MY STANTON HOUSE STORY: HANNAH MINKER

Changing course

Before embarking on my career in recruitment I was a qualified Early Years Teacher and co-managed a nursery where I was responsible for 80 children each day - there was lots to deal with there! I had been in the Education sector for five years and decided that it was no longer for me. So, I took a role in Sales - selling training courses such as PRINCE2 or Six Sigma.

Unfortunately, my first experience of the Sales world was not a positive one. We were micromanaged and told when we could take a lunch break, when we could go home and we even had to ask to go to the toilet! My employer regularly enforced ‘power hours’ where our chairs would be taken away and we weren’t allowed to sit down until we had made a sale. I knew I had to leave and decided to try recruitment as I remembered how much I enjoyed the internal recruitment I used to be responsible for at the nursery.

Taking a wrong turn

I interviewed with Stanton House and another much smaller boutique recruitment consultancy. The smaller agency was very quick to make me an offer, whereas the manager I met at Stanton House wanted to go for a drink/coffee with the team before making that offer. I was flattered by the quick offer and made the hasty decision to join the boutique agency.

Unfortunately, I soon discovered that there was a real lack of structure, support or training. The business had no specialism focus, so I didn’t feel like there was a clear career path or that I could become a recruiting expert within a specific profession. After a year there, I knew that I wanted to leave and join an organisation that would invest in my training and development and that’s when I found myself in conversations with Stanton House once again!

Working through the pandemic

I will never forget my interview with Kate Wood, my current manager at Stanton House - we instantly clicked. She was clearly an expert in her field and wanted to develop her team. I came away feeling truly inspired and I just knew that I wanted to work with her and learn from her.

In 2019, I joined Kate’s Finance team in Reading and less than a year later, I was promoted to Consultant. My first six months got off to a flying start. I placed ten new candidates into roles, made it onto the high achievers’ lunch club and even won the office bake off!

I now feel more ‘in charge’ of my own future as I finally have the structure, support and clear career path, I have craved for so long. I have recently taken on the challenge of extending our Finance recruitment coverage across Surrey and Sussex which is a fantastic opportunity.

My skills, confidence and recruiting expertise have grown so much since joining Stanton House. I put this down to the fantastic training here but also the continuous support I have received from colleagues across the business.

Thriving in a culture of support & collaboration

People here go above and beyond to help you. It’s common to see peers giving up their own time on desk to provide training sessions for colleagues and to support the development of others. In this competitive market I think that this is probably a very rare thing and speaks volumes about the culture and people here.

Just recently, I reached out to a colleague in another team to support me with an area of my role that I am struggling with. They spent some time planning what to share and discuss with me and then set an hour of their time aside to take me through it all.

I have learnt that to succeed you need to be prepared to work hard, put the effort in and be a team player. Setting reasonable expectations and realising that success doesn’t come overnight is also important. Yes, there are some quick wins, but you need consistency, tenacity and resilience to really reap the rewards this profession provides.

It might stroke my ego slightly, but for me there is no feeling like the thrill of placing a candidate into a role when you’ve been up against another agency. You are on a briefing call with several other agencies and it’s a race to find the best candidate! Equally it is incredibly rewarding to find someone a role which they absolutely love or finding a hiring manager a real superstar who will go on to add real value.