Ambition, Authenticity and What Matters Most- Bec Hartshorn- u&u Recruitment Partners

Recording this episode felt like a soul chat. It's one of those conversations I could listen to again and again.

Bec is one of the standout leaders of our generation. She embodies modern female leadership with a wisdom, authenticity and perspective that is rare. 

In this episode, we explore her remarkable journey—from leaving home at 16 and earning a place at Cambridge, to finding her way into recruitment and becoming one of the most influential leaders in the Australian recruitment industry.

But we also go much deeper. We talk about family, living far from the people you love, the friendships that ground you, navigating ambitious careers alongside meaningful relationships, and how to show up for others without losing yourself in the process.

What strikes me most about Bec is her approach to life and business: be yourself, do the work, stay grounded in your values, and never lose sight of what matters most. It's a philosophy that has shaped both her success and the way she leads.

This conversation will resonate with women at every stage of their career, and I'm so grateful for the honesty, warmth and wisdom Bec shared with us.

This one's a real heart episode. Enjoy.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Women Who Recruit. I'm your host, Laura, founder of Hopes Consult, a training and advisory business for recruitment agencies in Australia. I've spent my entire career in recruitment, and I'm just as passionate about our industry today as I was nearly 20 years ago. The purpose of this podcast is to get to know and celebrate the incredible women who dedicate their careers to our industry. This isn't just about the highlight reels or the big rise to the top, although we will definitely touch on that. We'll be talking about what it actually looks like career choices, leadership challenges, ambition, doubt, burnout, and the constant juggle of work, family, and everything in between. If you work in recruitment and you want to be inspired by the stories of women in our industry, then this podcast is definitely for you. Welcome to Women Who Recruit. I am so glad you are here. Hello, hello. Welcome everyone to this week's episode. I am absolutely delighted to have Beck Hartshorn here with me. Thank you so, so much. So looking forward to this chat. And I know that those of you listening and watching are going to get so much value out of it. So, Beck, I'm just going to start by reading out your bio if that's okay. So, Beck is the Chief Operating Officer at UNU Recruitment Partners, where she leads the business nationally. Over the past 15 years, she's worked across founder-led boutique and global recruitment businesses in the UK, Australia, and Asia. Long before the executive titles, Rebecca was and still is a Brummy girl at heart who grew up on a council estate in the UK, left home at 16, and by 19 had earned a place at University of Cambridge. At 25, she packed two suitcases and moved across the world to Australia with a recruitment company. She became known for her energy, authenticity, and uplifting leadership style, alongside a strong belief that high-performing businesses should feel deeply human too. A passionate advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Rebecca is committed to giving back to both industry and community. In 2023, she was honoured to be named both RCSA Recruitment Leader of the Year and Tiara Industry Leader of the Year in Australia. She currently serves as the vice chair on the RCSA Council in New South Wales and the ACT, mentors female graduates through the Lucy programme at Macquarie University Business School. Outside of work and to keep saying, you'll find her on the Netflix court. What a bio! Confronting hearing that. I was gonna say how did it feel? How did it feel listening to that? It feels nice. I feel proud. Uh it feels like a lot. I'm like, when do I have time to work? That's what I was thinking. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. I'm so, so happy to have you here. And um, Beck, we've known each other for what, maybe five, six years now. Yes. Spent some time kind of working together on um on some projects in a previous business and training some of your team. So I've seen, you know, the impact your leadership has had on people, and obviously you're really exciting to move to UNU. Um, and yeah, like all of this additional stuff that you do for our industry, it's amazing. And the fact that, like, I didn't know before before you sent this through that you went to the University of Cambridge. Did you not? No. Were we not spoken about that? I don't think so. Oh yeah, I did. Um, it was an incredible, incredible experience. Um, and you know, I was the only person in my family to go to university. Yeah. And I don't think I'd have had the courage to even consider applying had it not been for an amazing teacher I had at college. He actually pulled me to one side and said, you know, you're doing really well. English was my um uh degree. Did you doing really well? Have you ever considered Oxford or Cambridge? And I was like, no, like I wouldn't even know how to go about that. And he said, Look, I'll help you fill the forms in, I'll speak to your parents, let me sort of show you how this sort of works. And you also don't just get in, you you have to sort of apply and then go down and have an interview, a traumatizing experience. It was really full on, um, sort of a two-day process, um, written exams. And, you know, I feel very grateful that I had a person like that in my life really advocating for me. And I think that played through now later in my career, and I think of the impact I have in my leadership and our industry. That that person back then in that role doing that for me is something that I feel like it shows