Ten years ago, we incorporated our business with eager anticipation. We’d worked together before for several years recruiting HR for a global corporate recruiter. We’d learned a lot over that time and had formed a pretty clear idea of what had worked for us. We also knew what we wanted to do differently.
And, as with any new venture, there was the big unknown. How would we go?
Well, spoiler alert, it has been pretty great! ProgressionHR has been hugely rewarding, massively challenging and at times highly emotional.
We are filled with pride at what we’ve achieved; connecting with thousands of people in our HR community over this time. We have been privileged to play a part in many hundreds of successful matches between talented people and awesome opportunities.
So, we thought now might be a good time to share 10 things we’ve learned over the past 10 years.
Choosing the right person to go into business with is everything.
Importantly, we have a values match, so always agree on what is the right thing to do. We bring a balance of skills, different but complimentary approaches and varied strengths to the partnership. We have huge respect for each other and complete trust. And we also have lots and lots of laughs.
People will always surprise us and are endlessly fascinating.
HR people have great work stories, it’s one of the most interesting parts of our job!
Every interaction, every day, builds up our reputation.
Even on the hard days, we show up and give everything that we can, whatever that looks like. It’s amazing to find a business partner that does that too, without fail. Nothing substitutes for hard work and tenacity.
Sometimes turning down work is the right thing to do.
It’s better to miss out than to take on something that just doesn’t sit right with our value set.
Letting people make their own decisions is always the right approach.
We don’t ever chase quick wins or bully people into decisions.
Manners never go out of fashion.
We pride ourselves on high standards in our interactions and people really appreciate it. If someone leaves a message, call back. If people email, respond. If we stuff up, we own it. Always be prepared to say sorry.
Knowing and understanding our bias is key.
It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been specialising in this HR recruitment space; we are constantly working on being open minded and open to other ways of looking at things.
We trust people around us to do the right thing.
It’s just not possible to control everything when running our small business. We’ve surrounded ourselves with people who support us and are experts in their fields, from accounting, to IT, to marketing.
HR recruitment genuinely is a science and an art.
We have fine-tuned our intuition and judgement through our significant experience and cumulative learnings. This means we have a vast array of experience and interactions to draw on when making decision using both hard facts and gut feel.
You create your own luck. And you can always choose your attitude.
These are two mantras that we’ve always lived by – and they’re still going strong, ten years on!
So all that’s left to say is…..
Cheers to ten years. Cheers to our wonderful HR community. And cheers to us!
We’re very much looking forward to what comes next.