I came in as a trainee seven years ago when there were just 20 people at Ford & Stanley Group, around half of the size now.
I worked my way up to Senior Consultant, dealing with white collar contract recruitment, and gradually took on more responsibility, as I relished a challenge. I then spent six months immersed in implementing all the IR35 regulation which had started to come in force, but then Covid happened and the work was effectively null and void! But also in March 2020, we took on CAF Rail UK exclusively as a client and someone was needed to look after it, which is where I stepped in.
“There’s a collective sense of wanting to achieve good things”
Doing a good job and delivering a service above and beyond for the client is what ultimately drives me. You’ve got a real sense of being able to do more than just coming in to get the job done. When you do a good job here, it feels as if it’s noticed. It still has the friendly feel of a small family business, even though we have developed and are now double the size. The business has organically grown, and you feel that it is very much about the people. There is a real collective sense of wanting to achieve good things. I think that’s important.
“Everyone has a voice to contribute to change”
It’s such an exciting time for anyone wanting to join the team because we’re still in the growth stage and are on that development journey. Things are changing positively all the time. By that I don’t mean in a big, dramatic way, but lots of small, incremental changes. It’s all about how do we really accelerate and make this place amazing, the best Ford & Stanley can possibly be? No matter what your role is in the business, everybody has a voice to be able to contribute to that change.
Be prepared for a rollercoaster if you want to join recruitment but that is part of the appeal. It’s constantly up and down, every day, even hourly, because in recruitment, you’re dealing with the most unreliable commodity in the world – people. People change their mind, they tell you one thing when they mean something else, it’s managing human nature and it is relentless. Handling a lot of people is not easy. You have to be prepared for people not turning up to their first day in a job, so that initial sense of achievement you get from placing what you deem to be the right person in a company – creating that perfect match – simply disappears. You must pick yourself up from major disappointments like this and just crack on, you have to deal with it and resolve it. If you don’t have resilience, then this job isn’t for you. One minute you’re on a high; 20 minutes later you’re on the floor, then you’re back up flying again.
“Being competitive has stood me in good stead”
You have got to have a really strong work ethic and the desire to work hard because no one’s going to motivate you the way that you motivate yourself. In recruitment, the competition is serious. Being unbelievably competitive is one of the things that really stood me in good stead when I first started working here. I know how to deal with people. You have to be happy dealing with people, it’s an essential prerequisite of the job.
My mum has always inspired me. My parents got divorced when I was six, which was extremely difficult, but she still made sure that she was in a position to keep all the plates spinning when she moved on and she managed everything on her own. She also ran her own business which was an hour away from home, and she just did it all. Nothing felt like anything was dropped ; she strived to maintain some sense of normality and routine for us all. She worked hard so she could provide for us and send us to a good school, to give us the best start in life that she could. She’s pretty awesome.
“Teleportation would resolve my lateness!”
If I was granted one superpower, it would be to have the ability to read people’s minds as it would be super helpful to understand where someone’s motivation was. Either that, or the ability to teleport myself because I’m late for everything all the time these days, so to just flip a switch and be where I needed to be instantly would be a lifesaver!
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