Interview Date: February 20, 2026
Interviewer: Stewart Schley
Collection: Women in Cable Archive
Note: 2012 Cable Hall of Fame Honoree
Ann Carlsen Oral/Video History Interview – 1999
Abstract
Ann Carlsen’s oral history traces her path from selling cable door-to-door for United Cable Television in Denver in the early 1980s to becoming one of the cable industry’s best-known executive recruiters. She describes entering cable almost by chance, moving into trade journalism at TVC/Cable Television Business, and using that reporting work to build deep relationships with industry figures such as Gene Schneider, Bill Daniels, Gus Hauser, Amos Hostetter, Paul Maxwell, and the Searle brothers. Those connections helped launch her recruiting career, which grew largely through referrals and eventually led to thousands of placements across cable, media, programming, operations, executive leadership, and board roles.
The interview also presents Carlsen’s broader reflections on talent, leadership, gender, entrepreneurship, and the evolution of the cable business. She emphasizes that recruiting is less about simply “knowing people” than about diagnosing a company’s real needs, assessing patterns in candidates’ careers, onboarding them carefully, and counseling both employers and employees through difficult transitions. Carlsen discusses the industry’s once “clubby” and collaborative Denver-centered culture, the effects of consolidation, non-competes, COVID-era hiring shifts, and the changing role of women in cable, noting progress in middle management but persistent barriers at the executive level. Throughout, she frames her work as a calling: helping people understand themselves, navigate careers, and move from one stage of professional life to the next.
Interview Transcript
STEWART SCHLEY: So happy you are here to join us for this episode of the Hauser Oral History Series presented by Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center. For many, many years one of the keys to success in the cable industry is a simple three-word mantra. Whether you were looking for a new professional adventure or hiring for a new professional adventure, the three words were, “Call Ann Carlsen.” Well, guess what? We have Ann Carlsen with us. An absolute preeminent executive search helper and assistance, but more so a great human being, who knows everybody in this industry.
ANN CARLSEN: Thank you. You’re very kind.
SCHLEY: So glad to have you, Ann, with us today. It’s true though. You’ve touched so many lives in your work as a recruitment specialist. And we’re going to kind of launch into how that all began. Let me start at kind of the start for you.
CARLSEN: Sure.
SCHLEY: There was a prominent company called United Cable Television based here in Denver.
CARLSEN: Yep.
SCHLEY: Maybe starting in the early ‘80s? I’m not sure. Late ‘70’s.
CARLSEN: Yep. It was in the early ‘80s. Right.
SCHLEY: You worked for this company.
CARLSEN: I did.
SCHLEY: How did you find them and how did they find you?
CARLSEN: It was one of those random stories.
SCHLEY: They’re all random.
CARLSEN: My husband at the time’s best friend was Allen Harmon — I don’t know if you remember him — his son-in-law. And so, there was always conversations about cable around the table. I was intrigued. I thought, you know, this sounds like a really great up and coming business, and thought I could make a lot of money, which was my driving force at the time.
SCHLEY: Paramount at the time, yes.
CARLSEN: Right. I applied and got the job.
SCHLEY: What did you do for United?
CARLSEN: I sold cable door-to-door. I was literally right out of college.
SCHLEY: Literally door-to-door.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Yeah, knocking on doors. Yeah. I did it for a whole year.
SCHLEY: In what markets?
CARLSEN: I had the funnest time. Aurora, some of the cagey areas down Five Points area, yeah. Everybody wanted their cable, so —
SCHLEY: That’s what I was going to say, this was in the era we used to call “truck chasers.” Everybody was really keen on this new medium. Did you make money doing it?
CARLSEN: I did. I mean, when you’re coming out of college it was like $150,000.
SCHLEY: This is in, like —
CARLSEN: You’d be making like $30,000 when you were doing something else, so who’s going to say no?
SCHLEY: This is, like, when Ann? Early ‘80s?
CARLSEN: Early ‘80s, 1981, somewhere in there. Like, I had just left college.
SCHLEY: You must have come away with a few intriguing stories about meeting perfect strangers at the door.
CARLSEN: Oh my God.
SCHLEY: What was your pitch? What did you say to people?
CARLSEN: Did you have to pitch? It was —
SCHLEY: Hi, I’m from the cable company.
CARLSEN: — the cable company’s here. Yeah, what can I do —
SCHLEY: When can we sign you up?
CARLSEN: Some people took longer than others. Some people required you to go in and show them exactly how you were going to do it and all of that. But for the most part, people were really excited about having it.
SCHLEY: They knew they were pre-sold, kind of.
CARLSEN: Yeah. I think so. It was easy. My God.
SCHLEY: And what was cable? Thirty channels of television, basically?
CARLSEN: Yeah. Pretty much thirty channels. HBO had just come on the scene. And that was it. It was just very easy to explain then because, you know.
SCHLEY: That was your introduction to the business then.
CARLSEN: It was. And it was really — we had this really fun crew. You know, we partied all the time.
SCHLEY: You’re young. A bunch of young people out making money. I forgot that United had some of those local franchises here around the Denver area.
CARLSEN: Yes. Yes. Aurora, Denver, certain aspects of Commerce City area.
SCHLEY: There was a legendary patriarch who co-founded that company with his brother, Gene Schneider, I think his brother was Richard.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: But did you have any interaction with Mr. Schneider?
CARLSEN: Oh, absolutely. (laughs)
SCHLEY: Even though you’re low on the rung, totem pole.
CARLSEN: Yeah. It was at a Christmas party.
SCHLEY: Oh no.
CARLSEN: And I went up and introduced myself to him, and he gave me the hardest time. “Oh, what are you doing here?” You know. And one of those very gruffy —
SCHLEY: I was going to use the word gruff.
CARLSEN: Yeah. And then he just — he kind of grew on me. I think maybe I grew on him a little bit.
SCHLEY: He was a seminal figure.
CARLSEN: He really was. He doesn’t get nearly the credit that others — he deserves.
SCHLEY: Went on to be a prominent person in the international cable business.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: But that was past your time.
CARLSEN: Very visionary.
SCHLEY: You and I sort of crossed paths a little bit because we were both journalists, trade journalists. There used to be, what Ann, five or six different publications that covered the “go-go” years of the cable business. I wrote for one called Multichannel News. You worked for Cable Television Business.
CARLSEN: It was TVC. The early trade was called TVC. The name change to Cable Television Business came about five years later.