up for me now in the purpose that I feel I have in the job that I do. And that makes so much sense, like in the call it extracurricular stuff that you know, the mentoring female graduates and being part of the council and things like that, being, you know, in a position to be able to give back based on your own experiences. Pretty amazing. Yes. And then how did you find recruitment? How did you find, you know, because we all go like, oh, we we fell in. Yes. Was that the same for you? Was it more um intentional or no, not not intentional, I'm sure. We we've all heard this story a million times. But I to I I left home at 16. So born in Worcester from Birmingham, left home at 16, uh, just for a bit of context. And to get through college and then into university and through uni, I had to, I had to work. In fact, when I got to Cambridge, they said, you know, we really highly recommend that you don't work, it's really important. We really want you to commit to, you know, your studies. And I was like, well, I have to work, like I have to do something. So I'd always done uh customer-facing roles or I did a lot of telesales roles actually. Um, you wouldn't believe some of the things I've cold cooled and sold, uh, but really character building, um, resilience building type of roles, but always in sales. And so when I left uni, I worked in marketing for a few years. And then a girlfriend of mine, still a best friend to this day, was working for the recruitment company that I joined in the UK. And she said, you would be amazing at this. You should think about this thing called recruitment. And I was like, okay, cool. And then that's where it all sort of began. Amazing. And did you how was like your first year? Did you love it? Was it instantly like, oh, this is a fit, or was it like, okay, this is really tough. I don't know if I want to do this. Like, how did it land for you? Yes, I loved it. Okay. I absolutely loved it. But if I'm being really honest, when I started, and at least for the first few years, I was like, this is the job that I'm doing whilst I'm I'm waiting for my career to come along. Yeah. You know, this is this is gonna be the stepping stone to the next thing. And the good thing about the company I joined in the UK was global mobility. They were in 33 countries. I knew I could get out of the UK. I was really keen to explore and travel the world. And I went on to do that. So, you know, the opportunity to live and work in different countries. I obviously moved to Australia, I lived and worked in Hong Kong. Um, and then Japan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, had a lot of great experiences doing things like that. I knew it would be fun. Fun was really important. Fun was high on my agenda. I really want to have fun and work in a fun environment. Yeah. Um, but also I think the the environment itself, the industry itself, the work lends itself quite well to think of myself at 25. I'd done sales, I was confident, I loved to learn. And the business I joined had a very good and is very renowned for excellent training. So I was applying for drag grad training schemes actually when I was leaving university, and this sort of provided that really structured, accelerated um, sort of growth in the first sort of two years. Um, and and they did that very well. So I sort of got a lot of the stuff that I was either looking for or if even if I wasn't looking for it, it actually became quite important to me. And it it sort of kept me in. Yeah. Yeah. And it was the same for me, I think. I loved the job, like I loved the job. And the sales piece took me a bit longer to really kind of start to enjoy, but I loved the actual role and I loved it. Just played to so many of my strengths, you know, and then the environments, like to be in your mid-20s, your early 20s, and just be in the room with people that are also the same age, and this was so much fun, like so much, because you, you know, you're riding the the highs and lows of it together. Um I couldn't have found a better environment, I don't think. For sure. You're in a new country, you have immediate friends, you end up all working together, living together, going out together. It's sort of like all the all the best things about a cult without any of the any of the downside, is how I would sort of describe it. And you know, it was a who, yeah, an absolute blast. And also then with that came, you know, the things that at the time I thought were important, you know, and they were important to me at the time. They still are very important to lots of people, depending on how you're sort of wired and what's most important to you in terms of your drivers. But at that point, ambition and success for me felt quite external. So positional job titles, payday, um the status, the recognition, the things that sort of, you know, I I guess for me anyway, definitely were important driving factors at the time. Yeah. For a lot of people, they still are. But that my relationship with ambition and success and what that meant also changed over time. But at the time, it also provided a lot of those things, yes, which are important. And how has it changed over the time? Because you're obviously sitting and have for the last few years sat in senior leadership roles. You've got a lot of success under your belt, you've been recognized, like on the stage, you know, awarded for your leadership. But what has that meant for your ambition and what's important to you now in terms of what gives you the fulfillment in your career? I think the most surprising thing for me when I look back at myself at 25, starting in recruitment and sort of now 15, 16 years on, is how quickly I was able to connect the work that I was doing, the job and what we do as an industry really authentically to a feeling. This feels really good. Like if it feels really good to