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Rod Adams
Rod Adams
01:06

Rod Adams

PwC

Hartford, CT USA

"None of the decisions you make have to be lifelong decisions. They might be! But they don’t have to be."

Career Roadmap

Rod's work combines: Business, Numbers, and Problem Solving

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Day In The Life

U.S. Recruitment Leader

I’m responsible for recruitment strategy and leading the recruitment team at PwC in the US & Mexico.

My Day to Day

I'm at the head of PwC's hiring across the U.S. and Mexico, from intern to director. That's about 15,000 people per year! I lead a team of about 400 people doing on-the-ground recruitment. I work closely with U.S. firm leadership, faculty relationship partners, market leaders, and recruitment teams to design and execute our recruitment strategy. I build sustainable competitive advantage in attracting top talent through recruiting programs, social and digital media, and brand-setting activities.

Skills & Education

Advice for getting started

There's this idea that you have to work, work, work to get ahead and accomplish your goals. There are times that putting in the extra work and effort is necessary, but I've learned to not let that be my normal way of operating. It took having kids for me to really understand that I don't need to sacrifice everything else in my life to be successful at work. Hold onto the things that fuel you outside of work because they're key to your happiness.

Here's the path I took:

  • High School

  • Bachelor's Degree

    Accounting

    Illinois Wesleyan University

Learn more about different paths to this career

Life & Career Milestones

My path in life took a while to figure out

  • 1.

    I’m originally from North Carolina, but moved to Chicago when I was young—I would become the first in my family to really enter corporate America.

  • 2.

    I wanted to pursue accounting from the time I started college—my goals were reaffirmed when even the FBI spoke at my school and revealed that accounting was one of the top majors they hired from.

  • 3.

    I’ve been with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) throughout my whole career, starting in audit.

  • 4.

    My favorite aspect of audit was building relationships with clients, so my coach referred me for a role that interacted heavily with the human resources department.

  • 5.

    I stayed in audit for about three years before moving into what I call the “people space”—I’ve worked in deployment, recruiting, diversity, human resources, and then back in recruiting.

  • 6.

    I moved to Los Angeles, California, for a few years when I first started working in recruitment for PwC, but I eventually moved back to Chicago.

  • 7.

    I currently lead the recruitment team at PwC for the United States and Mexico—I’ve been in this position for four years.

  • 8.

    In my community, I serve on the Posse Foundation Chicago Advisory Board—the Posse Foundation recruits and trains scholars with extraordinary leadership potential.

Defining Moments

How I responded to discouragement

  • THE NOISE

    Messages from Society in general:

    Work should be your main priority if you want to be successful.

  • How I responded:

    There's this idea that you have to work, work, work to get ahead and accomplish your goals. There are times that putting in the extra work and effort is necessary, but I've learned to not let that be my normal way of operating. It took having kids for me to really understand that I don't need to sacrifice everything else in my life to be successful at work. Hold onto the things that fuel you outside of work because they're key to your happiness.

Experiences and challenges that shaped me

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  • Working in corporate America and balancing my family responsibilities can get hard, but communication is key. I make an effort to really explain to my daughters if I can't be there and try to commit myself fully to them when I am able to be present.

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