Talent on Fire Consulting

Happy First Birthday! Cervantes Consulting, Inc. officially turns 1 year old today – and what a year it has been! Talent on Fire (the executive search and talent acquisition wing that I lead) partnered with Latinos for Education, Grad Bag, LearnerStudio, New York Peace Institute, and District Management Group on 18 searches! I began this journey with a few problems to be solved. First, I wanted to take a meaningful step towards creating the life my family and I envisioned together and I felt confident that starting my own business would send us in that direction. Second, throughout the talent acquisition space I continued to see candidates share their dehumanizing stories about their experiences as a candidate – particularly BIPOC candidates. I am proud to share that this year 93% of the offers extended were to BIPOC candidates! Looking for a job is hard – too hard. And a lot harder than it needs to be. That is why we commit to communicate with each and every candidate with transparency and give them pointers on how to prep for their interviews. And maybe most importantly, we decline candidate applications with grace and dignity and each and every decline message comes with a connection to trusted resources from my network. Being declined for a role is inevitable as you progress through a career but we strive to soften that blow a bit by having the experience be an empowering one. Finally, hiring is hard. When hiring managers need to fill a role, they are often responsible for pieces of that vacant workstream on top of their full-time jobs. How can they possibly do their job, somebody else’s job, and spend valuable time trying to run a good, equitable hiring process??It’s almost like their talent strategy is…on fire (see what I did there?!) This is why we focus on building trust and doing high quality work – all in the background. Hiring managers can trust that the work is happening and focus on the important work of pushing their mission forward. I’d like to think we’re on to something pretty darn good over here. While Talent on Fire gets them in the door, my better half (both personally and professionally) Kristen Cervantes works absolute magic in supporting her clients with everything that comes after - from onboarding to offboarding and everything in the middle. Look for an update from her amazing year 1 of work! If any of this sounds like the type of experiences you’d like for you and your team, let’s connect!