Strivin & Thrivin

“The best advice that I’ve received over a period of time is to be authentic. It’s way easier to be yourself than to try to be someone else.”

This week on Strivin & Thrivin we chat to Lucy Briggs, Senior HR Business Partner at Mindbody, a SaaS company providing industry-leading fitness and wellness software.

Lucy lives and breathes all things HR and wellness. After discovering a genuine interest in the human psyche, Lucy changed university degree from Psychology to Human Resource Management and has never looked back. In this space, Lucy realised her obsession with driving success in businesses through people.

While her career path hasn’t been linear, it has taught her to take every opportunity and be open to change. Finding a position in a great company right out of university, Lucy was able to gain early exposure to executive level colleagues through her HR role, validating that she was in the right industry.

Lucy describes her transition into a not-for-profit as a personal decision that sparked her curiosity. Seeing people work beyond their salaries, with limited tech, inspired and taught her the importance of prioritising purpose as a professional driving force.

“They were working for a cause, they could see the purpose in what they did, and that was the driver over salary”

Next, Lucy took on an HR Advisor role at software testing company, Planet, entering into the tech world, which really excited her. Acknowledging the lack of people studying technology, Lucy believes it’s important to take opportunities to change the status quo and take on opportunities in the technology space when they come your way.

Today, Lucy works at Mindbody and truly champions the core values, with a professional and personal passion for wellness. Her top pieces of career advice today?  Be your authentic self and reject the notion that you should always stay late in the office.

“It feels like the perfect combination of who I am and what I do. I am a Senior HR Business Partner at Mindbody, but I am so driven by wellness.”

To hear more from Lucy, including her best career advice, her experience with mentorships and the way she stays goal-orientated, listen to the latest episode of Strivin and Thrivin now!

Today Laura Johnson and co-host, Tim Griffiths, are joined by Quila, Employer Branding Leader at RMIT University.

Quila is passionate about her career and loves to tell the story of her journey to date. In her own words, that journey  can be summarised by three core principles, asking questions, taking opportunities and saying yes. That, and a true understanding of people.

“I'm really grateful that I said yes to every opportunity that I've been tapped on the shoulder for.”

Quila stepped out of University, straight into a full-time sales job at Xerox. Describing the environment as a “cutthroat boys’ club”, she says she loved it and hesitated to move on from a company influenced by family tradition.

However, deciding to take life by the horns, Quila transitioned into a sales job at a tech company and, after spotting a blue-haired, converse-wearing guy on her first interview, her idea of the working world was flipped on its head. She realised,  "Oh my God, people can be themselves at work?” Here, she threw herself into different opportunities, discovering a knack for digital marketing and community management.

Quila’s next step was moving to Australia with her husband and she admits the struggle of the job hunt in a new place wasn’t easy. However, after 26 applications she bagged a job at the Australian Post which proved to be one of her greatest adventures yet.

Learning on the job, she started out in social media and then transitioned into the group that pulled together the Employee Value Proposition (EVP). This was the start of her journey in Employer Branding.

Fast forward to today and she has now been with RMIT for two years where she is Employer Branding Leader.

When asked about her key learnings, Quila says you cannot underestimate the importance of treating each person differently and asking the right questions.

“You end up attracting people for the right reasons instead of it just being for a position description, or key selection criteria.”

And she’s passionate about the importance of authenticity in the way a brand presents itself to candidates online, calling out the “yucky” side of career sites that just include a rainbow of human beings in their header image to show they’re ticking boxes.

To hear more from Quila, including her admiration for Strivin’ podcast guest, Andrea Kirkby, her mentorships and her past misconception of HR, listen to the latest episode of Strivin and Thrivin now!

“Right now there's not a lot of ad response. Somebody is tapping people on the shoulder through LinkedIn and a lot of them take a week to respond sometimes.”

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past year, you know that tech recruiting in Australia is becoming more and more of a struggle.

In this episode of Strivin & Thrivin, we talk to Nicolle Hann-Dunbavin, who has over 20 years of experience in tech recruitment in Australia. She discusses how recruitment has changed over the years and the current challenges being faced by recruiters in the tech world.