get that feedback from that candidate that is saying to me, I wouldn't have been able to do that if you hadn't have helped me through the interview process, or I wouldn't have had the confidence to apply for this role if you hadn't, you know, insert. And so I think that building belief in other people became really important, started to feel really, really great. And that also changed then in my leadership because that moved away from just recruiting and getting that feedback from candidate and client. And then when I started leading people and and businesses, that feeling of, oh my gosh, I wouldn't have been able to step into this role had you not have coached me or had I not had somebody like you as an advocate or a champion, you sort of get that feeling. So the fulfillment actually that I have in work now and the significance and impact that I actually think it has in the world. I know that sounds really cheesy, but I think it's really important. I genuinely authentically believe what we do as an industry is really important. Um and that belief now, when I think of achievement and success, is also tied really tightly for me to, you know, being able to do things beyond myself. So my success now isn't about the things that are in it for me. It's about the the life that I want to build and how generous on I can be with the people I love around me. That's really important. So yeah, I feel very fortunate that I I sort of figured that on quite early on. Not as early as I would recommend people do now. I mean, figure out the thing that's important to you and find the purpose in what you're doing. Yeah. And if you feel fulfilled every day, not only are you gonna be inspired every day, but you're gonna be so inspiring to other people. Totally. So that's so yeah, and you've you articulated that so beautifully. And I think there's two things there for me as well. Like, you know, that intrinsic motivation, like it's got to be tied to a sense of purpose and you know, bel that belief that our industry matters, you know, that it really matters to people's livelihoods and their lives. And then, you know, then applying that to recruitment has afforded me personally a life that I never would have dreamed existed. Yes, you know, when I was 21 and kind of scratching around going, I don't know what to do, had deferred my place at university, was kind of working just kind of dead-end admin jobs, and then suddenly to find this career, move to the other side of the world, build a life here, build a community, build a family, be able to buy a home. Like, I never would have thought, you know, that our industry would have given me that. So if we think about that, it's just one impact, like the wider impact on what we do as recruiters to everyone that we secure a role for, to anyone that we help give a bit of advice to. Like, I think it there's there's that huge spider web of impact. I think that's really important. It's also why I do you mentioned the RCSA stuff, you know, our industry body. I sort of got to the point where I was like, I'm I'm really not enjoying the perception uh industry sort of has. And very early on in my career, I used to get a lot of questions, especially when I was interviewing for things. You went to Cambridge University, why are you doing this? Um offensive, isn't it? Did you think that was a compliment? It's just it's really offensive, yes. Um, and so I was like, right, well, what role do I have to play in that? What can I do about that? Because this sucks. I hate that this is the perception of our industry, and I really want to change that. So again, beyond myself, beyond the business I was leading, beyond the people I was responsible for, then it became a little bit more about our industry. I would really love that not to be the perception. Um, and you know, rather than keep banging on about it, what can I do to have some small impact in that way? Yeah, nice. Um, with that, what has been the hardest season of your career in recruitment so far? Has there been a tricky period, any point where you're like, oh my god, I don't know if I can do this anymore? Or we don't have enough time. We don't have the time. I think there are always challenges. There's been lots of challenges. The season that I'm in now, if I were I was talking to my partner about this question actually, um it's always nice to get somebody else's perspective on you know how you're showing up in times of challenge and what they would think um, you know, your experience of the most challenging time has been. But to be honest, it's quite recent. I'm facing the reality of living in Australia and being thousands and thousands of miles away from family, from immediate family parents, siblings. And when those people are ill or somebody is um you know, is about to die, and you can't get there quickly enough, um, that has been a very, very difficult experience. So my partner's father passed away last year, my mum's mum passed away the year before last. And the the actual reality of, oh my god, I'm not there. Like we face time all the time, and you know, a lot of people in our industry are, you know, also in a similar position in that they don't necessarily have family here. Um and so I I'd imagine a lot of people can relate to that, but that has been really, really difficult. And actually, there's not a lot I do regret, but that I learned a really hard and important lesson the year before last, which was I made the decision to not fly home immediately with the support of my family, you know, and in consultation with them because I was going through a very challenging period at work at that point in time. So I was trying to balance sort of do I go now? I'm gonna have to go anyway. Do I do I jump on a plane right now? I can't, I feel conflicted because I've got a lot going on here that I can't sort of let go