Natalie Brown on LinkedIn: How do you prefer to receive bad news? The dreaded “You haven’t got the… | 208 comments (2024)

When you “assume” you make an ASS out of U and MESometimes, in hiring processes, I'm guilty of assuming that we’re all talking the same language when it comes to basic skills & competencies. I’ll often hear hiring managers say “I’m looking for good communication skills” for their new team member, and we assume that we agree what good communication looks and sounds like.Good communication? Well what’s that exactly? 🤔 ~ Ability to command a room in meetings?~ Can talk to senior leaders about complex topics?~ Have copy writing skills for creative emails?~ Have good spelling and grammar?If we assume that we have the same understanding of skills, we risk measuring the candidate with different yardsticks.And the consequence might be that we hire the wrong people, OR we miss talent when it's under our noses.Clear up what feels like the obvious with questions like:⚫ What does that mean for you?⚫ Can you share your understanding of that so we’re on the same page?⚫ What are the challenges they’re likely to face that make this skill important?⚫ How would someone do this badly?Define this, and you'll have a great shot and improving the quality of your interviews 🌟 Have you made any blinding assumptions lately? 👇 ----------------------------------------------------------------I’m Natalie 👋 I’m a Talent Acquisition specialist and I help companies hire exceptional talent in an efficient, fair, and kind way 📧

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Going through the struggle of layoffs and job hunting has been a huge blessing in disguise.Loosing a great job in such a difficult TA market has been an exercise in mental resilience that I was not prepared for 🎢 Financially… it’s been quite sh*t, to be frank.Emotionally… it’s been an invaluable period of personal growth. Rejection, uncertainty, confidence knocks, are just a few of the deeply uncomfortable things I've had to get used to.But steel sharpens steel ⚔️(as my partner Mike Hayers has continued to harp at me throughout 💛 )And building an armour of resilience and almost delusional positivity is only something you can strengthen through hardship.In the last 6 months I’ve been busy↗ Pushing myself far out of my comfort zone(incl writing on here)👩💻 Constantly adapting my approach, problem solving, trying new things, failing and trying again📖 Nailing my story, muddling through understanding my values and what I want the rest of my journey to look like🌱 Nurturing self belief and consistently fighting imposter syndrome🛑 Getting comfortable with rejection and bouncing back quicker from ‘no’s’There have been many low moments along the way. But this experience has been a journey that I know will benefit me (and my career) for years to come.If you’re in the midst of it now - please continue to dig deep. Find every silver lining that you can, believe that you are more resilient than you know, and keep. going. 🔜 New job incoming next week 😄

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TA people, are you contributing to the resurgence of nepotism?In the aftermath of mass layoffs, nepotism threatens to undo the work we've done to improve Diversity & Inclusion.It's hypocritical writing this, as someone who has encouraged networking as a way of finding a job. We have to admit that we often contribute to, and sometimes benefit from, a system that is simply unfair.But as recruiting teams are overwhelmed by applicants, it’s more and more tempting to let friends, family, referrals in through the back door.And why shouldn’t you? Well, you’re damaging the long term diversity of your teams and the data is UNMISTAKABLY clear. Diverse teams = better business performance.But TA teams I hear you, you’re completely overwhelmed 😫 Here are a few things that helped me navigate through 500+ applicants per role:❇ Invest in operational efficiency to manage candidate load ❇ Use chat GPT to do any bulk lifting for you, use AI notetakers to summarise all your meetings and interviews, use AI to prioritise your candidate pool, Automate EVERYTHING that you can via your existing systems, wether that’s email scheduling, interview scheduling, rejection scheduling etc. ❇ Work in candidate sprints & anticipate the rush ❇ Don’t leave your advert live for weeks amassing hundreds of applicants. Open your role for 2 days. Close it. Work through what you have, shortlist, and then open again if you need to.❇ Slow down, and communicate your timeline ❇ Yep, it’s gonna take a bit longer. Typically, people are ok with that if they trust they are getting great candidates and an efficient process. Communicate to stakeholders AND candidates when they can reasonably expect to hear from you to avoid feeling like you’re sprinting on a never ending treadmill.❇ Put referrals through the same process as applicants ❇ Just because Dave from payroll knows a good finance manager doesn’t mean that they have the right skills and experience for your job. Referrals are not quick wins.There are so many more - leave your recommendations below 👇 ----------------------------------------------------------------I’m Natalie 👋 I’m a Talent Acquisition specialist and I help companies hire exceptional talent in an efficient, fair, and kind way.If you’d be interested in working with me - drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you 📧

