Developing The Workforce through Passion and Empowerment
Rene Rios joined Pegasus on May 17, 2021, as a Veteran with a 12 year background in social services. As a social services worker, Rene would be in the field, and visit homes as a part of a Fatherhood program, empowering dads to understand the importance of their role, and not limit themselves as “breadwinner.” Rene also educated on the importance of baby bonding, in line to prevent child abuse. Rene’s #1 passion is people and empowerment. He was a part of a Homeless Veteran Program, helping get Veterans off the street. Rene had to meet them where they were at, whether the woods, under a bridge, or in their car. He understood that power is within them, but belief and encouragement was lacking. Rene supervised the Veteran program’s employment and started to connect with community members, developing a passion for outreach, and looking for opportunities for employment for the Veterans.
Rene began working with South Bay Community Services (SBCS) in domestic violence advocacy and going to community member’s homes. Rene provided empowerment and made them feel like they did not have to go through their circumstances by themselves in traumatic events. He provided resources and connected them with help. At a point in Rene’s career, he started to experience burnout. Rene came to Pegasus by way of his trainer who had a facilitator background both in Rene’s military career and post military roles as a trainer. A recruiter saw his experience, resume, and experience. On top of Rene being bilingual, his experience as a boatswain mate chief shined to the recruiter. Rene used to train sailors to do small boat operations, teach navigational rules of the road, and build them up to surpass them in the ranks.
With his passion to bring out the best in people and education in Business Administration with a focus on Human Resource Management, Rene joined Pegasus as a corporate trainer, with the opportunity to train newly hired frontline employees about the Human Resources policies (timekeeping procedure, benefits, and Pegasus Possibility Program), Operations protocol (chemical mixing, proper use of equipment, equipment maintenance), and closed the training with Safety training. Rene then became a Talent Acquisition Specialist to source a diverse workforce that is representative of the unique skills everyone brings to the table.
How important do you think networking is? What are your preferred networking methods?
Networking is the most essential to do my job. The contacts in my network circle that I connect with have their own contacts and collectively we can multiply that number exponentially. I have found email to be a great way to collaborate after a business card exchange through a job fair event, door to door business engagement.
How do you ensure a positive candidate experience?
I think that a positive candidate experience begins with a smile, positive attitude and genuine care.
How do you prepare for interviews? What are the most important things that you consider?
I prepare for interviews by not stacking them back-to-back. Allow some time to process the previous interview, before going into the next one. I consider each candidate by first looking at what skills they already have. I ask myself if the person is coachable and if they can gain new skills through training and development.
Tell me about your greatest accomplishment in talent acquisition.
After completing a job fair, I went into a Dollar Tree in Oceanside and encountered a young lady who was intently restocking one of the refrigerators and noticed me passing by. She believed I was some sort of auditor or inspector and stopped in her tracks to greet me and asked if there was something she could help me with. I introduced myself and fast forward to today she is one of our Operations Area Supervisors.
