Recruitment Technology consultant focused on digital transformation, including automation and AI, and create or curate content relevant to marketing, operations, and positivity in the staffing industry. Additionally, I co-host the You Own the Experience Podcast, where I interview staffing leaders and share insights on how they hire, engage, and train their staff and combine their tech stack to create an incredible experience for customers, candidates, and internal teams. My values are to bring positive energy, work smart and hard, learn daily, and be prepared.

Rob Mann

I've been to a few conferences since joining the Staffing industry.

Since Covid, my favorite have been smaller shows. 

TechServe Alliance Executive is still my favorite. 

The other 2 I will consistently recommend are AS Group and Staffing Sales Summit. 

Great job this week Dan Mori and to all the presenters.

Does the technology not work or are we just not good at using it?

Last week Julie Labrie won our contest to win the last Golden Ticket for the show this week. 


Today I managed to unknowingly sit next to her during Casey Jacox 's excellent keynote at the Staffing Sales Summit.


Thanks  Christine Blom Sands and Mr. Ward for the photo bomb.

I saw this post this morning and whether it is true or not...this is the person who I strive to be. 

When I taught yoga or a hard fitness class people would say the same insane thing to me (truthfully I said this my first yoga class as well.)

"Im not good at yoga." 

No sh*t

You are supposed to be bad your first time.  

The reps and consistency make you better or "good."

And we can do our part to build folks up to help with that consistency.

So what did you do today to lift someone up?

Congratulations to Julie Labrie on winning the free ticket to the... 

Staffing Sales Summit. 

I am excited for her to experience the excellent show Dan Mori and co put on next week in Orlando. 

See you there.

What do you get when you put 2 opinionated gents on a Zoom call together? 

In this case, you get the RCubed Podcast...

where you can find Raymond & Rob talking about Recruitment. 

Subscribe (on YouTube and Spotify) or follow us on LinkedIn to catch up weekly, and you can find episodes 1 & 2 out now. 

Raymond Pennie

Link to episodes are in the comments.

Hey Dan Mori, Ashley Bowlin, Casey Jacox, Casey Wagonfield, CSP or anyone else attending the Staffing Sales Summit next week. 

David Searns and I will be playing pickleball definitely once but likely both mornings before the day kicks off. 

DM me if you are in.

We are 11 days out from the Staffing Sales Summit in Orlando and I still have a ticket to give away. 

So as Dan Mori mentioned Ashley Bowlin & I are hosting a roundtable on technology and AI so staffing leaders for a chance to win a ticket for yourself or a member of your team.

Tell me...

What's technology and AI are working for you?

It was a fantastic weekend. 

I got to watch my little cousin capture a wrestling state title (thanks FloSports). 

Hockey is now a US sport!  Both Canadian teams were incredible and they were such fun(read stressful) women's and men's finals. 

Finally, I found an incredible italian spot that sells slices five minutes from my house and outside leaving great reviews on Maps...

how else do we support small businesses so I can selfishly continue to enjoy delicious food? 

Please send all ideas!

Lauren B. Jones 🐐

A staffing industry powerhouse. Workforce technology whiz. Change management mastermind. Fierce female leader champion. Professional storyteller.   

Lauren Jones is all of these things as well as the founder and CEO of LEAP Advisory Partners. After decades as an innovator and influencer in the staffing industry, Lauren founded LEAP to make recruiting companies more efficient, more successful, and more human. How? By helping firms define and understand their technology needs, embrace change, and optimize their technology investments. 

Lauren is a powerful voice on staffing, technology, entrepreneurship, and women’s leadership. With several industry peers, she recently published her first book called "Together We Rise," a compilation of their personal stories of women empowerment. Her reputation has landed her guest spots on almost every recruiting industry podcast, including Settle Smarter, You Own the Experience Podcast (which she now co-hosts), TheEdge, Ivy Podcast, Staffing Hub, HR Lift Off, and more. 

Lauren is at her best when she’s on stage. She’s a sought-after speaker with impressive experience at all of the top recruitment industry events including Staffing World, the TechServe Executive Summit, CSP, Alternative Staffing Alliance, Staffing Industry Analysts’ Executive Forum, The World Staffing Summit, and Bullhorn Engage. 

A major career highlight is receiving the ASA Care Award for helping connect veterans with work opportunities. Lauren was also on the list of LinkedIn Inspiring Women and the lists of the Top 15 Staffing Professionals to Watch and the Top 200 Thought Influencers to Watch.  

Lauren is fueled by an endless curiosity, deep commitment to helping others, and Peloton rides. She is a community activist with organizations like National Charity League, Women’s Empowerment, and Saint John’s Program. She is a recent empty nester and proud mom to two powerhouse boss ladies, Emily and Allison. Lauren lives on a farm in Elk Grove, California, with her husband, Peter. Contact her at lauren@leapconsultingsolutions.com to inquire about speaking engagements and media opportunities, or to talk about recruiting tech stacks, empowering women, raising goats, or even racing cars.

