Inclusive recruitment, why two unconscious biases are better than one at BPP – Jen Hulme

Episode 10: Workplace Confidence Podcast
Where people professionals share the great work they do

In this episode, Jen Hulme a passionate talent acquisition leader at BPP, a leading UK provider of professional education in law, business, finance and healthcare.

Jen shares her fresh approach to recruitment, focusing on the art of recruiting rather than specialising in a single industry. She believes that by mastering recruitment skills, you can succeed across various sectors, making the process more dynamic and insightful...

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She explains how BPP attracts top talent, especially from diverse backgrounds and emphasises the importance of aligning candidates with the company’s core values, such as being student-centric and embracing change. She also discusses the challenges of maintaining a personal touch in an increasingly automated recruitment world.

A key highlight is Jen’s approach to tackling unconscious bias in hiring. She champions the idea that "two unconscious biases are better than one," advocating for diverse interview panels to balance out individual biases and ensure fairer hiring decisions.

This episode is packed with practical advice and fresh insights on how Jen is not just filling roles but transforming BPP’s approach to talent acquisition, making it more inclusive and aligned with the organisation’s mission.

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Public sector recruitment, a passion for shaping talent in Greater Manchester – Anna Foster-Ressel

Inclusive recruitment, why two unconscious biases are better than one at BPP – Jen Hulme

Empowering leaders at the College of Policing – Becs Riley

Global HR challenges: the People At Work survey 2024 – Annabel Jones

Tackling the gender pay gap and promoting well-being at the NFU – Catherine Cooper

Building a legacy, leading with empathy and purpose at Property Tectonics – Esther Brady

How to lead smart people at Signature Discovery – James Edgar

Redefining success for women in law and leadership – Jane Ayaduray

Transcript: Jen Hulme a passionate talent acquisition leader at BPP

Jen Hulme (00:00)
I'm a big believer and it's quite rare as a recruiter that you don't need to specialise in a specific area to know how to recruit, you just have to know how to recruit well. Which is quite rare, you normally start your recruitment journey and everyone's like you need to learn a vertical, you need to become an expert in this niche, whereas I'm very much, you need to be an expert in recruitment and knowing how to business partner. So you can drop into any industry, any different area and say, okay, you're the expert in finance for example, I'm the expert of recruitment, so let's get the information we need from each other.

to make this a successful recruit, which is always how I've been. There is a bit of a stigma if you're a generalist recruiter, you know, you just do admin and you can't, you know, it's quite low level. I don't believe it. I'm a big advocate for that not being the case. It's how I've built my career and it's allowed me to then work in all these different areas. And I think when you do that and you can pick up and you can go from one business area to another, one day you're recruiting for tech, the next you're recruiting for a lecturer, it makes you a lot more commercial.

because you can see the whole business area and you can see how everything works together and how all those cogs come together and turn together. And just from a personal point of view, I think it makes it a lot more interesting as well, doing something slightly different on a day -to -day basis.

P.H. (01:14)
Yeah, the variety of what you do and the types of people that you come across from different walks of life and internationally as well to reflect the students that you serve, How do you go about recruiting for BPP then? What are your main guiding principles when it comes to getting people to work with you and...

to promote you and to be part of your great culture and all that good stuff. What's on your agenda?

Jen Hulme (01:42)
a couple of things. The first...

Excuse me. As you already pointed out, a lot of people don't know who BPP are. We're very well known in certain areas and not in others. So I think the first step of recruiting people into BPP and attracting that top talent is really promoting who we are and what we do. And we try to do that by being as authentic as possible. So using case studies, a lot of our recruitment into our education faculty space, we want people straight from industry so they can come and they can tell people about their real life experiences rather than

in being more sort of traditional recruitment of lecturers where it's very much education based and people who've done all the theory and are experts in that field. So it's a slightly different business model which has its challenges. Obviously it's a great unique selling point but then it does go into industry and speaking to people who've probably never thought about teaching or coaching or mentoring or education or anything like that. So it's not only saying do you want to risk?

moving your nice safe job into a new job, which is always a risk and it's always, you know, a conversation that needs to be had and people need to weigh up the pros and cons, but they're not going to see our adverts because they're not going to type in, I wonder what a law tutor does because it's just not on their agenda. So it's very much about outreach and how we can spread the word of what we're doing, spread all the wonderful things that we're doing. A lot of people join us who want career changes or who want that flexibility. If you're working in practice, sometimes you just don't have that. And,

us as a company really promote that flexible lifestyle. We have a lot of part -time contracts, we have a lot of people who are nearing the end of their career and are sort of looking for that work -life balance, not necessarily, but we also have a lot of returning parents who's, you know, want that different lifestyle and suddenly that flexibility that we can offer is more of a priority for them.

