Monday, Feb 6, 2023 • 29min
20. How to Navigate Your Job Application Journey - with Cherry Ainsworth
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Join Virginia Stagni as she sits down with the Global Head of Talent Acquisition at the Financial Times, Cherry Ainsworth, to explore the world of talent acquisition and recruitment.
Gain a deeper understanding of the recruitment process, from CV writing to the final decision of a recruiter. Learn what makes a successful and appealing job application and how to showcase your skills and individuality. Additionally, discover the essential skills and qualities necessary for a career in talent acquisition and recruitment and the keys to effective leadership in the dynamic HR space. Enhance your knowledge and advance your career with this enlightening episode.
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Cherry Ainsworth
Virginia Stagni
Laura
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Transcript
Verified
Cherry Ainsworth
00:01
Talent acquisition is very much about the soft skills and being able to build relationships, being able to interact with all different types of people from different industries, different backgrounds, at different levels.
Share
Virginia Stagni
00:18
This is The Talent Show, a new podcast series from
FT
Talent, a hub of innovation from the Financial Times
. It's hosted by the under-thirties for the under-thirties around the world. This second series is about all the aspects the FT
organization is covering today, from editorial to development, from data to talent.Share
00:39
I am Virginia Stagni and this is a guide we designed to inspire you to be the one driving innovation and change. Welcome to the show.
Share
00:52
A new episode of The Talent Show! Hi, Cherry, how are you today?
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
00:55
Hi, I'm really well, thank you Virginia, thank you for having me now.
Share
Virginia Stagni
00:58
Thank you for being part of The Talent Show. So this new part of The Talent Show that is coming out every Monday is all about career tips and it's really something that we have been doing since a few weeks now, but we are doing a deep dive into the
Financial Times
. So it's really lovely to have some of our experts and our top talent at the FT
to join the show.Share
01:25
And today we are going to go a bit into talent acquisition so into something that is really Cherry's area of expertise, it's really a great pleasure to have you here. We have been working together as well on
FT
Talent, so I'm really happy to have you part of the show.Share
01:43
How has been the last few weeks for you?
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
01:46
Yeah good. So I think we are we're busy hiring as ever at the
FT
. So I've been spending my time interviewing prospective candidates, arranging you know interviews for them to come on-site and meet people from across the FT
, working on sort of wider kind of project-based work as well, as managing the talent acquisition function here at the FT
. So yeah it's been good. I mean, we're constantly busy, constantly on our toes, but it's great and it's always exciting.Share
Virginia Stagni
02:16
No, thank you so much Cherry, and I really hope that you can share a bit of the insight on what does it mean doing a talent acquisition at large, and specifically for a news organization.
Share
02:26
But Cherry I would like to start from you. So Cherry Ainsworth is our Global Head of Talent Acquisition here at the
Financial Times
. And you studied geography at university. So you started a bit differently in terms of my career path, you really did not enter directly into maybe, talent, HR, or management specifically. I would like to know a bit more about your career path.Share
Cherry Ainsworth
02:50
Yeah. So interesting questions. So I mean I studied geography at university and I guess my thought process or my reasoning behind studying geography was not necessarily because I wanted to go into that field. I was good at it in school. I got good A levels in geography. So I thought, I know I want to go to university and I ended up studying geography and I really, really enjoyed it. I went to the
University Of Southampton
.Share
03:13
But I think as many people do when they come out of school or university and they finished their education, They're not really sure what's next. And I sort of fell into a recruitment role at the time, so this was 12 years ago now.
Share
03:29
There was lots of kind of graduate recruiter roles advertised, so I started off working for a recruitment agency which is a company which places people and candidates into other organizations.
Share
03:44
So I was working with lots of companies specifically in like the marketing industry to place candidates with them, which was super exciting, I think I kind of took to recruitment like a duck to water really.
Share
03:58
I loved the people element of it, meeting new people, meeting candidates, meeting prospective employees, building relationship with clients and different organizations, and finding out what sort of people they were looking for and you know, finding out about how different companies did different interview processes. It was all really, really interesting.
Share
04:17
And I yeah, I love that, I love that sort of the the satisfaction or the sense of pride that I felt when I placed someone into a job. I love calling someone up and saying, "You've got the job, and they're so happy and excited!". And you know, it makes someone's day or week or month or year and it can change someone's life really.
Share
04:36
So I found that really really rewarding, I spent sort of I think 4.5 nearly five years in this recruitment agency that I was referring to and then I decided, I love recruitment, I love the people element of it, but I really wanted to do that for an organization directly, so I moved into internal recruitment.
