Career Journeys in Talent Acquisition: Sean Allen

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 Sean Allen. If you'd like to be next, please reach out to a TTC Community Manager.

Introduce yourself:

I’m Sean Allen, Head of Talent Acquisition with 16 years’ experience within recruitment. Based in West Yorkshire, most recently I was overseeing recruitment operations at The Very Group and currently considering my next role.

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?

Like many working within Talent Acquisition, I began my recruitment career working for a small boutique agency. After 3.5 years and building up a large contractor book with a FS organisation based in Manchester, I decided that I wanted to try something new and headed to Yorkshire Building Society to undertake my first internal recruitment role. What I realised between my previous role and this new in-house role was that I loved the sourcing side of recruitment and working with hiring managers to understand their role requirements to ensure I was finding the right candidates for the position. I also liked that I no longer had to to Business Development like I would do in agency. In my early twenties whilst I was very outgoing and personable, I just never quite grasped the enjoyment of BD.

After 3.5 years at YBS which included the last 6 months in a TA Lead role for the team, I moved on to Sky in Leeds to join their newly formed Talent team. This was extremely interesting to me as it was a huge project of transitioning multiple teams from their Osterley office to Leeds, which resulted in >500 tech hires as a small team within 2 years. After the success of this, I did a couple more TA Partner roles (one of my favourites being BBC in Media City – working hybrid long before the pandemic).

Whilst at BBC I got the opportunity to step up to a TA Manager role at a Leeds based consultancy, BJSS. Whilst I wasn’t ready to move on from the BBC, the opportunity to step up and challenge myself in a leadership role really appealed and so I made the move. This was a pivotal move in my career and one which I learned so much in taking on additional roles such as Squad Lead, where I looked after the pastoral care of up to 40 of our technical employees.

Another pivotal move was the opportunity to join The Very Group. Whilst I wasn’t actively seeking a new role at the time, the opportunity to step up again, work within another new sector and be responsible for recruitment beyond tech really appealed as this has broadened my own knowledge and experience being responsible for recruitment across all business areas.

Now this chapter is finished, I’m on the lookout for what’s next.

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?

When it comes to learning I find I work best in two ways. One being on the job, being involved in a project or piece of work that stretches my skills and experience is often how I learn best. The other is through my peers in industry and teams around me. Getting differing views and understanding other people’s approaches to things has helped my own learning and ability to look at things differently.

I’m also a huge podcast fan and always put one on when walking the dog. I do find that if I have a challenge at work, I usually come up with a solution whilst out walking the dog listening to a podcast, even if that podcast episode is about a different subject matter.

Finally, I get a lot of value from communities. I’m fortunate to be part of the RL100 which is full of amazing people more experienced than me that I can learn from. Even sometimes through small things like feedback on presentation slides when I’ve presented at a summit, right through to crowdsourcing how to overcome a challenge. Naturally and without bias, The Talent Community has been a great source of knowledge sharing for me and enabled me to further enhance my network.

Events such as #tru and IHR, and let’s not forget to greatest TA event of the year, RecFest!

What has been the most challenging aspect of your career in talent acquisition, especially when you were actively seeking work? How did you overcome it, and what advice would you offer to others facing similar hurdles?

When I last entered the market, I was very fortunate that it was quite buoyant for TA Partners at the time. However, this time I’m aware I’m entering a tough market with layoffs still happening in places whilst we keep seeing some green shoots out there. My advice first and foremost would be that when made redundant, it is the role being made redundant, not you as an individual, so don’t be hard on yourself.

Enter the market with the optimism required whilst keeping a level head on what challenges may be. In the current market there is so much amazing available talent that we will all get knock backs.

Make sure to leverage your network, something we should always be building and using when in roles. Support from communities you’re in such as TTC also help. Whether that’s people sharing roles or just having someone to speak to. Make sure to use the help that is out there. As TA people it’s our profession to help people get roles and you will find so much support from those working in our profession.

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?

I’ve had to work on this over the years. In a usual week I aim to plan my day and week ahead, so I know I leave time for my dog walk and don’t over work every evening. There are certainly times when I will work later to ensure deliverables are met, but these instances should be the few, not the many. If it keeps happening to me or my team, it requires a deep dive to understand why and what we can do to change that. In my most recent role, we have a company wide protected lunch hour where no meetings go in, so this ensures everyone can take a break from their laptop. It’s then left to me to decide if I want to work through or not, but there is no expectation to do so.

The first thing I now do when I take a holiday is I completely switch off. Let the work phone battery run out, shut down the laptop and turn off LinkedIn and Slack notifications etc. I also won’t check emails until the first day I’m back. So, if that’s a Monday, before I go away, I block out my diary, so Monday is spent clearing emails and catching up with the team. There should be no expectations for anyone to check their emails on weekends.

In the end it comes down to self-discipline to ensure you as an individual get the right work/life balance for you.

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?

This is certainly a hot topic as we can’t listen to a podcast, attend an event or read a blog without the mention of AI! Personally, it’s how you utilise technology for the impact and influence it has on your role. I’ve found automation has been critical in my most recent role. Where it wasn’t being used before, we’ve been able to streamline our processes for candidates, talent acquisition and hiring managers, whilst still focusing on a personalised candidate experience as much as we can based on team size and volume of roles.

I’m certainly keeping an eye on the AI space and looking at how this can be utilised within the function I work within. I’m a big believer in tech to aid our roles as recruiters. As we’ve seen over the years new tech comes in and we see more of a shift in the role of a recruiter as opposed to being replaced. For example, using AI in high volume areas will certainly help not have over inflated TA teams, but actually enable all candidates to get a response where sometimes it’s just not possible when volumes are in the thousands and the team size and tools don’t offer that enablement.

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?

For those entering the Talent Acquisition space, I personally would advise joining a recruitment agency first. I find this often rounds your skills quicker and enables you the ability to build a broader network and understanding of your market more quickly when you’re working with multiple clients. You also see some good and bad processes from that side. After gaining that experience, you will likely have a feel for what you enjoy and whether agency remains the best place for you, or a move to RPO or in-house could be next.

My advice for those looking is to remain positive, continue to back yourself and remain resilient. It’s been a tough 18 months in the TA market and isn’t fully recovered yet with lots of great talent looking for new roles. I’d also advise to leverage your networks. They will be your biggest support and the people that can help open opportunities for you. What’s great about communities like The Talent Community, is that people are pro-actively sharing roles they see, get approached for and even interview for. The Talent world is full of amazing people, so the support is there.

Finally, continue to treat people how you want to be treated.