SCHLEY: Did you study journalism? Was that your —
CARLSEN: Yes. That was my major, CU [University of Colorado, Boulder], yeah.
SCHLEY: What brought you to that — you know, you’re making $150K and that’s pretty good.
CARLSEN: It was hard.
SCHLEY: (laughs) Now —
CARLSEN: It was hard to cut back to that —
SCHLEY: They didn’t pay so much.
CARLSEN: — $30,000 salary, you know. And Rob Stoddard was there. He was kind of the lead dog. And Tom Kerver. I don’t know if you remember Tom Kerver.
SCHLEY: Totally do.
CARLSEN: But he was a crazy, crazy strange agent that we loved.
SCHLEY: What did you write about? What was your — did you have a beat?
CARLSEN: Yeah. First of all, I tagged along. This is how I got to meet all of these people. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known anything. So I tagged along with Jill Dickey, other people, that were doing interviews with the Gene Schneiders, the Gus Hausers, Bill Daniels. And I got to listen in and pretty soon they had me start asking questions and doing things. But I learned it from the ground up. These people were telling you their secrets, their stories.
SCHLEY: Yeah. A person you and I both know, Paul Maxwell, who was the publisher of Multichannel News back then, took me aside one day and he said, “The best way to learn an industry is to be a reporter.”
CARLSEN: Oh, for sure.
SCHLEY: Because you get exposed to so many different —
CARLSEN: They’re teaching you. Every step of the way they’re teaching you and they’re giving you their secrets accidentally.
SCHLEY: And in your case, behind the scenes, you are meeting a bunch of people. And you’re a people person; you have to be.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Well, yeah.
SCHLEY: Right?
CARLSEN: Yeah. I’m a people person until I’m not. I can only take it so long.
SCHLEY: Understood. We all have our limits.
CARLSEN: You have to go home and decompress and not talk to anybody.
SCHLEY: Then I’m so curious about this segue to how you began your own venture and your business. I think it had something to do with you being a young mom, right?
CARLSEN: Yeah, it did.
SCHLEY: So tell that story, if you would.
CARLSEN: I did that, the door-to-door sales. Then I wanted to get back to my journalism roots. There happened to be a cable trade magazine, TVC, that was located in Denver. The Searle brothers were the lead dogs on that. And I just called one day and asked, said, “Look, I’m selling door-to-door cable here. I have the journalism degree,” like that mattered. And he just said, “Well, come on in.” And I came in, and we had a great conversation, and he hired me right then. I mean, he asked me a lot of really technical questions about the business, like, trying to understand, did you learn anything about it while you were doing this or were you just out drinking all the time.
SCHLEY: It’s a little of both, maybe.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Yeah.
SCHLEY: And what led you into the world of search and executive recruitment and starting to be an entrepreneur, to start your own company?
CARLSEN: These random stories. I don’t have a good story for that.
SCHLEY: Nothing’s linear.
CARLSEN: What happened was — you know Pat Thompson.
SCHLEY: I do.
CARLSEN: I went to work for Cardiff, which was the publishing company at the time. I worked there for about three and a half years. Then I decided I’m going to do something different. On the same floor as the magazine was this company called Business Venture Investments and it’s a venture capital, venture management company. They were selling this flotation tanks. Do you remember these things? (laughs) I loved it. I might be the only person in the world. I would get in there and just be, like, in heaven. Then it was psycho cybernetics, you could watch — in this state you could watch a repeated stroke, the butterfly stroke let’s say. I wanted to learn how to do butterfly —
SCHLEY: Was it claustrophobic?
CARLSEN: Oh yeah. Oh God, yes. Yeah.
SCHLEY: But you’re in the Zen mode.
CARLSEN: You just let yourself go. You would watch this repeatedly, this reel. And I swear to you, I came out, and I could do the butterfly. So it was like, there’s something to this. Anyway, that was what we sold in addition to something called Blindspot, which was the very early thing you put on your cars to show your blind spot. And that one took off, so we had a pretty successful run. But I was — I really missed the business. It’s one of — you know how this is, it gets in your blood, you can’t take it, right. In that same office suite was Dave Hebel. I don’t know if that name is familiar.
SCHLEY: I don’t know that name.
CARLSEN: He was the headhunter at the time in the cable business. Kind of an old guy, real quirky, lovely man. Somebody would call and say, “I need to have this person. I need to have a financial person.” He would open his drawer, pull out a couple of people, and that was it, send them on. I’m like, “Oh.” It did not feel right to me. After about a year and a half I decided I’d just go off and do my own thing.
SCHLEY: And that’s what you wanted to do.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Yeah, I just took to it. It was something that you realized when you have kind of a — it was a draw. I liked all aspects of it, the getting to know people, the helping them get to a new place.
SCHLEY: Do you remember, Ann, your very first placement, or gig, or person?
CARLSEN: Oh God, yeah.
SCHLEY: Can you talk about that?
CARLSEN: Bill Toner. Do you remember him? Bob Toner. Bob Toner, sorry.
SCHLEY: Yes. I want to associate Bob Toner with the equipment side of the business.
CARLSEN: Yes. It was — equipment is completely random and it’s totally out of my realm, but he hired me to do a sales job. And it went really well. So then he started passing me along to others. It was just kind of an amazing —
SCHLEY: Organic.
CARLSEN: — it’s a referral business. You don’t get anything from ads or anything like that, it’s just people say, okay, she gets it. She can understand this, or that, or the other thing.
SCHLEY: This is where “call Ann Carlsen” began to come into vogue.
CARLSEN: Yeah. And then Bill Daniels was my next client. Because I had interviewed him with the magazine several times, and Gus Hauser, and Amos Hostetter. Because TVC was doing all these really big interviews.
SCHLEY: Yeah, profiles.
CARLSEN: And these guys let it all hang out. So I got to know them and they feel like you’re part of their family. When I got started in the search business, they automatically gave me their work. It was really something.
SCHLEY: For a naïve outsider, like myself, why couldn’t these companies and these people go out and find their own talent? Why did they need Ann Carlsen?
CARLSEN: You got me. It’s too much work. I think it’s too much work, and I think they felt like they were missing something. Like, there’s a big vast opportunity out here.
SCHLEY: But if you would, Ann, go into the intricacies of it. Bill Daniels’ company needs a financial controller, I don’t know, whatever. Where do you start? Where did you begin to mine the world for these capable people?