Share
04:55
I spent a couple of years working at different organizations, worked for a media agency, worked for a couple of tech startups, scale-up type environments. And then moved to the
FT
3.5 years ago now.Share
05:08
And came into the
FT
to set up our talent acquisition function and build out a team so that we could do all of our recruitment directly and in-house. And it's been a super exciting journey.Share
Virginia Stagni
05:23
And I think here, you know, we can highlight a lot of key topics. One is about, of course you can develop at schools and university, your heart skills, but sometimes you need to leverage maybe a bit more to a soft-skills to really find your your area of expertise and the things that you really want to build a career upon. And I think it's quite important, and that has been definitely are a red thread in all of the podcast show here is the human capital element.
Share
05:51
So if there is anything that we need to develop or better understand to look at, where are you, an industry is going, where the field is going, is looking at talent. Because if we want to implement innovation, we know it's all about the people that you bring in. So I would really love to know a bit more about your key responsibilities here at
FT.
What does it mean to have a set up a global TA function?Share
Cherry Ainsworth
06:16
Yes, good question. So I guess primarily my responsibility and the responsibility of the team is to bring the best talent into the
Financial Times
. So when we are recruiting for a role or going out to market, looking for someone to join us, my team will be at the forefront of that and leading that process, so we will be advertising all of our live rolls, we will be interviewing and phone screening prospective candidates, we will then be managing their journey through the interview process and sort of coaching and advising them as a candidate through that interview process.Share
06:56
But also on the other side, supporting and coaching and advising the business as well in terms of how to best assess talent, you know what we should be looking for, how we should be interviewing people, the importance of candidate experience, and everything then that comes alongside that.
Share
07:13
So I guess our our focus is is two-pronged really. You know, we have the candidates side that we manage - and we try and give you know, everyone that interacts with the
FT
sort of the best possible experience that we can - but we also then manage the business side in terms of as I said coaching the managers you know supporting them through that hiring process, ensuring that we're bringing you know the best talent, the best most diverse talent into the FT
as quickly and as seamlessly as we can do.Share
Virginia Stagni
07:42
So thank you so much Cherry for sharing this, because I think it's quite interesting. We don't really know how most of the time... we know more about traditional paths and structures. I think there is a bit of like you know, gray area when it comes to a HR in terms of who is actually doing the hiring.
Share
08:01
I would love you to share this because you just talked about the two streams, basically your function, but also the managers that need to do the hiring. And I think this is not really very clear from the candidate perspective what will happen to them. So let's imagine some of our listeners might soon drop a CV into the
FT
job board greenhouse. So, what does it happen to that CV?Share
Cherry Ainsworth
08:27
Yes, good question. So, it doesn't just disappear into a black hole somewhere that's fine. So every CV that comes into the
Financial Times
is reviewed by one of the recruitment team. So we will review that CV against the criteria of the role that we are hiring for. So when we kick off the hiring process will sit down with a hiring manager.Share
08:52
So either myself or one of the recruitment team will sit down with the hiring manager and they will go through the key requirements of that position that we're looking to hire. So, you know what experience do we require? What attitude, what skills are we looking for? What's the interview process that we're going to run, how we're going to assess whether that person is a good fit for the role? And then we will kick off the recruitment process from there.
Share
09:11
So once you apply to a role at the
Financial Times
, your CV, as I said, will be reviewed by one of the recruitment teams. So we will be looking at that CV and checking how closely it aligns with the requirements of the role that we're recruiting for. So, if it's a sort of a mid to senior level role where there are prior experience needs and we have requirements for that role then obviously we'll assess them against that.Share
09:42
If it's a more junior position where the prior experience is not as important or it's an entry level position, what we'll be looking for in that CV is evidence of the candidate doing their research around the
Financial Times
, evidence that they're applying for this role and they want to apply for this role in particular, rather than they just sort of fire their CV off for hundreds of different opportunities.Share
10:06
That's absolutely fine if you do that, that's not a problem. But maybe you know, when you are firing your CV off then you're tweaking it to to the application to the role you're applying for. So we, as I said for an entry-level role, it's less about previous experience or skills, it's more about what you can demonstrate during your education or outside of your education that we think would be beneficial to a role here at the
FT
.Share
Virginia Stagni
10:31
Thank you so much for sharing this and I would love to dive deep into this CV analysis. What's the first thing that Cherry looks into a curriculum of an entry-level position?
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
10:48
I would say the main three points for me would be when I'm looking at an entry-level CV.
Share
10:53
It's one, make sure it's tidy and it looks professional.
