All in the space of five weeks last year I went from working 5 days a week as an HR Advisor to becoming something that Dan Pink calls a Free Agent. I transitioned out of an HR Generalist Role into several different roles which required a set of skills a lot wider than the ones I was using. After being a big fan of flexible approaches to work, side projects, social entrepreneurship & the concepts mentioned in the four-hour work week I was thoroughly looking forward to this new lifestyle and approach to work.
I had different titles for each of the different projects I was commencing. These included titles such as a social entrepreneur, digital strategist, director of operations & consultant. Now I think it’s important to point out that I never expected to transition careers so early in my working life but my passion for lifelong learning, or #eternalgeekery as someone calls it, always meant that my eyes would wander from time to time.
This is a topic that I’ve wanted to explore for quite some time & that I haven’t covered on my site before. Luckily I was recently approached by Mel Gleeson, a student from RMIT in Melbourne, who was looking at the topic of career transitions. The following is an interview that I did as apart of her assignment.
Welcome to 2012 readers! It’s going to be a big one. You might have heard (read here) that I’m no longer fully working in the HR space anymore… It’s ok though, because I’m still going to be writing cutting edge HR & Recruitment articles & I’m still consulting & speaking in the HR Space!
Now you may laugh at this cartoon, I know I did, but when you’re looking to hire employees that live & breathe your brand then it’s essential to ensure that your recruitment process identifies who will be a brand advocate & great hire. Now I’m not saying that every single person in the world has to find a job that aligns with their values & beliefs. Sometimes you need a job that pays the bills or is a stepping stone (I’ve had both).
But I’m here to showcase the worlds leading organisations & forward thinking HR & Recruitment practices so that everyone who reads this blog will feel inspired & motivated to go find jobs & projects that they truly care about. That’s why I’m showcasing the latest effort from IKEA Australia.
IKEA, you either love or hate the place. Those of us who love it (like I do) will order the catalogues in advance, highlight the living daylight out of the catalogue & then go around in circles for a day trying to find everything to brighten up your flat, apartment or McMansion.
So if I was the head of HR at IKEA & had been tasked with find a couple of hundred new staff then I’d be wanting to talk to & interview as many of those brand advocates & fans as I could. So how could they have done this?
Ask if they’re looking for a job at the registers? Pro: After realising how much they’ve spent they might consider taking on a second job.
Con: Slows down the transaction.
Or they could have done this. Which in my opinion is ingenious.
Pretty neat huh? Let me know of an organisation you know who looks to hire their biggest fans.
Networking doesn’t come easy to everyone. In fact my first networking experience nearly killed me. I’ve had a few enquiries recently from people who wanted to learn a bit more about my approach to networking so I thought I’d start by sharing the story about my first ever networking story and then follow that up with another post with some tips on how I capitalised on this event.
How my career in HR nearly killed me.
I find the fact that I mentor young students on their career paths quite ironic as I didn’t follow a career path myself. But after young professionals hear my story & how I have shaped my career path, I truly think it inspires them to take control of their own career and know that anything is possible.
After finishing High School in 2006, I got my dream offer of a Bachelor of Business at QUT in Brisbane, Australia. It had awards from all around the world and is recognised globally as a great university to study business. To say I was excited was an understatement.
Fast-forward twelve (12) months and I had managed to completely screw my degree up. I spent the first year of university chasing girls & drinking in the bar instead of attending lectures. I managed to scrape through six (6) passes and two (2) conceded passes in my eight (8) subjects. I originally thought marketing was the major for me. But after not really shining in any of the first year subjects (marketing, management, accounting, statistical analysis, business law & ethics etc) I was at a loss at what to do in my second year.