And as I've already said, really, really big on ED &I. So we're looking at different organisations that we can partner with, such as working moms and things like that, to try and drive those agendas and really attract people from different markets. As well as recruiting our students. People come to us to do masters degrees, really, really intelligent people, 95 % of which are international. We've got a lot of evidence about the diversity set up of students. So if we go to them, recruit them.

We know we've got some top talent, we know we've been well trained, a bit biased but gone through some good courses and then we can have them on our staff headcount as well so that's something that we're really trying to promote.

P.H. (04:21)
So there's a real broad reach out to different talent pools from different places. The alumni trick is very crafty there, Jen, I like that. Why not? Yeah, so then after you've done that kind of education piece with people, if you like, to tell them how BPP works and the kind of things that you do and what their position might be within that and how they might contribute, what do you look for in an individual necessarily? What are your kind of...

Jen Hulme (04:30)
They know who we

Penny Haslam (04:48)
common themes that you always go to in every sort of search.

Jen Hulme (04:54)
It needs to be people who share our values. We very much are driven by our values and I know every organisation says this and as you say they're written on the wall but what do they really mean? Student centric is a really important one for us so everything that we do even if it be in the commercial area is always student focused so it's how can we make this experience better for our students. Embrace change.

P.H. (05:06)
And what are your values, just as an aside?

Jen Hulme (05:24)
stronger together so that sort of collaborative piece you put me on the spot now i can't think of the other two because i'm not in the office no no not here

Penny Haslam (05:28)
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, they're not on your mouse, Matt.

Have you not got a mug with them printed on? I think that's really funny, isn't it? People talk about their values and actually whenever I say, what are your values? Because I'm genuinely interested. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. And then they go, I can't remember, but you know them. So you're recruiting to values. How do you get that out of people that they are going to be student -centric if they've come from a commercial background, for example, and that they're able to embrace change and they're stronger to get, you know, how do you...

Jen Hulme (05:39)
I'm sorry.

Penny Haslam (06:06)
get them, how do you understand if that's the case?

Jen Hulme (06:10)
We've spent a lot of time on our values based interview. So we do competency based questions, we do values based questions, and we do skills based questions. And we all link them back to what do we actually need out of these. So when we're looking at specific role, we've got our values, we've got our behaviors that we're looking to approach. And we say, which ones of these are really important for this role? And then we focus that interview around those questions. So in that we are pulling out those values of people and scoring them against us.

P.H. (06:40)
simple as that. I mean, I say simple as that, but yes, it's as process driven as that. Okay, so you've out the other end, you've got a handful of candidates, and then what do you look for? How do you know that they're a BPP person?

Jen Hulme (06:44)
Yeah.

But need to have a passion for education. And I think that's in any field. You don't have to be a lecturer to have a passion for education and that belief that learning is for everyone. So somebody who's got that, and I think you can tell by talking to people, because you have that passion. I have a passion for work and BPP. So I can tell if other people do. I can tell if they're going to say, actually, I really like the course. I really like what you're trying to achieve here. So that sort of becomes obvious in those conversations.

P.H. (07:21)
So, okay, you've got all that going on and that sounds like you've got your hallmarks. Is there anything you go off piste with? Or you think, I haven't tried that approach yet and how does it work for you? Or is it just very sort of one foot, one step after the other, this stage, this stage, this stage tick? Tell me about your process.