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Ladies, are we standing in the way of ourselves?I recently had a chat with a podcast host who’s having a real hard time getting women on his show.He said that often they’ll have loads to say and be really up for it, but they pull out because they’re afraid they’re not qualified enough to talk on a topic. A story as old as time. My guilty eyes were going like this 👀 as I remembered that I was recently invited to speak on a panel about AI and I turned it down, even though I have (what I think) is a pretty uncommon perspective on the topic.Why?🥴 The rest of the panel were all very senior men and I felt like a huge imposter🥴 I was petrified of looking stupid or ill-informed🥴 I’m not an expert on AIHere’s what I’ve realised though. No one is a bloody expert.I was reminded by the wonderful Jon Stanners 👶🏼 💭 lately, that being a leader and a driver of change is about asking questions, not about knowing all the answers.So this is your reminder to do the panel, take the podcast opportunity. Raise your voice. Be heard. Go get ‘em. And I'll get out of my own way if you get out of yours 🤝 ---------------------------------------------------------------------I’m Natalie 👋 I’m a Talent Acquisition specialist and I help companies hire exceptional talent in an efficient, fair, and kind way. If you’d be interested in working with me on a contract or permanent basis - drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you 📧

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I recently pulled out of an interview process at final stage. Not an easy decision when you’ve been looking for work for longer than you’d like… 🙂 But, amongst other things, when I was asked to create a ‘TA business proposal’ along with 6 other candidates - I knew this was wasting my time.Don’t get me wrong, I think tasks, case studies & presentations can actually be very effective - sometimes even enjoyable.❌ But there were two things that were really wrong with this situation:1️⃣ You should not have 6 people at final stage. This screams: You don’t know what you’re looking for, & your previous stages have not been effective at assessing your candidates.You are comfortable wasting everyone's time including your own 🤨2️⃣ The brief is far too wide. You’re asking for extensive free consulting work to help you figure out what your needs are 🚫So how do you make your interview tasks useful and ethical? Stick to PCR:☝ Purposeful:Know (and communicate) exactly what competencies you’re looking for & what you want to achieve from the exercise. You should have a written document with the expected outcome, well communicated with the interviewing team.✍ Clear: Provide clear and highly specific instructions about the skills AND deliverables expected (which should be minimal). Don’t be lazy with your brief, help your candidate show you what you want and avoid them spending an entire week in overwhelm.⏰ Realistic: Putting together a full presentation takes 2 days, not 2 hours.It’s completely unreasonable and unethical to expect this from a job seeker. Be realistic about how long these things take (it’s ALWAYS longer than you think). I want to give credit to Joanna Moore at Raylo who recently shared one of the best TA tasks I’ve seen in my journey so far. -A super clear objective, based on a real world scenario likely to be faced in the role.-Specific detail about what skills & deliverables they wanted to see from the candidate and asked for a maximum of 3 slides to cover: Assumptions about the challenge, Data Analysis & suggested solutions.What horrendous tasks have you been asked to complete?? 👇 ------------------------------------------------------------I’m Natalie 👋 I’m a Talent Acquisition specialist and I help companies hire exceptional talent in an efficient, fair and kind way. Need help with creating your assessment process? Drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you 📧

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The STAR interviewing framework needs to go in the bin 🗑️In my opinion, it's an overly rigid and structured way of an answering questions.To me, it doesn’t quite make sense - situation and task are sort of the same thing aren’t they? Why does it feel so unnatural? 😖 Trying to separate professional experience into these categories overcomplicates it and it feels like an acronym that’s been forced together when it doesn’t quite fit.Maybe this is specific to neurodivergent folk? Maybe not. A better alternative?👉 CEO 👈 Context - Example - OutcomeIt’s really much of the same and you’ll deliver what TA teams are looking for - but much simpler, flows better from a story telling perspective and for me, my brain just gets it!Give it a try.---------------------------------------------------------------------I’m Natalie 👋 I’m a Talent Acquisition specialist and I help companies hire exceptional talent in an efficient, fair, and kind way. If you’d be interested in working with me on a contract or permanent basis - drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you 📧