After a quick chat with my father he told me to go with a stable career like Finance. It was at that stage that wisdom from a past life kicked in. I told him ‘Dad as stable as that career might be I just don’t like numbers. I don’t enjoy numbers & regardless of the job prospects or the potential earning capacity of the job, I just couldn’t do it. It doesn’t inspire me.’ He asked what other majors were on offer. I said ‘what about this thing called Human Resource Management.’ Dad looked at me & goes ‘I think you’d be pretty good at that. Give it a shot.’
So now it’s the start of 2008 & after really enjoying my the first three weeks of lectures & being quite excited about the role that HR plays in organisations, I had another one of those moments when past wisdom kicked in. I knew that I needed work experience for two reasons.
1. To apply what I was learning to the workplace
2. To boost my resume & employability after the car crash of a first year
So when I went up to the Lecturer after class to ask how can I try to get work experience, she looked at me and laughed. First, you have to cut that hair; and second, you have to network. To understand why I needed to visit the barber, here is a picture (guaranteed to make you laugh and smile) to explain how much of a HRockstar I looked back then…
So one week later and hair still at the same length, maybe even a little longer, I decided to attend an AHRI (Australian Human Resource Institute – Similar to SHRM for US folks and CIPD for UK folks) event and try my hand at networking. I did a bit of research and read it was polite to have some food/drink in the left hand and the right hand free for handshakes and business cards. I was a bit nervous so every time the waiter came around with food I just took some and kept meeting and listening to peoples’ stories. This is probably a good time to let everyone know that I’m allergic to seafood.
Whilst talking to a nice man about a potential HR internship available in the company he worked for, I slipped into my mouth what I thought was a vegetable dim sim. As I was nodding my head enthusiastically about the opportunity available, I started to feel my throat swell up. I was starting to panic. The two friends who didn’t want to be there and were attending merely for moral support noticed that I didn’t look right. As I was writing down my email address, I felt it close in more and I started to feel light-headed. I quickly thanked him for his time and managed to mumble out that I look forward to hearing from him.
I was now racing down to the elevator out to fresh air and explained to my friends what I thought had happened. I tried to walk back to where I parked my car in the city but could only make it about half way there when I started vomiting. What made this more embarrassing is that it was a Wednesday night, I had stopped right in front of a pub, and was vomiting at 7pm. I was now being called a drunk by cars as they drove by. After making my way to the hospital via an ambulance due to having an allergic reaction to seafood, I was back on my way home a few hours later. After all that, I was very glad that three weeks later after an informal interview and my long hair still in tact, I was offered the job.
2009 came around and I knew I had to keep thinking outside the box to be an attractive candidate to employers. I took up the Presidential reigns of the HR student group at QUT, was working three days a week in a large corporate HR department, had just purchased my first ever business cards, had an 80% complete LinkedIn Profile, and was networking like crazy and loving every minute of it. My marks were improving dramatically and I started to realize that I had a passion for all things on the ‘softer side’ of people management. Recruitment, attraction, retention, engagement, training, onboarding, change management, organisational culture and talent management were words that really excited me as I continued my own forms of professional development by reading books, blogs, and buying HR professionals’ coffee so that I could network with them and learn as much as I could about the profession!
All of this work paid off as I graduated with a Bachelor of Business with a major and extension in Human Resource Management in November 2009. In February 2010 I was offered a position in an HR Graduate Program beating over a hundred & sixty other HR Graduates.
That wasn’t enough though as resting on my laurels is not what I’m about. After finding a job that I love and am passionate about, I found myself doing a lot of reading for my own professional development. I also started to find lots of professionals around the same age as me (21) asking questions about my journey and breaking into HR. It was at this time that I decided to try my hand at sharing my knowledge through blogging, Twitter & public speaking.