CARLSEN: That’s a great question. Basically, what you do is you go through, it’s a whole intake, and whole diagnostic — The problem is trying to discern what they’re telling you versus what the truth is. Meaning most people feel like they perceive themselves in a company and their leadership style a certain way. It’s seldom that way, and so, you’re trying to pick apart and find out, okay, this guy is not really that great of a leader, but he’s this, he’s that, and understanding how to pitch them.
SCHLEY: A ton of psychology to it.
CARLSEN: Yes.
SCHLEY: That’s sort of a therapy role in some —
CARLSEN: Yeah. And it’s really understanding human nature. Because most people say, “I want to hire somebody better than me,” but when push comes to shove, they don’t want that one. Yeah.
SCHLEY: Did you mostly represent hire-ers or people looking for jobs? Or both?
CARLSEN: The hire-ers.
SCHLEY: Oh you did. Okay.
CARLSEN: The nature of executive search is you work for the company to bring in the talent. I don’t work for the individuals. It’s kind of a conflict of interest. But there are companies that you could pay to help you find a job. They don’t work very well. They take your money, and then do your resume, and then what?
SCHLEY: You would dope out with the hire-er, the hiring organization, what they’re looking for, what kind of skill sets they think they’re looking for.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: And then you go back to your office and you start dialing the phone — what did you do? How do you —
CARLSEN: You try to get to the bottom of it. Then you litmus test it a couple of times. I send — usually I do a calibration, send a few resumes in. “Does that look right?” “Does this look right?” Trying to get to that, do you really want the better person or do you really want the status quo. It’s an amazing little process there. I would say it’s 60-40 the person wants the best person and their ego can accept it, but then the other 40 percent, no.
SCHLEY: It’s so interesting you say that because the bromide was always, “Hey, you should hire somebody who could take your job someday.”
CARLSEN: Right. Of course.
SCHLEY: Which is a wonderful —
CARLSEN: That’s the pitch.
SCHLEY: But you’re saying, eh, sometimes —
CARLSEN: You forget about the human nature part of it. I don’t want somebody to take my job, or put me on the spot, or maybe I’ll seem too stupid. It’s all wrapped up in that human nature and how you felt in your primary family of origin.
SCHLEY: Therapy. Therapy, man.
CARLSEN: (laughs) Yes.
SCHLEY: I’m guessing, because it was a fairly communal business — perhaps still is — word gets around, “Oh, this woman Ann Carlsen was really helpful to us in getting our comptroller position.” Is that — and the news spread, right.
CARLSEN: Yeah. It was totally referral. There was no — yeah. You just had to deliver on whatever it was they gave you and then they recommended you. You didn’t even have to ask.
SCHLEY: Ann, did the relationship end once the candidate was placed or did you —
CARLSEN: Never.
SCHLEY: No. What do you mean?
CARLSEN: I’m like gum on their shoe. Because I’ve got to stay with it. I don’t want to be embarrassed later. The nature of the search business is you have a year guarantee that that person is going to stay in the job. But think about all the things that are not within the control of the recruiter. I don’t nitpick that. I just give them the year guarantee. But, you know, I stay very close to the — I onboard them myself. And then I’m in with them at least once every two weeks checking, checking, is this happening, that not happening, you know, like you feel — and trying to negotiate between the two.
SCHLEY: You’re a bit of a counselor.
CARLSEN: It really is. You have to get this and then not piss anybody off. That’s the other part.
SCHLEY: I presume a lot of people were attracted to the cable industry, particularly in the early years when you were setting up your business. It was a hot —
CARLSEN: Oh my God, yes. Yes.
SCHLEY: It was a hot place to work, right.
CARLSEN: Everybody wanted a job in cable.
SCHLEY: Why? What do you think was the motivation?
CARLSEN: Brand new business. The promise of it was just spectacular.
SCHLEY: Consumer facing business, has a bit of sexiness and glamour to it.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: But you recruited for everybody from hardcore tech companies to operating companies to programmers?
CARLSEN: Yeah, programmers too. The whole gambit. Anything that was related to the cable industry we grew into. The only thing we didn’t really focus on so much was the technology part of it. Only because we didn’t understand it well enough. And if I don’t understand it well enough, I can’t reference check well enough.
SCHLEY: Well, you knew the operating side of the business from having sold cable door-to-door.
CARLSEN: Knew that one. Yeah.
SCHLEY: You probably knew intuitively the network and the programming side of the business a little bit as well.
CARLSEN: Right, right.
SCHLEY: Was Denver — talk about Denver back in the day and the role it played in — people would call it the Cable Capital.
CARLSEN: It was so fun because there was a party every week. There was a party here, there was a party there, people would just show up and enjoy each other.
SCHLEY: And we had a lot of companies here.
CARLSEN: Yes. Everybody was here. I mean, for the most part.
SCHLEY: United, TCI, Bill Daniels.
CARLSEN: Bill Daniels. Oh goodness. Who else was here? Harmon. All the — and the little ones. And there’s a couple others.
SCHLEY: [Monty] Rifkin.
CARLSEN: Rifkin.
SCHLEY: Was one of them.
CARLSEN: Yeah. AT&T. Yeah.
SCHLEY: I used to sort of see from a distance at a lot of trade shows, this industry had a lot of conferences, right.
CARLSEN: Oh my goodness.
SCHLEY: Why do you think that is?
CARLSEN: Once a month. Because we liked to get together and exchange ideas, but mostly party, and hang out. It was one of those unique things where everybody was friends. Because we were all about the same age and we were all kind of into the whole — you know.
SCHLEY: What I thought was telling about cable is structurally a lot of the companies — this is instructive for the people watching — didn’t directly compete with one another.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: When you were selling for United Cable door-to-door, there wasn’t another competitor across the street representing another, a different cable company.
CARLSEN: Exactly. At least there was — everybody had their place. Yeah.
SCHLEY: And so, I think there was a lot of information sharing and candid —
CARLSEN: And we were able to because there was — the competitive situation had not yet reared its ugly head.
SCHLEY: Do you have any idea how many lives you’ve touched or been intwined with on a professional — I mean, are we talking hundreds, thousands?
CARLSEN: Thousands.
SCHLEY: Seriously?
CARLSEN: Yeah. Well we added up, finally — we did this a couple of years ago, added up, finally, how many people we placed in the business, and it’s now up to about 5,600.
SCHLEY: And you’re still doing it.
CARLSEN: Still doing it. Oh yeah. Yeah.
SCHLEY: One element of your story that’s personal, but I think of interest, is, if I heard the story right or recall correctly, you wanted to do something that would allow you to work from home before that was cool.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: What was the motivation there?
