Thanks for reading! This series is designed to shine a spotlight on Talent Acquisition professionals and highlight their career journeys and learnings so far. Today, we're joined by James O'Reilly. If you'd like to be next, please reach out to a TTC Community Manager.
Introduce yourself:
Hi! I’m James, currently a full-time job seeker, having relocated to the UK after working with some of Australia’s top technology companies for 8+ years, most recently spending 3 years with PaperCut Software, delivering global talent solutions as a Senior Talent Partner and Team Leader.
Can you walk us through the key milestones in your career in the talent acquisition space? What were some pivotal moments or decisions that shaped your journey?
Having transitioned from agency recruitment to Talent Acquisition just as (sorry to bring it up again) COVID began, I was hit in the face pretty hard by the contrasts between the two.
Initially, as almost everyone experienced, recruitment totally stopped and the purpose of my role shifted from building a recruitment strategy focused on meetups and events, to internally focused talent operations and DE&I initiatives. Whilst a shock to the system, this was exactly what I needed to pull me out of the competitive “need to fill all roles as fast as possible” mindset and showed me how the role of a Talent Partner is about so much more than recruitment.
This also coincided with the discovery of one of my favourite parts of this job; being able to influence genuine change from within a business. It was exciting to now be able to speak with anyone and everyone to understand what they’re working on, what their struggles are and how the talent team could help them. This started with recruitment process improvements and interview training but grew into having a say in how to structure and recruit entire teams that would help us deliver on company-wide strategic priorities.
Finally, throughout my whole journey in talent acquisition, I’ve gained an appreciation for the value of engaging with the professional community. I’ve found that the Talent community cares especially about each other, so will offer almost unlimited support if asked. Whether it’s to keep up to date with the latest trends, helping with day-to-day challenges, or in my case with job seeking. It’s a truly unique group to be a part of and, from my experience, this is true for the Talent community globally.
In this rapidly evolving industry, what strategies or practices have you adopted to continuously enhance your skills and stay ahead of the curve? Do you have any resources or learning methods you'd recommend to others?
There are always conferences, meetups, roundtables and other events to attend, which is where these cutting-edge ideas are discussed, and the Talent community is an invaluable resource willing to offer advice on anything you’re doing for the first time as well. As a newcomer to the UK, I’m building a lot of this for myself right now, so can only speak generally, but I do tune into the TaPod podcast from Australia, who have very genuine and insightful conversations about the world of Talent also.
In addition to this, I’m a big proponent of practical learning through experimenting with new ideas as well. If there’s something that you believe can add value to your business, you don’t need to set up a large strategic program of work – you can run an initial experiment or draft a proof of concept. It’s a great place to start rolling out initiatives as they’re comparatively low effort, and business leaders are more likely to buy into the real deal with evidence to back up the decision.
Finally, having a leader that buys into a vision of continuous improvement is a real game changer. They’re a great soundboard for ideas, can get the buy-in necessary to make things happen and are great motivators when it comes to learning and growth. They also come in very handy by reminding you to use your learning allowance if you have one.
What has been the most challenging aspect of your career, especially when you were actively seeking work? How did you overcome it, and what advice would you offer to others facing similar hurdles?
I’d say the challenge I’m facing now is the most unique that I’ve faced whilst actively seeking work. Entering a competitive market in a new country, without a network, after taking a career break seems like a bit of a perfect storm.
I’m still in the process of overcoming these hurdles, but my first step was to build a network to help me understand the nuances of this new market I find myself in. The more people I speak to, the more introductions I’m making and the more information I’m gathering as well. I’ve spoken to some brilliant people so far, and I’m looking forward to keeping these connections for the future too.
Actively marketing yourself is another step I’d recommend taking to uplift your brand. Writing blog posts for TTC (like this one), writing LinkedIn posts and generally increasing LinkedIn activity is a great place to start. This not only gets your profile in front of a much wider passive audience in addition to applying to roles, but also sets you apart as a passionate member of the Talent community.
Of course, actively applying for jobs has formed part of this strategy as well, but knowing your must-haves and nice-to-haves and what you truly value in your work is an essential step to ensure you’re applying to the right roles and not back in the same situation in a few months’ time.
Finally, being aware of what level of activity is realistic in all the above is critical. We cannot control how many job ads are posted in a day or how long it takes to get a response to an application. So, recognising the good progress you have made each day is a huge step towards not overwhelming yourself.
The recruiting world can be fast-paced and demanding. How do you strike a balance between your professional commitments and personal life? Are there specific routines or rituals you follow?
What has really helped me strike a balance in the past is working with my stakeholders to understand the effort and urgency of recruitment and projects to form a realistic capacity plan and set of objectives. As we know, additional ad-hoc work always comes up so this always ends up looking very different to how it starts. But having a plan is a great tool that you can revisit with stakeholders to manage their expectations and reprioritise what you’re committing to day-to-day.
Just like job searching, knowing when you’ve done enough activity for the day is key as well. We can get wrapped up in the end outcome being the sole measurement for success in recruitment, but most of this is actually out of our control. All we can do is put in the activity, so keep track of this, talk through any trends with your stakeholders and be prepared to pivot your approach and make outcomes more likely so you can get through your workload quicker.
Having commitments outside of work is also important to keep me occupied, but gives me a good excuse to finish work at a reasonable time as well. Personally, I play sport a couple of times a week and try to meet friends after work every now and then. This gives me something to look forward to throughout the day, which helps my mindset to no end.
As someone involved in talent acquisition, you've likely witnessed various technology and trend shifts. Which technologies or trends do you believe have had the most significant impact on the industry, and how have they influenced your role?
Does the entirety of the last 3-4 years count as a trend? I feel that these have been some of the most impactful times on anyone in the talent industry today.
Firstly, we’ve seen workforce mobility explode on a massive scale and a huge shift in priorities for job seekers around the world. This needed an immediate response by overhauling our employee value propositions, rapidly solidifying working from home policies, rethinking salary benchmarking and working harder than ever before to get candidates through the door. This came with its own bonus technological trend of the Zoom meeting and remote interview becoming the rule rather than the exception.
Our response to this in the last few years has also accelerated the recognition of our teams’ role as an adivsory body into the business, as much as an external-facing recruitment arm. We were the ones in the trenches, gathering market intelligence to feed our executive team about the world of work and what the business needed to do to remain relevant. As a positive outcome, this has shown the continuous value we add to businesses, and if leveraged I believe will offer Talent professionals more job security during times of market fluctuations.
Technologically, the general diversity of tools now available to us has created a massive shift in how we perform in our roles. We’re no longer relying heavily on just emails, phones and an ATS. We’re leveraging booking tools to remove blockers between ourselves and candidates, remote meeting and collaboration tools to run interview exercises to expedite processes, we have augmented writing tools to remove gendered language from content. And this is before we begin on data and reporting tools that we can use to influence decision making, inform our projects and fine tune every step of a recruitment process from start to finish.
For those entering the talent acquisition space or those looking to pivot within it, what's the one piece of practical advice you'd give to help them thrive, especially if they are actively job-seeking?
You may have noticed a theme throughout this spotlight, but I can’t speak highly enough of the power of networking within the Talent community. Our job is getting people jobs and for the most part we love doing it, especially if it’s going to help one of our own. Without it my job search would be scrolling through job boards all day, every day shipping off applications with crossed fingers. Granted, there’s still some of that, but talking to people has definitely been the highlight of my journey so far. They’ve been an invaluable source of information (as well as being just great people), which is relevant not only to a job seeker but anyone who wants to learn, grow, or pivot in this space.
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