Gina Padilla
About Gina Padilla Author, Career recruiter. Agency owner. Job developer. Visual artist. Reiki master.
Something You Need to Hear did not come from research. It came from thirty-five years of conversations. With candidates who had done everything right and still could not get a callback. With hiring managers who could not articulate what they actually needed. With people who had been let go without warning, without severance, without explanation. With students and individuals with disabilities who just wanted a chance to prove themselves. I have been on every side of this process. After all of that – I wrote this book because the pain I was witnessing every day had become impossible to ignore.
Three Sides of the Same Table
Agency Owner
For much of my career I ran and worked for recruiting agencies placing candidates across High Tech, Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, and Renewable Energy. Running an agency taught me something most career books never address: recruiters are not working for you. They are working for the company. Understanding that distinction changes everything about how you navigate a job search.
Corporate Recruiter
I have also sat inside corporations as an in-house recruiter, which means I have been in the room when hiring decisions get made. I have heard what hiring managers say about resumes before candidates ever know they are being screened. The gap between what companies say they want and what they actually respond to is significant. SYNTH exists to close that gap.
Job Developer
As a job developer I was hired to find employment for disabled adults who faced barriers that most hiring systems were not built to accommodate. This required me to go directly to CEOs and COOs to make the case that their diversity mandate was not reaching the people doing the actual hiring. Those candidates taught me more about tenacity than anyone I have ever met in a corner office.
The Person Behind the Recruiter
I have also been other things. A visual artist. A Reiki master. A go-go dancer. A waitress. A cook. A social worker. A kindergarten teacher. A midwife. A grandmother. I tell you this not to be interesting – though I hope I am – but because it matters to the book. SYNTH is not written by someone who has only ever known one kind of work. It is written by someone who has lived enough lives to understand that the relationship between who you are and what you do for a living is complicated, personal, and worth getting right. The human questions at the center of a job search have not changed. What do you actually want to do? What are you genuinely good at? What kind of work would make you feel like yourself? Those questions are worth slowing down for.
Still in the Works
I have not retired to write from a distance. I am currently recruiting for Olivine and H2O.ai through my company 2PC Inc – which means I am inside the current hiring market every single day. What I am seeing now – the rise of AI-generated applications, the growing problem of synthetic candidate identities, the erosion of trust on both sides of the hiring process – informed the final chapters of this book in real time. When I tell you something has changed I am telling you from the inside.
What People Say
Gina is a profoundly insightful person with strategic intelligence and human understanding – a perfect blend of qualities for identifying and evaluating what is exceptional in people. A person of integrity, passion and tenacity.
Agustin Garza
Known Gina for 30 years personally and professionally.
Gina was responsive, helpful and discerning. Her support during what can be a difficult process was reliable and professional. She prepared me for each step and helped make the process very enjoyable.
Eric Nelson
Software Engineering Leader – candidate perspective