie Worley’s LinkedIn is “Mom.” The second title is “Vice President Talent Acquisition at Bright Horizons.” The mother of three doesn’t want her children to be just like her, nor does she want her teams to be carbon copies either. She wants them to make her a better parent and leader.

Building teams with people who are different yet complementary to one another is key to creating success at work. The key is bringing the right type of talent into the mix. Surrounding herself with people who empower and support was a valuable lesson when Worley worked in an organization primarily run by women. “Sometimes we were our own worst enemies,” she said.

Tune in to this episode to hear Worley’s advice about how men can advocate for women in the workplace by listening, valuing their opinions and asking for more details if something isn’t clear.

Tim Sackett thought he was destined to go the corporate HR route. He was running talent acquisition for a large health system when he received a call one day that would upend his career ambitions: His mother had had a heart attack.

Lured back to the family-owned staffing firm where he worked earlier in his career, Sackett has experience on both sides of the TA equation. Automation is one of the biggest advancements he’s seen in recruiting, providing access to new data sets that help HR work smarter, not harder.

Tune into this episode of “Unusual Attitudes” to hear Sackett’s advice about how organizations should be looking at better sourcing access through technologies.