CARLSEN: I was working for the venture capital company.
SCHLEY: The flotation people.
CARLSEN: Yeah. The flotation people. I was just getting married at the time and I knew I wanted to have kids, I don’t want to be that person that’s not at home with their kids. So I was looking for something just easy to work from home. Dave Hebel gave me the opportunity and I never looked back. Yeah.
SCHLEY: The tools of your trade, really, was a telephone, right.
CARLSEN: Right. The telephone, yeah. That was it. We didn’t even have a fax machine back then. Yeah.
SCHLEY: I was going to say, this was way pre-email and —
CARLSEN: Pre-fax.
SCHLEY: — Zoom and everything.
CARLSEN: For sure. You were faxing things back and forth.
SCHLEY: What did you like about it? Or what do you like about it?
CARLSEN: About?
SCHLEY: Besides the paycheck, right. About doing what you do.
CARLSEN: Oh my goodness. What I like about it are helping the people, kind of putting the mirror up, and helping people get the ah-ha moment, you know, when the light bulb goes on. Because most people need somebody else to help them bounce off in order to understand or better understand what they want to do. And if you ask somebody, hey, what’s your next thing? Usually it’s the blank stare, like, oh, you know.
SCHLEY: I thought it was just me. So that’s a common trait.
CARLSEN: It’s everybody. I have a series of questions that I go through, and I just listen, and then take what they’re telling me. I don’t tell them what to do ever. And put it back to them, “This is what you just said.” It’s not like something I’ve created for them, but something they’ve created on their own.
SCHLEY: And you’re hearing it and —
CARLSEN: Yeah. Then I send them a thing afterwards that says, “This is the profile that I would suggest you start looking for.” And then help them get in some doors and get that done.
SCHLEY: We’re talking about a whole gamut of positions, right. From CEOs, C-Suite people?
CARLSEN: Right, C-Suite, board.
SCHLEY: Did you ever sit in on actual interviews?
CARLSEN: With a client?
SCHLEY: With candidates.
CARLSEN: Oh yeah, all the time.
SCHLEY: Really?
CARLSEN: Oh yeah.
SCHLEY: What would you advise someone who comes in for an interview? Maybe I’ll put it this way, Ann, what are some of the common mistakes that you see in an interview setting?
CARLSEN: The common mistake is just nervousness and inability to express the humility that you feel like you need to display, and you don’t. An interview is a time to brag, but getting people to say, “Hey, I did this,” and “I did that.” You say it with your team, of course, but people have great difficulty, especially women, with touting their accomplishments. Or then contextualizing them against what that company may need the most. So I help them do that.
SCHLEY: I used to tell young people that you come in to interview for a job and you think it’s an absolute — the lens is on you and you are nervous — but the person across the table desperately wants to hire you. I mean, they’re interviewing for a reason, right. They need talent.
CARLSEN: They need talent. And most people are really terrible at assessing talent.
SCHLEY: Really?
CARLSEN: Yes.
SCHLEY: It’s hard when you don’t work with someone to know what they’re going to be like.
CARLSEN: Yeah. And just the interviewing skills, if I could tell anybody, like the one thing, brush up on the interviewing skills. Because most people just go to the go-to, you know, the, “Well, what do you want to do?” “Where do you see yourself?”
SCHLEY: The five-year question, where do you see yourself in five years?
CARLSEN: Blah-blah-blah. And you don’t really get to the nuts and bolts of the person there. That’s usually rehearsed and whatever. I like to ask different questions. Questions that get you to the same answer, but the person isn’t thinking, “Oh, I need to answer it this particular way.”
SCHLEY: It’s interesting what you said about women in particular being reserved about —
CARLSEN: Yes.
SCHLEY: — telling their story, right. There’s a lot behind that, but where do you think that comes from?
CARLSEN: I think we are conditioned as young women to not brag, and to not talk about money, and to not go in and ask for a raise. Seriously, that’s the thing. Most of us women feel like they should notice. If they don’t notice, screw them. They’ve got to notice. And that’s just not the way it works.
SCHLEY: Your guidance would be, “Hey man, toot your own horn a little bit.” Yeah.
CARLSEN: Of course. And not in a big obnoxious way, but keeping track of all of your accomplishments, and then once a month going in and say, “Hey, I’m really excited about this. Look, this is what I got done this month, and I just thought you’d be interested in knowing.” It doesn’t have to be any big blowhard.
SCHLEY: It’s good advice though.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Just keeping track of it.
SCHLEY: The reason it’s fun to talk to you is — I really mean this — is nobody knows as much as you know about recruitment in this industry.
CARLSEN: Well thank you.
SCHLEY: You are kind of it.
CARLSEN: I don’t know if that’s true.
SCHLEY: I think it’s pretty true. How have you seen — broad stroke question — opportunities for and the role played by women progressed in this industry since you hung your shingle back in —
CARLSEN: Yeah. It’s progressed in one way and it’s gone to hell in the other way. It’s progressed with the middle management. Even entry-level. But then there’s this huge gap between that and the executive suite. I think that’s where the frustration lies for most women, just the fit, the extra hoops that have to be jumped through.
SCHLEY: Right. It’s like having a second job.
CARLSEN: You have to — you’re just not part of the group. And trying to be part of the group has its own issues.
SCHLEY: So mixed bag.
CARLSEN: Yeah. It’s a mixed bag. And we’ve lost a lot of women since the pandemic. I’m not sure what the reason for that is, but a lot of women have left the industry.
SCHLEY: I guess the other factor I wanted to ask you about is just consolidation. When you were at the height of your game, there were a lot of cable companies out there, right.
CARLSEN: Oh Lord.
SCHLEY: So you had a lot of clients, a big potential client pool.
CARLSEN: A lot of potential. Yes. A lot of people to work for, a lot of people to steal from. (laughter) As it is.
SCHLEY: But that has changed?
CARLSEN: Yes. It has. Well, non-competes in particular have taken on — even though they’re not enforceable, they have teeth in people’s minds.
SCHLEY: That’s so interesting.
CARLSEN: It’s keeping people from lifting their head up and saying, “You know what, I would like to work for Comcast because this is what they’re doing that I want to learn.”
SCHLEY: So you’ve seen that rise up as a more influential force.
CARLSEN: Yes.
SCHLEY: Same with sharing of confidential information kind of stuff? I guess that’s a slightly different animal. But I know in Colorado, for instance, courts tend to not enforce non-compete agreements. They want a robust pool of workers and talent. And you’re saying they don’t always have teeth in them, but they do happen. The non-competes, they’re out there.
