AD: Storytime - HR Partners Can Really Hurt You

AD Robles

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Hello there, this is A .D. Robles and you're listening to A .D. on the Fight Laugh Feast Network.

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All right, a bit of a different episode today. Today, it's story time today.

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You're gonna find out a little bit more about your boy A .D. Robles. Number one, did you know my real name was Adam? That's right, you're gonna find that out in just a moment.

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But before we get into the meat of this, I just wanted to let you know that the Fight Laugh Feast conference is coming up.

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It's October 6th through October 8th. It is going to be a lot of fun.

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Adam Robles, or A .D. Robles for that matter, is not speaking. I don't have a breakout session or anything like that.

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I don't think Gabe trusts me to do a session all by myself, but understandably so,

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I guess. But in any case, I did want to announce it because actually

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I'm sponsoring this year's conference. Well, not me, but my business. I don't know if you knew this, but I'm the president and lead recruiter of a recruiting and staffing firm called

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Covenant Recruiter. And Covenant Recruiter is sponsoring the beer and psalm sing at this year's

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Fight Laugh Feast conference. And actually, I wanted to do this episode to tell you why I'm doing that. Because if you didn't know, that's my primary business, my primary source of income.

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I don't make a living on YouTube or this kind of content. 95 % of my income comes from my recruiting business.

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And I've been a recruiter basically my entire life, a tech recruiter primarily, although I do dabble in other industries.

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But I started off at a small firm and I was just kind of really winging it, to be honest. And then

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I went to New York. I moved to New York and I joined Robert Half International, which is a major staffing firm.

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If you know them, you might know them primarily from their accounting and finance staffing, but they also have other divisions as well.

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And technology was one of the ones that was fastest growing when I joined. And I joined their Wall Street office.

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I had an opportunity to work with just some of the best people I've ever worked with in my entire life.

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And I learned so much. I stopped winging it and actually started learning how to actually do this business.

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And so Robert Half International, I have nothing but good things to say about them. I really did learn a lot there.

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But one of the things about Robert Half, and really any company in the staffing world, they tend to have a reputation of churning and burning their employees.

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What I mean by that is, if you don't produce relatively quickly, you're out.

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And so I saw a lot of people come and go because they couldn't really hack the production standards. Now, I always thought that was fair.

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In a sales type of environment, you're hired, you're paid to sell, you're paid to produce.

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And if you don't produce, they're going to stop paying you. So I always thought that was fair, but some people don't like it.

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And I get it. I get it. So I saw a lot of people come and go. And the story that I'm about to tell is about one man in particular.

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And this man was interesting for a couple different reasons. I wouldn't say

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I was friends with this guy. I didn't really like him even that much. He always was a bit of a slacker.

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He was the kind of guy that he would do the absolute bare minimum to get by.

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And so when he had met his numbers for the month, he basically just kind of mailed it in.

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And so I never really liked that because I was trying to do deals with him and stuff like that.

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And he just kind of always struck me as a little bit of a schlub, a little lazy, but he was talented. That was the thing that bothered me about him too, because when he would get on the phone and talk to a customer, he was better with customers than I was at the time.

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And so that always bothered me. I always kept thinking if I had his skillset, I would be killing it.

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But anyway, so he was an interesting guy for two reasons. Number one, he was about my age, just a little bit older,

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I think. But he was the only guy about my age that had a family at the time. And this was before I was a

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Christian. I really didn't know anybody that had a family. He had a wife. He had two children. And I always thought that was interesting.

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And then there was one other thing that was interesting about him. He always liked to talk politics. And I remember one day it came out that I wasn't in love with Barack Obama.

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And he told me that he had never met someone who wasn't a hardcore Democrat in his entire life.

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This guy grew up in New York. And I always thought that was interesting. I was like a curiosity to him. And from that point forward, he would always say, well, what do you say about this?

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Because honestly, it certainly seemed like he was in a bubble where he never even heard what the contrary arguments to X, Y, Z kind of thing was.

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And that's kind of what our relationship was for a while. Anyway, he ended up getting fired, which is, again, it's not unusual for someone at Robert Half to get fired.

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But in this case, I don't really think it was necessarily completely his fault because I was there during the

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Great Recession and a ton of people got fired during the Great Recession. And I think that honestly, he probably would have skated by for a long time, kind of doing that bare minimum.

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But the problem was when the recession hit, those kinds of people that were kind of like they produced

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OK, but not great. They were gone too, because people were getting lean and mean during the lead up to the recession.

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And then after the recession, that points could become important in just a minute in any case.

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So I, you know, after after that, he got fired. We didn't really talk much.

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I did kind of keep up with him on LinkedIn a little bit. And I noticed that he kind of jumped from company to company, which is not uncommon in staffing.

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You know, it's very I'm the outlier. You know, normally people don't stay at one company for eight years. That's not normally how it happens.

