Your Origin Story Is the Job Skill
Nobody's Hiring For

This one's special — it's Talentless's 1-Year Anniversary Episode. Thank you for listening, sharing, and showing up for us this year.

Des and Ashley sit down with T. Tara Turk-Haynes — founder of Equity Activations, creator of The Origin Arc framework, first-generation college grad and first-generation corporate worker, and 15+ years deep in talent acquisition and people operations. She's been featured in Lars Schmidt's Redefining HR, profiled by Business Insider, and spoken at RecFest, Culture Amp, and Living Corporate.

This conversation went deeper than we expected — and harder. Tara doesn't dance around the DEI rollback. She tells us why it failed (spoiler: we put icing over a crumbling cake), what The Origin Arc actually unlocks for hiring managers and recruiters, why feedback is the talent acquisition crisis nobody is naming, and why she will not spend her therapy sessions trying to convert the immovable middle of corporate America.

If you've ever sat in an intake meeting that lasted 12 minutes, ghosted a candidate after seven rounds, or wondered why your DEI work didn't stick — this episode is your wake-up call.