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Are you leveraging your employer brand at every stage of the recruitment funnel? 🧐At Perkbox, I noticed that we had prioritisedall of our resources and branding efforts at the top of our funnel and completely neglected the bottom.We had given candidates a first class candidate experience, only to land them a job offer with a stuffy email followed by a 30 page employment contract 😴. This didn’t reflect the innovative and creative company that we were. So, as part of multiple initiatives to elevate our employer brand and up our offer acceptance rates, we set out to revamp employer branding at the bottom of the funnel. Inspired by the work of the people team at Tony's Chocolonely we created a 1 pager ‘employment contract’* that had all the essentials you need before accepting an offer - one that truly reflected our organisation.Everything about this document is intentional - but why does it matter?🌱 Grow and Develop with us: The hot air balloon ride representing our memorable ‘balloon’ logo and the journey about to begin 🎢 'Buckle Up' title: implying scale-up life won’t always be a smooth ride! A reminder of the cultural decision the candidate is making about a fit that's right for them🔁 Memorable brand interaction: Creating a positive and unique experience, even if they reject the offer we can benefit from better NPS scores, increased brand awareness, higher likelihood of networking via word of mouth, Glassdoor reviews and so on...⏱️ Relevant Information: Less time scouring contracts= quicker time to decision, better quality experience for the candidate, less time spent answering questions for the recruiters.🤝 Employee experience: The tone and feel aligned with all our resources and demonstrated a consistent consideration for the employee experience throughout = better acceptance rates and saves time and resourceI'd love to hear about brands that do employer branding really well - tag your inspirations!And credit to the wonderful Llewellyn van Eeden for bringing the vision to life!*This document was followed by a more formal legal document.P.S - I no longer work for Perkbox but they gave me permission to share this————I’m Natalie 👋 I’m a Talent Acquisition specialist and I help companies hire exceptional talent in an efficient, fair, and kind way.If you’d be interested in working with me on a contract or permanent basis - drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you 📧

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So you know you need to up your networking game but don't know where to start?At uni I lived with a group of creatives who went onto become actors, directors, film producers and (as I affectionately call them) - theatre nerds. 🎭In their world, networking is*fundamental* as they navigate freelance work. In the arts especially, ‘it’s not what you know it’s who you know’ could not be a truer statement.So I asked my artsy friends: when you're networking, what really works?Here were their answers 👉 Mentally remove the word ‘Networking’ and replace it with ‘building bridges’ - it feels less icky and chore-like👉 Stick to the basics and be CLEAR about what you want - a well worded and researched email specifically stating WHY you’d love to meet that person goes down a treat. 9/10 its because you want their insight and guidance and people love giving that. 👉 Follow up with people who have helped you in the past. Basic politeness and curiosity go a long way and helps you stay connected.You're not asking too much.👉Join Peer networks - almost every specialism you can think of will have some form of online network, join them and start engaging. Don’t be a silent obverser, that’s not doing you any favours.Ask questions, share challenges, or be vulnerable. If one doesn’t exist in your specialism- what’s stopping you from creating one? Using platforms like Meetup you only need to convince a handful of people to get together and you've got yourself a networking group!👉 Find informal work grapevines: when you've made a connection, ask them how they find new connections. What whatsapp groups are they in? What events have they been to? Ask them to join. 👉Look out for mentoring schemes relevant to your industry. You might not get one, but you’ll meet some useful people along the way!👉 Create content - not for everyone, but the more you can leverage conversations on social media, blog posts, articles, videos - the less ‘invisible’ you are to your network.👉 Little & often - commit to reaching out to one new connection per week.What have I missed? What has worked for you in the past? Comment below 👇

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Don’t make the same HUGE career mistake that I have made:Neglecting your professional network. 5 years ago, I was leaving agency recruitment for good and sighed a huge breath of relief - I can take a break from the relentless networking and relationship building. I was sick of the dinners, the events, the coffee catch ups - completely burnt out and never wanted to have another conversation about recruitment ever again. ( 🤡 )It felt like I blinked and 5 years had flown by. After an incredible journey at Perkbox, I was being made redundant from my Head of Talent Acquisition position. And boy was I not prepared for how tough the market was, and how many brilliant people had been looking for senior TA work for months on end before me.I had been in a job since I was 14 years old. I was hardworking, had consistently been told that I was great at what I do and never imagined that I would be in a position where I was struggling to find work.All the advice was telling me to lean on my network……sh*t.What network?I had always known that it was important to network, but I’d been busy!! Networking could happen when we had some downtime. Or when the opportunities came. Or when I had the energy for it. Or when I had the time to go to those events. *plot twist I never had the time…*I’m now building my network from scratch which let me tell you is 10X harder to do when you’re out of work.So learn from my mistakes:👉 Don’t sit comfortably. Think you’re acing your job? Doesn’t matter - sh*t happens👉 GO to those networking events, reach out to someone who does the same job as you - you might just learn something really valuable or gain a friend👉 Career development & progression ALSO includes engaging with your community, having external conversations, learning, growing, sharing. You’re not as good as you think you are if you’re not doing this.👉 Remember that people are SO generous and kind with their time. Make use of it!👉 Ask for help. There is power in vulnerability & it brings opportunities (really having to challenge my thinking on this one).👉 There is no 'good time'. Do it now. Do one a week.You can be BRILLIANT at your job, but if you’re invisible, you’ll stay small.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------I want to give a particular shout out to Chris Haslam Dominic Joyce Matthew Parker who have all been really generous with either their time or reassuring words! And to (TTC) The Talent Community where I've met some brilliant people.I'm on the lookout for fractional/contract Senior TA Partner roles, or full time Management/Lead/Head of TA positions. Please hit me up with any recommendations if you have them 🙌

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