Since then I’ve also learned the importance of having an online presence and the Google search. Whilst having a unique name such as Damon Klotz was great for SEO, I wanted more than that. I started reading about branding on a corporate and personal level. So I thought to myself what do I stand for. It was a combination of my dress sense, my long hair (it’s a bit shorter now), my loud personality, my need to voice my opinion with an amplifier (my blog/twitter), as well as my desire to bring change to my profession that The HRockstar was born! So The HRockstar is here to stay. I love my work; my networks from around the world and my love of travel (spell my name backwards!). I was lucky enough to be able meet some amazing thought leaders at #TruLondon in February where I also got the chance to speak and make my international speaking debut. When I consider the cataclysmic changes my life has witnessed from 2007 to 2011, I can only look to the future with anticipation & the glint of desire in my eyes.
So in the last three (3) and a bit years, I’ve learned a hell of a lot including not to eat seafood even if it’s polite and that ladies and gentlemen is the story of how my career in HR nearly killed me!
That I’d be incorporating Lyrics and Music into my Career Advice Section &
That I’d be doing an interview with a friend of mine who made the move from Corporate HR to Consulting whilst also moving from Sydney to New York
So here it is. Introducing somebody who I look up to, Justin Angsuwat. Justin’s rise through the ranks of Telstra, one of Australia’s largest telecommunication companies, is not just impressive because of the heights that he has reached but also because of the time in which he did it. He went from a HR Graduate in 2005 to an Executive HR Advisor (Chief of Staff) in 2007, a role he occupied up until 2010. I recently interviewed him to learn more about his transition from Sydney to New York and how he landed his role as Senior Associate with Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
Damon: When did you first fall in love with the idea of moving to New York?
Justin: I actually fell in love with the idea of moving to New York City, before falling in love with NYC itself. In fact, the first time I visited NYC was about a year before I moved here, while on my way to move to Sweden. I think moving to NYC was more about fulfilling a personal dream for me than a planned career move.
Damon: What were your initial steps in order to making that dream happen?
Justin: The first thing I did was have a conversation with my manager, explaining my dream of moving to NYC. She was supportive of the move as she understood me – my dreams, aspirations and personality. Having this support turned out to be incredibly important to bringing my dream to life, and I would encourage anyone in the same situation to not only have their manager’s approval to pursue this dream, but also take them on the journey – turn them from a stakeholder to your advocate.
Damon: How crucial was networks to facilitating your dream move?
Justin: Networks were crucial in bringing my dream to life. I can’t emphasise this enough. As I mentioned earlier, my manager was incredibly important in making this happen. Being the Head of HR at Telstra, my manager had connections all over the world, including Chief HR Officers (CHROs) of large Fortune 500 companies based in NYC. I was lucky to not only have her support to move to NYC, but she made it her personal mission to get me a job here. She was one of my biggest advocates within the company, to other CHROs, and even helped enlist support. As a result, few executives within the company dug deep into their networks and introduced – and advocated – me to their contacts in NYC, handing me a great NYC network.
I can categorically say that I would not have met the people I met, been offered the roles I was offered and had the opportunities that I had, without these networks. Given how difficult it was to break into the US market during the recession combined with the reluctance of companies sponsor visas, without a strong network I could not have brought my dream to life.
Damon: What was the interview process like?
Justin: To be honest, many of my conversations were with the contacts I mentioned above – CHROs and VP HRs – which results in a slightly different conversation than I would have in an interview. There were a few things I took away from these conversations from a US context, although they may also apply to other countries:
Companies want to know about impact. What have you done, or what can you do to deliver some sort of impact. Gone are the days of talking in generalities and blue-sky visions without some sort of impact.
Australia is a smaller market than the US. Be prepared to describe your experience in that context – e.g., how big is your current employer, what industry is it in, how much revenue does it generate etc.
The US job market is somewhat rebounding (although the jobless rate is still high), and CEOs are confident about revenue growth, but still concerned about talent shortages. This doesn’t mean it’s a candidate market though. Be prepared to discuss the skills you bring to the company and put yourself in your potential employer’s shoes – what are the compelling reasons to hire you over the other 30 resumes sitting on their desk.
