104: From Air Force to EdTech: Lesa Hammond's Journey with ProfHire

Holly Owens (00:02):

Hello everyone, and welcome to another fantastic episode of Ed Uped Tech. My name is Holly Owens and I'm your host. And today we have an amazing human. With us on the show, we have Lesa Hammond, who is a CEO of ProfHire. Lesa, welcome to the show.

Lesa Hammond (00:23):

Thank you, Holly. I'm so excited to be here.

Holly Owens (00:26):

I'm excited to have you. I have a lot of questions for you and I can't wait to jump into all of them, but first, why don't you tell me and the audience about how did you venture into this space of CEO and EdTech and hire and all the things? Tell us about your journey.

Lesa Hammond (00:43):

Well, my journey, oh my goodness. So I've always been a person who's just been a problem solver. It's like anytime I'd see a problem, I'm like, this is how it should be fixed. And that was what actually brought me into creating Hire. But the whole journey started when I was in the Air Force and in the Air Force. I got my master's while I was in the Air Force, and one of the things that I found, and this may be heresy to say, but I actually found that the adjunct faculty that worked with us provided more insights for me and actually led me to human resources because the theory was great, and I still use the theories today, but hearing that practical experience from those people that were actually doing the job was the thing that excited me and actually moved me into getting into human resources. That wasn't even the field that I had started with. So that's how I got into human resources. I was in human resources for 30 years, 20 of it in higher education, chief human

Holly Owens (01:57):

Resources we're higher Ed buds we're higher ed buds, for sure.

Lesa Hammond (02:01):

There you go. Yep. Let's see. The Chief Human Resources officer at three universities -in that time found that adjuncts, there was just a problem with adjuncts constantly and different problems. Some of it was that schools had a hard time finding them. They would ask their faculty if they knew anybody, and when they said they knew somebody, that person would get hired without any vetting at all. So sometimes they were great and sometimes they weren't. The other thing was that the universities had a hard time tracking them because the program directors or department chairs would hire them without getting human resources involved. The person would start teaching and say, where's my paycheck? And we had no idea that they were there. So that was another problem. And then just getting all the credentials for them was another piece of it. So there were so many issues just around the whole adjunct for the adjuncts, the experience for the students. Sometimes the adjuncts were great, sometimes they weren't. Students didn't know the difference between an adjunct versus a full-time professor, and the administration kind of felt like adjuncts were adjuncts, so they weren't as important as the full-time faculty and therefore didn't put the same resources into them. So I'd hear horror stories about people quitting halfway through all kinds of things, and I could go on and on and on and probably spend our whole time talking about these

Holly Owens (03:41):

Could, I was just curious to say, so many questions come out of what you're saying right now and being an adjunct for the past 10 years. I have a multitude of questions, probably more on a personal level, but I'm glad you recognized this issue. And also thank you for your service. I did not know you were an Air Force vet. That's amazing. And then you spent 20 years in higher education, so you've lived three different career paths.

Lesa Hammond (04:09):

Oh, probably more than that. Yeah,

Holly Owens (04:10):

Probably more than that about those. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So I'm really glad you're here and to share this experience with the audience about all the different things that you've done. And I want to know from you, Lisa, are there any favorite education related quotes that you just come back to and that you love and enjoy and to share with people?

Lesa Hammond (04:31):

Yeah, I don't know how much this is education related, it

Holly Owens (04:34):

Doesn't have to be education. It can be motivational, inspirational.

Lesa Hammond (04:39):

Okay. So one of them is, well, I guess probably Albert Einstein is the one that I probably quote the most. But one is anyone who's never made a mistake, has never tried anything new. So that's kind of from an entrepreneurial standpoint,

Holly Owens (04:58):

I like that one.

Lesa Hammond (05:00):

And then the other is that you can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that you created. And I'm not sure that's Einstein, but I know he's been given credit for it. So

Holly Owens (05:10):

Yeah, those are two very good ones. I like those. I don't think they've ever been set actually on the show. So two new ones to put in the repertoire to write down

Lesa Hammond (05:20):

For sure. I have to say this last one, and it's one that is, I've used for just years, even before I got in higher ed, but it's the quote that I'm trying to remember who said it now. Okay, nevermind.

Holly Owens (05:42):

It's all right. We can figure it out. I can put it in the show notes, but what is the quote?

Lesa Hammond (05:47):

Oh, so it's practice. Oh, Vince Lombardi practice does not make perfect. Contrary, popular opinion practice does not make perfect. Practice. Makes perfect.

Holly Owens (06:00):

Yes.

Lesa Hammond (06:01):

And so from a training standpoint, I've used that many times.

