I am a misfit, a freak of nature, the result of a three-year HR experiment gone badly wrong.
Either that or I am the future, a ground-breaking trailblazer to lead HR into a new era.
I’m not sure which – and this is why I need your help.
You see, after more than a decade as a commercial creative director for a leading UK publisher (and, yes, I wore a trilby and supported a drinks cabinet long before Don Draper came to the screen), one day –almost by accident – I crossed the line and found myself in the world of HR.
I said goodbye to shooting video shorts in the South of France and hello to staff engagement surveys.
The swimwear shoots in LA were replaced by standards of business conduct training, and the daily creative brainstorming sessions with clients, ad agencies, creatives and editors were swapped for a daily round of coaching, grievances, disciplinaries, restructures and wildly differing employee relations issues.
I kept the hat and hid the drinks cabinet.
When I accepted the role of HR operations director in late 2009, my excitement was matched in equal measure by the incredulity of my friends and colleagues. ‘WTF?’ became a regular Facebook refrain from friends.
But I took it as a golden opportunity and an inspired risk by the board.
A novel approach
The reality is that the two roles are more closely aligned that you might first think because my entire career has been based on branding, communication and engagement.
So, while I had previously helped to create a campaign in a bid to excite the public about, say, a niche brand of shampoo, my audience now was our employees, and the product, the company itself. I was, in effect, helping to ‘rebrand’ HR to meet the rapidly changing business and employee needs of the 21st century.
I like to think I gave a fresh perspective on the projects I worked on – flexible working, innovation, revenue generation, employee engagement, diversity and the like – and dealt with staff and senior management in a new and engaging way.
My move was certainly welcomed by the business as a novel approach at all levels and used as an example of exactly the sort of lateral move more employers should consider. It was heralded as a new and valuable sort of career development – an innovative model to replace the traditional vertical route.
At conferences, I could present first-hand our ground-breaking approach to HR, showing the value of taking pragmatism and commercial acumen from the line and using it to improve the way that HR does business.
I heard other HR directors, managers, HR recruitment specialists and chief executives all rave about the idea. In fact, they still do.
But in just a few months, my tenure as HR director is set to come to a close and with it, apparently, any hope of landing a new job. I took the role – a three-month secondment acting as maternity cover – to see where it might lead. Sadly, it seems it is about to lead me straight into unemployment.
This situation is partly down to timing and partly down to my CV. Although I have been fortunate enough never to have had to rely on one before, when I came to craft it, I found that it had something of a split personality.
As a manager, I have long experience with CVs and what makes them work. As a creative, I know all about branding. But when it comes to selling me in a CV, I am all at sea and everyone has a different piece of advice.
Too much of a maverick
“You haven’t spent long enough in HR to land another job at the level you are used to,” says one recruiter I spoke to. “And you’ve been out of creative for three years so that’s not a viable route either.”
It is a familiar refrain.
“I am afraid you are too much of a maverick to put in front of my client, who has very clear ideas of what he wants,” says another. He shows me the candidate brief, which is anything but.
It is a closely typed six-page description of the role and the required candidate that, to be fair, gives little space for any wiggle room when it comes to diversity or innovation.
My wife is equally tough. “You need to highlight your successes,” she says. “What are they?”
“I don’t have any. It’s a team effort,” I say. “Think of me as a facilitator.”
“I’ll think of you as unemployed,” she snaps.
A week later, I get feedback from a prospective employer: “He keeps saying ‘we’. We did this, we did that…there’s no mention of an ‘I’.
My wife glares at me when I relay this news. Clearly, I need to exist more.
Apparently I also need more numbers. “Get some numbers in there – people need numbers,” a recruiter tells me. Another one backs this call and urges me to produce a list of achievements under various HR headings and to bury the creative stuff from my past life.
Embracing both sides
Listing in detail seems at odds with everything I look for in a CV. Shouldn’t a CV be a tantalising flavour of someone rather that a detailed job description? Or is this the creative in me?
To be honest, my favourite part of any CV is the interests section. If someone says that they can do a job, I tend to believe them (and, anyway, if they can’t, that is what a probationary period is for).
In the past, I have hired people for their attitude, which you can do more easily in creative but perhaps less so in HR, where life is more regimented.
The upshot is that, after almost 100 applications for a variety of HR roles, I am having no luck. Nobody is interested. My USP – my commercial background – is not only not selling, but appears to be acting as a handicap.
