As part of our What Recruitment Means to Me; 500 words campaign Katie Lowe, Head of Talent at Mash Staffing talks about why she loves her job and what it brings to those around her.
About three days after I joined my current business, Mash Staffing – a promotional and event staffing company, from my former home in a much more corporate recruitment agency – I had the sudden realisation that recruitment was something that meant more to me than I’d thought.
I was just getting my head around the systems at Mash, and thought I’d call a couple of our regular staff members and candidates to introduce myself, and get a feel for how we were doing things – and how we could do them better.
One of my first conversations was with a staff member who we’d been working with for the last seven years, and who we’d placed in temp roles at a range of major brands across the automotive, technology and FMCG sectors (to name but a few.) We talked for a while about what was fun about being a Brand Ambassador, and why she’d been doing it for so long – and she said a thing that struck me as getting right to the heart of it. “It’s just so amazing to get to work in all these places, and get these incredible life experiences from it,” she said. “I’d never get to do that anywhere else.”
Back then, I was just employed to find Brand Ambassadors, and get them on to our books – a job that I loved, mostly because of this one thing. The idea of giving people the chance to be part of new experiences – festivals, shows, major experiential activities, you name it.
Five years later, in my current role as Head of Talent – covering recruitment of promotional, event and retail staff on both a temporary and contract basis – I get to wear many hats. I might be briefing three candidates for their final stage interview at an iconic sporting brand; or I might be running a major recruitment campaign for a brand activation taking place in hundreds of locations, nationwide. I might be headhunting VIP hostesses to work at prestigious London venues for an upcoming gala dinner, or I could be holding a group interview session for the finest experiential talent in a city hundreds of miles from home.
But that idea has always remained the same – the result of that one, quick “nice to meet you” conversation with a staff member who (in case you’re wondering) still works for Mash, to this day.
Recruitment, to me, is about giving people the opportunity to use their skills to do things they’re passionate about. It’s about letting people find their talents – particularly in the promotional and experiential staffing industry, where the staff skew towards the student-age (such is the nature of flexible work) – and make the most of them. It’s about giving people life experiences that they might not have had the opportunity to gain without the connections and knowhow that have come from the decade-plus Mash have been in business, and my knowledge of exactly what our clients are looking for.
It’s a demanding job, and one that takes a lot out of you when the deadlines are closing in and the phone won’t stop ringing. But I wouldn’t change it. Because it’s an experience for me too.
PS, if you want to write something for us as part of the 500 words series: the only criteria is that it must be a unique piece of writing you’ve not published elsewhere, you must work within a recruitment function or a recruitment agency/consultancy and you’ll need to stick to the 500 word limit. To take part send me your 500 word blog post with author biog and we’ll publish all which match our editorial standards.