CARLSEN: Yes. Yes.
SCHLEY: Wow.
CARLSEN: They’re intimidating. Even though — and the feeling that you have to go get a lawyer and you have to go through all of that. Then you’re pissing off your employer. The concern is that you’re going to be —
SCHLEY: It’s tainted, somehow.
CARLSEN: — tainted with that. Yes. And it happens too, it really does.
SCHLEY: Has your job, Ann, gotten harder over the years would you say?
CARLSEN: Yes. Harder in that the demands are more complex for the candidates.
SCHLEY: Agreements are multi-layered.
CARLSEN: Expectations. Yeah. The non-competes, the restrictions on this, that, and the other that weren’t ordinarily there in the early days.
SCHLEY: We were a little more seat of the pants in the early days.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Exactly. And I think that was better for everybody.
SCHLEY: Another dynamic that I wonder has influenced your work is the pool of players in this industry has widened as more — you know, you have phone companies delivering cable service, you have satellite television companies. Did you just define your playing field as the whole spectrum?
CARLSEN: Yes.
SCHLEY: You never were isolated, no, you’re not a cable company, I can’t work with you?
CARLSEN: No. I never felt that way. Now, some of my clients felt that way. For instance, Charter — I was offered an opportunity to go work for EchoStar. And they just had an absolute meltdown.
SCHLEY: That’s the enemy. That was the enemy.
CARLSEN: And so I understood it, I understood it. I knocked them off my list. But, you know, this whole competitive thing is — it’s real, obviously.
SCHLEY: It’s also human nature, I think, to some extent.
CARLSEN: I get it. Of course it is. Of course.
SCHLEY: You’ve been — we’ve talked about the role of women. You’ve been such a champion of women in this — and I want to just read some of the accolades and the distinguished —
CARLSEN: Oh, good Lord.
SCHLEY: Well, here we go. Okay. Let’s just go with it. Awards, Cable Hall of Fame 2012. That was a big deal.
CARLSEN: It was kind of fun. That was good. That was fun.
SCHLEY: Were you sort of blown away or was that something you felt was in your path? Was it surprising?
CARLSEN: No. God no. I mean, a headhunter. That wasn’t a person you’d ever put in a hall of fame. Most headhunters are kind of sleazy.
SCHLEY: But here you were. Where was the ceremony?
CARLSEN: It was in Boston.
SCHLEY: What did you say? Do you remember anything about what you —
CARLSEN: I think I talked about my Greek roots, and my upbringing, and how that affected my work ethic.
SCHLEY: Okay. How did that affect your work ethic? Your Greek roots?
CARLSEN: You work your ass off constantly. Yeah. And you never sit down.
SCHLEY: That was embedded from a young age?
CARLSEN: Yes. Oh yeah.
SCHLEY: Where did you grow up?
CARLSEN: In Denver.
SCHLEY: And your parents were —
CARLSEN: Greek immigrants.
SCHLEY: — demanding of you.
CARLSEN: Yes. Greek immigrants. No dating until eighteen. I spent my Mondays at choir practice, my Tuesdays at church, my Wednesdays at Greek school. They had a very structured thing because they wanted you to marry Greek. Which I am a two-time loser.
SCHLEY: I remember the movie. NCTA Distinguished Vanguard Award for leadership in the late 1990s. You were listed as one of the Most Powerful Women multiple times in the Cablefax 100 list. Why do these awards or this kind of recognition matter to you?
CARLSEN: They matter because they give you credibility and the client feels a little bit better about using you. That’s all. They don’t really matter, but —
SCHLEY: It’s a pedigree thing though, right.
CARLSEN: It is. Listen, it always makes you feel better. I don’t care what anybody says. It’s nice to be recognized by your colleagues. It is.
SCHLEY: For sure. Women in Cable and then later Women in Cable Telecommunications, WICT.
CARLSEN: WICT.
SCHLEY: Talk about your involvement and role there and what that’s kind of meant for you and what you’ve meant for them.
CARLSEN: I was the national president during the time of that name change. And it was such a necessity because we were just really pigeonholing ourselves.
SCHLEY: When you were called Women in Cable?
CARLSEN: In Cable. The problem was, we wanted to go outside to — not then streaming — but other opportunities, to get sponsorships, to get members, to be a more robust program, but these operators put their line in the sand. Uh-uh, could not, or we won’t fund you anymore.
SCHLEY: They wanted the word cable still to be part of the name.
CARLSEN: Yes. They wanted cable in the name and they didn’t want you out with their competitors talking.
SCHLEY: Interesting. What was the compromise there? The addition of the name telecommunications to the end of the name?
CARLSEN: Yes. In addition to that. And then just that we separated some of the programs so that competitive information could not be shared.
SCHLEY: You had to have funding.
CARLSEN: Yeah, funding. Yeah.
SCHLEY: You needed sponsorships, you needed —
CARLSEN: Yeah. Exactly. So Charter was funding this, and Netflix was funding that, yeah. But both sides were pissed is the thing.
SCHLEY: This is life, man.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Right. I know.
SCHLEY: Lessons as an entrepreneur? Did you have moments where you just said, “Man, this is not going to work,” or moments that —
CARLSEN: Oh God, yes.
SCHLEY: Really?
CARLSEN: Oh my — I have the worst bag lady syndrome.
SCHLEY: You exude such a successful vibe.
CARLSEN: Whatever that is, it’s — yeah. What I really worry about is every year I think I’m going out of business. Yeah.
SCHLEY: Really?
CARLSEN: It’s always been part of my DNA.
SCHLEY: This is not an uncommon sentiment among entrepreneurs though.
CARLSEN: No. It isn’t.
SCHLEY: You could be running a laundromat, you could have a used car dealership, I don’t know.
CARLSEN: I’ve worked really hard to get over that. But it’s still there. Some of these recessions, the 2000, the 2008, those hit hiring and consulting really hard. You know, you have to reinvent, what’s your purpose anymore, what value, what service are you bringing that people want to pay for.
SCHLEY: You’ve hired a team along the way?
CARLSEN: Yeah. A couple. A couple iterations of teams. Yeah.
SCHLEY: Okay. What’s the magic there? You’ve got to really have special people to do what you do.
CARLSEN: Yes, you do. Listen, recruiting is a really odd job because it takes you from the very minute details of getting in there and evaluating every single line item in their dossier, whatever —
SCHLEY: On their wish list or whatever.
