Customizing Solutions in Finance and Accounting Recruitment: Insights from Peggy Richards

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (13:11.998)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspoti, and today’s guest is Peggy Richards, the West Coast Managing Director of Athena Finance and Accounting, an award -winning women -owned firm with a presence in 30 states that has been providing over 20 years of successful staffing solutions.

They blend the scale of a national powerhouse with the personalized touch of a boutique agency. They do things differently at Athena. While many other staffing firms are bogged down by excessive layers of infrastructure and management, Athena cuts the red tape with a flat organization that prioritizes efficiency and direct communication. Peggy herself has over 30 years of business and talent acquisition experience working for some of the very best public and private national recruiting firms.

all while building high performance teams and creating winning cultures. She has personally trained, hired, and developed over 500 recruiters throughout her career. She has led hundreds of single and multi -unit managers, and her teams have secured talent across multiple professional disciplines and industries. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits

that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency .com. Now, back to our guest today, the Managing Director of Athena Finance and Accounting, Peggy Richards.

I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Peggy Richards (15:11.435)
Thank you for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (15:13.084)
So Peggy, tell us, how did you first find yourself in the staffing industry?

Peggy Richards (15:18.062)
Wow. It goes back to, gosh, right, college. So I went to school at Loyola Marymount University and was there and part of actually the Greek system, something I said I would never do, ended up loving it. And I was president of the sorority. And then I did for one year a field consultant role where you travel to different universities across the US. I came home for spring break and met with about 20 people from college.

They all had taken their first professional corporate job after getting their degree and they looked miserable. Everybody looked really miserable except for two people that were down at the end of the table and just buzzing and happy. And I said, what are you guys doing? They said, we’re in staffing, we’re in recruiting. I’m like, what? I’d not really heard about it. Most of the on -campus recruitment firms, was your Procter and Gamble, your Gallowine, Enterprise Rent -a -Car. So staffing, what is it?

I think they knew me well in that I definitely wanted to be in a role in working with people and something that was impactful, purposeful type work. And yeah, they referred me in and it just kind of went from there. So it was just referred in by somebody I trusted and who knew me.

Anthony Codispoti (16:33.304)
And then you just fell in love with the profession. You’ve stayed with it ever since.

Peggy Richards (16:37.388)
I did, I did. And it’s kind one of those industries that you know within usually the first, well, I think maybe it takes a year to really, really know because there’s so many moving parts to it, but you either know you’re in or you’re out. People tend to really love it and you’ll see them stay with it their entire career. And then you’ll see people that just, know, a year or two, I’m out. So, but I just, loved it. I definitely loved it.

Anthony Codispoti (17:01.66)
What do you love most about it?

Peggy Richards (17:04.014)
I think finding somebody work, whether it’s interim work for them to keep cash flow going or their next work family, if you will, like a direct hire a job. I mean, it’s very, it’s very rewarding. know, finding, looking for work is very challenging and can be very hard on your psyche. You know, I’ve seen it with candidates and so just the feeling of securing something for them and knowing, I think knowing that it’s not just for them.

there’s a good chance maybe they’re feeding other mouths, right? Or they impact other people. So it’s rewarding in that way.

Anthony Codispoti (17:40.518)
Yeah, I could definitely see that. So Peggy, tell us in your own words what Athena Finance and Accounting does.

Peggy Richards (17:48.942)
So we place finance and accounting professionals at all levels within the accounting and finance realm on an interim project base and direct hire basis. So companies will call upon us if, let’s say they have a current opening and their talent acquisition team is focused on filling that, but maybe there’s a vacancy. So they will call upon us to bring in somebody on an interim basis to keep that workflow going. It can also be a way

to hire people onto their payrolls. So often companies will do what’s called contract to hire. Some people refer to it as temporary to hire, try before you buy, but it’s basically bringing somebody on board in a role on a contract basis to where we’re the employer, they have 90 days to assess them and the candidate gets to assess them as well. So it’s kind of a mutual interview if you will, working interview. Yes, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (18:43.838)
It’s like a, like a long -term dating thing. Yeah.

Peggy Richards (18:47.532)
And it’s really, because you know, you think about it, mean interviewing, when someone interviews, you hope, you probably get the best of them, right? Hopefully you get their best version of themselves in that, but often, you know, getting them in the job and doing the job, there could be a gap, right? And will they fit in with the culture, the work environment we have here? Yeah, and that’s one thing with companies. Companies equally these days want the technical skills and the culture compatibility.

Anthony Codispoti (19:17.822)
And so going through you to do like a contract to hire placement, it’s kind of an easier way for the company to sort of dip their toe in the water. Right. And so the person goes into it knowing this is a 90 day commitment, for example. It’s an easier out for the company in that situation versus them hiring somebody on full time. Right. And that expectation is full time. And then 90 days later, figuring out it didn’t work out and having to give them the bad news that we’re moving.

Peggy Richards (19:26.84)
Yeah, absolutely.

Peggy Richards (19:47.79)
Right. And you know, when they go contract to hire, it’s just one phone call to us. So we take care of that for them. So, you know, there’s really, there’s no risk or liability for them as an employer. It’s really them just evaluating the work and the culture fit. And again, just one phone call and then we handle that for them. So it works well.

Anthony Codispoti (20:06.526)
What’s behind the thought process of focusing specifically on the accounting and finance industry?

Peggy Richards (20:14.892)
Yeah, well in in staffing and there’s a lot of staffing companies take a guess on how many staffing companies in the US.

Anthony Codispoti (20:23.198)
I don’t know, 3000.

Peggy Richards (20:25.934)
26 ,000. I crazy? So 20, I know. So 26 ,000. when you go into recruiting, I mean, the best way really is to niche, go in with some extra expertise and do kind of a niche focus. So whether it’s finance and accounting, IT, marketing, human resources, being a niche player typically is, it’s just better. It’s just, I don’t know, more success being in the niche.

Anthony Codispoti (20:27.42)
Wow! Okay.

Peggy Richards (20:53.986)
But accounting and finance in particular has been over at least my career. And I’ve been through a few recessions and things, but it’s considered the pretty steady eddy niche in professional staffing where like IT, for example, we’ve seen so much flux. mean, IT’s had a rough year last year, this year, but accounting and finance stays pretty steady. So it’s a steady niche.