Jen Hulme (07:40)
absolutely

loads that we haven't tried and that's true of every recruiter and I think recruitment is a process and it's very process driven but also it's sort of a drop in the ocean there's so much to do in talent acquisition it's evolving at such a fast rate but there's always stuff that you haven't tried so I always believe in the power of networking seeing what other what other TA leaders are doing and every single conversation you'll be giving them ideas they'll be giving you ideas and there's so so much to implement both to keep up with the speed in which the industry

is evolving but also what works for BPP as a company, what works for other people as a company and vice versa. So working out exactly what's going to work and I'm a firm believer in just if something sounds good give it a try, it doesn't work, we'll take it away and we'll do something else. Just to try and reach that sort of nice point of how are we going to streamline this process, how are we going to make our recruitment process really really nice, safe, inclusive for everybody because I think you have to remember candidates are probably going through a bad time, they're probably stressed.

They're probably, you know, worried, is this going to be for me? Am I going to like it here? Am I wasting my time? Am I going to have a job at the end of this? Am I going to be able to pay my family? And I think having that empathy and really remembering everything that you're doing and everything you're trying needs to be focused on making that better for them.

P.H. (08:58)
I wish everyone was like you, Jen. You see some horror stories, don't you, on Glassdoor and, you know, wherever else. And just like, it didn't reply to me after I applied, that I had an interview and I was ghosted and it didn't feel right and, and that's not a pleasant experience, is it? And it has an impact on your brand reputation, ultimately, doesn't it? So it sounds like you're really passionate, clearly really passionate about talent acquisition and...

and doing it well. What have you noticed are the current challenges and trends in acquiring talent for your organisation and perhaps what you've heard through your networks as well?

Jen Hulme (09:39)
I think you've just touched on it there, that candidate experience and that reputation. We're in a very different world to...

X amount of years ago when I started in recruitment and social media wasn't really that big thing, but one bad experience can go viral. It's on Glassdoor. There was a stat that says, I think you tell six people on average that you're interviewing for a company. So you might interview one person and they'll tell six people and they'll tell six people and they'll tell six people. And everyone can think of an example of they'll mention a company and be like, no, I don't want to work there because my friends, friends, cousins,

wife's partner had a bad experience there. So no, not going to touch that one. So it's really trying to manage that. But just to give you a bit of an insight, you've already touched on the ghosting. It's obviously a massive thing in recruitment, something we don't want to be known for. But it's really, really difficult if you don't keep up with the latest TA trends. So there's eight in my recruitment team. And on average, we have 7 ,000 candidates in the pipeline at any given time on our system.

it's really really hard especially if you don't look at stuff like automation if you don't look at AI some way to control this and those numbers are only going up as well there's a stigma around using AI in the recruitment process but candidates use an AI to reply so we're getting more and more applicants because they're using that side.

And if we don't keep up with it, we're going to have that experience where we drop the ball, where people don't get emails, things get missed because we're only human. So having those sort of, so we've just set up some.

really detailed, my team's put hours and hours and hours of work into it, like interview pathways and email pathways to ensure that if a candidate hasn't heard from us for three days, they're going to get some sort of correspondence that's going to flag to us. But we have to automate as much as possible. And it's really, really difficult because we're all recruiters because we've got that passion and we don't want to lose that human element of a candidate feels like they're being looked after by us and they're going on that journey and we're taking the time to understand them. But it's a very, very hard balance to find.

P.H. (11:44)
Yeah, and 7 ,000. Tell me, in numbers, how does that compare to other organisations or the work you've done in the past as an agency recruiter?

Jen Hulme (11:46)
Mm -hmm.

I'd say that's about right. So we make about 800, I think 850 hires we made last year, 7 ,000 applicants, which is a lot. It's a lot of rejections. And sometimes it's a lot of rejections of really good candidates. And I think that's a really big message to people that you could be a great candidate and you could go through the interview process. There's nothing wrong with you. You're a great candidate. You could do great somewhere else. You're not just quite right for BPP. Or at some point we have to make a decision of how to get those 7 ,000 down to 850. So.

it's very hard to say when you're on this side of the foot because you know what it's like when you're interviewing but to try and not take those rejections personally. But yeah I'd say in terms of applicant numbers that's about normal for a company.

P.H. (12:36)
That's normal ratio, interesting. A lot of work and a small team doing it. So hats off to you. I have to say, an automation, an AI has to be your support, doesn't it, in this, the tech support. So we've got ghosting, we've got reputational damage, we've got the use of automation AI, et cetera. What other topics, challenges, issues are people facing when they're getting bums on seats in their organisations, do you think?

