POSTED Wednesday 20-04-22
A Day in the Life of Kate
If you’ve read our New Aspenites blog, you will have been introduced to our affable and hard-working Consultant Kate Kennedy. Having joined us last year, Kate has settled into her role and as such now keeps a busy schedule, as we are about to see!
A typical day in my life!
9am – Into the office and as I look out the window by my desk, I see the grey weather Glasgow has to offer. I always make a coffee and check my emails as soon as I come in. I like to track all my roles too and check in to see if applications need processed. We’re currently working a mixture of being at the office and at home, and the two can be quite different. We are in the office three times a week, and this provides the best balance. If I’m in the office, then the day is structured around making the most of my presence; at home, there is more peace and quiet to make calls, answer emails, email to arrange calls, fill in databases, etc.
11am – I enter an exciting part of the work week: sift meetings. These meetings are a regular feature of my day. Part of my role is to get to know precisely what each candidate offers and whether they’re a good fit; I do this by talking to them prior to the meeting, asking them to clarify any information on their CV or cover letter, as well as using our phone calls as opportunities to get to know their personality a little better. To help me remember amongst all the different candidates I talk to, I add their info and my notes to a database, highlighting their stand-out qualities. Then, the sift meeting is my chance to communicate the candidates’ assets to the client. It’s always exciting going in to a meeting with research and knowledge to hand, as well as knowing that you’re going to help influence an outcome for the best.
Sift meetings are crucial for clients to make an informed choice about who they are hiring, with the hopes that whoever is chosen gets the most out of the role and that the client will find longevity in that choice. Personally, this is one of the aspects of my job that I enjoy the most: getting to know candidates and then working with clients to find the perfect one. There is immense satisfaction in bringing the culmination of your work to a meeting where it can be presented, hashed out, and used in an effective way to bring the best person into a role.
1pm – Lunchtime – if we are in the office, I will grab lunch with my colleagues. We like to try local places. My favourites near the office are Katsu for their lunch deal and Piece for a sandwich.
2pm – After lunch, I sit back down at my desk to focus on search and filling my roles. I often work between multiple tabs, research businesses in local areas, scrolling LinkedIn for brilliant candidates or calling an applicant from our database. The variety of roles we work on at Aspen means that I am often interacting with a great number of talented individuals. It’s this very reason that we build up great relationships with candidates and clients in our sectors. Now, I am working on finding candidates for an exciting role at the Glasgow Alliance. I’ve been speaking to individuals with a background in the Third Sector, Housing and Homelessness.
4pm – Time to work on the response record for one of most recent jobs at Borders College. Response records are produced for each assignment and allow us to add comments on each candidate before the sift meetings. This is the best way for us to inject ‘personality’ into our recruitment process. I always love this part of the job as we get to understand candidates’ real interest in applying for roles. The point is not to extract information from candidates, but to get a better sense of who they are and if they will be a good fit for the role. This is especially important in executive search and higher-up roles, where multiple skills, lots of experience, and industry insight are needed. Hiring within these roles is much less of a box-ticking exercise, and so it’s important not to treat my phone calls with candidates as such. Another element of this role is speaking to candidates selected for interview and preparing them with techniques and skills.
5.30pm – Before I finish, I always check on applications again and write up quick note for tomorrow so that I am not overwhelmed in the morning. Before long, it’s home time and after a quick hop on the subway, it’s time to clock off and relax! I often go to the gym in the evenings.
I would describe my typical day as: Busy! While you will see that the day (and week!) goes quickly, thankfully I’m never rushed, and I’m always excited to be chatting to new people, filling new roles, and feeling like I’m making a difference at the end of each day.