My reflection on 2019
It’s not too often I reflect on a year gone by, but 2019 was one where I finished my first calendar year at BJSS. With this in mind, I wanted to look back on what I achieved, didn’t achieve, and more importantly, what I want to gain from 2020!
Public Speaking
2019 was the year I took the leap in to public speaking. I managed to speak at smaller internal recruitment meet-ups hosted by various recruitment agencies, hosted and spoke at DBR events in both Leeds and Manchester as well as speaking at my first BCS Elite event in Leeds and running my first tracks at truManchester and truLeeds. I was also privileged to talk about D+I in Recruitment at a Leeds Beckett University AGCAS event. It’s something I’ve always been nervous doing, and to be honest, still get nervous doing, but I’ve enjoyed pushing myself to taking on that next challenge. 2020 already has a few more events lined up for me which I’m looking forward to speaking at.
Diversity and Inclusion
I’ve been lucky enough to take on the D+I Champion role for our Leeds office, working closely with our other D+I Champions across the UK and US. We put on events raising awareness across mental health, sponsored and attended Leeds Pride (we didn’t put on anything corporate, as a company we decided to support by sponsoring but being there in attendance celebrating being part of an amazing and inclusive community.
I was also lucky in roping in the awesome Theo Smith to coming in to our Leeds office to deliver a neurodiversity lunch and learn — Neurodivergent M3 (ME) — Why you should be hiring superheroes and mythical characters, and How to start!
We also ran several workshops across the offices on Unconscious Bias, D+I Drop-in Sessions and Imposter Syndrome Talks. 2020 already has more amazing stuff lined up.
Learning Curves
When I joined BJSS in October 2018, I was coming in to a role where I would be managing a team of recruiters. I’d not managed anyone for a few years so itwas certainly an area I lacked experience in (and still do). I remember one of my directors from my agency days, Sid Mansoor, told me that you will never manage two people the same. And he’s spot on. Coming in to this role I knew I could only win the respect of my team through strong leadership and leading by example. Whilst I never get to do enough hands on recruitment, I still like to ensure I keep on top of it. The team is a small one (4 including myself), but there was a lot of change with me coming in, one of the recruiters moving internally in January to become a Business Analyst. This meant hiring someone new and needing to ensure I didn’t cause to much (bad) disruption to the team. Whilst I’m still learning leading a team, I’ve been blessed with having a great team who are open with each other and collaborate well together.
Challenges
Moving to BJSS was a different kind of move for me. Having spent 3.5 years working in agency recruitment before spending another 7 years internal, I’d never worked for a consultancy. What I’ve found is the constant need to deliver great people in to the organisation as they continue to win more projects with new and existing clients. This makes it very exciting, but can also change quite rapidly.
We’ve also just opened a Sheffield office which has given me and the team an extra challenge to grow, as well as maintain the organic growth in our Leeds office.
What does 2020 hold
I’m very fortunate to work for an organisation that keeps growing and remains privately owned. 2020 will see the challenge of continuing to grow the Leeds office, as well as move in to our new home in February at Whitehall Quay. We will also continue the growth of our brand new Sheffield office slowly taking over the Yorkshire region!
I’ve also been fortunate to line up speaking gigs at Inhouse Recruiter Live and #tru events across Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham.
It looks like a crazy but great year, and I can’t wait to see if I am able to achieve my goals and reach for that next level!
*Disclaimer — this sat in drafts for 3 months longer than it should have so sorry for the slow post.