Jen Hulme (12:40)
Yes. you.

I think it's attracting that best talent and you're talking meetings about, I've been in, in my career, I've been in maybe a hundred meetings about how do we get more women in tech? Let's sit down or let's master this. And it's very difficult because every single company is having exactly the same conversation or every single company saying, we need to find people with these skills, with these specific tech skills, with these data skills, or I know let's try move to Manchester because Manchester is cheaper. So we'll put our office up here, not realizing every single company is doing exactly the same.

same thing and then not anymore no so it's really trying to buy those unique selling points and trying to I think the best way to overcome that is to hire for skills and hire for potential like we call them unicorns go after your unicorn you can look for a unicorn for this job and everyone's looking for exactly the same one you might find the unicorn or you might find somebody

P.H. (13:35)
The nuts are cheap anymore, is it?

Jen Hulme (14:00)
five years less experience, who might not have even used that tech stack before, might not have had experience teaching or anything like that, but has that potential. And if you can spot those people that you know how to train, company like BPP, for example, all of our employees get access to all of our courses for free. So it's really, really good for up skill and people. But then it sort of becomes, how do you spot that? Especially if you're taking some of the human element out of a recruitment process, how do you hire for potential without all of that?

P.H. (14:30)
So you've done all this work, you've got your candidate, they're in the chair, you're in the chair with a couple of other colleagues. What are you noticing about the candidates coming through at the moment in terms of their levels of self -belief, their confidence? What noises have they got around them? What's the backdrop to their lives and position as to where they come to you? And as that happens,

Jen Hulme (14:30)
Yeah.

P.H. (14:56)
Have you seen any changes in that aspect of things? So tell me about that. What are you seeing in the chair these days?

Jen Hulme (15:03)
The market's tough at the moment, especially in certain industries. So we're getting a lot of candidates who are out of work, who have moved around a couple of times in the last couple of years because it's been tough. Candidates who have maybe been in a job for years and years and years haven't interviewed for 20, 25 years because they've been

in a safe industry and suddenly they're looking again, interview has changed since then and you know if you haven't done something for that amount of time, it's really really difficult because it's a new skill almost for them to learn.

P.H. (15:41)
it present in the behaviours of the candidate? Are they just, you know, have they got a different attitude? Are they a bit, you know, hopeless? Describe to me what that sort of looks like to you in terms of behaviours or even facial expressions.

Jen Hulme (15:57)
I think it can go one of two ways really. Underconfidence, people who are nervous and people who really need to be probed and ask these probing questions and to really dig and get that information out. And I do tell back to home and just before like that's not a bad thing. That doesn't mean they can't do a job. That means they don't know how to interview. That's fine. Like we're not looking for somebody who's an interviewer unless you know, you're coming into my team. So getting that. Or there's a lot of overcompensation as well of people who think, right, I need to get everything out on the plate. I need to make this interview and all you can eat.

buffet of my experiences so they just ram it all down their throat and again that's that training piece of trying to control that and say take a breath here's what are they asking you answer that question and stop which is a lot of feedback that I give to people after interviews you gave a good answer you answered the question they wrote it down and then you carried on for another five minutes and again that's the hiring manager's responsibility to really try and steer that interview and it's a hard it's a hard skill especially if you hire once or twice a year.

you're not an expert in doing it, it's really difficult to find that balance, especially as the candidate landscape is changing so much.

P.H. (17:01)
And how do you spot a candidate who's a bit overly confident, but is perhaps masking an insecurity? And would that turn you off or would you just forgive it and have a bit of empathy? I mean, there's a kind of tipping point into arrogance sometimes that we think, they're so arrogant, actually they're maybe really underconfident.

Jen Hulme (17:20)
think it's again about driving that conversation so somebody could be really overconfident saying all this stuff but it's my job as an interviewer or as a hiring manager as a recruiter to get that evidence so if they're saying all of these big statements like okay what evidence have we got what impact did you have what was your role what data do you have to back that up and then that suddenly almost gets them to take it back down I think okay what did I achieve here what can I actually say that's not just you know a bit of a song and dance about how great I am like what can I actually do.

And when they start thinking like that, you tend to get more of a logical approach. And I think that goes for people who are more insecure as well, who are underselling themselves. You can't argue with logic and data. So they're talking in those sort of, with that rationale, it tends to bring them back to that middle ground.