Share
10:57
Two, make sure it links back, there's some reference in your CV linking back to why you've applied to the
FT
or what you could bring.Share
11:05
And then three, again link it back to things that you've done outside of you know work that could be supportive or that could support your application or could support your role if you were to be successful in getting it.
Share
Virginia Stagni
11:20
And in terms of, definitely the CV can showcase the things that you've done and it might give you an idea of the approach you have. But before really meeting a person, it's difficult to understand how good they are with communication or like empathy, emotional intelligence, and so on.
Share
11:38
But I are quite important if we wanted, you know, to have the right candidate that meets our culture, right? But I think the right fit is all about the culture most of the time. So, how do you analyze the soft skills?
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
11:54
That's a really good question. That is a really good question. So I think in your CV it's very hard to tell that. So again, if we're going back to your CV and your application, again, if you've created some
Instagram
videos or TikTok
videos or you've done a vlog or something, a YouTube
vlog, you could include a link to that and if it's got then you've featured in that, I think we can find out a lot smaller about you then obviously just words written on a piece of paper. So anything creative that you've got, you can always include in your CV because I think that that will, that will strengthen your application.Share
12:29
I think how we assess soft skills then would be when we come to interview that candidate it would be about have they taken the time to properly understand what the role is that they're applying for? Have they taken the time to do a bit of research on the
FT
and what we do, and sort of what we stand for as an organization? And have they taken the time to perhaps look at their interviewer, look up their interviewer and see what their background? I think that's incredibly powerful.Share
13:05
You know when you're having a conversation particularly with sort of an entry level candidate is you know if they can say, "Oh Cherry I looked you up on
Linkedin
and I can see that you've been at the FT
for 3.5 years, like what's made you stay there for that long?"Share
13:17
Like to me that's like, "Oh well, they've done their research." Or like, "I've read this particularly interesting article that you posted on Elon Musk around
Twitter
a couple of weeks ago on the FT
And I found it fascinating because of X, Y and Z."Share
13:30
So I think it's as I said, when we're not assessing hard skills, the soft skills that we look for are that pro-activity curiosity, someone that has taken the time to research and to be prepared for those conversations.
Share
Virginia Stagni
13:48
So Cherry wouldn't consider stalking.
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
13:51
I mean if you want to look me up on
Linkedin
, that's fine. Maybe don't look at other people's social media, but Linkedin
is absolutely fine.Share
Virginia Stagni
14:02
I think it's important because sometimes, you know, you might feel like, "Oh my God, if I reference to bed she might think, you know, I've been stalking her for the past two weeks."
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
14:12
But yeah, I mean let's keep it to a normal level. You start saying, "Oh, I looked at your
Instagram
from three years ago", that might be a bit concerning. But if followed something that I've said on Linkedin
. Absolutely fine.Share
Virginia Stagni
14:23
Alright, so social media where you can reference to is
Linkedin
, highly suggested. But yes, it's very important to research the person that you are going to have a conversation with and I think it's really important to create that emotional and human bond even during the interview.Share
14:42
So, you have also started and really worked very hard here at
FT
into the blog of FT
, Life at the FT
But really gives an overview to check it out about the Financial Times
activities, the things that we are doing internally and so on.Share
14:58
In the hiring process we know how important is the mission of the company, how you talk about yourself, what are your values. But what
Gen Z
is asking us, and why they should stay with us is our culturem, is not just how great we are at doing journalism, right?Share
15:12
So, how do you do your role in such a, you know a bit of a different culture? Compared to an American one, for example.
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
15:22
Yeah, we're lucky here in the UK that the
FT
Is quite well-known. And you know we do have a strong brand and its well regarded so that often is a draw two candidates which is great, you know they hear the FT
name and I think, "Yeah you know that sounds impressive".Share
15:41
But I also think in some ways that can also be a little bit intimidating for some people, because you know because the FT is so well regarded and we you know we write about quite serious topics a lot of the time, but that doesn't mean that the way that we act as a business or you know when you come into the
FT
that we're all serious 100% of the time.Share
16:04
So I think we're lucky because our our brand is strong and it does attract talent to the
FT
, which is great, but I think we could do - and we are trying to do - a little bit more around talking about our culture and what we offer externally, because I think people coming into the FT
are often shocked as to perhaps that it's not as corporate as people would think, and you know we are more innovative and sort of forward-thinking than people would think and also were more fun than people would think as well.Share
16:40
So I think there's a little bit more that we can do there to kind of get that message out and say: "we're accessible! Come, we want bright young talent to come to us." You don't just want to be a sort of a business journalist to join the FT. You know, we want all different perspectives and people from all different industries and sectors because we hire for so many different types of roles.