of. I'll give it a little bit of time, I'll fly home sort of next week was the decision that I made. And I look back now and I I really regret doing that. I should have just gone on a plane and and gone straight away. Um, I won't make that mistake again, but nothing nothing is more important than family. No matter how important work is, everybody who knows me knows that work is really important to me, but family is everything. And so that's probably yeah, been been a real challenge, but but a good lesson learned. Yeah, and I think um it's tricky, isn't it? Because I think the reality of living that far away, it until something happens, you can kind of protect your heart a little bit from the reality of it when everything's fine, right? And then when something happens, and remember, in um, you know, just before COVID, my my nephew was born at 24 weeks, right? It's obviously extremely premature. Um, he was in the hospital for four months, and we were waiting for me to get on a plane for it to be a point where everyone wasn't just sitting around the hospital. And then COVID hit. Yeah, and I could couldn't meet him, I didn't meet him for 18 months, you know, because I had held out, we were waiting for the right time. You never assume that they're just gonna shut the world, you know. Absolutely. Um, and for me, that was that first moment of like, oh, this is really far away, and I and I can't get back, you know. And I think that is the challenge in the trade-off with living in a place that in the place that you choose to live, when your heart is always gonna be split. Especially when especially when family around you are like, don't give that the lifestyle that you have in Australia, the life that you're building and you have built, you know, don't don't sort of give that up. But it's really hard when things like that happen. COVID, I mean, COVID happening, that the reality of I actually just can't get on a plane and go home now. That that choice, that freedom has been removed from me. I think that was really obviously difficult for so many of us. The good thing about that was I think up until that point, maybe I had started to take a little bit for granted. Um, you know, I started going home maybe twice a year earlier on. And then it sort of went back to once a year, and then it was once a year for three weeks. That went down to one week, and then maybe I tag on a trip to Europe or something either side of that. And then it was, I don't want to go home at Christmas anymore because it's too miserable. And now I'm like, no, no, you never know what's gonna happen or what's around the corner. Make the time count and make sure you're doing it. And so that yeah, that's also been a lot of people. You're right, you're right. I started going home way more again. It was just like, yeah, I can't take it for granted. Like there's a whole world happening over there of which I'm a big part of and is a big part of me. Um, yeah, it was such a confusing time. And so many of us, so many people in our industry were obviously impacted by having family overseas and and not being able to be there. And for you know, women in leadership in particular, I just turned 40, so I'm a millennial leader. This year. This year just gone. Oh, it's my 40s this year too. Yeah, you go. Welcome to the club. It's amazing. But if I think of carrying responsibilities for some of us in your, you know, as you're entering your 40s, late 40s, 50s, um, I also had this moment last time I was at home of realizing, oh, actually, the carrying responsibilities for my parents are largely going to be on my sister's shoulders because she's in the UK. And so, you know, not only you know, that sandwich generation where we have women in the leadership with caring responsibilities for children, but also for their their parents, that's sort of one thing to sort of navigate. But when you also have family members on the other side of the world and how that's gonna work, that's something that's just on my mind at the moment that I think I need to try and figure out over the next 10 years. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think there is something about yeah, hitting those milestone ages and then going, okay, like yes, parents are getting older. Like this is gonna be tricky to navigate. Where are your family? So they're they're kind of all spread out. My mum is my mum, my my mum and my stepdad are in Oxfordshire. Yeah. My dad and my stepmum are on the south coast, and then my little sister's in London, my other sister is near my mum's. So we kind of have to do a little dance around everyone when we go back. And we're really lucky at the moment because my parents are all pretty much retired now. My mum and my my mum and my stepdad are. My stepmum sits as a non-exec director on boards in the UK, but my dad is retired, so they can come over here quite a lot. Will they move? Oh no, because it's got a big family at home, yeah. You know, and nephews there, and and so, but I think that we'll we'll we'll enter this really lovely period where they'll all be able to come over more and and for longer periods of time, I guess. But then it, you know, it always plays in my mind of like, but they're not gonna be able to do that forever. So I've got to make the most out of that, you know. The fact that they can come here is like such a privilege, you know. So we're in this nice period of time at the moment where we get that, but it does play on my mind that at some point, you know, it's not gonna be as easy for them to get on flights either. So I had a grand plan of bringing my bring my parents over, get my sort of sister over. I've got a brother as well, get him over. You know, it's sort of the yeah, someone I know did that. Yeah, but my sister had so my nephew was five years old, and as soon as he was born, first grandchild, I just I realized my realised my parents are never gonna leave him. Unless everyone went at once. So I've got to get them together. It's like someone I knew did that, their whole family moved over. