Tell us a little about yourself!
I’m a happy single mother by choice (SMBC 😊) of an amazing boy, and we live in Queens, NY. Since becoming a mom, I’ve been fortunate to find single mother support groups where single mothers want to help other single mothers, in many cases just to lift each other up and value each other. It’s strengthened my beliefs in Women’s Rights and my commitment as a volunteer and advocate in this area as well. My idol is the late RBG, her legacy taught me that it’s up to us to play our part (in whatever way we can) to progress the rights of women for the next generation.
What’s your role at WorkReduce?
My role is as the Director, Talent Acquisition. I’m responsible for sourcing exceptional media talent, speaking to candidates about their experience and career preferences, and to find the right role for their passions. Essentially, I’m a career coach for candidates and a career dating service for our client’s talent needs; I find the right person for the company and their job requirement needs.
How do you explain to your Mom what you do for a job?
I find people for technical marketing jobs.
How does your work impact our business and our client’s businesses?
As WorkReduce is a people-as-a-service business, if we don’t have the right people to fill the reqs no one’s going to make money. Finding the right candidate goes beyond ticking experience and skillset boxes, we’re also looking for a perfect culture and personality match so we can find exceptional people who will excel in their job –and will stay on. Churn is the result of a talent mismatch.
I’m a huge advocate for candidate experience, and that starts with building a rapport with the candidate through open communication. Too often we speak with candidates who will agree to anything in an interview to try secure the job, but those candidates don’t tend to be successful in their role –and don’t stay. My priority is to marry the right job with the right person.
As our talent team needs to be flexible to potentially work across several accounts at a time, they have to be comfortable and adaptable to accommodate new processes quickly. My job is to be open with candidates about how we work and what’s expected so we can find the perfect match.
You‘ve been in HR and recruitment since 2002, primarily for technology and advertising companies, what lead you to focus on tech as an industry?
I began my career as an HR Generalist spanning across various industries from hospitality to construction/property management and gaming. Talent Acquisition was always a major piece of my role and during my tenure in gaming the function was split from HR. I was given the opportunity to choose my focus and the choice was easy. From there I spent a year as a dedicated tech recruiter which I loved. I’ve been recruiting in a generalist capacity across the AdTech space ever since. I like the diversity of how tech is always changing and evolving. It’s important to recruit within a space that you’re passionate about, it’s infectious!
What do you think is WorkReduce’s secret sauce to find and test the market’s best talent?
I think it starts before we even write the job description. We take the time to really understand the company, the team they will work within and the requirements of the role including the soft skills that are often overlooked. When we look through candidate resumes and then speak to them in-person, we’re looking at what they’re able to bring to the table overall —and not just the role we’re hiring for at the time.
We’ve been able to identify hard working specialist talent who may need a little more practical experience or additional certification training – and we pay for them to gain that up-level training. Every candidate has been interviewed by several key managers at WorkReduce before we would ever recommend and refer them to a client, this saves a lot of time and effort on the client’s side.
What’s the craziest job you’ve had before, and what did it teach you?
After completing my Comms degree, I moved to Rome in 2010. I got chatting with an Italian lady in a park one day who loved that I was from America and asked if could tutor her child in English. Which I did. I ended up picking up more students, just through referrals, so I did that for two wonderful years. The experience taught me the importance of relationships because they can create beneficial referrals. So much of my recruitment career is based on networking and referrals.
What are five pieces of advice you’d like to give candidates who are being interviewed remotely?
1) Dress for success –even though you’re in your living room.
2) Try to maintain ‘Eye contact’ with the ‘camera’ or screen –as you would do in an in-person interview. Too often we can be overly relaxed at home and start looking around the room which comes across as distracted or disinterested.
3) If you’re interviewing for a remote position, you’re going to need to prove that you have good lighting and a great internet connection. You don’t want to look like you’re buffering from a dark basement, even if you really are.
4) Make sure your background is tidy. If your desk is in your bedroom, make your bed, remove the pile of laundry from the background, clear away drinks, kids’ toys and clutter from the view of the camera so you look like you’re in an environment that’s conducive to work.
5) Prepare questions for your interview that are tailored to the specific job you’re going for, not just the company or remuneration. We want to know that you want THE job, not just A job.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
Never judge a book by its cover because people can surprise and delight you in unexpected ways
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