I fear that I should never have crossed the line! Then I meet Mike Everett for coffee and everything changes.
Mike is that rare thing of being both a former CEO and HR director and, clearly, a man of great talent. He urges me to embrace my creative and HR sides and to be ashamed of neither. And then he gives me the most valuable piece of advice of all: “Ask for help – go to your network.”
Yes, I know, it’s obvious, right? Well, it is until you feel that by asking you are somehow a failure.
But I do it and feel empowered and suddenly within a day, two recruitment agencies, a seasoned senior recruiter and Network Rail rise as if from nowhere to answer the call. Please stand up Frazer Jones, Handle and Caroline Foote, founder of Career Moves, as well as Ian Iceton, a recent star signing for Network Rail.
They acknowledge that I am a freak but seem to relish the challenge and are excited about my background. They even fight to get me included on shortlists. Is there hope?
4 Responses
Keep on keepin’ on
Chinese proverb: The nail that sticks up will be hammered down
Chumbawumba proverb: I get knocked down, but I get up again
Keep on revolting and do not succumb to the ‘thin slicing’ that recruiters seem to favour these days.
Future of HR
Hi Ben,
I have a mixed background myself both due to career choices and voluntary work. HR jobs out there with a neverending list of duties and tasks in their job description just aren’t geared for creative people with a mixed bag as you’re able to offer more than the organisation can even contemplate (square peg, round hole scenario). Which I think is sadly very shortsighted of those organisations’ leaders.
My background began in financial services (which is my degree), investigating into the misselling of financial products, investment analysis, and running a business with my father before he retired (so all the budgets, planning, reporting, HR etc), on into sales, business improvement, and then over the last few years I have morphed into an HR bod. I was also elected to the role International Director for the UK Board of a leadership development organisation (voluntary and self funded by the way) which would take a novel to describe how that helped me in terms of networking, comms, event management etc etc
I have found that having my background gives me more credibility with managers, colleagues especially the economists, accountants, lawyers etc. However, it’s proving diffcult to work out my next move – very little appeals, except for OD and change management. I want a role in which I can use my energy and enthusiasm and all or at least many of my talents – naturally strategic, creative, communicator, hungry to learn etc etc I think relocation might be my only option, I’m in NI.
Anyway, after all that rambling, the point is that I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone Ben. My search continues but good luck with yours, I do hope it’s fruitful!
Cathy
Go for it, HR needs you
Your circumstances don’t come as a surprise to me, Ben. In my experience HR tends to feel uncomfortable with mavericks – a bit of an irony for the profession in charge of recruiting and developing the people who are key to most organisations’ success. The HR profession has been going through an long period of evolution, without much revolution – the only revolutionary step as far as I’m aware has been the idea of the Business Partner role and that came from an academic!
You’re absolutely right to recognise the need to rebrand HR for the 21st Century, and you clearly have the skills to do it. If you haven’t yet contacted the Interim Agencies I would suggest you do so. As you’ve already discovered with your first foray into HR it’s often easier to get into an organisation through a "temporary" route. Good luck, and I look forward to hearing more about your HR successes in the future.
Anna Meller
http://www.sustainableworking.co.uk/
Your post!
Hi Ben, you are not a misfit, you are an inspiration, your article was profound in that it describes innovation and a drive for excellence on the one hand and a personal struggle on the other. Mike Emmott’s advice was spot on, the majority of people find employment through their networks. There are however other factors to consider can I dare to offer a little more?
I have, during my career supported many people in their goal to find a new role and the journey they/we embark on is a very personal one. When in a similar position to yourself I had some excellent advice from one of the Penna team (Penna were our outplacement consultants), they gave me the same message Mike gave you but they also said that I needed to be clearer about who I was, what I had to bring to the table and the type of organisation I wanted to work with. The key here was not to apply for any and every role but to be more selective and put the right amount of effort into a few carefully selected job application.
This approach has a number of pros and con but from an emotional perspective the key ones are:
you apply for far fewer jobs but the jobs you are applying for really float your boat, they play to your strengths and spark your engagement with the organisation
that you have far fewer rejections but if you get them they hurt because of the personal effort you put into getting the role
when the right role comes along and you get it, and be in no doubt you will, you know you and the organisation are aligned and you immediately feel connected
Good luck with your job search, I will be rooting for you
Donna