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's like the dream. Yes. Just every every immediate family member, yeah, just get them over. Then we just wouldn't have to wouldn't have to worry so much, you know. Um, and family's obviously like hugely important to you and your your friends and the people that you care about. Yes. How how do you then Manage that with such a large career, or career being such a big part of your life. And and what I mean by that is like, how do you handle the switch off? You know, the boundaries that are needed, the okay, I'm closing the laptop and I can tune in to something else now. Like because I've always found that really, really hard. Me too. And a work in progress still, I have to say. Um I think the person that you are picking to do life with, so your partner, is for me anyway, but I know for lots of people, is a is a really important decision on how you are going to be able to show up at at work. And so I feel very fortunate that the relationship I have with um my partner is one where I don't get a side of guilt or a side of um extra pressure on top of the pressure I'm also dealing with. And I already feel bad because I know it's six o'clock. I said, yes, I'm gonna be home at this time. And then because I'm terrible for this. So it'll be Thursday in the office, everybody's left. I I'm sort of flow state of an evening. So I love doing deep work, deep thinking work, five o'clock, five, six, seven o'clock. That's where I'm sort of in it. Yeah. Um, and I'm an absolute nightmare for um, you know, he'll message me and say, Hey, are you still gonna be home at this time? You know, are we still having dinner together or are we still doing this thing? And I'm like, yep, yep, yep, I'm just on my way. And then I'll be consumed in whatever the thing is that I'm working on. I'm really enjoying it. I'm not at work late, working late and and hating life. I'm really, you know, enjoying what I'm doing. And then four hours will go by. And, you know, and I what I don't have is five text messages, three missed calls, and you know, a lot of questions. I have not that, and then I'm walking, managing to get home and then walking through the door, feeling sorry. I'm so sorry. I forgot to message you. I, you know, wasn't able to get out when I thought I was, and instead of, well, why is that? And a lot of questions and you know, extra worry on top of how I'm feeling already, it's are you okay? You know, let's have some dinner together now, or let's just have a moment, we're not gonna see each other tomorrow or the next day because I'm flying here and you're flying there. Let's just try and get a little bit of quality time together now to talk about our day in a really sort of calming way. So I feel so fortunate to have found that in somebody. And I have noticed that with that person in my life, I'm definitely a better leader because of it. And then with friends and family, um, you know, I also feel very fortunate to have a very tight-knit group of people, very intentional about who I spend time with outside of work. You know, we're talking with we were talking a little bit about boundaries. You know, my boundaries outside of work are I have so only so much energy. And so I'm very particular about who I'm going to be investing that energy in and the type of energy I sort of want to get back. And so if I think of the small groups of people that I have around me outside of work, a lot of them are also in very high performing sort of, if I think of one circle of friends, they're all very sort of high performing people and they're going through some of the things I'm going through. So really relatable. But then if I think of my besties, we're all in diff very different seasons and different types of roles and work, but we just know each other inside out. And so we're not talking about work so much where I'm getting the other things I need from them in terms of sort of just connection and comfort and support and and a sort of a good time. Everything feels lighter when you're around that certain group of people, you know the ones. Um, you feel human, you feel yourself again, particularly if you're I'm really authentic in my leadership. I am who I am. Um, and I would like to think that who I am at work and who I am outside of work are pretty sort of similar. Um, but when you're in, or for me personally, when I'm in a very challenging time at work or I'm having to make a lot of sort of decisions that are is requiring a lot of emotional management that makes you feel a little bit outside yourself, not robotic, but when I'm having to do a lot of that type of work, when I'm in that certain circle of girlfriends, I don't know what it is. I can't really articulate it well, but I feel sort of really myself again, my truest, truest self. And it sort of recharges your battery and then and then back you go into whatever the next cycle is that next week. That resonates with me so much because I've got the same. I'm very intentional about and and I need social time because of what life being so busy. I need social time to fill my cup rather than drain it. I've really learned that about myself and better with like a smaller group of people that really, you know, where there doesn't have to be a huge kind of energy push to do it. Yeah. Um, but there is something about spending time with your best friends who know you inside out where they you just the space is held for you. Yes, you know, like energetically, you just can fully let yourself be. Um it's like soul time, it's really hard to do. And anyone listening to this who's got that, you know, that friendship group or even that