CARLSEN: — to doing interviews for board members and trying to coordinate all of that and get it right. And you go from strategy to really down in the dumps, like this. It’s very different. It’s a very different work.
SCHLEY: Peaks and valleys. Did you work commonly with the HR departments of clients? Or more with the executive ranks?
CARLSEN: Mostly the executive ranks. Who would then maybe engage or not engage their HR departments. There was a lot of mistrust between those two entities for a while. It started to improve. They were competitive with us kind of. They saw it as a competition.
SCHLEY: Yeah. That’s why I’m asking the question.
CARLSEN: Yeah.
SCHLEY: Ann, what did COVID do to disrupt your world, and your business, and the whole freaking category?
CARLSEN: Business went way crazy during COVID. I couldn’t explain that in a million years.
SCHLEY: How so?
CARLSEN: People wanted to hire. They were laying off — what was happening was there were certain segments of the business, they were using the opportunity to get rid of people that maybe they wouldn’t have needed.
SCHLEY: I see.
CARLSEN: Those jobs were becoming obsolete. Then they’d have the head count and they’d go hire somebody —
SCHLEY: Somewhere in another growth area.
CARLSEN: Yeah. Another area of — AI or understanding streaming. None of that was on the radar before.
SCHLEY: That was not the answer I expected you to give.
CARLSEN: No? Really?
SCHLEY: That COVID was a propellant of your business.
CARLSEN: Oh my God. That was the best year we’ve ever had.
SCHLEY: No kidding.
CARLSEN: Who could explain. I couldn’t explain it. But people wanted to talk on the phone. It was like a real period of evaluation for people, so they really wanted to look at their careers and make change.
SCHLEY: Yeah. I think that’s fair. One thing I’m wondering about as sort of counselor-therapist in addition to recruiter, how did you turn off your availability when the workday was — or did you? Were you — your job, always at the end of a cell phone call or?
CARLSEN: You can’t do that much.
SCHLEY: You can’t do that.
CARLSEN: Well, because I’m usually the first phone call that someone makes after they get fired, or laid off, or have some kind of trauma. I don’t know why, but I get that call, and it’s like walking them off the ledge every time. Every time. Yeah. Which is an honor. I mean, seriously. I’m thrilled that I get to do that.
SCHLEY: You’re a trusted compadre. I get that.
CARLSEN: I like being able to do that. Yeah.
SCHLEY: What do you tell people who suddenly got exited?
CARLSEN: Oh my gosh. It depends on the circumstances, but mostly there’s a method, putting one foot in front of the other.
SCHLEY: Breathe. Breathe.
CARLSEN: Seriously because there’s — people are so stunned. Most people, it’s like these really great people, and they’ve never been fired, they’ve never been let go, they’ve never been questioned, and so all the sudden — and then it brings up all of these, “Oh my God, I’m not good enough,” da-da-da. So my job is to bring them back into, okay, this is not you. Or unless it is you, and if it’s you then I tell them that too. That’s not the fun part.
SCHLEY: You’ve also counseled people, I presume, who have retired, and then questioned if they should have retired.
CARLSEN: Lots of those. Lots of those.
SCHLEY: What are those conversations like?
CARLSEN: Like, get a life, people. (laughs) That’s what I like to say. You don’t have anything else you can do? I mean, you know?
SCHLEY: Well, yeah, it’s a flash point for some people.
CARLSEN: It happens. Men, in particular, are defined by the work. And women are too. I am, for sure. But generally, women have an easier time exiting a job or exiting an industry.
SCHLEY: This is always a tricky question, but who would you identify by name as two or three of the more influential people that have helped you along or have been part of your world?
CARLSEN: Oh my gosh.
SCHLEY: There’s a lot.
CARLSEN: There are so many. But I would say first and foremost would be Paul Maxwell because he kicked my ass and was always ribbing me about, “Our ad dollars are better than yours,” and “Gosh, that article you wrote, Ann, was really bad.”
SCHLEY: This was in the publishing days.
CARLSEN: Yes. The publishing days. He would just always — yeah. He would force me to —
SCHLEY: Step up your game.
CARLSEN: — to push harder. Yeah. He definitely did. Yeah.
SCHLEY: Anybody else come to mind in terms of being a life coach, a sort of mentor of yours?
CARLSEN: The Searle brothers, Bob and Stan Searle, they were the publishing — they owned the publishing house that created TVC Magazine, which was the first cable trade, and the Pioneers Dinner was created by them. These guys were real visionary. Bob took me under his wing and helped me understand how to do a sales pitch and how to do a good interview, all of those things.
SCHLEY: It was such a different time because there were a lot of competing trade titles. We were fierce competitors.
CARLSEN: Cable World.
SCHLEY: Cablevision.
CARLSEN: Cablevision. Multichannel. US. Yeah. It was.
SCHLEY: The question I guess, is, publishing has had its own issues over the time that are endemic to the industry, but at the time I think the lesson to be taken was cable was in such a growth phase that there was room for all of these publications.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: There were advertising dollars available to support them.
CARLSEN: They were all doing pretty well. Because I used to count the ad pages.
SCHLEY: We did that too.
CARLSEN: How much money are these guys making? And who’s not advertising with us that should be?
SCHLEY: Yeah. Share of Voice analyses. TVC was monthly, weekly, bi-weekly?
CARLSEN: It was monthly. TVC was monthly originally. Then it went to bi-weekly.
SCHLEY: You commented earlier how willing some of the executives were to sort of spill.
CARLSEN: Oh my God. Whew.
SCHLEY: I think that is not typical of most —
CARLSEN: Not now.
SCHLEY: Well, even then. I’m sure people in the banking or the airline industry would have been so forthcoming. What do you think was behind that? You were a charming young person?
CARLSEN: You were trying to — I’m sure it wasn’t my charm and good looks. It was them wanting to unload more than anything. I am somewhat good at being able to get people to talk to me.
SCHLEY: That’s the kinship that I see.
CARLSEN: You can kind of get into their — the thing, their insecurity, and what it is that’s driving them, and it helps you with your questions, helps you get to your place.
SCHLEY: I’m sure this has played into your role as a recruiter, you weren’t a combative interviewer I suspect.
CARLSEN: Never.
SCHLEY: You were pretty easy to talk to.
CARLSEN: I was pretty easy to talk to. I did ask really hard questions, but I allowed them the time to answer them, to think them through, and then to come back and say, yeah, that wasn’t right or wrong. But there were a few very combative interviews. I remember Jack Clifford just kicked me.