Founder

LEAP Consulting is focused on 3 primary offerings: BUILD, CHANGE, ADOPT
These 3 focuses support agencies in prioritizing relationships. Staffing is really about relationships powered by - and empowered by - technology. Recruiting businesses that engage LEAP Consulting Solutions all have one thing in common: a need to optimize their use of technology to create better experiences - and business outcomes. And, they need help doing it. 

The purpose of LEAP Consulting Solutions is to make recruiting companies more efficient, more successful, and more human. Founder and CEO Lauren Jones’s obsession with technology fuels her endless curiosity for helping firms make sense of the workforce tech at their disposal, in both powerful and meaningful ways. A huge part of that success is managing change for both people and systems, and redesigning business operations for efficiency and effectiveness.

Lauren Jones

🤸🏻🤸🏻🤸🏻🤸🏻LLLLAAAADDDIEEEES🤸🏻🤸🏻🤸🏻🤸🏻

The response to the Real Girls Roadmap to Mastering AI training sessions (cohorts) has been amazing!

The demand has prompted us to create a session about every 2 weeks. So we've been able to spread out those that responded. For our upcoming session on March 12th, we have 3 spots now open! 

If you're interested in joining us next Thursday for 4 weeks at 10am PST you'll get: 

✅Live training from a person (me) not a video
✅Custom app with all of our lessons and resources
✅ A group of amazing women to support you and learn together
✅Skills that will be immeasurably impactful in your life & work

If you're interested in joining March 12th, comment below "REAL GIRLS" and I will comment or send you all of the information you need to join. 

COMMENT BELOW⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️: "REAL GIRLS"

Thank you for the support - if you've been following me for any amount of time, women supporting women is my passion. You all are demonstrated that in spades. 

Remember the pledge: "One deliberate act a day to help another woman rise." Thank you for helping me rise. Through education, I intend to do the same for you!

hashtag

#ai 
#womensupportingwomen 
#technology 
#staffingandrecruiting
#realgirls 
#taketheleap

You're not ready for these ladies...

I look at these 14 women and how they have blessed and changed my life for the better in so many ways, writing this second book has been a journey and there is no group of people I'd rather do it with! 

These ladies are grace, grit, and glamour!

Don't miss our upcoming book: Rising with Courage!

#togetherwerise #risewithcourage #ladyleader #staffingandrecruiting #author

CEO, Growth Advisor | Author | Staffing Industry Analysts Global Power Women in Staffing & DE&I Influencer

There’s a quiet nudge in leadership that says… step forward.

Own the room.
Have the hard conversation.
Trust your instinct.
Take the bold leap.

That’s what Rising With Courage is about.

From our first gathering six years ago, to publishing Together We Rise in 2022, to where we stand today- the fifteen of us remain connected and committed, united by a shared passion to inspire, equip, and light the path for the next generation of leaders.

It wasn’t strategy. It was purpose.

And now- we’re back.

All fifteen of us will be together at the Staffing Industry Analysts  Executive Forum, celebrating Rising With Courage: A Guide to Life and Leadership- and we can’t wait to share it with you.

I’m deeply grateful to SIA for creating spaces where leaders gather, ideas expand, and conversations that shape our industry happen.

We’ll have complimentary signed copies in Austin, and we would love to see you.

Will you be there?
Drop a comment or send a message- let’s connect.


#RisingWithCourage #TogetherWeRise #SIAExecForum #WomenInLeadership #StaffingIndustry

Last week, a woman wired $15,000 because she heard her daughter sobbing on the phone.

Except it wasn’t her daughter. It was an AI voice clone built from a few seconds of audio.

This is the part of the AI revolution most “thought leaders” don’t talk about: the emotional side.

Women aren’t sitting around wondering how to prompt the latest model.
We’re wondering:

✅“What if my mom gets one of these calls?”
✅ “Would my teenager know what to do?”
✅“Would I?”

I wrote The Real Girl’s Roadmap to Mastering AI to answer those questions, not just to geek out over tools. Chapter 2 is all about scams, deepfakes, and protecting the people you love. 💗

This week’s #technologytuesday issue breaks down a simple family safety drill you can run in 10 minutes: code words, “never do” rules, and a script for the first call you hope you never get.

If you want the step‑by‑step version, I wrote it up here:

👉 Substack Link in the Comments below ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

And if you want my exact scripts, prompts, and checklists, I pulled everything into a tiny, copy‑and‑use AI Safety Kit for Real Girls.