friendship, you know exactly what we mean. It's it's very hard to put it into words, but it's a very special thing, I think. And not all men have that. They don't know. I don't know. They're really missing out. Um, you know, some men do, but I'd say not all men have have that. And I think that's something very special about female friendship groups, actually. Yeah, and what it can do for you, your self-cont your self-esteem, you know, validation, being seen. If you're not sort of getting that necessarily in other aspects of your life, you just you know you're gonna get that from that sort of group of women. Totally, just that ability to be completely vulnerable, silly, to talk about anything. And I and I agree, I think you know, it's very much a female thing, you know, that it's it's very it's just the magic of it. Yes. It's very hard to to articulate it. And do you need time to yourself? Like, are you are you the kind of person that needs your own downtime? Yes, I I think of it like recovery time. So if I'm like right now, I'm I'm a year into my sort of role, um, my new role as chief operating officer at UNU, having an incredible time. It's requiring a lot of travel, it's requiring a lot of um, you know, my diary is always jam-packed anyways. I'm sure yours is, but I'm have to be really intentional about two things. One, thinking time. So really holding space in my diary for thinking time. I just need a moment to really think properly and critically through something it might be that I'm working on. And I never used to block that time out in my calendar before, and I'm really intentional about that now. Um, and then recovery time. So if I know I've got a particularly intense week, um, it's best that I'm not also have a full Saturday and Sunday sort of packed with things that are also gonna require a lot of external energy. So I try and manage my energy as best I can with where I'm spending my time, not just who I'm spending my time with, but what I'm doing in that time. Yeah. Um so, and I'm, you know, I'm also really busy outside of work. I I I don't say I don't like to say no to things. So I'm, you know, you want to the buyer. Do you want to join a netball team? Yes. Do you want to be captain of the netball team? Yes. Do you want to start a book club? Yes. Do you want to do this? I'm I'm always going to be sort of a yes person. It's hard to say no to things that I think I'm going to find a lot of joy in. Um, but you have to think of at what's the trade-off, sort of at what cost? If you're really going to invest in these things also outside of work, where are you going to find that time to sort of recover? So you can show up and be your best self. Yeah. Has that changed for you? Do you think as you've because like context around why I'm asking this question? I feel like as I've got older, I've needed way more time on my own, like actually time on my own and enjoyed it more on my own than I ever have. Is that kind of true for you, or have you always been someone that knows that you need your own space? I'm extroverted. So I get a lot of energy around when I'm around people generally. So I need time by myself to it's more like a reset, actually, just to sort of recalibrate. I notice that when you're around people all the time and you're chatting all the time to people at work and then on a weekend, even if you're getting positive energy from that, you don't, your brain doesn't have a minute just to sort of calibrate and process all the information that you're sort of getting. Yeah. So it's less about actually protecting, you know, myself because of energy exertion. It's more about really thinking time and and time to sort of process things. I don't know about you, but if I'm if I'm in the gym or if I'm doing some form of exercise or something, I just something will just click sometimes. Something will just fall into place when I'm not even thinking about it totally unconsciously. And I'll I'll go, oh, I, you know, I was I've been thinking about this problem for two weeks, but I didn't see it from that angle. And it just sort of clicks into place. So that's the time that I think is really important for me. Yeah, same. I um do different forms of exercise, but I love swimming, laps in the pool. And um, whenever I've got like a workshop or content, something that's just not landing, like something about it. The minute I think about it when I'm in the water, something just unlocks. Yeah. And I'm like, oh my God, hold on to that. Don't forget it. You've got another 20 minutes of your swim. You can't break down anywhere. I'm like, oh no, I figured it out. But it's it is, it's something about freely switching your brain off for things to click and land. And I think you need that time personally and professionally as as well. Yes. And for for kind of women in recruitment, what do we what do you think? And over, you know, your years of of working alongside and leading women in recruitment, what do you think like the differences are for women in our industry, you know, or like what do you think that they kind of quietly carry potentially that people don't see or that that can can make this job a bit more complex for them? To be honest with you, the first place my mind goes, and I'm thinking about a few people right now who are experiencing this, but I see a lot of women showing up every day that you probably wouldn't know are going through something like a difficult fertility journey or a miscarriage or endometriosis, they're in a lot of pain, PMDD, something is happening with their body or their physiology that you might not ever really know about. And there's lots of things that we uh everybody goes through that, men and women are often experiencing things that are invisible you you might not never know about. But for women in particular, um I think that that is is quite sort