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But but anyway, we kind of lost touch. And then I went independent myself. So I left Robert Half to do my own thing.

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And I've been doing that ever since. But anyway, about a year ago, a little over a year ago, this man reached out to me and it became very clear why he reached out to me within a few minutes of our conversation.

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Like initially he said, hey, I need help with a job. You know, I'm recruiting on this and I need you to help me out.

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But once we started talking, it became abundantly clear that that was kind of just an excuse to talk to me.

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What he really wanted was to announce that he was now she they and he had changed his name.

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I'm not going to tell you what his name is, because then you'll be easily find him. But it's not a real name. It's a fake name that sounds kind of feminine.

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And his new profile picture had really stupid hair. And he kind of just had like this really feminine, like one of those kind of things.

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And that he was like in the mode where he was trying to let he was loud and proud, wanted everyone to know that he was now she they.

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And so, you know, reaching out to me about a job was kind of just an excuse, in my opinion. But, and this is kind of where the story gets a little bit sad.

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It's like, I instantly started thinking, I started doing the math in my head, like, oh my goodness, how old are his kids now?

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Because at the time one was when I knew him, one was an infant and one was a toddler. And now

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I'm doing the math and I'm like, oh my goodness, these kids are like, they're old enough to see this all happen. Like their father is now pretending to be a woman and has left his mother.

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Like he had left the family. He had abandoned them. He was still co -parenting and he was telling me how wonderful it was.

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And it wasn't just me. After I talked to him, I checked out his LinkedIn feed because you can see on LinkedIn what everyone's talking about, what they're liking, what they're commenting on, what they're loving.

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You can see all their reactions to everything. And he had made this big announcement about how he's left his family.

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He's finally being true to himself. Everything's great. And guys, if you don't know this, and this is something that I think everyone really should come to terms with, especially with the

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LGBT stuff, you know, they present this image of, it's like, oh, it's just very attractive people with their heads on straight, high producers.

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And they're all just having the time of their lives. They're so happy. Guys, that is very rarely the truth.

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I would say almost always that is a facade. And on the inside, there's so much turmoil and pain and hatred and dysfunction.

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If you've ever been to a gay pride parade, either on purpose or by accident, you know that those people are not well.

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They're not well, man. They need Jesus so bad. But in any case, he had left his family and my heart just sank for his wife, even though he's pretending like this is all just going to be great.

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We're going to be co -parents. I knew that there was very little chance that that was true. And his kids are going to grow up.

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Their dad abandoned them. And not only did he abandon them, he's now pretending to be she, they.

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He's mentally unwell. I felt so bad for those kids, right? Anyway, fast forward to today.

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It's hard to talk about because I just feel so sad for the kids. But in any case, today I see a post on LinkedIn and LinkedIn is showing it to me because the algorithm has saw that it's gotten a lot of engagement.

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A lot of people are liking it, a lot of comments. And it's a post from this man. And this man is he's been a little bit more honest and he's announcing that, you know, hey, that co -parenting thing, that's really not working out.

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You know, my wife and I are having some disagreements on how to raise the children. Yeah, you think

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I mean, honestly, you think how to how to raise the children? She's filed a petition with the court that I'm mentally unfit to raise my kids.

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She's probably right. I mean, let's just face it. She's probably 100 percent right. I mean, I don't even know why

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I said probably she's she's right. So that's not going well. And then he said, but also

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I got fired. I got fired. And this guy, when he reached out to me initially,

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I saw that he was actually working for a really good company and a good consulting firm, well -respected, huge company.

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I mean, we're talking multi -billion dollar company. And and he was he said,

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I was doing really well. I was an up and comer. And then they decided to let me go. And they you know, they put me on a plan and I didn't.

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And but really, it's because I'm I'm trans. That's why they let me go, because I'm trans.

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And and I I was silent for a long time. I figured if I if I just built up enough capital, they would be fine.

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But then I came out and then they fired me. And it certainly seems to me like he's kind of positioning himself for some kind of a lawsuit or something like that or some kind of sympathy hire or something.

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And and and he's he's dragging his company's name through the mud, pretending that they they only fired him because he's trans.

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Maybe they did. I don't know, because to be honest, that that's a warning sign, in my opinion, that maybe your head's not quite all there.

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Like if you're not living in reality so much so that you're denying your own gender, your own sexuality, then maybe that's going to translate into your work as well, because you have to live in reality to do good work.

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But the only reason that makes me think that's not the case is because this is a major corporation. This is the kind of company that puts the pride flag up during Pride Month.

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Right. So so I don't think that's what happened with this company. Let me just say that I don't believe him.

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Right. Because here's what I do believe. Right now, a lot of companies, including this one, they're they see the recession coming and they're trying to get lean and mean, just like when

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I was at Robert Half and they were trying to get lean and mean during the recession. They kept the people that they felt they needed to move forward with.

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And everyone that was either underproducing or like marginal, like my friend, they got fired.