Holly Owens (06:06):

Absolutely. Oh, that's a good one too. And I love sports, so that's an excellent, that's an excellent, I'm

Lesa Hammond (06:12):

Not a big sports fan.

Holly Owens (06:15):

Well, that's an excellent reference for me as well. So you've been an entrepreneur, you've been in the Air Force, you've been in higher ed, you've been in hr, you've done director roles, all different types of areas, education, education adjacent.

Lesa Hammond (06:32):

I

Holly Owens (06:32):

Want to know from you in hiring adjuncts and things, how would you personally define educational technology?

Lesa Hammond (06:40):

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I think about it from a common standpoint, I think of it as software and hardware that advances the field of education. And that's for students, faculty, staff, and administration. But really, when I think of it at a deeper level, it's anything that advances the knowledge, the innovation of the learning environment. And when I say that, it doesn't have to be software, it doesn't have to be hardware, it doesn't have to involve programming. The one thing that I think about is my godchildren did hooked on phonics, and they were reading at a fifth grade level when they were five. I think of that as educational technology too.

Holly Owens (07:32):

Wow. That's really bringing me back hooked on Tonic. I remember those commercials. Yeah, definitely something that is bringing it forward. And I love your take on what EdTech is. And I think something too to be said is, you've probably learned this throughout your experience, is that EdTech doesn't have to just be in the classroom.

Lesa Hammond (07:58):

Absolutely.

Holly Owens (07:59):

And it's really what I've learned throughout this journey and having all different types of guests on this show,

Lesa Hammond (08:08):

And I think some of the best ed tech is that that's not in the classroom that allows parents to help their children to learn, that allows individuals to learn on their own outside of the classroom. All of those things are important to the learning environment and people just gaining more knowledge.

Holly Owens (08:32):

Absolutely, yes. Wow. We could definitely go down a rabbit hole of EdTech tools and the things that are adjacent to I'm surely, but speaking of that, let's talk about hire. Tell us about it. What is it? You contacted me on LinkedIn and you're like, go create this profile. And I was like, okay, I'll do it. And it was really amazing. I had no idea it existed until you contacted me. So tell us about it. What's the product and describe how it helps institutions and organizations in education.

Lesa Hammond (09:04):

Yeah. Well, I alluded to it before, I think that what we bring to higher education is a revolutionary way for colleges and universities and people who are wanting to teach in colleges and universities to connect. We provide a platform that people who are wanting to teach adjunct people who are currently teaching adjunct faculty create a profile. And the universities can come on and immediately find the people that they're looking for with all the documentation that they actually require in order to really vet them and to make sure that they have all the compliance pieces already there so that they're not chasing the person down once they say, oh, this looks like a good person. Or the person's put in their information and created an application, but they've forgotten to add, but they haven't added key pieces of information like they're transcripts or references. They don't know all of the different things very quickly that the person can teach. So with hire, the university is able to go in and very quickly find out who it is that they're looking at. Let's say they're looking for somebody who can teach economics, and they pull up the profiles of all the people who can teach economics, and they can very quickly say, okay, I want this person contact them, and they're ready to interview and hire.

Holly Owens (10:46):

I got to take my mute button. Yes. So I was just thinking as you were talking about all those different credentials and getting people, making sure that things align with the crediting bodies and what the program has been approved for. So as far as, I'm going to ask some off script questions just because I love talking about the adjunct world. So how do you do that by state and understanding the different programs that people have? Is there some sort of mechanism on the backend where it's like, oh, this particular program needs somebody at least with a master's degree or a doctoral degree? How does that all happen within the profile?

Lesa Hammond (11:32):

So it's a search engine. In many ways. The university is able to say, we want somebody who has a master's degree who has economics and or microeconomics, and they have their complete profile. They're located in San Francisco. They can put all of that in. And the full profile, actually, the person has a mini bio where they explain what they have. Let's say they want somebody who has a C P A also. And so it says that it puts the C P A very quickly. They can see what universities they graduated from. So if they're looking for a university that has the business credentialing, they can see that very quickly. So at a glance, they can see if this person fits what they need. If not, they can move on to the next one. So I like to say in the time it takes 'em to drink a cup of coffee, they could have their next adjunct.

Holly Owens (12:28):

Yeah, definitely. And it just seems like it's very transparent, the process, and it does alleviate some of those kind of problems you were talking about when hiring adjuncts. Some departments definitely go rogue and they just hire different people without saying something. I also want to know from you too, are you seeing, I know in recent years and even pre covid, are you seeing an uptick in institutions hiring adjuncts as faculty members as opposed to say, a full-time faculty member?

Lesa Hammond (13:04):

Yeah, it's interesting. That's a really interesting thing because during Covid, there was almost a downtick in adjuncts because the full-time faculty were having to teach online knew. So it was like a new experience for many full-time faculty, tenured faculty who would say, I'm not teaching online. And they started teaching online. But now more and more online programs are being developed and we're seeing a new uptick in adjuncts.