Anthony Codispoti (21:05.938)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (21:20.668)
Yeah. mean, right. We’ve seen lots of big tech companies with extensive rounds of layoffs in the last couple of years as they’re trying to trim costs. But accounting and finance, you’re always going to need that function. You’re always going to need those roles. That’s not going away. And so I could see that. And it reminds me of one of the favorite sayings an old mentor used to mention to me, which is riches are there’s riches and niches. Right. So you get to specialize and focus on something. You get to know who

Peggy Richards (21:45.088)
Yeah, yes. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Anthony Codispoti (21:50.482)
sort of the players are, what the lingo is, what the skill sets are, you know, the trainings that you’re looking for. You’re not having to kind of reinvent the wheel and educating yourself and your recruiters on what to look for. It’s just, it’s part of the vocabulary.

Peggy Richards (22:05.698)
Right, exactly. And it really is, you know, if you’re trying to do be all things to all people, there are some firms that are like general staffing companies, and many of them very successful. But I do think it’s difficult to go from placing, you know, a production worker to a controller, right? Or, you know, it’s a whole different profile of candidate of experience of education, and it requires sourcing and research and all you know what mean? In that niche. And it’s just, yeah, when you have a lot of different, it’s

Anthony Codispoti (22:07.347)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (22:24.146)
Mm -hmm.

Peggy Richards (22:35.49)
It’s just, I think it’s more challenging. So the focus has been good.

Anthony Codispoti (22:37.406)
Yeah. So am I correct? Athena has a presence in 30 states. Is that right?

Peggy Richards (22:44.654)
Yes. So Athena, we’re a division of Athena Consulting, which is based on the East Coast, specifically in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and has been in business now for almost 22 years operating in over 30 states. And their focus is all in the government sector. So they are doing government staffing, working with state, local agencies, federal government.

And the primary focus that they’re doing a significant amount of work is in the human health services space. So placing behavioral therapists, speech pathologists, know, that kind of skill set.

Anthony Codispoti (23:26.342)
And so then the idea for Athena accounting and finance came about as a way to kind of diversify, to maybe move into the private sector.

Peggy Richards (23:33.326)
Exactly. Yeah, to diversify, right, to get into the private sector, to diversify kind of the overall book of business, right, for the company. And yeah, so this is their first time in the private sector. And our CEO, who’s phenomenal, Melissa Pappas, she was actually looking at acquiring a company. And I was fortunate, someone I had worked with years ago at a private staffing company.

And we’ve always kept in touch. I reached out to her when I was jumping back in from having my own firm and the timing was great. She said, wow, we’re looking at buying a company out there. Let’s talk to you instead. And so that’s what they did. So I ended up getting an opportunity to interview with the CEO and the CFO. And she just really got behind my experience and basically bringing that to Athena. And that’s what we’ve done.

Anthony Codispoti (24:29.154)
fascinating. so now with Athena Finance and Accounting, can you operate in every state? Are there certain states that you’re sort of limiting your focus on?

Peggy Richards (24:40.95)
No, we can operate. So we cover the US. Right now, our focus though is it’s very focused in Southern California. Right now, specifically, because the initial launch team, they’re all based in Southern California. And that’s where kind of they know that market quite well. But we literally can do searches throughout the country. So right now, we’re working on a search in Georgia. We’re working on several in Florida. But the heavy part of our business is Southern California right now.

Anthony Codispoti (25:08.19)
So what kind of a company is a good fit for you as a client?

Peggy Richards (25:13.006)
You I would say probably, you you hate saying this because, you know, you want to think you can work with all different types of companies and sizes. But I think where we probably are best is your mid -size company. So a company that could be anywhere from 50 million to several hundred million, maybe depending on their industry, but probably a mid -size company. I would say a mid -size company, you know, as far as industry, we.

pretty much industry agnostic, but we are seeing quite a bit of demand right now, which I find interesting, but we do have a heavy demand in manufacturing, which if you look at the different labor categories and unemployment things, manufacturing has been hit one of the hardest, but finance and accounting, in manufacturing, there’s a lot of need. And then we’re seeing it in aerospace, and then we’re seeing it in the health, or not health, bio, biomed.

bio and med device, those are like pretty dominant with us right now.

Anthony Codispoti (26:16.986)
If I were to ask you what Athena does differently, how would you answer that?

Peggy Richards (26:24.162)
What we do differently is, because we employ great people. Like I really love the team that we have. I I’ve always loved the teams, right, that we’ve built. And so we have, I think, phenomenal people, but it’s what we allow those people to do. So if you talk to anybody at any staffing company, they’re all going to have great people, right? There’s, you know, hopefully. So you hope that they have really good people, but I think it’s the environment that’s created.

that allows them to really, really perform. So the key difference here is we’re more outcome focused than KPI focused. most, stocking companies, their operating business model is really driving very high levels of activity, very high levels of activity. It’s typical between 100 and 150 connects on the phone a week with prospective clients and buyers.

You know 10 to 12 in -person client meetings 10 I mean it’s a heavy week and what I found in my experience in working for companies that were focused on activity is that The activity became the name of the game versus the outcome if that makes sense so People were more focused on hitting their activity numbers for the week that I felt like cool Exactly. yeah, you know that was and I

Anthony Codispoti (27:45.34)
many people that I call, how many meetings that I have, instead of the ultimate goal.

Peggy Richards (27:51.15)
And I really always struggled with that. I always had because I thought, my God, what are they doing? And then you, you know, you run into issues. It’s human nature. You’ll get people starting to put stuff in and maybe they didn’t really even do it because they’re trying to hit a certain amount of numbers. So it just, I think it, the behaviors that it can ensue because it’s just focused. I’m not saying it’s the wrong thing. You need out activity to get outcomes. But when you hire a team whose average tenure is 16 years,

they already know what they’re doing. I don’t have to tell them how many people they need to interview to find three strong candidates to submit. So they already know what they have to do and the quality of their conversations, they’re at just such a higher level. They don’t have to do as many calls and connects to get the same outcome as perhaps a new recruiter at a large public staffing company right out of college that basically is, they’re teaching them the business through driving the high levels of activity. So,

I think that’s a key difference. We’re focused on outcome, not activity. And so I feel like we’re very intentional with our clients and candidates, very present. And we are able to customize, really customize solutions based on their scenario. So I would say that’s a key difference. And then I think the other would be, Athena was remote from its inception.

And that is very contrary to staffing companies throughout the US. mean, they were all on site, all probably 26 ,000 of them on site in an office building. in a lot of staffing companies, not really that comfortable putting people out remote. That was always met with resistance if we ever needed to do it maybe for a certain employee for a period of time in their life. It was just always very difficult.