P.H. (18:06)
And tell me, if there's a difficult hiring market at the moment, are people more likely to inflate what they've got on their application or CV? Are they more likely to use AI to glossy up what they've been saying, what they've actually done and how they present themselves? Have you got to cut through some stuff, really?

Jen Hulme (18:26)
Yeah, you do. You do. Job titles is a prime example.

P.H. (18:30)
Give me an example.

Jen Hulme (18:35)
So if you're a finance recruiter, for example, and your job title in CV says head of recruitment for finance, I see it all the time, stuff like that, people trying to bend the truth. Finance recruiter.

P.H. (18:45)
And what should it be? What would it be? Right, head off. So they've made themselves head off.

Jen Hulme (18:52)
I did recruitment for the finance division, which is division of one. This is an example I had once.

P.H. (18:56)
right, lovely. I mean, I'm head of everything, so that's quite a director. Yeah.

Jen Hulme (19:02)
Like good for them, but a lot of people will then, like if I was looking like, so the average recruiter spends eight seconds screening the CV and we spent years trying to, you know, be able to scan. But realistically, I've told you 7 ,000 people in our system at any given time, you have to. If I was recruiting for a finance recruiter and I just saw head off, I could easily say, right, two senior, off they go, like reject. So it's really difficult to find that balance of how you showcase yourself and how you're actually hindering yourself by overinflating.

P.H. (19:31)
That's really interesting. Gosh, there are old tricks that we think we can use, perhaps don't work. gosh, I mean, you really enjoy sharing your knowledge and expertise, don't you, with candidates? I can tell that you really want to support people in achieving, getting those jobs. Tell me about the support and the advice, or the top tips that you might have for people who are interviewing the candidates, because that...

Jen Hulme (19:44)
Yeah.

P.H. (19:57)
can't be an easy job and unless you've got years of experience, you're going to be very nervous aren't you? I mean I know I would, I wouldn't want to get a bad, I don't want to get it wrong. I don't want to get it wrong.

Jen Hulme (20:07)
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's difficult for hiring a manager because...

In so many organisations you're made a manager because you're good at your job. Not necessarily because you're a good manager and because you've had training, you've had capabilities and you have those sort of leadership qualities. It's normally like recruitment is a prime example. In an agency whoever bills the most becomes manager. That's just it. It's literally you hit the threshold of what you billed that year, you're now a manager. That doesn't mean you know how to manage people, it doesn't mean you know how to interview people and I think that happens across the board and it seems to be a really really big

topic which is great at the moment in talent about manager training and getting people on manager training. I've just gone through it at BPP actually which was really really great. Even in working in a HR function and working in recruitment I learned so much that I didn't know just by going on the course and actually stepping back and thinking it's okay not to know these things and I think a lot of hiring managers will naturally think well I know about recruitment because you know I've written a CV before I've had an interview.

how different is it sitting on the other side? And so my biggest advice to hiring managers is to sort of reflect on that and accept, probably not be expert because I don't do it day in day out, but there are experts around me. There's a TA team, there's people that I can speak to, there's my managers who've interviewed and I can get all this information, this advice. And I think when you have a manager who then knows how to interview a lot better, has those skills, it's going to be a much better experience. You're going to get a better quality of hire. You're not going to miss out on candidates by not

them correctly and they're going to have a better experience because we're going to feel more comfortable and more confident in the interview as well.

P.H. (21:47)
What about unconscious bias, Jen, in terms of who's in the chair on both sides of the table? What's happening there?

Jen Hulme (21:56)
Conscious bias is something I'm very passionate about because it becomes a very uncomfortable conversation.

