Twilio’s Talent Partner’s Success is Tied to Inner Peace

Jamie Gaulton, Talent Partner at Twilio, has been forging connections her entire career. For Gaulton, it’s all about connecting the dots between people who should know each other or could work together well. “I try to help people find the right place in their career, but also build the best team. My job at Twilio is more about building teams and identifying the right dynamic. I want to find incredible people who will add immediate value and work well with the people that I’ve established relationships with here," she told The Org.

Twilio is a customer engagement platform that drives real-time, personalized experiences for today’s leading brands. Twilio’s communications APIs enable companies to connect with their customers across voice, conversations, messaging, video and email. For example, when you get a text message from Lyft about your ride being outside or from Postmates about your order en route, that’s all built on Twilio’s technology.

The “talent” Gaulton works with is in the form of new recruits within the company–not to be confused with influencers or celebrities—and when she connects by phone with The Org, Gaulton is eager to discuss her path to Twilio, her ability to foster connections between people, and how having peace at your job is a great indication you’re exactly where you need to be.

Growing up, did you always enjoy forging connections?

I think I’ve always had a natural ability to work with people of all backgrounds. The underlying common denominator through my career is that I love working with people and figuring out how they operate.

I came from advertising media sales/marketing and was always helping people connect, whether it was driving a sale and figuring out how people could work best together, or simply providing introductions. If someone was at a conference and they wanted to meet the CEO of a particular company, they would look to me to forge those connections. It was more added value I provided in the job at that point, and I just loved helping people meet and see if there was that innate chemistry. That was one of my secret super powers and it helped me find the path [I’m currently on], it just wasn’t drawn out on paper.

A big part of my job is sales. You’re selling people, you’re selling hiring managers, you’re selling the position, you’re selling the company. You’re trying to convince people that there’s something special for you here. I’m doing that with the best intentions for everyone—not trying to manipulate anyone—I’m truly trying to help people find the best opportunities for their personality and skill set. This really manifested from my psychology and sociology education and my sales/marketing skills, combining them into a dream job. It’s not something I sought out, rather a path I fell into.

Do you think that was in part because you had a good understanding of yourself, what you enjoyed, and what you could contribute to a team?

I think it’s all about me understanding people’s motivations and being a “people person.” I genuinely like helping people figure out things, too.

I initially thought I was going to go into therapy and be a psychiatrist, and it’s not that far off [from what I’m doing now]. There’s a lot of therapy sessions—with hiring managers, my teammates, and the people for whom I’m helping find jobs—I just get to do it a little more creatively and on my own terms.

What would you say was an experience or set of experiences that reinforced the path utilizing your super powers was the path you were supposed to be on?

I think just feedback I’ve gotten from people while working with them, from the hiring managers and from the candidates. People can see I care about them and that I’m here to help them out, especially at Twilio where we have the tools and resources to make a real impact.

I’ve had many experiences working at smaller companies with little to no resources and on really challenging roles and problems. Coming to Twilio, it’s been “Thank you so much for making this process easy, smooth and transparent. It seems like you really care about me,” which is true. The feedback I’ve gotten from both sides—the candidates and hiring managers—has been the best at reinforcing [that I’m where I need to be].

Is there an experience that’s reaffirmed all of your efforts have placed you exactly where you’re supposed to be right now?

I’d say just internally, I feel at peace and accomplished.

I’ve been at really stressful jobs that seem so cool from the outside and seemed to be the dream job for me. I was so excited to have that on my resume—whether it was the big title or the big company—but I was not at peace. I was burning the midnight oil, I was doing everything I could in my power, but still felt I wasn’t moving the needle with my bosses and the work that I was doing with clients.

[Twilio] is the first job where I feel like I’m really accomplishing everything I want to and there’s a lot of opportunity to take on more, but I’m still at peace. At the end of the day, I’ve accomplished what I can accomplish, and then I can go have fun and go to a concert with my husband or check out some cool new restaurant. This is the first job where I feel like I’ve got that peace.

While you might be where you want and need to be, stresses still come up throughout the day. How do you manage those stresses and make sure you’re taking care of you while also making great contributions to your team?

First and foremost, it’s important to find a company that values mental health and mental health awareness. I’ve worked for companies where that wasn’t even an afterthought. There was built up stress and there weren’t methods in place to deal with it or to acknowledge it. Over the last few years, there’s been much more of a spotlight on mental health, and I think it’s important to be at a company that recognizes it.

For me, it was important to figure out how mental health and the work/life balance were connected. At Twilio, it’s very busy and can be very stressful at times, but they have a really great work/life balance with everything. At the end of the day, your day is yours, you’re not expected to do too much work after hours or on the weekends. We also do “No Meeting Fridays” and have a lot of company closures like spring break, summer break, and fall break.

In terms of mental health, I work with a career coach—who is also provided by Twilio—and who helps me put things into focus when I have too much stress on my plate or have trouble speaking up for myself, and helps make sure I’m not overwhelmed, overworked, or burnt out.

Sometimes it’s just as simple as getting up and taking a walk and getting away from your laptop. It’s important to take the coffee breaks, whether they’re physical or virtual. It gets so easy to plug away, plug away, plug away, and never take time for yourself, which is why it’s so important to sprinkle in lunch and coffee times on your calendar and make sure you’re having those connections with other people at the company. It can easily become a grind if you don’t take that time for yourself.

And the time you take for yourself doesn’t have to have to be one- or two-hours blocks.

It could be a 15 minute break to grab coffee or to get outside. The absolute best thing you can do for yourself is be outside for a couple of minutes per day. It’s something that I’m always working on too because we live in one of the most incredible areas in the world (Los Angeles]), and if I’m not intentional about it, I won’t go outside at all.

How do you maintain the discipline to take those breaks?

Sometimes it’s literally blocking the time out on my calendar, so no one can take up that time, and that way I have the reminder that it’s there and scheduled. I can complete the task at hand and then take 15-20 minutes for myself.

In terms of maintaining a healthy work/life balance, do you employ some of the same strategies at home or is it a different beast?

I think I’m fortunate in that I can really build my own schedule since I work one-hundred percent remotely. If there are times where I have a sick child—which happens way too often—I can tend to that while also working on the fly.

Twilio as a whole is very good about respecting the work/life balance. As I said, we have no meetings on Fridays unless it’s something really important, and generally speaking, your manager won’t even reach out to you on Fridays. That time is yours and you can do with it what you want. Sometimes that means I have to catch up on some projects, but I can also use that time to be a mom if I need to take a half day and take the kids to the park or do something fun. It really is an incredible benefit and something I hope more companies are moving toward. It’s hard to balance everything, but having that extra flexibility in my day helps make everything manageable.

Follow Jamie on LinkedIn for more insights into the life of the Talent Partner at Twilio and follow @sladdin on Instagram for more interviews with interesting people across entertainment, tech, cannabis and crypto.

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