Director of Recruiting Tricia Gonzales says THINK Together helped her land her dream job

After five years at THINK Together, Tricia Gonzales the director of staffing is leaving for her dream job as a National Trainer at AIRS (Advanced Internet Recruitment Strategies), an ADP (Automatic Data Processing) company.

One of her best memories at THINK was moving from the Los Angeles office to the Home Office. It was a big move since it came only nine months into her career at THINK.

She says that move allowed her to see the bigger picture. She was able to see the program side of things then come to the home office and see behind the scenes. Gonzales feels that coming to the home office gave her a chance to grow her skill set. Without that growth, she doesn’t believe she would have gotten her new job.

Another one of her great memories was being able to participate in Miles of Change. Miles of Change was a penny drive that began in February of 2009 as a way to honor the 200^th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and the 100^th anniversary of Lincoln’s image being featured on the penny.

This is a great memory for her not only because of what THINK Together accomplished, but also because she was able to share the day with her son. Gonzales brought her son to help lay out the pennies in order to give him a sense of what volunteering was like. He worked very hard to line up the pennies and explain to media outlets how to do it. Gonzales thinks this event really put THINK Together on the map, not only because it is now in the Guinness Book of World Records, but also because it was a metaphor for the change THINK tries to make in children’s lives every day.

Working at THINK Together gave Gonzales knowledge about nonprofits and community-based companies and how they affect culture. She says she will take this knowledge with her back into the for-profit world to train recruiters from nonprofit companies how to use the internet to find both potential employees and potential donors. Also, she hopes to help for-profit companies know the importance and benefits of supporting nonprofits in their communities.

At THINK, she learned that for nonprofit work, recruiters must look for people who are mission driven and passionate for the mission of the company. They must also have a deep understanding of the company’s mission as well. Gonzales believes that a strong skill set adds value along with being an innovative thinker.

“If you’re mission driven and innovative, you will fit within THINK culture,” she said.

Gonzales went through the AIRS training process herself as a recruiter and loved how smart yet down to earth the trainers were. She said they train people in order to show them that they can be just as good as the trainers are.

Working at AIRS is Gonzales’s dream job because as only one of five trainers throughout the country, she knows she will be able to take what she learned from THINK along with AIRS to train others.