Talent acquisition is not only struggling with fewer candidates, but many employers are asking for too much.

“They have a very, very long list of technical experience that they want these candidates to have. We'll go through several rounds of candidates before they realize we can't find someone with all of this experience.”

Nicolle explains how her role has evolved with technology. How turn around times have come down, but the role still centres around communication even if it has changed from phone calls to emails. Even after 20 years, she still has a smile on her face as she talks about the kick she gets out of finding someone their dream role.

Tune into this episode to hear more of Nicolle’s insights.

“Often there is that perception that you're making the transition to an internal role because you're not a great biller”

When Samantha Barnett made the transition from agency to in-house recruitment it was less common than it is today. However, even with the rise in recruiters switching roles, there is still the stigma that you are doing it because you are not a great biller.

In this episode of Strivin & Thrivin, Samantha shares her story of transitioning careers. She explains how she overcame the obstacles and doubts in her mind and came to the clear decision that internal recruitment was the right path for her.

Not only did she transition to internal recruiting, but with her success at her new company MYOB, she was asked to manage the recruitment team for the company. This meant expanding beyond her specialty of tech recruitment and moving from peer to manager.

“I had great relationships with people on the team, but it was awkward. There's no lying or trying to cover that. There were people in the team that I had been peers with for a couple of years and all of a sudden was sitting down with them, setting their goals with them, and they had to be more open with me.”

Tune in to this episode to learn how Samantha navigated the transitions. She shares stories about internal and external mentorship, her favourite podcasts, and finding inspiration in strange places

Trent’s career story is fascinating: In the space of a decade, he has been through more changes than most people experience in their whole career. Trent is currently the HR manager at MICROMINE. He joined the company several years ago just before mining in Australia took a huge downturn.

He was part of a HR team that was reduced from three to one and was the one that was asked to stick around. He then saw the company switch to a software company and helped take the family-owned business through selling. And Trent has been there for it all.

Trent shares his experience and talks about the mindset that has allowed him to successfully adapt and grow with the company.

“I always say yes. So I just go ahead and if someone says, "Okay, can you do this?," or, "Can we do this?" I always start with, "Yeah, I think we can," and then work out the details along the way.”

He also shares his struggles. From experiencing imposter syndrome, to working with two very different leaders.

“They were two very different leaders. Both like to inspire and motivate in their own way.”

Tune in to this episode to learn from Trent.

“Only asking your placement for feedback is like asking your husband or wife on your wedding night, whether they love you or not.”

From being chased down the street by a kid with a machete while doing door-to-door sales to the CEO and founder of Recruiter Insider. Tune into this episode of Strivin & Thrivin to hear from Justin Hiller about his career journey and what led him to build a business around reviewing recruitment agencies.

Justin Hiller found a gap in the market. He saw that the way recruitment agencies were reviewing themselves was far off the mark. You could have one happy placement but fifteen other unhappy candidates that were having a bad experience. If you were only asking the happy placement for their feedback, you’d be patting yourself on the back every time. Justin noticed this and that's how Recruiter Insider was born.

But the journey here wasn't easy or by any means conventional. From flipping burgers at Maccas, to finding investors in his passengers during his days as an Uber driver, to meeting members of his advisory board while competing on a reality TV show in the UK. This has not been a normal journey to success.

Tune in to this episode of Strivin & Thrivin to hear all the hilarious details. He also shares top bits of wisdom he has learnt along the way such as experience working at companies that showed him exactly what not to do – like the mismanagement of resources and having three people doing the same role where you only need one and then one person doing a different role, where you needed three.

“One thing that I found really helps is being data driven, giving people the understanding that you have from the data.”

Recruitment is a process in which data is regularly overlooked. The argument is often that no two people are the same, so we can’t break recruitment down into numbers. But is this view of data and recruitment too narrow?

In this episode of Strivin & Thrivin, we talk to Carlie Bowden from The Nudge Group about how her career transitioned from private recruitment to government recruitment to management and eventually landed her in her current role as Director of Product & Project Services.