🚨🚨🚨Comment “SAFETY” and I’ll send you the link. 🚨🚨🚨 

We don’t control what scammers build with AI. 💀💀

We do control how prepared we are.💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

The time has come...#womencrushwednesday Rising with Courage is here!

Building high-trust cultures & high-growth firms. Workforce Strategist | Speaker | Community Builder | Co-Author: Together We Rise & Rising With Courage

The Lady Leaders are back.
And this time, it's personal.

If you followed our first book, Together We Rise, you know what this group means to me.

15 women. 
Real stories. 
No sugarcoating.
We're doing it again.

Our new book is called Rising With Courage.
And it will be available online in mid-March.

But this one is different.

This time I wrote about something I've never shared publicly.

A season that broke me open. 
A loss that reshaped everything. 
And the dream that came out of it.

Every cell in my body wanted to play it safe.
I didn't.

I wrote the most vulnerable chapter I've ever written.

Here's what I can tell you:

It's about courage (the messy, real kind)
It pushed me harder than the first book did
I can't wait for you to read it

15 women. 
15 stories. 
One mission.
We're back.

Have you read Together We Rise? 
What did you think?

____________________

📚  Stay tuned for more!

Hey, Real Girl —

There's a stat that stopped me cold when I first saw it: women adopt AI at a rate 25% lower than men. Not because we're less capable. Not because the technology isn't for us. But because we have a moral compass that won't quit...

While guys are jumping in with "How fast can I automate this?" — we're pausing and asking: "Is this ethical? Am I cheating if I use this? What about privacy? Will people think I'm lazy?"

Those are the right questions. And this new newsletter exists to answer every one of them — so you can stop hesitating and start leading.

Join me on this new Substack journey. I have NO idea what I'm doing - but you're going to learn with me! And guess what - AI is helping me all along the way and I'll show you how...

Because we aren't going to get left behind...

💥Bitcoin boom - too late
💥AirBNB boom - too late
💪🏻AI boom - still happening and we're going to crush it together

#ai #substack #author #realgirlsai #taketheleap #womeninbusiness

Open article: Lauren B. Jones | Substack by realgirlsroadmaptoai.substack.com

Change management is the budget line everyone skips

You can have the best tools in the business, but if your people aren't brought along for the ride, your ROI tanks before you've even logged in.

Here's the reality: successful tech adoption isn't about training people once and hoping it sticks. It's about treating training and support as an ongoing investment, not an afterthought. Agencies that prioritize change management, clear communication, role-specific training, and real-time support see faster adoption, fewer headaches, and way more value from their tech stack.

If you looked at your last big software rollout, would you say your training budget matched your software budget?

#ChangeManagement #StaffingTech #DigitalTransformation

Change Management

How to Overcome Poor Candidate Experience in Staffing & Recruitment

Facing poor candidate experience in staffing and recruitment can be daunting, but here's how you can overcome it.

Identify the Problem

The problem many face is candidates being left in the dark throughout the hiring process. This issue arises because of over-reliance on automation without human touchpoints, leading to automated rejections, weeks of silence, and the infamous application "black hole."

Why It's a Problem

This problem can lead to damaged employer brands, lost top talent, and candidates who actively discourage others from applying. It's crucial to address it because in a competitive market, candidate experience is no longer optional—it's your competitive edge.

Propose a Solution

One effective way to solve this problem is implementing transparent, technology-enhanced communication systems that keep the human element at the center. This involves strategically using automation to create more touchpoints, not fewer meaningful interactions.

Implementation Steps

Here's a step-by-step guide to implementing the solution:

Step 1: Deploy status trackers that give candidates real-time visibility into where they are in the hiring process, eliminating the guessing game.

Step 2: Set up personalized communication workflows using automation to send timely updates that feel genuinely human, not robotic.

Step 3: Create feedback loops that make it easy and expected for candidates to share how their experience could improve, then actually act on that input.

Expected Results

By following these steps, you can expect increased candidate satisfaction, stronger employer branding, and higher acceptance rates from top talent. This solution will help you turn candidate experience from a compliance checkbox into a true market differentiator.

Conclusion

Addressing poor candidate experience can transform your staffing and recruitment practice. Implementing these solutions will lead to stronger relationships, better placements, and a reputation that attracts both clients and candidates.

Call to Action

If you had to choose one part of your process to make more candidate-friendly this quarter, what would it be?

#CandidateExperience #StaffingTech #HumanFirst #TakeTheLeap

What part of your process would you make more candidate-friendly?

Would your younger self think your today self was a bad ass??

What a cool take on the power of our minds and that how influential your own internal voice can be.

Listen to this one on repeat.

#womencrushwednesday

Founder at MARK’S | Host of Let’s Eat | Health and Fitness

One of the best takes I’ve ever listened to. Hopefully you’ve seen this but if not, enjoy!

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The Battle

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