They just didn’t like, didn’t trust people or something, but COVID, you know, really made everybody go remote for the most part. Some companies have now gone back on site, but, Athena kind of had that remote model completely down and wired well before COVID. And so that’s actually has been a huge advantage because what I’m, you know, very pretty tapped into the marketplace and competitors. And what I’m hearing is a lot of the competitors struggling now.

Peggy Richards (30:08.386)
that have gone fully remote due to COVID, really struggling with having our people be remote and really the trust factor. And so they’re driving high, high levels of activity, lots of checks and balances to where people are now unhappy feeling they’re being micromanaged, you know, and I don’t know adult wants to be micromanaged. So the thing that we do well with the remote is our engagement of our internal staff. So the company has like two help pedals. We have like a,

Anthony Codispoti (30:21.469)
Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (30:28.2)
Mm

Peggy Richards (30:38.574)
gosh, like a town hall once a month, and then we do a fun huddle that’s completely social, and it’s ran by a different member of the company. And it could be like, you know, sharing your favorite holiday tradition. It’s always a different topic, but I don’t know, they just do a lot to keep people very engaged and feeling part of a company, you know? You don’t really, you feel like you’re a part of something. So I think we do that really well.

Anthony Codispoti (31:00.944)
And those huddles are done like on a Zoom call, kind of like this.

Peggy Richards (31:04.556)
Yeah, we do it in a team’s call. It’s the entire company. You see everybody’s face. The CEO kicks it off. We hear from the CFO, the company Town Hall Huddle. You know, our CEO believes that she wants the team to be comfortable. If a relative, a friend says, hey, how’s Athena? She wants us to be able to answer and say, here’s how we’re doing. So we’re really pretty open book, you know, with that. And so the CFO presents big picture. We hear from the government operations team.

And then I present on the accounting and finance. And then we just launched a human resources division doing exactly what we’re doing, but all HR focused. So, and then they present. So that’s kind of on the business town hall. And then we have that fun one, which is just always something different and fun. So it’s good.

Anthony Codispoti (31:54.802)
So if I’m hearing you right, Peggy, think one of the advantages for Athena, especially in the last several years, has been that Athena started as remote. So the expectations, the culture, the metrics that you’re measuring, we’re all geared towards this remote environment with the understanding that nobody likes to be micromanaged. So we’re not going to

track how many phone calls you supposedly made today, what we want to see is how many people were you able to place, right? And you’re not going through the back and forth challenges of having to teach a group of people that have been in office for years to suddenly learn how to work remotely in a trustworthy way. And then subsequently, the snapback to

Peggy Richards (32:29.709)
Right. Right.

Anthony Codispoti (32:51.026)
you know, trying to pull people back into office and dealing with the backlash that a lot of other companies are getting for doing that. You’ve always been remote. The expectations, the goals, the metrics were in place to support that. so COVID certainly brought turbulence to your company, I’m sure, but you didn’t have to go through all that sort of back and forth and relearning how to do some of the basic things.

Peggy Richards (33:13.848)
Right, correct. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (33:15.836)
Yeah. And so in terms of what those differences look like for the customer, I we were talking a little bit more about how you do things differently, sort of behind the scenes with your team. What differences might a customer notice in terms of how Athena operates?

Peggy Richards (33:35.466)
That’s a great question. I think one of the differences for sure, like we’re definitely focused on the client experience. And even before we begin working with the clients, we do quite a bit of research to make sure that we’re going after companies that are strong, lead well, have strong cultures, et cetera. So we try to really select companies more than just, we’re not gonna just work with anybody. We wanna feel good about where we’re sending somebody. And so…

I think the experience though for them is it’s pretty, they do very little on their end. So one of our corporate values is making our client’s life easier. And so what we do when we get a search or let’s say it’s a contract to hire, what have you, we basically lay out the process with the client on the front end. So we’re not sending them a bunch of resumes, which is what a lot of staffing companies will do. They’ll take what’s called a job order.

Anthony Codispoti (34:29.906)
Hmm.

Peggy Richards (34:32.718)
They’ll take all the details and then they’ll start sending submittals, resumes probably with a little profile written up. So we’re not doing that at all. What we’re doing is we get them to identify a date where they can do the first round of interviews and then if there’s a second and final, however that looks. And then we just, we talk to them the day before we go over the three people we’re sending them and they meet with those three, they come down to their final and that’s it. So they’re not, they’re just really letting us do the whole thing.

Sending resumes, we’re just not about that. It’s like, and I’m not for it. A lot of staffing companies do it and that’s truly what they’re hiring us to do. sending a client a bunch of resumes and having them having to go through the resume, you know what mean? It’s no, that’s what we do. So we just button up the process. It’s a shorter process from the initial like taking in, we call it an intake call with the client that we do in person or on teams. And we always have the recruiter on that call.

So they’re hearing firsthand from the client, not just what’s on the job description, but more importantly, what’s not on it, right? And what, maybe what a candidate needs to have to be successful in their company, in that department. But it’s just a shorter process. I would say it’s a shorter process and it’s very customized. And then the other benefit I believe is because we’re remote, I mean, we pass those savings on to the client. And that’s something that

a lot of companies, you know, as we start talking to them and we talk about we’re a remote model, you know, long before everybody else, like this is what we’ve always done. And we pass on those savings to the client. They’ll see it in our pricing. Our pricing is not, we were not the lowest. We are definitely not the most expensive. I think they see us as very fair pricing. We do not get pushback. We just don’t. And I think it’s because it’s fair. so I think that’s something that in the industry,

You haven’t seen other staffing companies, at least from clients I’m talking to, that have adjusted their rates. The rates have only gone up. And you know, they can point to inflation and different things, but I challenge that by saying, really, you’re 100 % remote. used to have 250 physical A -class buildings you were in. You know what mean? Across the country, you’re no longer. Like those are, that’s huge capital expense. And so yeah, we proudly say, we pass that on to you, client. So we do that as well.

Anthony Codispoti (36:35.944)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (36:54.61)
Yeah, that wasn’t even something I was thinking about. The benefit of the remote model is you’re not paying for expensive rent and the upkeep of that space. So that’s a significant cost savings.

Peggy Richards (36:57.368)
Yeah.

Peggy Richards (37:02.232)
My hits.