SCHLEY: From Colony, yes? Was he Colony Communications?
CARLSEN: Colony. He was Colony.
SCHLEY: Really, he was rough?
CARLSEN: He was really rough. Yeah, because I just asked the damning customer service question.
SCHLEY: Of course. It was a thing.
CARLSEN: They just instantly blow up on you. Is it that hard?
SCHLEY: If I was watching this program, and I’m tuning in to hear what Ann Carlsen has to say, and the dumb moderator doesn’t ask this question, I would be very mad. So I’m not going to let that go by. Help young people with career prep, interviewing skills, is there room in this industry for fresh talent?
CARLSEN: Oh yes.
SCHLEY: What do you see behind the curtain out there?
CARLSEN: We have a whole protocol we use for somebody going into a new job. It’s a combination of an onboarding thing, but also just mindset, getting yourself in the right mindset. Once we place somebody, we’re with them every week giving them goals and objectives.
SCHLEY: Wow.
CARLSEN: We’re a little further in their business than they like us to be. My job is to make sure they’re successful. And then I can go around and find out how they’re really doing. Because nobody ever tells the truth, you know, in those situations.
SCHLEY: Not entirely.
CARLSEN: If you’re getting a review, chances are you’re hearing one-quarter of the truth.
SCHLEY: Really?
CARLSEN: Well, I do references. We go about twenty-deep on references. And almost every time, it’s the first time the person has heard this. How could that be? I mean, you know.
SCHLEY: Twenty-deep is interesting to me.
CARLSEN: Yeah. College forward. Because patterns, it’s all patterns. Everything is a pattern, a puzzle. If you see a thing that repeats itself, repeats itself, repeats itself, you know, are they aware of that? What’s the self-awareness look like? There’s a lot of different evaluation techniques that people don’t know about, expect to happen.
SCHLEY: I get you. What happens in situations that you’ve seen where people are just thrust into an environment with a really lousy boss? And this happens, right.
CARLSEN: Of course it happens. There are so many lousy bosses.
SCHLEY: What makes a lousy boss?
CARLSEN: Who teaches us? I mean, come on, who’s teaching — like, when you came up and I came up, nobody was telling us, “Oh, this is how you do a leadership” — you were watching whoever it was that was your boss.
SCHLEY: You were imprinting.
CARLSEN: Yes. And doing exactly what they were doing, right or wrong. And that was pretty much it. There weren’t all of these leadership classes and all — nobody did any of that.
SCHLEY: No, what you just described is exactly what I’m thinking about in my brain. And I was lucky enough to have pretty good bosses.
CARLSEN: Yeah, you did have some good bosses.
SCHLEY: Yeah. And they taught me a lot. But what’s a lousy boss? What’s a characteristic of a lousy boss?
CARLSEN: A lousy boss is someone who doesn’t communicate their true feelings. Does not have any interest in helping the person get better by being honest with them about what they don’t do. And yeah, those are the bigger things. But being intimidated by the person you hire is a big, big one.
SCHLEY: Sucks.
CARLSEN: Oh my God. And so many people fall into that. You’re getting hired because you’re so great and then all the sudden, you got these ideas in these meetings, and all the sudden your boss is going, “Oh, what the hell did I do? This guy is making me look bad.”
SCHLEY: Yeah. And what you just said brings back to me what you talked about with a lot of women candidates. Expressing — ideas are fragile. So you’re around a table —
CARLSEN: Very. Yeah.
SCHLEY: — and I think a lot of people, not just women, are reticent to, “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” How do you break through that?
CARLSEN: Yeah. Well, this is a women thing. We try so hard with — but, you know, this is years of socialization. We’re trained to be quiet, to accept what’s there, to smile and say, “I’m sure they’re going to see what I do and appreciate that.”
SCHLEY: That’s the mistake. Yeah.
CARLSEN: And they don’t. Typically. Sometimes they do. So you have to be willing to step out just that one step further and say, “In case you’re wondering, this is what I did this month.”
SCHLEY: Okay. So be vocal at least.
CARLSEN: Vocal. Not intimidating, but vocal.
SCHLEY: The bugaboo that would drive me crazy, and I’ve heard this a lot from women executives and professionals, is someone else taking credit for your idea. This happens.
CARLSEN: Ooh. There’s that. Oh my gosh. There’s so many little things behind — you know. These petty things that happen in the workplace.
SCHLEY: You’ve seen it all though.
CARLSEN: Oh yeah. Just the people bringing down other people. And then I get to hear, “Well, this person said this,” and then, “This person said this,” and I get to hear both sides of the story.
SCHLEY: Ouch.
CARLSEN: And then —
SCHLEY: Referee. Referee Ann.
CARLSEN: And then you’re sitting in there going, “Huh, what’s the truth of this one?” And then you have to get them together, and it’s very uncomfortable, and say, “You said this, and she said this,” and somewhere in there is the truth.
SCHLEY: You said that the raw technical side of the business was never necessarily your bailiwick or your expertise.
CARLSEN: No. Yes.
SCHLEY: But given that this industry is such a technology dependent industry, you had to have involvement in these new products and services, like broadband internet, for instance.
CARLSEN: For sure.
SCHLEY: It’s not like you strayed away from that world.
CARLSEN: I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay away. So in those cases, I went back to school, because I didn’t want to be stupid. It’s like, initially, I had absolutely no clue how to run a P&L. None. So I took a couple of courses, I got some help.
SCHLEY: You literally went back to school is what you’re saying.
CARLSEN: I did. Yeah, literally went back to school. I think you have to shore up your weaknesses. And that was an area where I always felt inferior and then that would show itself in a board meeting.
SCHLEY: I think one thing you had to have done is stood up for yourself to get paid.
CARLSEN: Oh yeah.
SCHLEY: You probably had resistance and conflict, like, you really didn’t do that much for us, Ann, here’s $500. Thank you for your time. Did you have to fight that battle?
CARLSEN: Yes, that first guy that I worked for. Oh my God. He didn’t want to pay at all. Like, okay, listen, this is what my worth is on the open market. I’ve done that assessment, here’s the range. I feel like I’m at this part of the range, of course there’s room for improvement, but this is my expectation on compensation.
SCHLEY: Part of that story, I think, that’s instructive, is that you did have a solid foundation of knowledge, right.
CARLSEN: You have to get — yeah.
SCHLEY: You can’t make it up.