And everyone has unconscious bias, it's a thing, it's a scientific state of mind, it goes down to sort of that predator prey background of humankind, like everybody has it. But people don't like to admit that they have it, and until you admit that you have it and reflect and really think about how can you alleviate that unconscious bias, it's always going to be there. So for example, you'd say, I don't have unconscious bias. I like to follow that up with the biggest form of unconscious bias that people have is, they remind me of me, or they remind me of someone.

in my team and everyone's like yeah yeah I do do that. Suddenly you've got okay so everyone has unconscious bias it doesn't have to be about protected characteristics it can be about absolutely anything like I know if someone went to the same university as me I tend to like them a bit more so I alleviate that and it's okay to admit that you have unconscious bias it's making them conscious and thinking okay if I know that I have these biases let's think about who's interviewing with me and let's get a diverse interview panel let's get somebody who's completely different to me who has

different biases, but we can count them out by doing it together. And I think having that understanding.

changes how people think about it. So I've just as you said I did a post about the other day about how I do blind headhunting now so if I go and message someone on LinkedIn I can just see a fuzzy little thing where their picture used to be I can't see their name you can't take like really take it back you can take away companies that they work at because that's another thing people are really biased they worked at this massive company that they must be good which isn't necessarily the case is it we've both worked at big companies I'm sure we both know people who've worked there who aren't good but they've got that name.

attached to them.

P.H. (23:40)
they live.

Jen Hulme (23:41)
where they live, yeah, where they live, as you said, age, background, their career projectories similar to yours. You tend to think, okay, they're a younger version of myself. I'm good at my job, so they must be good at their job. I think that's a really, really common one. Right down to ones that are a little bit more outrageous where it comes to stereotyping people about their sexuality, or to their gender, to their race. So it's really trying to take that away. And it's not an overnight process.

So it is really measuring the end -to -end process and the end -to -end lifestyle of an employee. So how can we take bias away from every single stage? Otherwise, we're just pushing it down the process.

P.H. (24:19)
And how do you have those conversations with the other managers who are with you to hire about their unconscious bias? How do you get them to have enough self -awareness? And that really is part of the confidence piece for me is that a confident person will be able to reflect, hold the mirror up gently and go, right, yeah, I'm not perfect. That's great, okay, now I know that I can deal with it. How do you have those conversations on self -awareness about?

unconscious bias.

Jen Hulme (24:50)
I think you just have to introduce it throughout the process from end to end. So we have unconscious bias training that every manager needs to do. And I talk about it at every stage. So in a briefing, I'll start talking about the diversity of their team and I'll start talking about different things. And okay, you've got a lot of X in your team. We need to complement that and trying to explain the benefits that they're thinking about throughout the recruitment process and hold them accountable to that. And I think some recruiters and hiring managers

just both feel quite uncomfortable having those conversations and I think that's the confidence thing and that's the sort of trying to mirror it in a way of saying I'm not accusing you of you know being sexist or anything like that I'm trying to make there's a saying isn't there everything you say before the but is a lie

P.H. (25:32)
Although I am.

about what phrase it is. Can I be completely honest with you? I should hope so. But yeah, can I honestly tell you that I just...

Jen Hulme (25:48)
It's difficult and it's impossible to do because they're unconscious and they're biases and everyone has them. So it was all about trying to alleviate that and to try and create that culture where it's safe to talk about these things and it's okay to reflect and it's okay to... I always admit that I have unconscious bias like I like working mum because I am one. I know that and it's okay to say it because that's how I feel. But then I go a long way to make sure I'm not hiring people because they're a working mum or I'm not giving people unfair, you know, chances because they're not a working mum, for example.

So it's all about being able to admit that and a lot of people don't admit that. Especially in recruiters, I think we're the worst to be honest. We'll make sure, at home I just need to address this, but we don't address our own. We don't think about, we've got them as well. We just think, we work in HR. Like, you know, we do this for a living. We don't have any biases. But actually, there was a study, I can't remember where I read it, and it was about somebody who'd hired a really diverse recruitment team. And they saw the people with protective characteristics in their recruitment team were naturally

hiring other people who had protected characteristics. It's a great thing, it's a great part of the recruitment team, but it's still about awareness to have, saying if you're naturally biased towards this, it's great because it's creating diverse workforce for us, but also how do we alleviate them and make sure everyone has a fair and equal chance.

Penny Haslam (27:05)
What about your own confidence then, Jen? How has that...

handout over the years? tell me about your own journey.

Jen Hulme (27:13)
Absolutely, I think my confidence has grown over time. But it's a state of mind isn't it? Sometimes you're not confident, sometimes you are. Sometimes still you walk into a meeting or a briefing or can't call anything and you'll just be a bit nervous and you're like, I've done this hundreds of times but it's just normal isn't it?