Share
17:03
It will make you stand out against other candidates, if you can really, really demonstrate that you know, you've done your research around the role, what it involves, what it includes, you know, what you would be doing on a day to day basis, and then also you've done your research on the
FT
and our mission and our vision as well. I think that will stand you in really, really good stead and particularly for those entry-level roles.Share
Virginia Stagni
17:27
All right. And in terms of a change of career path, maybe like entry mid-level someone that maybe is from a very different sector, but it's quite interesting the
FT
and we're seeing this quite a lot. What is your advice when you are trying to explain why you changed an industry?Share
Cherry Ainsworth
17:47
I think it's having a really good and strong reasoning for why you're looking to shift industry, because you'll likely be being assessed against either candidates that have experience in that space or if you're looking to shift industry and go back into a more entry-level role, you'll be being assessed against very different profiles.
Share
18:08
So I think it's really taking the time to explain why you want to pivot, the thought process and the reasoning behind that, and then what you think you can bring perhaps from your prior experience or your previous roles that would be transferable into this new sector or this new industry, and really trying to highlight those pieces. I think it's important.
Share
Virginia Stagni
18:35
Last piece of advice from your Cherry. Maybe someone over here, listening and watching us they would love to build a career in talent acquisition. What have you developed, what you would advise this younger person to do in terms of like things, they should be studying, researching a bit more, and maybe start developing from a soft skills perspective?
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
19:03
Yeah, really, really good question. So I think the talent acquisition is very much about the soft-skills and being able to build relationships, being able to interact with all different types of people from different industries, different backgrounds at different levels. When I started off my career one day I might have been talking to someone that had just come out of university, and was looking for a job the next day I might have been talking to a CEO of a company and they're looking to hire.
Share
19:31
So I had to be able to you know change my approach and sort of change the way that that that I interacted and I communicated with people to suit obviously their style and where they were at sort of in their kind of career journey or you know in their lives.
Share
19:46
So I think you know communication skills, definitely. You know work around you know being able to build relationships as I said with different people. And I think in terms of the harder skills it's more about researching the industry that you want to get into.
Share
20:04
So you could do a qualification in HR. Absolutely and that would be very very beneficial and very helpful but it's not necessary. You know a lot of the recruitment professionals I know they've learned on the job.
Share
20:19
So you go in you get under the skin of the industry, you start to understand the different positions that you're recruiting for the different companies that you might be working for. And so that when you're interacting with your hiring managers internally for the business that you're recruiting for, you can confidently talk about their role and what they do.
Share
20:39
So I think it can be difficult sometimes in recruitment because we don't actually do the jobs that we're recruiting for every day, but we have to have a good enough understanding of them to be able to go out and attract talent, and be able to go out and tell talent about what they'll be doing on a day to day basis and be able to then field questions that they would have in response.
Share
20:59
So I'd say it's: build yourself skills, relationship building skills. I think organization, when it comes to recruitment, you're spinning many different plates, you might have 15 different vacancies that you're working on, so each vacancy might have 10 or 15 candidates, so that's a lot of candidates that you need to keep in touch with, and be going back to and feeding back to.
Share
21:18
So definitely being an organized person, being a kind of have to be sort of a confident person, but I think someone that is able to, as I said, build relationships with individuals. And then going out as I said and getting some good knowledge and good understanding of the industry or the sector that you want to work in.
Share
Virginia Stagni
21:36
So, I think kind of... we were saying managing expectations from so many different people, how do you give a bad news to a candidate that wasn't successful?
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
21:46
Yeah, I mean this is the least favorite part of my job, definitely. The best part of my job is delivering good news when someone's got the job and saying, you've got an offer. And delivering bad news is never nice, and it's something that we have to do an awful lot because for every one person that gets the job, there's a number that don't.
Share
22:09
So what we try and do is make that feedback as constructive as possible. So we try and tell candidates you know why they haven't been selected or what they could then work on a little bit more in other application processes.
Share
22:26
I think if you can give them something to take away, then they'll feel more positive about it. And I always say to all candidates, you know, at all levels, any interview is good interview practice. The more interviews you do, the more confident you'll get, the more comfortable you'll feel in like being interviewed.
Share
22:45
I think especially when you're starting out in your career, you can be, you can think, "Oh my God, I'm really nervous about this interview". And it affects the way that you talk in the interview, it affects the answers that you give. But I think as well, then feeding back to those candidates, that's all good experience. Because the next interview that you go into, you're going to be a little bit better. And the next one after that, you're going to be a little bit better again, because you'll learn something from every interview.