Peggy Richards (37:07.178)
It is, and I think people don’t look at that enough. It’s funny, I was talking to a client the other day and I happened to mention it and then they mentioned a huge competitor and said, I need to ask them next time I talk to them. I’m like, you should, you know, because they’re pricing significantly higher than ours. And I think it’s, but they also too, and this is a different with our, different with our model or difference with our model is a lot of those companies still have like really like a lot of infrastructure layers of management.

which I also have found in my career you don’t really need. And often what the staffing company will do is they’ll take a great, great recruiter or a great salesperson and then they put them in that leadership role, but they often lose their number one salesperson or recruiter and get an okay manager. But I think that, wait, I just lost my train of thought as I was talking about that. The layers too with our models. So we’re flat, we’re really flat.

Anthony Codispoti (38:04.819)
Yeah.

Peggy Richards (38:04.992)
So in other companies, I might’ve been three or four levels removed from the recruiters and sales people. And here, not. It’s me and them. And so it’s me and the team and it’s great. And so we’re very strategic. Like every transaction, every client, we’re getting very strategizing, trying to customize something, make it work for them, and also really working hard to create a different and better experience than they’re having with other firms.

Anthony Codispoti (38:33.608)
Well, that’s something else that is offering a higher degree of cost efficiency as well by taking out those different layers of structure and management. Yeah, something you.

Peggy Richards (38:42.412)
Yes, yeah. And we also too, like with AI, we are doing a great job. You know, the remote model, right? So no overhead, zero overhead. We have a corporate office, but it’s not huge. And so we have a remote model and then we leverage AI tools, both for sales and recruiting, where it makes sense. And then also we have an offshore team. And this was something that when I was first interviewing with Athena, I was really like really intrigued by

Cause I always wanted to kind of look at that offshore, how can you leverage offshore? well, right. And so they’ve done it and they’ve had zero turnover in the last like three years with an offshore team, which is unheard of. And it’s because they also do a great job of integrating them into our culture. So those individuals, they’re on our huddle, our team, you know, company town hall and huddle. And so, they’ve done a great job with that. So we have somebody who’s offshore. only have one for my team offshore. Everybody else is here.

But it does help. The woman that we have working with us is from Columbia and she’s been placing people in finance and accounting for 10 years. She’s phenomenal. And obviously it’s at a much lower expense than if she were here in the States. But yeah, so that’s been another way we’ve been able to leverage.

Anthony Codispoti (39:59.91)
And is she recruiting folks that are also in Central America or is she recruiting folks that are here in the States?

Peggy Richards (40:05.774)
She’s 100 % recruiting in the States. Yep, and doing really well. And yeah, it’s been good.

Anthony Codispoti (40:08.636)
Yeah.

want to come back to the AI component, but I wanted to give voice to something else that you were saying a few minutes ago. You don’t send your clients a stack of resumes. You whittle that down for them to here’s the top three. And I don’t have a lot of experience working as staffing agency. I did work with a recruiter several years ago for one of my other businesses. And one of the things that was so refreshing about working with this gentleman was

Peggy Richards (40:21.571)
Mmm.

Anthony Codispoti (40:42.03)
he followed exactly the same model. You know, whereas I used to have to go to the job boards and, you know, comb through all these resumes. And it was, it was just, it was overload. Like I didn’t even know where to begin, how to, how to start to turn the filter on. And this gentleman came in and he managed the entire, you know, I gave him the job description. We kind of talked about it. And is exactly what you’re describing. And he would come back to me with, here’s three folks for your interview.

Peggy Richards (40:48.888)
Yes. Right.

Peggy Richards (40:55.854)
Hey. Yeah.

Peggy Richards (41:01.71)
It’s great.

Anthony Codispoti (41:10.224)
And here’s the person I think is the best. And I was like, my gosh.

Peggy Richards (41:12.44)
Yeah, yeah, that’s what we do, yep. But isn’t that nice? It just takes it off like your plate completely. So all those resumes you were going through, if you can imagine, because of course we place ads on LinkedIn, we use LinkedIn quite a bit for recruiting, and you know, get really mixed results from ads, bottom line. So like the majority of ours is proactive, more cold recruiting, where we’re just approaching people on LinkedIn and trying to engage them.

and really just having conversations even if they’re not looking to find out what would it take for you to look up, what kind of opportunity would interest you. So we’re building profiles that way too, right? And then we’re able to come back to them. could be three months, six months and say, hey, I thought of you. We had something that came in. You know what I mean? It meets their needs and then it kind of goes from there.

Anthony Codispoti (41:47.186)
Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (41:59.792)
Interesting. So your approach to recruiting is not just placing ads, but sort of going out and tapping people on the shoulder that are maybe not looking for a job.

Peggy Richards (42:11.416)
yeah. And that’s in particular with our direct hire practice and retained practice, retained search companies. And I feel, I mean, I feel the same way, you I don’t want somebody that I could find, you know, you kind of want somebody who’s not out there in the market responding to ads, right? Their resume is not all over the place. And some of the best people to recruit are people that are, you know, heads down, happy, successful. Those are the people companies want. So we try to engage them very softly.

Anthony Codispoti (42:24.389)
Mmm.

Peggy Richards (42:37.152)
upfront and just build relationships with them. And that’s been helpful too.

Anthony Codispoti (42:44.168)
seems like that would be a much more time consuming process rather than just running ads and seeing what comes back to you. But it also seems like it would lead to a much higher caliber pool of candidates.

Peggy Richards (42:57.07)
It does, it does. It makes a big difference. And then referrals. So we do a bonus referral program. get, you know, great people know great people. And so we pay a thousand dollars for candidates that are placed that were referred to us, which is pretty strong. You’ll usually see bonuses of 250, 500. So we just did a little bit more, but referrals have also been a good source of strong candidates.

Anthony Codispoti (43:21.608)
So let’s go back to AI because different people view AI differently. Some people see it as an amazing tool, opportunity for efficiencies, and other people see it as a threat to their job security. How do you think about it? How does Athena think?

Peggy Richards (43:37.644)
Yeah.

with recruiting, it’s, mean, so far it’s only helped us go faster. It’s only helped us go faster. I think that it’s gonna, I think it’s gonna continue to play a role. think it’ll continue to play a greater and greater role, but it’s not gonna replace the recruiter. I mean, you still need your live human person, right, to assess somebody. You can’t really, I mean, you need a person to assess somebody in terms of their EQ, their leadership ability, all those.

like intangible skills. So it’s not gonna, I don’t think it’s gonna take the industry away. You know what I mean? It’s almost like when offshore recruiting became big, I don’t know, 15 years ago, it started maybe 20 years ago. don’t even know. Everybody thought, my gosh, my gosh. Just like they did when Monster, the job board came out. I remember the industry was super scared when Career Builder, know, Monster, all those, and those only became aids for us. Those only became, it just helped us do our jobs. So.