P.H. (27:27)
Have you got any idea why that might be? Because I get that.

Jen Hulme (27:31)
I have no idea. I have no idea. I think it's just that questioning yourself, isn't it? And...

I think you have to just remember and have that positive mindset and know your value and know your expertise and it's very British isn't it to not say I'm an expert in this like this is what I do I know how to do it I know what I'm doing but also about having people around you who know stuff that you don't and being okay to admit that and sort of share those ideas but for me I feel like confidence is something that I've studied quite a lot over the past few years looked at stuff like growth mindset I did a really really good course I couldn't tell you

the details but I learnt about the science behind it and actually how your brain works and the fact that everybody has it and the steps that you can take to overcome it and I think that's really really helped.

also there was a post going around on socials a while ago you might have seen it and it was something like it said something that really resonated and it was like your first workout will always be bad, your first podcast will always be bad, your first anything will always be bad but you won't get to the good ones unless you do that first one and that's something that I always think about to be honest if I'm trying something new to say it's okay that...

this might not be great, like posting on LinkedIn there is a prime example. You could post and you know, four people would see it, but that's okay, because the next time you do it, six people might see it and more and more of them is that snowball effect, isn't it? And your confidence will grow as you do these things, but unless you put yourself out there, you're not going to be able to do them.

P.H. (28:57)
it's very easy to let those challenges around those first times erode our confidence, isn't it? How do you bounce back?

from those dips, whether you're feeling a bit nervous or you're not sure of yourself.

Jen Hulme (29:09)
I think you just need to see, like that nervousness is normally an opportunity, isn't it? And you normally feel it.

P.H. (29:14)
Well, that's a very positive way of saying it, Jen. Tell me more about that. Nervousness is an opportunity. All right, come on, this is a meme, isn't it?

Jen Hulme (29:21)
If you get that, my team always laugh that I can reshape anything up into an opportunity. If you've got that nervousness and that fight and flight, it's always, you can fight or you can, you can flight and you can leave it and you can back away. And that will probably develop into a regret, I didn't take a shot there, didn't it? Or you can just go for it. And sometimes you just need to get into that mindset, don't you? And be like, right, this is it. If it goes wrong, what's the worst that can happen? I've tried, I've failed, I've learnt. And everything's that learning opportunity, isn't it? So.

P.H. (29:50)
You're a visible leader. Do you know that? I'm going to say that now. You're confident, you're self -aware, you reflect, you see things as a learning. And as part of your job, you have to be out there, don't you? You have to be sharing, networking, being seen. It goes right back to how you educate people toward the organization in the first place. Do you think that should be true? Do you agree with me on that?

Jen Hulme (30:19)
going into my weird little modest phase now but like I think there's if you know stuff about something then I think it's good to give back to the community so if I have information that might help a candidate, if candidates sat on LinkedIn and applied for 20 jobs they're feeling terrible about themselves they just happen to see a little post saying it's fine why don't you try this have a bit more self -belief know your value if that clicks and takes their mind off of things or you see a recruiter who's probably not given a good candidate experience and then they see a little post that they see something else

there and the industry that might help them, like I want to give back to the industry as well as sort of a community. So.

P.H. (30:56)
And do you find that validating in of itself, that activity, does that boost your confidence that you feel that you can share and you can help?

Jen Hulme (31:03)
Yeah, absolutely.

P.H. (31:05)
Tell me one last thing then. What would give organisations then and their people greater confidence as the UK at the moment navigates its way through low productivity, low to no growth, external factors like global conflict and uncertainty? What in the Jen Hulme world would give organisations that shot in the arm, do you think?

to help boost their overall confidence for their individuals and so they can fulfill their purpose and their vision and their mission and all that amazing stuff.

Jen Hulme (31:41)
I think that feeling of community and that comes from your manager, your peers, your leadership. I think there's a lot of when things are bad masking over how bad things are, whereas actually I think people are motivated and people have that confidence, especially as a leader, to say this is how I feel. Sometimes I get nervous, you know, I know things aren't great at the moment and then suddenly everyone starts to feel like they're in it together and then it sort of snowballs doesn't it? So I think that's really important at times like this.

P.H. (32:11)
Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Jen Hume, thank you so much.

Jen Hulme (32:14)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.