Q&A with Ronald Parks, Founder of Talent Empire

Talent Empire is a specialty firm based in the Greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area, with expertise in talent management, executive search consulting, recruiting and talent acquisition. We had a chance to interview its founder and Director of Talent Services, Ronald Parks.

1. Tell us a bit about your background – education, prior work experience, anything else that led you to this point in your career.

I attended DePaul University, major in Computer Science with a minor in Business Administration. I was a Management Consultant previously and began working in the Executive Search and Recruitment industry in 1988. I then was hired by a client and made a transition to corporate staffing and recruitment. Moved on to become a Global Staffing Manager for Cisco Systems, later became a Senior Talent Acquisition Consultant for Accenture and in January, 2015 started my own firm, Talent Empire, in which we consult on everything talent, which would include Talent Analytics, Talent Acquisition and Talent Management.

2. Tell us about your current role and what your overall responsibilities are.

Working in the capacity of Director of Talent Services I am directly responsible for managing a virtual team that are located in the US, Canada and India and providing our client base with full life cycle staffing and recruitment services, RPO strategies and Staffing, Recruitment, Talent Acquisition and Executive Search services.

3. What’s your favorite thing about your current job?

Interacting with clients and candidates on a daily basis.

4. What are your keys to making yourself productive?

Organizational skills and the abilities to prioritize accordingly.

5. Tell us one bigger-picture goal in your career.

Re-design, develop and implement a new operations/recruitment platform that will specifically utilize social media for recruitment purposes and brand management to build our online presence. as we are a virtual business entity.

6. What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned through the course of your career?

Very carefully select your business partners and qualify the depth and breadth of your business relationships.

7. What advice would you give to others aspiring to succeed in your field?

Build your own client base. Collaborating and partnering with other third party vendors should be limited. Do not share your techniques or strategies, as they are your intellectual property, only produce results.

8. What are your favorite things to do outside of work?

Cook, Sports Fan, Play Pool

9. Name a few influential books you’ve read and/or websites you keep up with that you’d recommend to readers.

Harvard Business Review

Learn even more about Talent Empire on the company’s website.