Anthony Codispoti (44:27.208)
Hmm.

Peggy Richards (44:36.298)
So far it’s helping our jobs. there’s like, you we have different for business development, we use Apollo, which is an app that sits on top of LinkedIn. And so we’re able to, you know, we can look somebody up just with a click and they’re able to give us a lot more information on them and even the org chart of the company and things. So we’ll use that and that’s AI and that’s been working great. On the candidate side, the only thing really using AI on the candidate side will be

When we do create job ads, we’ll use AI for sure. It’s easier, know, just quicker. They do a better job probably than I could write an ad or a team. So we’ll do it for writing ads. And then if we’re interviewing candidates in a very particular niche, within a niche in finance, and maybe it’s something we haven’t had a lot of experience on, we’ll go into AI to get the questions. Say, hey, what should I be asking this person to see, you know, so we can use it for that as well. So it’s really,

Yeah, so far it’s just been helping us do our job better and quicker. Hopefully it stays that way.

Anthony Codispoti (45:39.664)
And sorry if I missed this, but are you also using any AI tools to help you sort of filter through the resumes that you’re getting?

Peggy Richards (45:49.324)
We do, well, all of, so we do most of the majority of our recruiting that we do is LinkedIn. so LinkedIn has AI built within their system. So we are able to use different filters to really narrow down who we want and even filters to say, I want them to have this, but not this, you know, and you could get it as specific as you want. And then it will actually, you work within a project within LinkedIn and it’ll even tell you, Hey, these are our recommended matches. These are people that are open to work.

because you can put an open to work banner on your LinkedIn, you So that’s pretty much how it’s used on LinkedIn. I just, they constantly are adding and making that even better.

Anthony Codispoti (46:29.986)
fascinating. And so that is sort of the version of AI that you’re using through LinkedIn when you’re reaching out to somebody who’s not searching. But what about like when you run an ad and you’re getting resumes back from folks? Is that still all like a manual review process or is there some tools that that helps speed that up?

Peggy Richards (46:46.734)
okay. No, it’s still manual review. It would be still manual review. But what we try to do when you do the ads and things, we do get pretty micro with the words to get it as specific as possible. But no, often you’re still going through a fair amount of people. Because there’s also people who, and we’ll see this a lot in finance and accounting, they have terrific backgrounds, great education, but they don’t know how to write a resume. They’re just, or they’ve…

Anthony Codispoti (47:03.646)
Okay, yeah.

Peggy Richards (47:13.326)
never really had to. A lot of great people get referred into companies. I always get referred. They use my LinkedIn profile. So we also don’t rule somebody out because of the resume, because the resume never tells the full story. You know, it just doesn’t. And so you do have to look through because you’ll also there’s positions in accounting that could have, you know, 15 ways to say the same thing, too. So it does call for like some diligence and still going through quite a few profiles.

Anthony Codispoti (47:23.534)
Anthony Codispoti (47:36.36)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (47:41.584)
And so you go through the resume and it may be poorly written, but you don’t discount that. What do you do? Where do you go to sort of verify that they might be a good fit?

Peggy Richards (47:54.882)
Right, so what we might do, we might just pick up the phone and call them. We also have a preliminary profile builder that we use. So let’s say a candidate’s not ready to interview, maybe they don’t even have a resume. It’s an email we send, it’s kind of a help me help you where they’re giving us a lot of information that will help us kind of clarify, can this guy do this or not? This person do this job or not? If we’re recruiting for a specific job, we will also email them specific questions related to that opportunity.

and ask for examples, accomplishments, tangible things, et cetera. So it just depends. It just depends.

Anthony Codispoti (48:32.936)
Piggy, what is the biggest mistake that you see companies make when hiring?

Peggy Richards (48:42.69)
I think being too rigid on their company profile, there’s some companies who’ll say, they’re not ABC company material, whatever it is. I think just not being so rigid, meaning…

You know, being more open -minded, I think, to the person’s story. That’s probably the way I want to say it. So I had worked for a company where every person we interviewed, had to sit down with this pretty big company to sit down with the CEO and go over the people we wanted to hire internally. It was like a 20 page packet with references, with, you know, assessment, all this stuff. And that was a good experience for me because

that company really wanted only so many jobs within so many years. They also kind of had like, they wanted to see someone graduate from an undergrad in no more than five years. And so I would say, and I don’t agree with that. So, and I didn’t agree with it all the time. So I was kind of the one who would come and say, hey, so they actually took eight years to graduate. Let me tell you the story. You know, they were taking care of a sick parent and they were working full time at a, like I would rather have someone who’s got a story of grit.

and perseverance and you know what mean? So I think the biggest mistake they can make is just kind of going off their profile and resume and not going deeper into like find out their story, find out who they are as a person.

Anthony Codispoti (50:08.412)
Well, that’s probably a bit easier for the company, right? Because they’re like, well, if we put some of these filters in place, like this is a good way to reduce the number of candidates that we have to review. But by engaging Athena, then you guys are taking that busy work off their plates and say, hey, let’s not be so rigid here. We’ll do the additional like digging and research to find out if this person is worth taking to the next step.

Peggy Richards (50:20.472)
Yeah.

Peggy Richards (50:35.724)
Yeah, yes, yes.

Anthony Codispoti (50:39.879)
Let me see, where do we want to go next? Actually, if we can real quick, Peggy, I’m going to pause here and see if maybe you can turn on echo cancellation on your side. Is that a function that you see there?

Peggy Richards (50:50.69)
Yeah, let me echo cancellation.

Hmm, on the speaker maybe. Where would I find that?

Anthony Codispoti (51:01.973)
I’m seeing it in a sidebar.

There’s a picture of me, there’s a picture of you. So it’s recording. Echo cancellation.

Anthony Codispoti (51:17.79)
But if we can’t find it, that’s all right. We will. Yes, yeah, yeah, but that’s okay. I’ll have to check with my producer, because I don’t know if it’s getting recorded or if it’s just something that I hear. That’s what I’m not sure of. But we’ll sort of cut this part out. We’re at about the 51 minute mark. So this one doesn’t have to make the final edit.

Peggy Richards (51:18.318)
Am I echoing on your end a little bit? That’s not good.

Peggy Richards (51:27.019)
You can fix that.

Peggy Richards (51:37.047)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (51:48.57)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (51:52.124)
Let’s see, Peggy, what is maybe a serious challenge that you’ve had to overcome either in your professional or your personal life? And what are some lessons that you learned coming through the other side?