There are two major takeaways from this episode: The importance of honesty and the value of data.

The former is part of Carlie's work strategy that has led her to success and helped her nail one of her biggest challenges in her management role – transitioning from peer to manager.

“Honesty was key, and if you're honest, no matter how brutally honest, they really can't say anything to you because you're just giving them the facts. They can't say that this is unfair.”

Together with honesty, Carlie believes her love for data has played an integral part in her career. She recalls that when she started using data to guide her and her team, she had team members coming to her asking for the sales reports and more data.

It's all about how you present and use the data. Don’t remind people where they are failing, look for patterns where they succeed and continue to emulate those behaviours.

“You find a trend and then they get excited because you didn't remind them that they needed to make a target this week. You reminded them of a time that was really happy and they were excited and it really energizes them and it motivates them more.”

To hear more insights from Carlie, including why finding the right environment is often more important than finding the right role, tune into this episode of Strivin & Thrivin.

Career transitions are never easy but Emma Dwyer has managed hers with grace. Starting in tech recruitment out of university, she is now a People and Culture Director for a recruitment agency in Sydney. The roles are much further apart than you might first think and the way she got there required a lot of motivation, learning, and a passion for people.

In this week's episode of Strivin & Thrivin, Emma talks about how she landed her role in People and Culture, finding the balance between being a mum and her career, joining a startup, and how continued coaching is helping her thrive in her new role.

“It's still a huge learning curve for me constantly. I know when I first moved into the role, the multiple facets of HR people and culture, so to speak, weren't as addressed by myself as they are now.”

Listen to this episode of Strivin & Thrivin to learn more from Emma about navigating a career transition and extra tips about how coaching has helped her thrive in her new role.

“It took a long time for me to stop trying to get the person the job by prepping them too much for their internal interviews and things like that, and letting them get the job off their own back.”

Internal recruitment can seem a world away from agency work. If you are thinking about making the switch but wondering if it's the right transition for you, tune in to this episode of Strivin & Thrivin, as Olga shares her career story.

Olga explains she went from the top of the sales board at recruitment agencies (and loving it!) to building communities and growing the number of consultants at Novon, her current role, from 15 to 50 in less than a year. Discover what she learned along the way and what she loves about internal recruitment.

Listen to this week's episode of Strivin & Thrivin to learn more about internal recruitment secrets and the reason Olga loves her job so much (it might even bring a tear to your eye).

“Work on the things that you are exceptional at to become completely dominant at them. Why waste time focusing on becoming mediocre? Which is essentially working on your weaknesses.”

This week on Strivin & Thrivin I sat down with Steve Grace, Founder of The Nudge Group and recruitment expert. The Nudge Group offers a holistic People Partner Model for early stage and established businesses going through rapid growth.

Steve has been in recruitment most of his life (except one brief and unsuccessful attempt at a pro tennis career). Not only is he a recruitment expert, but his experience in both starting his own business and investing in the business of others gives him unique insights into what both candidates and clients are looking for from the recruitment experience.

Steve explains how he, like many, stumbled into a recruitment job and it ended up becoming his career.

“I wandered into a recruitment company called Computer People and said, "Can you get me a job? I like computers." And they said, "No. But how about you come and work for us? You've got no skills in terms of computers, so we can't find you a job there. But how about you come work for us?" And I was like, "Sure."

Following a short stint at an unsuitable role In London, Steve decided to move to Australia as a means to excuse the short-held position to future employees- as good a reason as I’ve ever heard for relocating. The term “all's well that ends well” springs to mind as Steve never moved back.

This was only the beginning of his story. There were a lot of twists and turns, from joining a startup called Junk Food that aimed to put cereal in every office in the city, to a Chinese tourism business.  Steve’s experience is varied and valuable and inevitably gave him the foundations to take the plunge and become the sole founder of his own successful recruitment group, The Nudge Group.

Tune into this episode of Strivin & Thrivin to hear Steve’s biggest learnings.