Understand your working visa options and be prepared to explain this in two sentences or less. An Australian E-3 visa is rarely heard of in the US, and places a far smaller burden on employers than the H1-B visa that they are more familiar with. Don’t let an interviewer just go on assumptions.
I have learned several other tips about looking for a job in the US and would like to get it touch, I’d be more than happy to discuss them.
Damon: What was transition and onboarding period like?
Justin: To be honest it was a bit hectic, but that’s the nature of these things. The E-3 visa allows you to enter the country 10 days before commencing your job, and let me tell you, it’s a hectic 10 days – sorting out an apartment, leases, social security, bank accounts, credit cards, furniture etc!
The onboarding period was great though. I met great people that I’m still friends with and it gave me a good preview to working life in the US. Five months in, and I’m still learning!
Damon: What were the biggest differences you noticed between America and Australia?
Justin: The biggest difference would have to be the size and opportunity here. Working for Telstra in Australia was a great experience; however, there are relatively few companies of a similar size, and even fewer by industry segment. Compare that to the nearly 10% of the Fortune 500 which are headquartered here in New York alone!
Combine that with the pace at which these companies operate and it’s a really interesting environment to work in. As a consultant, you get involved with these titans of industry with their multi-billion dollar investments and workforces numbering in the hundreds of thousands, as well as nimble boutique companies whose speed and determination are relentless. To me, that’s what makes this such a great place to work.
Damon: How did you find trying to acclimatize to not only a new country but also a new company and position?
Justin: Acclimatizing was an interesting, but not new experience to me, having been lucky enough to spend time acclimatizing to Sweden’s culture while living there and travelling throughout Europe. That being said, it did still take me a good two or three months to better understand the NYC culture and lifestyle. Having two roommates from NYC helped as well – although one girl is originally from Florida and the other from Washington – I think very few people are actually born and bred NYC! I love the city, the nightlife, the lifestyle and everything that comes with being a New Yorker.
The change from industry to consulting, on the other hand, was a massive shift for me. I had to forget everything I thought I knew about management and HR because this was a whole new game. Luckily, I found that industry experience helped to bring insight and a unique perspective to my projects in the Firm. Plus, I really enjoy the culture here.
Damon: What other tips do you have for people looking to make the move overseas?
Justin: The biggest tip I have is be persistent. I’m not a very persistent person by nature – I hate constantly chasing after people – but I had mentors and supporters who were and continued to push me to follow up. My manager, our Head of HR, was relentless in her pursuit for my job. She had a copy of my resume on hand at all times, and in meetings with other CHROs or senior consultants, she would present my resume and advocate as to why they should hire me. This was a highly effective approach, and another reason why I mention that it’s important to not only have your manager as an informed stakeholder, but as an active advocate.
Once you start, you will find momentum start to build. Capitalise on the momentum and make things happen. I was lucky to have a strong network of mentors and supporters to help me bring my dream to life, and am extremely thankful to have them. I wish you the best of luck on pursuing your dreams – never let them die.
If you have any questions, or would just like to chat, I’d love to hear from you. I am on LinkedIn, and have just opened a Twitter account @JustinAngsuwat
I hope you enjoyed the interview and that it inspired you to dream big and provided you with some hints and tips to help you make your move should you so desire. If you have any follow-up questions drop them below in the comments box and Justin will get back to you. Like I promised earlier here is the musical link to this post, I think you’ll find it quite fitting. I present to you, The Wombats with Moving to New York.
Damon’s note: This was originally posted by Trish McFarlane, she has let me repost it here for my readers. If you can help at all with any leads, please feel free to reach out directly to Steve using the contact information below. Thanks – Damon
I need your help today.
I start this post by saying that Steve Boese has no idea I’m writing this. If he did, he may try to dissuade me. That said, I have far too much respect for him not to share this. You see, my friend Steve is going through what many of us have experienced at some point in the last few years….a layoff. And while not completely unexpected, he certainly didn’t think his company was going to lay off a group of leaders last Thursday.