Holly Owens (13:38):

And I'm actually, I don't have anything against that. I'm really glad, especially with systems like yours, that you're able to vet the person and have all the credentials in place that we can find really good adjuncts to fit this role. And I remember too, when I was creating my own profile, I uploaded some of my evaluations.

Lesa Hammond (13:59):

So

Holly Owens (14:00):

My course evaluations, that seems like to be an important part of the profile as well.

Lesa Hammond (14:05):

Yeah, absolutely. So we ask questions. We don't require it for the person to be visible, but we ask questions like upload your evaluations, some sample syllabi that you've done, your teaching philosophy, your diversity experience, those kind of things where all that information can be given. And we do find that those people that upload more things tend to be contacted more.

Holly Owens (14:32):

And I noticed too that you do put out notifications if you don't think the profiles complete enough or it needs some more information that that's there too. So you're supporting trying to get people the traction around finding roles.

Lesa Hammond (14:47):

Exactly.

Holly Owens (14:48):

And I love that. I think this is an absolutely great system, especially if you're looking for an adjunct role. And we're going to put all the information, of course, in the show notes where to find this. So you've already done a lot of different things, and you've dealt with mitigating a lot of issues when it comes to adjunct tiring for higher education institution. So Lisa, is there anything that you have coming up on the roadmap for the next year, things that you can share without violating those N D A agreements that

Lesa Hammond (15:19):

You want

Holly Owens (15:20):

The audience to know about?

Lesa Hammond (15:23):

So I'll say a couple things. One thing that we, so prior to recently, we were doing more of a boutique service where we would actually go out and find adjuncts. But after we got tens of thousands of people in the system, then we felt like, let's let the schools just go in and find them themselves. Now they can do it just on demand. So we are expanding that. And then the other thing that we're looking at right now is right now we're only in the US and we only have US schools, but by the end of the year, we hope to branch out internationally.

Holly Owens (16:00):

I'm so excited for that.

Lesa Hammond (16:03):

And the thing about international, about branching out internationally is it gives us adjuncts who are interested in teaching internationally that opportunity as well as people in other countries to teach.

Holly Owens (16:19):

Can you imagine how that would diversify the education system across the globe? That's spectacular. What an impact that would have, because you get to be exposed to different people from different cultures that you normally wouldn't necessarily unless you had a visiting instructor coming into the institution that just, that's going to be really, really extraordinary.

Lesa Hammond (16:45):

Yeah.

Holly Owens (16:47):

Well, it sounds like you are doing some amazing things, my friend, and I'm so happy that you came on the show today and we got the chat. So we're coming up here on the final two questions. It's really three questions of the episode. And I want to know from you, is there anything that we missed, anything else about hire that you'd like to share with the audience? And I want to know from you, what does the future of education look like? What did we miss and get your crystal ball out and tell us what the future of education looks like?

Lesa Hammond (17:21):

Well, the future of education, I'll talk about in a second. The one thing that I want to just say in terms of hire is that we really took into consideration the students, because one of the things students go to schools for their faculty, and I mentioned before, they don't know the difference most of the time between who's an adjunct and who's a full-time faculty member. And the experience has to be great for them, regardless of whether the person teaches full-time or they come in to teach one class. So that's really part of our philosophy in terms of the future of higher education. There's so much happening right now. Virtual reality is already starting to creep into classrooms, and I think that's going to play a much bigger part. And then AI, of course, is huge and outside of education and as it gets into education, I don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but I know it's going to be fascinating to watch and to get involved in as much as possible. I can't wait until we can start to inject some AI into what we're doing.

Holly Owens (18:41):

Yeah. Yes. Oh my goodness. And you're already kind of doing that with institutions, being able to search for who they're looking for. Maybe an automated, this person jumped on today and they'd be perfect for this opening. It just has all that data and information, can you imagine? Exactly. I'm really looking for, I love to streamline processes, and I love to work smarter, not harder, as my grandfather says. And systems like yours make it possible to make education so much better. Like you said, the focus is the learners and their experience within the institution and making sure that you're hiring the right people with the right credentials so you don't get in trouble with the accreditation and all that stuff.

Lesa Hammond (19:28):

Exactly.

Holly Owens (19:29):

Well, Lisa, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show and sharing your story with us. I hope to have you back in a year, and then we'll be talking about maybe some AI stuff that international stuff. So make sure you come back and visit us on op-ed Tech.

Lesa Hammond (19:46):

Definitely. Thank you, Holly. This has been a pleasure.

Holly Owens (19:49):

You're welcome.