A Day in a New York Life: Human Resources’ Seldric Blocker

New York Life | January 8, 2025

The Day in a New York Life article series offers a look into the daily lives of employees: what they do, their career paths, what they find most interesting about their jobs, and how they spend their time outside of the office.

Seldric Blocker built his career on helping others. This passion started during a college summer internship with the InRoads internship program while attending Clemson University. Blocker was assigned to the human resources department at a large bank, where a meeting with the campus recruiting team sparked a passion in him for helping others find jobs. To put his new-found passion into practice, Blocker returned to Clemson and started working as a campus tour guide.

Now as the head of Programmatic Talent Acquisition, Blocker leads the early career recruiting programs, companywide inclusive hiring, internal mobility experience and early career program management for New York Life. His prior roles in recruiting and talent management at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America, Lowes Home Improvement, NBCUniversal Media and Wachovia Bank helped him build the foundation to lead his growing team.

“I consider myself a fixer and a talent agent,” Blocker said. “The most interesting part is taking all the experiences I’ve had from all the different places I’ve worked to help our people and processes look good. I love thinking creatively to help people realize the company’s strengths and make them look hip and cool to attract talent.”

Blocker and his team have various responsibilities, ranging from managing events both in and out of the office to developing processes and experiences for interns and early career professionals to creating new processes for attracting diverse talent. He’s constantly monitoring what competitors are doing, how interns and other candidates are talking about their experiences, and looking for innovative ways to differentiate New York Life as an employer.

Creating a best-in-class talent experience is critical for Blocker. Since he and his team are building many of the things they’re doing or trying something new for the first time, the constant experimentation requires strategic planning, creative thinking and willingness to move quickly.

Attracting talent through on-campus recruiting events for summer interns and early career hires keeps Blocker on the road during the school year. With nearly 300 internships to fill and manage each summer, the role needs great attention to detail, event planning skills and coaching expertise to make sure everyone has a positive experience.

Once the interns are in their roles, he and the team work to create consistently excellent experiences across the country, which includes community service, social events and a firmwide speaker series. By constantly looking for ways to enhance, elevate and promote the internships, he’s helping deliver top talent to the company and building the employer brand.

In addition to campus recruiting, Blocker and his team also attend conferences to make sure they’re recruiting from a variety of communities. They also work to ensure current employees have the resources and support to navigate their next career moves with New York Life.

In addition to his day job, Blocker is the board chair of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a 17,000-member organization for those who work in college career services or campus recruiting. His duties include speaking engagements, webinars and travel for board meetings, adding to his already full calendar.

When asked how he manages to juggle so many different projects, priorities and stakeholders, Blocker cites advice he received from a mentor when he was struggling to fit into the culture at another company.

“She told me, ‘You can figure out how to flex your style and personality, but never sacrifice the quality of your work,’” Blocker said. “Working with so many people and personality types, you have to flex your style to meet people where they are, but you don’t sacrifice the quality of the work.”

Outside of work, Blocker makes time for his family and circle of friends — his apartment in Harlem is affectionately known as “HQ” by his pals. Although most of his family is based in South Carolina, they manage to find time to visit each other.

One fun fact about Blocker is he gets a haircut every week. While he has a core barber in New York, he also has a go-to in South Carolina, Los Angeles and Atlanta. “It’s a space to sit and relax and recharge. I really value that time,” Blocker said.