To tell you the most important thing about Steve is to share that he has strong character and is the kind of guy that gets the job done. He received this devastating news just one day before HRevolution. He could have decided not to come. But he didn’t. He held his head high and came to the event that he co-creates and spent time around the very group of people from our industry who “get” what he does. To quote the leaders in the HR Technology space:
“Steve, at the HR Technology Conference, we always cared about your “day job” because you are expert in running HR systems, especially from Oracle. Plus teaching others about it. Combine that with your social experience and media knowledge, and you’re one special guy. We look forward to your being a panelist at this year’s event in Vegas, in addition to hosting an HRevolution session with Trish on our own program, after doing the full-tilt boogie HRevolution in our hotel on the Sunday afternoon before our opening reception. In short, you are a Renaissance Man in my world.”Bill Kutik
“I’m confident that your next best opportunity will find you.” Naomi Bloom
Here’s what you need to know about Steve:
He has over 15 years experience implementing enterprise technologies for Human Resources, Recruiting, Finance and Distribution, including significant experience with Oracle E-business Suite Applications in numerous industries and locations. He’s served in a wide range of roles from team member, to team lead, to Project Manager.
Steve is an award winning Human Resources blogger, speaker, and host of the weekly HR Happy Hour radio show, a live call in show about HR, Talent Management, Recruiting and technology now entering its third full year.
Steve worked as a Applications Consultant for Oracle Corporation and has also owned a consulting company.
He is an Adjunct Instructor at RIT, teaching a Graduate course in Human Resources Technology.
Steve spends his free time as co-founder of the HRevolution event. This is a progressive learning event for HR and business professionals that focuses on discussions around HR issues, technology, and media. HRevolution is in it’s third year and Steve is one of the organizers of the event each year.
What We Can DO to help:
Each person who reads this blog has business contacts. I ask you to think today of at least one person you can put Steve in contact with, one person you can pass his information to, one suggestion you can make to help Steve in his search. One of the most important reasons to build our network is that when we’re in need, our community can circle the wagons. Let’s do our part to help Steve today. His contact information is below.
I have been doing quite a bit of research and reading about HR as an overall function and the role it plays within organisations.
In my search I have found this great article by William C. Taylor on the Harvard Business Review blog on Why We (Shouldn’t) Hate HRwhich is his follow up to the somewhat controversial article Why We Hate HR.
I think this represents an important shift in thinking for the HR profession and an important milestone for HR professionals. I think we would all agree that our jobs become easier and far more meaningful when the organisation cares about the people aspect as well.
But I want to explore further than this. I want to talk about how you as an HR professional creates value. Dave Ulrich the well-known author and professor from the University of Michigan says that HR folks must create value for four groups:
They need to foster competence and commitment among employees
They need to develop the capabilities that allow managers to execute on strategy
They need to help build relationships with customers
They need to create confidence among investors in the future value of the firm
So now I want to hear how you and your organisations HR folks creates value and does your organisations position on its people directly and indirectly affect your performance as a HR professional?
Everybody who follows the HR blogging community and probably HR pros in general will have heard of China Miner Gorman and her work with SHRM. So I thought I’d share her parting video.
For those who tuned into #HRHappyHour on Friday you would have heard of the community urging China to jump onboard and start blogging. Hopefully she will share her insights from her time with SHRM with the rest of us.
I’m going to summarize an excerpt from China Gorman to answer this one.
“Regardless of the size of your organisation, the essential role of HR is to ensure that the organisations workforce is sustained and sustainable. This is what makes HR the most critical function in the organisation.”
I love this because it’s short and sweet and sums it up perfectly.
If you can see that your workforce isn’t sustained or sustainable don’t wait to be asked, don’t wait for ‘that seat’ at the table, step up and make the change yourself.
What have you done in your career to ensure that your workforce is sustained and sustainable?
