Being brave and applying anyway
Last month Women in RPA hosted the second session in a new sub-series of Empower Hour, “How to Recruit, and Be Recruited in Intelligent Automation”
In this interactive session with Asmaa Sayed, Robin Coats and @Matt Juden-Bloomfield and our very own Co-Founder @CariWilliams, the panel dived into careers in RPA, shared their own experience, gave advice and drilled down to what they look for when recruiting and hiring in IA.
The biggest take away from the panel was to apply, apply and apply again, even if you don't meet all of the criteria on the job description.
Our favorite quotes from the panel:
Matt Juden-Bloomfield on being bold and applying anyway
When hiring, I've had people apply who had literally no real relevance in their previous experience. But they showed great tenacity. They had great people skills and great project management skills. There's so much tangential stuff that could actually be utilized. So just apply – that would be my advice.
This is your career and you have to make of it what you want. You'll have people who are sort of supporting you and hoping to see you succeed but at the end of the day, you've got to drive it.
Asmaa Sayed on being brave and what company policies can do for inclusivity
Women need to be as brave and apply for jobs that they think that don't meet the criteria for. Often, in a job description that say 8 to 10 years of experience. More often than not, the employer's going to employ somebody outside of that criteria anyway. So it is about backing yourself and taking the leap and as well as shaping your CV for the position.
Company policies need to be quite inclusive. Specifically for women, if your maternity leave policies are not inclusive, if there isn't allowances made for flexibility in your work hours, because it is often women that have to feed babies or rush kids to school, or they're juggling multiple responsibilities. So, your policies need to be quite inclusive of those, and this will attract more women.
Robin Coats on getting your CV noticed
You want to make sure that your resume has specific keywords. That's going to be very important if you have specific skillsets that are called out in a variety of job descriptions. It's important to make sure your resume has those keywords, because whenever we're doing keyword searches, your resume will pop up either on LinkedIn, or whatever database your resume may be in.
Have multiple resumes. If you're going to apply for a project management position, make sure that's customized to that.
A big thank you to our panelists for sharing their insights. For more on this series please tune in on October 8th to hear from the panel live on how to how to identify the right role in automation.
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