Peggy Richards (52:02.21)
Mmm, yeah.

Peggy Richards (52:07.919)
my goodness. I would say,

Peggy Richards (52:16.526)
Personal challenge, think, know, this, you know, staffing career is very, you put a lot into it. You typically, long hours, all of that. That’s how it’s been historically. COVID really changed that for the industry, which I think has been phenomenal. probably one of my biggest challenges was back in 2015, 2014, when my husband was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and went through

treatment, you know, for 18 months, very, very severe. ended up, he ended up passing. And so, you know, being, I think, working, you know, I had a big job, lots of responsibility and balancing that. You know, the one thing I did, I did, I think I did a really, here’s what I learned. I did a really good job of separating. Like I would come to work and it was like turn off personal life completely, because I had to, to focus. And I kind of, work became my escape.

a little bit, right? So kind of poured myself into my work and just decide I was really not going to talk about it much or bring people into it. I just wanted to keep it separate. And when I look back, I think I would have done that differently because it ended up that that is how I did did life when he was really, really sick. And I ended up having one of the best years. I ended up going making it to a Hawaii trip and all this great stuff performance wise.

Anthony Codispoti (53:30.398)
Okay.

Peggy Richards (53:42.414)
But I personally didn’t deal with the grief. He passed in 2016, and then I really didn’t deal with it till 2021. So I basically prolonged, you know what mean? And I thought I was like, no, I’m doing okay, because I’m navigating life and moving forward. But the emotional part of it and the loss, didn’t really let, I didn’t let myself register it really until a few years later. So I guess looking back,

I probably should have been a little bit more hum You know what mean? not think I had – And I really felt – And I think some of it was being a woman too. I think when you’re in a woman in leadership and sort of a significant positions, you have this sense like, okay, I can do it. And you just don’t wanna, you know, you don’t wanna fail and you don’t wanna let anybody down. And you think about, okay, if this is happening in a man’s life, he wouldn’t bring it to work, you know? But I regret that part. I regret that I didn’t sort of Yeah. Because –

I don’t know, I just felt like I kept it too separate to where I never really dealt with it. So that’s more of a personal thing that I would say I learned.

Anthony Codispoti (54:45.246)
And I’m curious, what was it in 2021 that was sort of the trigger for you kind of coming face to face with this in a way that you hadn’t yet?

Peggy Richards (54:54.35)
You know what? I went on a woman’s retreat. So I went on a woman’s retreat. Didn’t even think I belonged. But basically it was, it just happened to all come together. And it was this, counselor I was seeing who actually works with first responders. you’re Sam, you know, the shooting, 9 -11, she gets called in on really intense crisis management and counseling.

So somebody I knew who was a first responder said, I wonder if she would talk to you, because she’s incredible. Because I said, hey, I’m looking to talk to somebody. And this person basically ran into her the next day in Target. was like, to me, I’m like, it’s a God thing. And so I saw her two days later. She’s like, I’ll talk to her. And she said, I’m called to invite you to this woman’s retreat. It’s eight women. They’re all married to first responders or have been first responders.

Anthony Codispoti (55:33.096)
you

Peggy Richards (55:45.388)
She goes, but I think you’ll fit in fine because you’ve kind of been a first responder in your life and many things. so, yeah, I went and it was a weekend of four therapists, eight people. They say it’s like a year of therapy in four days. And we did probably the most impactful was equestrian with horses therapy. So they did some horse type therapy. Horses can really censure emotions like even more so than dolphins.

Anthony Codispoti (56:06.366)
Okay.

Peggy Richards (56:12.78)
So we did some cool stuff with that, but it was mostly just group things and talking and it was therapy. It was group therapy pretty much. And I feel like that was a huge turning point because it was this comfortable space for a weekend where I could really just let it go. I could, you know what I mean? And I could accept what happened and feel the, allow myself to feel that pain. I, that was, yeah, that was key. That retreat was key for me.

Anthony Codispoti (56:38.376)
This was a place that you could just open up and finally let the emotions come out, come to the surface where you had been sort of tamping this all down. I got this, I’m busy, I’m successful, I’m focusing on my career, I’m good. It’s happened, it’s in the past, but now you’re like, actually I need for this to come out. And this was the opportunity.

Peggy Richards (56:44.311)
Yes.

Peggy Richards (56:50.434)
Right. Right. Right. And yeah. Yep.

Peggy Richards (56:59.234)
Yeah, and I didn’t realize it. Like literally they brought in like an energy healer and not that I would have even looked into that. I don’t know in the past, but I was like, wow. And have you ever done energy healing or anything like that? He literally, so he was doing his work and you know, there’s music in the background, but he put his hand and he said, you know, I’m not touching, I’m putting my hand over your heart. And when he did it, I remember just feeling like I could barely breathe. Like it was really like, and he said, you have such a heavy heart.

Anthony Codispoti (57:10.642)
little bit.

Peggy Richards (57:27.99)
And he did something weird to my back and the motion, just cried like a baby for probably three hours, no lie. So I don’t know what he released. He said it was some sort of whatever they had to release. I don’t know. So, I mean, it was just, it was an awesome experience. It was great.

Anthony Codispoti (57:41.746)
What did your trajectory look like after that women’s retreat?

Peggy Richards (57:46.862)
well, let’s rewind. after the, before the retreat in 2020, which was also, think, a turning point in my career when COVID hit and co I was working for a really large, great privately held staffing company. And, my region was doing very, very well. COVID hit and the business overnight, like overnight seemed to drop within a no lie, probably two and a half, three weeks business dropped like almost 50 % for the company. And,

Anthony Codispoti (58:10.864)
and

Peggy Richards (58:15.468)
man, it was just, you you were going from having all these offices to first getting your internal staff mobile, working out of their home, and then all your candidates say about working. Clients panicking, so the first thing they do is get rid of their variable expense. Any contractors get, you know what mean? They’re trying to navigate things. So it was crazy, and we did two rounds of layoffs. And I never, I never thought I would get laid off from there, because my region was, you know what I mean? I’m like,

And I got laid off and it was really, eliminated my position and the two others across the country and rolled it into the person above us. So it was a business decision, but it was, that was really, really tough because here it was COVID navigating COVID. got laid off, nobody’s hiring in the industry. And then on top of it, a personal challenge was my son. My late husband died in my son’s arms. He was trying to revive him. So my son went down a very scary, dark, dark path for.

