Free Lunch & Learn Wednesday: Celeste Warren on Elevating Recruiter Impact in Hiring

Recruiters are expected to lead the hiring process — but leading it and being heard in it are two different things. Anyone who has pushed to widen a candidate slate, questioned a “culture fit” objection, or advocated for a strong candidate who didn’t match the hiring manager’s mental picture knows how quickly those conversations can stall.

This Wednesday, HBCU CONNECT is hosting a free virtual Lunch & Learn built specifically for that problem. Voice & Velocity: Elevating Recruiter Impact on Inclusive Hiring features Celeste R. Warren, founder of Celeste Warren Consulting LLC, TEDx speaker, author, and a C-suite human resources executive with nearly three decades inside one of the world’s largest companies.

What the session covers. Warren will walk through practical strategies and conversation techniques for navigating difficult hiring discussions — the kind that too often either get dropped or escalate to HR. At the center of the session is her C.A.L.M. Influence Framework, a structured approach to influencing hiring managers, surfacing bias without putting people on the defensive, and keeping the conversation moving toward a better outcome.

Attendees leave with tools they can use the same week:

• The C.A.L.M. Influence Framework for high-stakes hiring conversations
• Recruiter-tested scripts for the objections you actually hear
• An Inclusive Influence Playbook you can apply immediately
• A live Q&A to work through the situations specific to your organization

About the speaker. Celeste Warren spent 28 years at Merck, rising to Vice President and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer. For a decade she led the company’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Center of Excellence, building initiatives that changed how one of the world’s largest employers approached hiring, advancement, and workplace culture. Since retiring from Merck she has founded Celeste Warren Consulting LLC, where she advises organizations on creating fair and equitable opportunity at scale.

Her work has been recognized by Black Enterprise (“Top Executives in Global Diversity and Inclusion”), Savoy Magazine (“Most Influential Women in Corporate America”), Diversity Global Magazine (“Influential Women in Global Diversity”), and Diversity Woman Magazine (“Elite100”).

If you caught her recent TEDx talk, this session is the practical follow-on. Where “The Cost of Standing Still” makes the case that organizations change by redesigning systems rather than asking individuals to try harder, this Lunch & Learn hands recruiters the language to start that work inside their own hiring process.

Seats are limited and the session is free. If you recruit, hire, or influence hiring decisions at your organization, this is an hour well spent.