College Experiences That Helped a Recruiter at Walden Recruiting Succeed
Marsh's legal studies background, with a focus on code law, provided them with exceptional reading comprehension skills, enabling them to "read it, understand, you know, the loopholes and all that," even to the point of correcting CTOs on API documentation. Additionally, an MBA in operations management with a specialization in business process engineering allowed Marsh to "take the old fashioned ways of doing stuff and massively collapse the amount of time that it takes" through innovative solutions like streamlining the interview process by scheduling multiple interviews simultaneously.
Legal Studies, Operations Management, Business Process Engineering, Process Improvement, Analytical Thinking
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Marsh Sutherland
Recruiter
Walden Recruiting
Pacific Lutheran University
Arizona State University (ASU) - W. P. Carey MBA, Arizona State University JD
Legal & Policy
Recruitment, HR & Related Professional Services, Technology
Human Resources (HR)
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Legal studies background provides strong reading and analytical skills, applicable even in technical fields.
2. MBA in operations management and business process engineering enables process optimization and efficiency improvements.
3. Thinking outside the box to streamline processes, such as scheduling two interviews simultaneously, can significantly reduce time to hire.
Transcript
What did you do in college to set you up for success?
That's a good question. My learning is very empirical. My undergraduate degree was in legal studies, which is law, with a minor in math and a minor in philosophy of symbolic logic.
When I went to law school, I was best at what they call code law, like tax code, versus common law, which are court opinions. I was very strong at reading that, so I know how to read things very well.
Even when I was doing my tech startups, I would correct the CTO on what the API could and couldn't do because they didn't read it right. But with my lawyer background, I know how to read it, understand the loopholes and what wasn't said.
Secondly, my MBA in operations management, specifically business process engineering, has allowed me to take old-fashioned ways of doing things and massively collapse the amount of time it takes to finish a process at any company.
For instance, when I was at OCI, we were scheduling HackerRank challenges for students, then going into a higher manager interview, and then two technical interviews. The way most companies do it is they do one technical interview, wait for feedback, then decide whether to move them forward. The problem is, many engineers are bad at giving feedback the same day, causing delays.
So, we configured Greenhouse and Calendly to send two separate invitations for the interviews, and students could schedule them at the same time. This also eliminates calendar dependency, as the second interview could happen before the first, depending on calendar availability. This massively reduced our time to hire. That was a little thinking outside the box.