Yeah, a period of a few years. So I had gotten laid off and then I think two weeks later I ended up doing an intervention and he went in and got help and he’s like four and a half years sober and doing phenomenal. But there was a lot going on at that time, you know, where you just, yeah, it was heavy. But so those were pretty, yeah, pivotal times, but also just knowing you can kind of get through anything. So I ended up just starting my own firm with somebody that I’d worked with in the past and thought I’m just going to hang out here until I figure out that the dust settled.

in the business and staffing. And it just worked out. So I just did direct hire, you know, placing people across the country. It was fun for the first year and then I didn’t like it. It felt very isolating. Like I was this sole proprietor. It just wasn’t enough. Not enough people in action, not building enough. And that’s why I’m like, I’m going to get back in. And it just worked out with Athena.

Anthony Codispoti (59:55.996)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:02.566)
Yeah. And so, wow. Yeah, there was a lot more going on there. And so after this women’s retreat, what did you notice? How did things change? Was there still a lot of emotional release and healing to be done? Did you feel like a giant weight had been lifted?

Peggy Richards (01:00:06.574)
Yeah.

Peggy Richards (01:00:17.934)
Yeah, it took a while. I think it was even after that probably some healing and things and I think just I just felt like I could really breathe and be more present personally in my life too. So like with my boys and my you know what mean? It just I think it was just good I needed a reset and I needed a place where I could let that go, you know

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:22.834)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:40.348)
Yeah. I’m curious to hear it from you because you would have a special perspective on this. I talked to a lot of business leaders who describe what’s still a very tight labor market. And so they have trouble recruiting folks. They have trouble holding on to the good folks that they have. What advice would you give to employers? What is the single biggest thing that they can do?

to improve their recruiting or to improve their retention of the good folks that they have.

Peggy Richards (01:01:12.182)
Yeah, it’s probably not a single thing. I think it’s probably a few things. think, you know, to start, I employers and they probably, I think it’s happening more and more, but they really need to think about their employer brand, kind of what’s the face of the company outward, you know, the candidates might know of and how are they promoting the company. So I think having a positive employer brand that’s going to attract people is always helpful. But then even just starting from,

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:16.354)
Okay.

Peggy Richards (01:01:39.27)
when the candidate is hired, being super clear about expectations, having a structured onboarding program that orientates them to not just their role, but the different companies in departments within an organization. And I think mixing in there, getting to know them. Companies need to do more of that because the reality is, and some people will say it’s the earlier generations, but everybody wants to know you care, right? So I think getting to know the person makes a difference.

And people don’t want to be a number. They don’t want to be a butt in the seat. So I think it’s getting to know them is probably the biggest advice I could give.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:08.008)
What are you?

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:19.228)
What do you see is the biggest reason why an employee chooses to change jobs?

Peggy Richards (01:02:25.122)
what we see, there could be lots of reasons, right? It could be culture, something significant could be happening with the company. But the primary reason, the majority of the time, it’s not the company they’re leaving, they’re leaving their manager. It’s usually leadership, straight up. I mean, they may really like the people that maybe are above or the manager reports to, but if they don’t like, whoever’s impacting them the most, day to day and,

And if they don’t respect them or feel like they can learn from them or if that person’s not relying, any of those issues will be reason. That is the biggest reason. The second biggest reason would usually be career advancement. And then money’s probably the last. Money’s not as high up as you would think.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:08.784)
interesting. Yeah, that is surprising. Let me shift gears here, Peggy, and curious to hear maybe a fun or interesting fact about you that most people wouldn’t know.

Peggy Richards (01:03:12.867)
Yeah.

Peggy Richards (01:03:21.23)
my gosh, a fun or interesting fact. A fun or interesting, I have a huge family. I’m one of six kids. I’ve got, think, how many do I want? 20 nieces and nephews, which are awesome, which I love. I love big families, right? I also started a 501C for women and a nonprofit. Yeah, so it’s a business network.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:30.76)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:37.36)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:44.22)
Nonprofit.

Peggy Richards (01:03:48.268)
And I don’t know if you’re familiar with Servite High School. Have you heard of Servite? It’s an old boys Catholic school out here in Orange County in Anaheim. My late husband had gone, my boys. Anyways, it’s a school that has a leadership program that’s known across the country. It’s a formation program where they form young men. They’re trying to form them into men basically. But through the years, my boys going there, I was involved in different things, right? I was on president of the board.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:52.123)
Mm

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:55.634)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:07.953)
Okay.

Peggy Richards (01:04:16.076)
different activities and things, fundraisers would meet these incredible women that I was so impressed with, but we never talked about our work like what we did for a living. I always say it’s like a Catholic guilt thing or something. I don’t know. But I didn’t, I would just, we would focus on the event, we’d focus on our kids. So I started to, when I got laid off, I was like, gosh, who am I gonna network with for business? Because my role in staffing industry, I only was a recruiter for eight months. They took me off the recruiting desk, put me in sales.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:35.794)
Yeah.

Peggy Richards (01:04:44.686)
and then leadership. And so I hadn’t worked a desk, the actual job, since 1988. So here I am laid off. And of course, I know I can do it. I train people. I know it. So I thought, so I went into the, surveyed their advancement office and just pitched this idea of a network to keep the alum moms engaged, but also to be like, yeah, the alum moms, yeah, like alum moms. So yeah, so what we did is,

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:51.07)
wow.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:01.606)
Wait, the alum mums? I like that.

Peggy Richards (01:05:08.972)
Yeah, just put this thing out, put a board together. Yeah, now it’s growing and it’s amazing. do it. There’s an event every month. We just had someone speak, helping us develop our elevator pitch. And then we took LinkedIn profile shots. do things on negotiating, but it’s basically this intentional network where we are making an effort to find out what everybody does for a living. What’s your ideal client? You know, how we can help each other. Basically how we can serve each other rather than doing what I thought it was going to have to do when I went to

a lead meeting with a network and they are telling you, you know, come back next month with three leads for the people on your right and left. And I’m like, no way. I don’t know them. And you’re like, no. So this was like, this was my way of like, okay, let’s do these women. We have shared values. We know if they sent their kids here, we have some similar values, but I’ve also seen these incredible women and my gosh, the surgeon general for California is in the network. mean, like we’ve got some great people, CEO, great.

like hospitals, like just a variety of people. And it’s become this really cool women’s group that is, I feel like supporting kind of the total woman, you know, not just in your business, but even we do a spiritual thing. We do just really, how can we be the best version of ourselves while lifting each other up, but also still being women. Like we don’t need to pretend, let’s be women. Like we bring something to the workplace that’s unique. So yeah, so that’s something really, I said, that’s a fun fact that I.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:37.814)
You’ve mentioned this idea of women in business a couple of times. And so I kind of want to pull at this thread a little bit as a man. Like, obviously, I know my experience of moving through the business world. How do you feel it’s different for a woman, a successful woman in a professional position than, I mean, enlighten me. Like, what am I not experiencing or seeing that you’re going through?