CARLSEN: No. You can’t. You can’t bullshit your way through that. That does not work.
SCHLEY: Some people are good at it.
CARLSEN: Yes. I’m not very good at that one. No.
SCHLEY: What’s in the future for you and your company? How long do you want to do this?
CARLSEN: Oh, no. I’m on the downward slide.
SCHLEY: Okay. Congratulations.
CARLSEN: So what we’ve done as a company is we’ve created a partnership with UTA, which is United Talent Agencies. It’s a huge company. And they have very complementary businesses to ours. AI is a big thing for them.
SCHLEY: Media tech?
CARLSEN: Yeah. Media tech primarily, talent. So we put together a strategic partnership. My daughter, McKenna, who’s been with me ten years, is embedded there to help facilitate searches. The reason I couldn’t sell outright, I just refused to let them have my database. Because in that database I’ve got the —
SCHLEY: You know a lot. You know too much.
CARLSEN: Oh my God. The information in there is — and I would die if that information got out. People trusted us with that.
SCHLEY: So a strategic alliance makes more sense.
CARLSEN: Yes. So she’s there, she’s the only one that has access to our data so she can do her job still. Yeah. But they can’t — none of the other people can get in.
SCHLEY: What I find interesting about that, and I think it’s telling a little bit about the industry — and I probably use this word too much, the clubby-ness of the cable industry — but it is a communal — it is, right.
CARLSEN: Oh my God. Is there a bigger club than this one? It’s less so now, but it was a club. It was a huge club. Which made it so fun.
SCHLEY: But a company like UTA can’t just parachute in and suddenly be a cable industry recruitment expert.
CARLSEN: No. They really can’t. They really can’t. But their clients are a lot of our clients, and their clients are in gaming, which is an area we weren’t very conversant in.
SCHLEY: That’s cool.
CARLSEN: Their clients were in areas — AI, things that would have taken us years to get to the connectivity with the people to be able to do the kind of work we needed to. So it made it easier.
SCHLEY: I get the strategy behind it.
CARLSEN: We gave them ours; they gave us theirs. Yeah. I mean, that was pretty much the story there.
SCHLEY: It’s interesting, if you kind of look back along the path or the trajectory, you made a lot of money knocking on doors selling cable. (laughs)
CARLSEN: Oh, I did. It was crazy, Monopoly money.
SCHLEY: You talk about randomness or whatever, that’s a theme that comes up often in these conversations.
CARLSEN: Right.
SCHLEY: But you theoretically could have stayed with Gene Schneider’s company for a long time.
CARLSEN: Could have.
SCHLEY: I presume you would have risen up the ranks. Any regrets? Are you glad you took the pivots and the forks in the road that you took?
CARLSEN: Oh yeah. No regrets. No, I really don’t have any.
SCHLEY: That’s fantastic.
CARLSEN: I should maybe. But to me, those are a waste of time.
SCHLEY: Well your entire — I think you’re sort of on this earth to be a people person, it seems like, right.
CARLSEN: Yeah. And I always worked at my work as a calling. My job is to help people get from point A to point B, to put the mirror up, to help them understand who they are, and tease out of them what it is they want to do next. Because the hardest thing you could ever do is sit there by yourself and try to do that. It’s virtually impossible.
SCHLEY: We’re all too stuck in our own brains.
CARLSEN: Yeah. So just a few questions, but mostly it’s listening, and telling them back what they said. And they’re like, “Oh, you’re brilliant!” Actually, it was you that was brilliant.
SCHLEY: That is kind of the definition of therapy though. It really kind of is.
CARLSEN: Pretty much the job is therapy. A lot of it. Just walking people through, how to manage the situation from getting fired to a bad review to issues in the workplace, all of it.
SCHLEY: Kind of a parting question or two. Do you think workplace stress at large is way worse than it used to be? Or do you think that’s too broad of a category?
CARLSEN: That’s such a great question. It’s different because back when I was coming up, my stress was, I was married with three kids —
SCHLEY: That’s stress.
CARLSEN: — and I was working too much, and was I paying enough attention to my kids. That was very prominent in the women of my age group. Now that’s not such a big deal. But now these kids are so much smarter because they’re like what the hell are you doing working — why do you have to work like that? I get it. I understand their mindset.
SCHLEY: At the same time, the pace of business life seems to be way accelerated.
CARLSEN: Okay, yes. Yes.
SCHLEY: Right?
CARLSEN: What used to be, like, a month, is now a day, truly.
SCHLEY: It’s funny you mentioned not having a fax machine when you first started.
CARLSEN: They were just coming out.
SCHLEY: And we would wait days to get a document or whatever.
CARLSEN: Right?
SCHLEY: And this is all happening, and now it’s —
CARLSEN: It was, like, beyond my — you know. And I used to have my secretary print out my things. Like, oh my God, were you that person? It was hard to adjust yourself, you know.
SCHLEY: Well, we work with the tools we have.
CARLSEN: Right. We work with the tools we have. But you always have to question, why is that? Why can’t I step outside of that? Lazy.
SCHLEY: Ann, this has been terrific to converse with you about —
CARLSEN: Oh my gosh. I love you, Stewart.
SCHLEY: — there’s so much depth to what —
CARLSEN: You’re a great interviewer.
SCHLEY: — thank you — to what you’ve done. And such an ability to cast a lens on this part of the cable world that we don’t —
CARLSEN: It’s an interesting part of the business. Yeah.
SCHLEY: It is and it’s not necessarily well exposed or appreciated. I think. But you made a living out of it though.
CARLSEN: I think people, when you say you’re a recruiter, they think, oh, I know a lot of people.
SCHLEY: There are a lot of pejoratives around —
CARLSEN: I can do that. But what they don’t understand is that you have to boil down that profile, and then you have to have all the metrics to understand if that person has done it, then you have to go to their reference– it’s just a lot to do.
SCHLEY: You have worked your boots off in this —
CARLSEN: And as you have. We all have. Are you kidding? We’ve all worked our boots off.
SCHLEY: Well fascinating conversation. Thanks for sharing with us.
CARLSEN: Thank you too, Stewart.
SCHLEY: Fascinating conversation, Ann. So much illumination of an interesting and intricate part of the business.
CARLSEN: Thank you for lying. (laughter)
SCHLEY: Appreciate your time.
CARLSEN: Fascinating.
SCHLEY: Appreciate everybody tuning in for Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center. Ann Carlsen, Stewart Schley, we’ll see you down the road.
CARLSEN: All right.
