Coworking with Amanda Lopez

On Wednesdays, we schedule our weekly 1:1 with HR Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Amanda Lopez is a manager of global diversity and inclusion talent acquisition at the software company Adobe, where she’s worked since 2018. In our recent interview, Lopez explained how diversity and inclusion efforts are changing in recruitment, and what job-seekers are looking for.

How would you describe your specific job to someone who doesn’t work in HR? In my role supporting diversity and inclusion talent acquisition, I meet with candidates from various backgrounds to better understand what excites them about work, the impact they want to make, and their career aspirations, and then use the knowledge to play matchmaker for roles within Adobe.

I also get to amplify voices of communities that have been historically underrepresented in tech by helping to root out any hiring team biases, and ensuring that we’re building a diverse pipeline across all levels and roles.

What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked? Moving Adobe’s global internship program from an in-person event to a completely virtual one in the midst of a global pandemic. Obviously, none of us had anticipated a pandemic, so we had to start from scratch and move quickly to develop and deliver an exceptional experience to more than 700 global interns in 2020.

And based on the success of the first virtual internship in 2020, we were able to scale the program to more than 1,500 virtual interns last year.

What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job? That I can always find someone their “perfect” role at Adobe. When trying to fill an open position, I have to consider a multitude of factors such as the company’s needs, budget for a potential role, project/program scope, and the talents’ background.

I’ve found myself in situations where I’m attending an event like a wedding or a baby shower and someone will ask me to help them land a job with Adobe. At the end of the day, those conversations don’t always lead to the person getting hired, so I make a concerted effort to explain to candidates that just because they didn’t get hired right away, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to work at Adobe in the future.

What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job? For me, it will always be about helping someone land their dream job. A career can play such an impactful role in a person’s life and contribute to their quality of life. For some, joining a tech company like Adobe will be their first step in building generational wealth. I find great satisfaction and purpose in knowing that I played a part in setting someone up for future success. I recently had a chance to reconnect with one of my first Adobe hires who joined the company four years ago, and she still thanks me today, saying it was the best decision that she’s ever made!

How are you seeing people change as they move through the interview process? I think the interview process has evolved in that folks feel comfortable being able to bring their whole selves. And I think folks are more intentional about the roles that they decide to be able to take. I think I’ve noticed in my role within talent acquisition, the questions that folks asked have been changing.

Folks ask us more questions around wellness and wellbeing and diversity and inclusion than even two years ago, in that they’re being really intentional about how they want to make these types of career moves. And I think that’s exciting because it shows that they’re bringing their full selves, and they feel more confident and being able to explore those conversations where, maybe before they didn’t feel comfortable being able to to get really specific.

What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why? Companies being forthcoming about their aspirational diversity goals. While diversity and inclusion has been top-of-mind for tech companies, many haven’t been as transparent about how to meet their goals or been held accountable for their pledges to improve diversity. I’m hopeful that following the murder of George Floyd, companies are starting to move the conversation beyond why diversity is important to how they can build a diverse and inclusive culture within their company.

What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why? When people assume that they can automate screening of potential talent. Of course, automation tools can be helpful and they serve a purpose, but it’s naïve to assume that just because a system is automated that it’s unbiased—which is not the case. At the end of the day, all automation tools have a human doing the programming behind it. And that raises the question: who is the person programming that tool? What questions and biases are they bringing with them?

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