of prevalent. And it's the thing that we don't talk about really a lot, if ever. Um, I try to talk about those things and I tried to be conscious of that, but you know, is it not just in our industry, but just generally in the corporate world, I think I think that would be something. Yeah, I agree. I wrote an article on this a while ago of like even writing the article, I was like, I don't know if I should post this. Why does it feel so taboo? Yes. You know, why does this feel so personal to talk about, you know, hormones and and even just over, you know, over a month the differences in how a woman feels. And you know, I think there's so many more conversations now around things like postpartum, but yeah, we're certainly not talking about people's fertility journeys, what that can look like for them, or even you know, things like PMDD, like hugely, hugely impactful on women's lives. And they just have to get up and hold the meetings and deal with the dropouts and consistently do the same thing every single week. Yes. Um, and some weeks that feels impossible. And I think, yeah, there's still, I agree, there's just still not enough. Or I think the fact that we as women still feel a bit uncomfortable or like it's a taboo subject means that we're just not where we need to be with being able to have those conversations. Yes. I have I have noticed though, with if I think of um, you know, we're really a multi-generational workplace now more than more than ever in my that I've noticed anyway in my career. Lots and lots of different age groups and generations across um my business and lots of the businesses we're working in. I think the sort of next generation of people we have in the workforce, particularly women, are are really on top of that. They are talking about this a little bit more openly. They have they're more educated on this, they know where they're at, they know you know why they're feeling a certain way. And today isn't the day to have a confronting conversation. I'm gonna leave that for a few days. Or, you know, now's not the best time to be doing deep analytical work because of, you know, why they're feeling that way. Whereas before, you know, we had a lot of access to this information. You didn't know, you know, why you did feel that way and you were resigning every four weeks or something, you know, something disastrous was sort of happening. And so, you know, there's there's sort of the education piece around that. And I think that is slowly sort of changing, I'm noticing. That's awesome. Yes, there's nothing um more eye-opening than when you start cycle tracking. Yeah, like, oh, that's that's why I need to eat a cookie the size of my head and why my brain feels like foam. Absolutely. Don't need to burn it down. It's okay. I just need a snack two days. I need a snack and a good sleep, and I'll be probably all right. And if I still feel this way, maybe then I'll this is the conversation and that long email I'm gonna sort of send, and this is what I'm gonna say to my boss or that client or whatever. But sometimes, oh no. I'm just gonna give it a couple of thinking. Yeah. What advice would you give to our audience now? And that'll hopefully be across all different age groups. Um, hopefully it's not just, you know, my mum. What advice would you give to my mum, my soul isn't that? Um, to our audience to kind of support them with navigating career life as you've seen it over the last kind of 15 years in your recruitment career. So just say yes. Say yes to the thing, say yes to the opportunity, stop caring so much about what other people think. Um, nobody's talking about you as much as you think that they are. I know that you think this is really important, but honestly, nobody else is carrying this in the same way that you are. So try to let go of that a little bit more. If I think of myself in my 20s also, I'd certainly suffered from this. Um, and how much more freeing it would be. It's easy to say, it's hard to do, to sort of care less about what other people um sort of might think. I I in my sort of fifth year in recruitment, I sort of had been a consultant, a senior consultant, a manager. I'd trained in people leadership, I looked a little bit at account management and I was sort of at a moment where I was like, what's sort of next for me? I I I knew I loved the industry and I wanted to stay in it, but I was a little bit unclear as to what the career pathway would be. And very coincidentally, I got a call from my CFO at the time. So this is a thousand plus sort of personal organization in Australia and Asia. And I got a call about an internal role that he wanted to recruit, the business of setting up a new commercial function. And he said, Rebecca, I understand that you're the person that recruits these roles. Um, it was a commercial manager. I recruited commercial um procurement and supply chain roles at the time. Um, he said, Can you come up and take a job, Spec? I was like, sure. So I, you know, went up to his office and I had my job vacancy form and I was, you know, all your training, Laura. I was doing a really good job of asking my questions and doing a good intake sort of meeting as just a sort of consultant at the time. And this role as a commercial manager, it was really a risk role, heavily compliance focused. He wanted somebody with a law degree, 10 years, contract management experience, non-recruitment background. And I I remember taking the job description in from him and sort of qualifying the role and thinking, God, I could do this. I could do this, I could do this job better than some of my candidates. I'm sure of it. I don't have any of this experience, but I really think I could have a do a good job of this and it would be really fun. And so in the meeting, I remember saying to him, look, actually, I think what you need is negotiating a bit