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And so this company is probably just doing that. And so he said, oh, you know, I did a counter offer.

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I needed some time to heal, but they wouldn't give it to me. And I just wanted a couple of years to heal. It's like.

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These guys fired you for cause. And now here you are dragging their name through the mud. Now, I'm not going to tell you the name of this company because that's not the point of this.

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But this company is going to be just fine. They've got all the money in the world. They've got the best lawyers.

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And what they'll probably do if he ends up suing them, right, is they'll probably just settle because it's probably cheaper to settle out of court than to take it to court where they'll probably win.

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But it'll be probably more expensive. It'll be long PR nightmare. They'll probably just pay this guy because he's now saying that he was fired because he's trans.

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In any case, we'll come back to that in just a moment. But what I did was

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I looked at the comment section because he had a lot of support for this post where he was dragging his company's name through the mud.

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And I looked at the comment section and 90 % of the people that were commenting and were like,

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Sly Queen, you know, that kind of thing. They were in an HR function. You know, they were either the head of talent, head of people, recruiter, talent acquisition,

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HR manager. They were in an HR function. Guys, this is where these destructive ideologies get their way into businesses.

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They worm their way in through HR. And here's the thing, as someone who's been in talent acquisition his entire career,

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I've seen it firsthand. These destructive ideologies that poison your business, that poison the hard -earned cohesion that a team, it's hard to build the team that's all on the same page.

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It's hard to build the top producing team. And then the ideologies that get in that start creating division and destruction to your team's cohesion, it comes in through talent acquisition.

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It comes in through HR. It has never been more critical to have a recruiting partner that you can trust.

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Covenant Recruiter has a track record of successful searches and partnering with businesses that are looking for highly sought after talent.

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And so we know how to find people. We know how to attract people. And we know how to land people with skill sets where you're competing with the top companies in the industry.

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One of our most recent success stories was a partnership that I made with a growing startup.

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Now, this is a kind of startup that experienced hyper growth in 2020. So we met them and we started working with them when they were just finishing up their series

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A. And we were their only recruiting partner in technology all the way through their series C.

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So they grew exponentially in tech. And they were looking for like top 10 % talent.

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So every time we would find a candidate, they were also interviewing with Amazon. They also got an offer from Meta. They also got an offer from wherever.

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These are top skill sets. And we were their only recruiting partner because they didn't need another one. We ended up helping them hire 60 people in engineering and sales.

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And the CEO of this company even admitted to his board that his recruiting success was due to us, his secret weapon.

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This is what we're expert at. We team up with some of the best recruiters in the industry.

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And we're good at finding people like that. But more importantly, every recruiter that we work with is expert at understanding the risks that you take when you bring someone new into your business.

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Because ideology does matter to some degree. I'm not saying everyone has to have the same

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Christian worldview that you have. Every T dot cross, every I dotted, and all that.

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So I'm not saying that. But you do have to live in reality. You do have to have a level head. And the recruiters that we work with absolutely understand that kind of thing.

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They understand the pitfalls of hiring someone that has their pronouns in the because the reality is the pronouns in the bio crew can do a lot more damage to your business a lot quicker than you think they can.

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And so we need to have an HR and talent acquisition function that not only understands matching skill sets, but also understands the whole personality, the whole person and the hard earned cohesion that your team has.

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We understand how to match on that level as well. And so that's why

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I'm sponsoring the fight last feast conference, because for too long, the HR and talent acquisition function has been a doorway to letting poison into your business.

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It doesn't have to be that way. And with covenant recruiter, it's not that way. I said

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I wanted to come back to the idea of this company is a huge company, they're going to be fine in a lawsuit.

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Let's just face it. If you hire the wrong person, and they come out as trans, and all of a sudden they're suing you for being against trans people.

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For a smaller company for a mid sized company, that could be deadly. That could be deadly.

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Not everyone is capable of settling that kind of stuff out of court. Not everyone's capable of fighting that in court without going bankrupt.

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And so now more than ever, you need a recruiting partner that you can trust covenant recruiter is that recruiting partner.

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So if you're if you're a business owner, or a business leader, and you're looking to add to your team in this time, reach out to me

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Adam at covenant recruiter .com. Even if you're looking for a new company, right? If you're looking if you're if you're an employee, and you're looking to potentially leave your corporate job, because there's a little bit of crazy going on behind the scenes, reach out to me as well.

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Adam at covenant recruiter .com. That's Adam at covenant recruiter .com. That's my real name. Adam at covenant recruiter .com.

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I look for my whole thing is going into the future. I've come to terms with this right?

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Doing well, we're doing what I'm doing right now. But I want to use my powers for good. And so I want to team up with companies that understand the value of making sure they have a great product, but also making sure that the people that they add to their team share their vision and share their core beliefs because that's so important these days.

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And so I want to help you and we can do it together. God bless you. I hope you found this podcast helpful.