My name is Ash, and welcome to Career Pursuit. For my first post, I wanted to give a little background into who I am and what I do.
Who Am I?
That's a loaded question! It's like the interview question "tell me about yourself" (which I hate - you'll hear about that on the blog at some point!).
Professionally - I have a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Human Resource Management and Management, as well as a Graduate Certificate in OHS, and an incomplete Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Counterterrorism. Combined with my qualifications, I have around 10 years experience in generalist HR admin and internal recruitment roles. I started my career with an internship in Perth, and when unable to find a relevant job in WA when I finished my degree, I relocated to Queensland to take up a role with the head office of the company I interned for. This was an interesting role! An HR role as part of a small operations team that travelled throughout the Northern Territory and Northern Queensland overseeing a team for the mango season, that involved everything from preparing contracts, updating policies and procedures, coordinating timesheets and liaising with labour hire companies, through to making lunches, grocery (and alcohol) shopping, coordinating flights, accommodation and rental cars, and anything in between.
A Northern Territory storm in the wet season
I relocated back to WA, where I spent a couple of months hanging out with family, and then relocated to sunny Broome to take up a role as HR Coordinator for Cable Beach Resort, and had one of the best years of my life! The relaxed lifestyle and amazing group of people I met provided me with the space to learn about and be comfortable with who I am as a person, which I hadn't previously had the opportunity to do.
A Cable Beach Sunset (unedited, unfiltered)
After a 1 year contract, I relocated back to dreary Perth, taking up a role in recruitment with the Department of Education, where I remained for several years. I then joined a local government as a Talent Advisor (I received many jokes about that job title), acting as the Talent Business Partner at times. This role provided me with the opportunity to really fall in love with hands on recruitment. Not just the steps of the process, but the partnering with managers to find the right fit for their team, and the nurturing of candidates to get them through to the finish line, one way or another. I was sad to leave that role, but unfortunately my contract came to an end. I spent about a year with Western Power, as the dreaded spicy cough was really becoming a thing, before my contract ended, which lined up with maternity leave for my first kiddo. Which leads me into...
Personally - I am a Mum of one daughter, who's nearly 2 (going on 10 in her mind). She's a menace, and completely adorable when she wants to be. I have a partner, John, and we live about 40 minutes south of Perth, along with our westie dog, Hamish, and maine coon cat, Bellatrix Lestrange (IYKYK) aka Bells aka Kitters. We like spending time at home when there is time to just potter around, going out for dinner and drinks, drinks with friends (when we have a babysitter), finding new places to eat, finding new parks for the kiddo, picnics on the foreshore, finding places to walk (harder with a toddler who wants to walk everywhere now too), and catching up with family and friends.
What Do I Do & How Did I Get Here?
When my maternity leave was coming to an end, I started looking for jobs for me to return to work. But I was returning to work when kiddo was only 4 months old. While I love recruitment, it's not often very part-time friendly, and I wasn't prepared to work full time and long hours at that point in time (still not!). I returned in a part time capacity to my previous local government employer, where I have since bounced around between HR and information management teams, providing behind the scenes support to those teams. But I was missing the "career" part, the continued learning and development that I crave so much.
When I had been with my LG employer previously, I had really wished I could do more for the candidates who were unsuccessful. The ones who were caught out with silly mistakes in their application, or whose application was just not up to standard because they'd never been show how. With that in mind, I started Career Pursuit. This initially began as job seeker support, assisting job seekers with their application documents and providing interview support when needed. I am passionate about the candidate experience, and I love helping job seekers through the recruitment process.
However, I quickly realised that I missed the "business" side of things, the helping managers with their recruitment. Out in the bag bad world, I wasn't sure how I could build a business on this. Then a short VA course came up (check out Seed Virtual Assistants!), and I thought "why not?". I gave it a go, and then won my place into the full course, which walked me through how to establish my VA business. I knew from the beginning I would be niching in HR, specifically in recruitment. This option gave me the opportunity to position myself as a full service support - I can help you bring on your next employee, but I can also help you with your emails and socials at the same time.
I am not a recruitment agency, I don't put 3 candidates in front of you that loosely fit your job description for you to interview and choose from. I am your BUSINESS PARTNER. What does this mean? It means I partner with you to conduct the recruitment process together, and I partner with you to review and implement policies and procedures to manage your team.
I have been officially launched with 2 branches of my business since May 2022, and I am loving it, and I am looking forward to the remainder of this year and the next, aiming to grow and expand my services.
If you need help in expanding your team, or need help in catching up behind the scenes, I'd love to hear from you!