Share
Virginia Stagni
23:12
Learn by doing.
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
23:13
Yeah, and I also say to candidates again when I'm prepping them for interviews that don't be scared of your interviewer, they're just a human being too, they've they've been where you've been at some point in their career, it might have been fairly recently. So interview should be a two-way street.
Share
23:32
And yeah, I think people can sometimes get a little bit overwhelmed by the thought of, "Oh, I'm meeting someone that's much more senior than me. They must know an awful lot more than me."
Share
23:43
As I said, they've been where you've been and they'll be interviewing at some point too, and they'll probably feel nervous as well. So just try and remember that when you're when you're interviewing.
Share
Virginia Stagni
23:51
That's a very good tip. Thank you very much, Cherry. And now we are at our lovely part of the show where we are finally welcoming part of the challengers or FT Talent team to ask directly questions to our experts. So today we have Laura that is doing a work experience with us at the FT Talent team and has been a challenger. So tell a bit about you in a second and let you know that is already part of the FT Talent team that are going to ask to Cherry two questions.
Share
24:24
Laura, tell us a bit about you and then ask your questions to Cherry.
Share
Laura
24:28
So I'm Laura and I'm from
Italy
and I did FT Challenge Made in Italy this year, and I think it's been an amazing experience and I suggest to everyone to apply to this experience. And so I'm studying marketing, I'm graduating with my masters. And my questions to you is how do you overcome rejection emails? So like the feeling of receiving these emails where you have been rejected?Share
Cherry Ainsworth
24:55
So, I think rejection is a part of life unfortunately you know when we're going to experience it in all elements of our life and particularly maybe in in job searches sometimes. So I think just you have to try and not let it get you down and I know sometimes that can be easier said than done. But I think you have to treat each application as if it was a fresh and new one.
Share
25:19
So you have to park that rejection as I said earlier, you know, perhaps learn from that rejection. So was there something that you could have done differently in that interview? Could you follow up with the person that you met with to get a little bit more feedback, to get a little bit more info about you know, areas that you could have spoken of more?
Share
25:39
So I think use every rejection as a learning opportunity and see it as a learning opportunity you know, as I said, it's gonna it will continue rejection as a part of life. So, I think you just have to try and compartmentalize that and also realize that you're not the only one that's feeling this, this is very common.
Share
25:59
You know, even super successful senior people, they'll get rejected for jobs as well and I'm sure it will get them down, but then they have to pick themselves up and start again and as I said, they can use that as a learning opportunity.
Share
Virginia Stagni
26:13
Haya!
Share
Haya
26:14
Hello, Nice to meet you Cherry. My name is Haya, and I was a participant of the first edition in 2018, and now I'm in the FT Talent team as a business development associate. And so my question to you, Cherry is as the Global Head of Talent Acquisition, what is your typical day look like?
Share
Cherry Ainsworth
26:32
Good question. So for me, no two days are the same, which is great, which is why I love the role. So my days are pretty varied. So, I might spend some of my days interviewing candidates you know for specific roles that we've got, that might be phone interviews, that might be face-to-face interviews. I might spend some of my day then reviewing candidates CVs and applications that have come in for roles that I'm working on.
Share
26:59
Other parts of my day, I will spend working with my team and helping them with the projects that they've got on and the roles that that they're recruiting for and sort of guiding them and supporting them throughout that process.
Share
27:13
And the other part of my day will probably be interacting with managers and stakeholders from across the
FT
. So, talking to them about their live roles, how the processes are going talking to them about their hiring plans, what they're looking for over the next quarter, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, and how we can support them as as as a team from a hiring perspective.Share
27:37
So very varied. It can go from sort of the kind of the more mundane task of sifting through CVs, up to, you know, a meeting with someone you know, particularly senior at the
FT
to discuss their sort of five-year hiring strategy. So it's, yeah, it's no two days are the same here, which is which is great.Share
Virginia Stagni
27:55
Thank you so much Laura and for your questions.
Share
27:58
But thank you so much to you Cherry for being with us. I really, really appreciated your transparency around the role, things that also have been maybe challenging you and your career path and of course you can and you should check it out of a blog Life at
FT
that Cherry's team is curating. And all the things that of course from an internal cultural perspective we are doing and developing here to make this as clear to us as employees.Share
28:29
Also for external people, how lovely is to work for the
Financial Times
. And that's definitely also thanks to Cherry's job in the last four years and a half. So thank you so much. Cherry for being part of The Talent Show. Can't wait to see you again.Share
Cherry Ainsworth
28:41
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Share
Virginia Stagni
28:43
Thank you.
Share
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