of a fillable role. I I think what you actually need is this is all well and good, but I think you need somebody that's actually gonna be able to understand how to really influence senior stakeholders and ultimately sell a compliance function to a bunch of recruiters that aren't gonna want to do this. That's gonna be your big biggest sort of barrier to entry. Thinking of a person, she has this, this, this, and this, she doesn't have any of this, but you know, what are your thoughts? And he said, She sounds great. Um, who is it? I said, It's me. Surprise. I love this. It's me. And I really think I'd do a good job of this role. So basically reverse marketed myself into this sort of position, managed to convince him that I'd do a good job, and then had to sort of convince various other people. And a lot of people at the time said to me, This is this is gonna be career suicide, you know, this is a terrible idea. You're moving out of, you know, ultimately sales and a front facing to the customer sort of role into back office. Like, what are you doing? Um, and so it felt like it doesn't feel so much now, but at the time, I remember it feeling like a really big risk that I was taking. This was gonna be a really big move. What will people think about this? Um, and and I did it anyway. So I moved across ultimately into I've sat between finance, legal, bid and tender, the front-facing commercial team back into the business. It's one of the best things I ever did. I don't think I'd have been able to have accelerated my career to sort of see C level type roles as quickly had I not done this role. I really learned how risk um is treated in an organization, how to think about um commercial risk, applied risk, legal risk. Um and I had a lot of access to a lot of people in the business that were the decision makers. It was my first ever time in a board meeting. I had to present to the board. I learned how decisions land in a board meeting. I watched how people debate those decisions, how the decisions actually arrived at. It was sort of like a behind-the-curtain sort of moment, is what this role gave me access to. And from that, um, I sort of then built a little bit of an internal reputation, I think, as somebody that will get something done. If you give the give her this problem and she'll get it done. And I started putting my hand up for lots and lots of other things. I trained as a project manager after that and got my Prince II practitioner and did a lot of change projects. I then moved to Hong Kong and started managing other things for the board there. And things started to move really, really quickly after that. So it's just really amazing how a small decision like that, even when lots of people are telling you, Oh, I don't think this is a good idea, take the risk anyway. What's the worst that could possibly happen? And all that happened out of that was upside. It's so amazing. I love that story. Yeah, it is one of my and also like the way you did it, like full recruiting. All right, so I've got this candidate. She's me. But that is one of my, that's one of my mantras. It always has been like say yes. Say yes, figure it out. Yeah, what's the worst that can happen? I think so many opportunities over my career, even like the last eight years of having my training business. Like there's so many projects that I've worked on that if I had vetted them on have I done this before, yeah, I would never have got the chance to work on them, you know. But but being like, okay, well, let me scope it out. No, I can do this. Like I can trust myself to do this and do a good job of it. Um and then what doors open from that? Absolutely. Um, it's these like small decisions and backing yourself, I guess, even when you don't fully know if you've got it. Absolutely. Um, and my last question for you, um, Beck, what is your like absolute self-care ritual for like I've had a complete day of it? What's like your indulgent self-care just to bin off the day? Honestly. Yeah. It's a FaceTime home. Oh, it really is. It's a FaceTime home. There's nothing like that. Um, I think to put things into perspective. So it's usually a FaceTime home. It's definitely a glass of red wine. Yeah. It's some form of exercise, whether it be gym or I love netball. I love competitive sports. So doing something like that outside of work. Um, and I try not to do anything too reckless these days, but that would be those would be the things that really help me reset. Imagine if you did them in that order, face time, why off to play netball because so dangerous. Um, but I know what you mean. It's like those circuit breakers, right? And like just, yeah, like the if I've had a real day and then I see, you know, obviously Emma, but before I had Emma, I would see my nephews on screen. I'd just be like, oh my god, amazing. Doesn't matter. Yeah. That does not matter. That's just totally realigned me to what to what matters. Thank you so much. Thank you. I could talk to you all day. And I'm like, so annoying that I've set these time limits. I should just keep keep going, just pin it all off. Um, thank you so much for um yeah, your time, firstly, for just your the way that you show up and the sharing that you're happy to do. And yeah, I love talking to you. I feel like our listeners, me and my my mum and your mum, are gonna get so much out of this. Um, but yes, thank you from the bottom of my heart there. Pleasure for love. Thank you. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I really hope you enjoyed it and have taken something away from it. Click follow to receive new episodes as they're released. And if you know someone else in recruitment who needs to hear this episode, please, please send it their way. Lastly, leaving a review is so appreciated and helps others find the podcast. I really look forward to seeing you next time.