Peggy Richards (01:06:44.084)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Peggy Richards (01:06:59.246)
Yeah, you know what? Right. Yeah. And I don’t know that I’m going through like I don’t feel it at all. I personally do not feel at all. I would say earlier in my career, the males they just kind of would dominate they would dominate meetings there would be, you know, I’ve been part of company where you know, they were always kind of referenced. They were just were referenced more they were their input seemed to be weighing out a little bit more. And then there was a wage gap. There was always like a 13 to 15 % wage gap.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:06.919)
Hmm.

Peggy Richards (01:07:29.368)
which people still, I don’t think the new law to where people now when you interview them, you can’t ask them what they made before. And that is really in an effort to help the wage gap between men and women, et cetera. So that’s something that’s been put in place that’s been very helpful with that. And then I think it just, it really comes down to culture. And I think it all starts from the top, right? So think it’s all, depends, the culture I think that appreciates

you know, men and women, right? I think, you know, that’s, you respect everybody. So I personally can’t relate to it the latter part of my career at all, but I would say the earlier part of my career. And some women will, you know, some women will think they got, you know, passed up for things over a male, you know, he goes golfing with the CEO or, whatever it is. But personally, I…

This industry actually is quite a few, it’s more female dominated. So I don’t feel like it’s that big of an issue in our industry. I really don’t. I do, I do. Yes, yeah, for sure, for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:31.506)
you feel right at home most of the time, especially now later in your career. Yeah. You said something interesting. I didn’t realize that you can’t ask people what they made at their existing or their previous job.

Peggy Richards (01:08:41.654)
No, you can’t. That’s been in play for probably four years now, maybe five, but you used to be able to, which always kind of would help you, right? But now, yeah, they don’t do it at all. And I think it’s great. It’s helpful for the candidate by far. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:55.644)
Any specific books or mentors that have been helpful for you in your career?

Peggy Richards (01:09:00.386)
Books or mentors? I had a mentor at my very first job, David Lewis, and super grateful for him to this day. He really gave me a great foundation, kind of took me under his wing. And one of the biggest gifts I think that he shared with me was just the power of goal setting and writing down your goals, right? That was something that he got me, know, and I just keep doing it that’s been helpful for me. So he’s someone total standout for me.

Books, really like, what is Cheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is good. I’ll read periodic business books, but I like to listen to podcasts probably even more.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:40.786)
What are some of your favorite podcasts?

Peggy Richards (01:09:42.68)
Favorite podcast, they’re all, well, they’re not really businessy. Can I say that? Is it really? Do I dare say it? So I’ll listen to news ones. I try to listen to, I like Megyn Kelly. That’s more political, right? But I like her reporting, it’s a different reporting. Unbiased is a podcast I listen to every day. I don’t feel unbiased. It’s not just political news. She’s excellent. She’s an attorney, young attorney, and just gives it straight.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:47.368)
That’s okay. Yeah. yeah, absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:59.804)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:05.618)
I haven’t heard of that one. Okay.

Peggy Richards (01:10:11.49)
That’s probably something personal. That’s all I want with news is I just want the facts. So those are two that I listen to quite a bit. I know, I know. Well, you don’t have to do is you have to research, you have to fact check the fact check companies and see who’s, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:17.89)
That’s so hard to find anymore. That’s, that was how the news.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:25.998)
Yeah. I took a journalism class in high school and I thought I was a good writer back then and I would turn in some of my first articles and they were all marked up in red ink because I was introducing my opinion, my thought. And it’s like, can’t do that. If you want to, you know, introduce a point of view, you have to get an outside party that you can quote. Like that’s what journalism used to be. And it’s wildly different now. Yeah.

Peggy Richards (01:10:39.372)
Yeah, yeah.

Peggy Richards (01:10:53.1)
No, it is. It is. Sure.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:54.182)
So I’ve got one more question for you, Peggy, but before I ask it, I wanna do two things. First, if you’re listening today and you like today’s content, please hit the like, subscribe, or share button on your favorite podcast app. Also, I wanna let people know the best way to get in touch with you, Peggy, what would that be?

Peggy Richards (01:11:10.03)
You know what? I have a really long email. I would say honestly, the best way is probably a cell phone, believe it not, text me, is the very best way. So should I give my number? I am, absolutely. So 714 -376 -5182.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:19.166)
Okay. If you’re comfortable with it, okay.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:30.086)
And we can also point people to the website which is athenafinanceandaccounting .com. So last question for you. I’m kind of curious. How do you see your industry evolving in the next few years? What do you think the big changes are that are coming?

Peggy Richards (01:11:32.96)
that would be great. Yeah, it’s Athenafinanceandaccounting .com.

Peggy Richards (01:11:47.31)
I mean, I believe companies will be more and more using more offshore for some of the activities and recruiting that are more administrative. So for example, whether you’re researching companies or sourcing candidates, know, a lot of it’s, I you have to have an eye for certain things, but it’s pretty laborious and it can be very administrative, right? So those, see them like a lot of that going offshore for recruiting.

and then keeping your recruiters, the ones that then be client facing, candidate face to face. I see that happening, I think, more and more. And then AI, who knows what AI, right? Who knows? But with AI, yeah, it will. And you what? you just gotta, I think you have to be careful with it. think we use it as a tool. We do not rely on it, but we’ll use it as a tool and it’s been helpful.

Anthony Codispoti (01:12:30.694)
It’ll be fun to see how that evolves.

Peggy Richards (01:12:42.294)
We’ve also found some things where we had the fact checker AI guy, right? So you just, yeah, you still need to, I think, use your critical thinking skills, right? And that’s something that I really encourage with my team is then bring your great big brains to the table because they’re all super bright, but also bring themselves, their personality. very, they all have the ability to build high trust relationships and pretty quickly to where you feel comfortable and

Yeah, so I encourage them to, guys, just bring that personality, bring yourself to every call, every interaction, know, personalize it.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:19.377)
Yeah, love it. Peggy, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Peggy Richards (01:13:26.318)
Yeah, you’re welcome. You are welcome. Thank you.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:29.096)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.