And the award went to… (my adventure with the CCMA.)

In May, 2016 I won the National Contact Centre Award Winner (P.S: this is not a “check ME out” article, so keep reading.) CCMA, prestige and prosecco aside it will always be a career defining moment for me, because for the first time since “Superman II”, I stopped to admire the view, reflect and then got on with my job, again. What transpired in the year that followed were greater opportunities to network, connecting with peers across the world, pats on the back and requests for a little bit of guidance here and there – all of which I loved. The CCMA is an impeccable organisation and the community is second to none.

So that was that. Award won, brought it home, selfie’s were taken, life carried on.

Then… I was asked if I’d host an event here in Manchester at the office which we’d open up to CCMA members to come hear some of my wisdom on best practice within Resourcing. The absolute truth in terms of honest reaction was – I need to FIND that wisdom! #nopressure.

The day came and by that point “best practice” had evolved into my own take on everything which I’d entitled #lessonslearned. I did this because I think a number of factors contribute to whatever best practice actually IS and it’s like a choice of music, what works for one, might not work for another. I talked about my journey with a business I’ve worked for since 2009 – which is where #lessonslearned came from.

I’ve created a time capsule of that day with a summary of the salient info (for me, as much as anyone else) – here goes:

Themes that have resonated throughout my time at Rentalcars.com

• Responsive – entrepreneurial business, led by visionaries and high impact, fast growth. #theworldIlove.
• Evolutionary – every day, every process was exactly this. A learning experience in the best commercial playground.
• Tick tock – we knew what we needed to recruit and when for. Sounds simple. It wasn’t.
• Collaborative – fantastic supportive network in reaching our common goal: the best people.
• Culture – we were building this concurrently in one of the most diverse work places most of us had ever worked in.
• Speed. Not pace. SPEED – business growth along with RP dictated the speed we needed to recruit at.

Why was I hired?

We needed to upscale quality and quantity of our contact centre hire, growing from inductions of 8 to 20. No pressure. No time for pressure. It was all about my strategy, guidance, remarkable support and unapologetic focus on delivery. All of which I’d experienced but for this particular journey the intensity and the reflection of the achievement burned brighter than before.

Diamonds are forever

I always referred to it as “finding the diamonds” or “go find some diamonds” because to me, that’s essentially what great candidates are. They DO sparkle, they have resilient qualities and it takes work to unearth them from the market!

Culture Club

Over 45 languages, over 60 nationalities – we were building the quintessential cosmopolitan business. Everyone brought their own cultural frame of reference from Stockholm and Stockport to Buenos Aires and Bury. To find these diamonds we were advertising everywhere (I even considered airport “meet & greets” at one stage). I also had to figure out HOW to attract the different skillsets, nationalities, languages as one stop shops doth not work! Back then, Glass Door being only two years old, all of the community links were literally in hangouts and social meet up groups, so we didn’t have the level of online activity in reviews and feedback that we have now, to spread the word. PS: Rentalcars.com just hit 4.0 on Glassdoor!

Getting to know you

A traditional interview is to me, giving the candidate the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, gifts, proven track records in their work experience etc. but has it occurred to you that you need to modify your approach when interviewing a Mandarin speaker vs. an Italian speaker or a Hebrew speaker vs. Danish speaker? Trust me – you do. All part of the journey and did masses for my own personal development as I worked my way through over 30 interviews every, single, yes every single week for quite some time. Would I change a thing?

Velocity and volume

• Schedules were stacked with 121 interviews which also included verbal & written language checks (in native language as well as English, if applicable) #fastturnaround.
• Saturdays & Bank Holidays were standard interview days.
• If Netflix HAD been around back then, it wouldn’t have factored in my Sunday evenings (sorry Mr Spacey) as Sunday evenings were reviewing applications for the following day.
• Knowing that our business was headed towards booking 1 car every 2.7 seconds might also intimate why the recruitment was at the speed it was. Would I change a thing?
• 1 interview calendar became 3, which became 4 – so in the height of our resourcing peak, as a team we were seeing approx. 140 candidates a week. And they say, youth is wasted on the young…
• Remember too, this was over 45 languages, customer services, inbound and outbound sales, post-travel and supplier liaison roles. I like being busy.

How to…

• While we’ve definitely evolved in how we source and certainly how we select, what we look for – we still currently in 2017, see candidates on a 121. It works, we want to look at people face to face rather than across an assessment centre hall; but at the end of the day there are pros and cons for both, so whatever works for each business, I say.
• We ARE in the process of re-inventing our recruitment and future candidates will be in for quite the surprise, #watchmyspace is all I will say there!

In summary – my #lessonslearned to the groups transformed into:

1.      Be HOT on screening – know what you’re looking for and zone in on it, on every CV.

2.      Keep connected to candidates – no matter what the outcome, you’d always aspire for them to have a recommendable experience, so genuine, rapport and transparent comms are the way to roll there, as we know.

3.      Surprises aren’t always good – map out the entire process end to end for your candidates and stick to it. This build the trust and connection which = everything.

4.      Don’t be rolled over by the machine – Recruiters/Resourcers/Talent Specialists – whatever the term need to be PEOPLE and treat people as they would want someone to treat them. Basics, but this can be overlooked in 2017 in a world that’s going faster and faster and when there’s an omnipresent pressure. Hungry and humble works every time when you’ve got your head down that diamond mine.     

5.      If it matters to people, it matters.

If I haven’t already mentioned – I wouldn’t change a thing.

Thanks for reading :)