The Call That Started It All: Recruitment's Sliding Doors

We all recently took the Gallup Clifton Strengths test. This was useful in confirming that I am terrible at many things, but none more so than my unwillingness to reflect and learn from the past. Instead, I apparently dedicate an unhealthy amount of time thinking about and planning for the future.

I therefore put the five hours a week I spend on Chiltern Railways to use and forced myself to reflect on my journey so far. I realised something that to be honest scared me, and that is just how easily I could have ended up in an entirely difference place.

I didn’t actively seek a career in recruitment after I left university, the only thing I was sure about was that I wanted to move to London. So, I uploaded a CV to the graduatejobs.com database, and with that major life decision successfully taken care of went to the pub. That was the first and last CV I ever wrote, which given I spend hours a day judging them, feels a bit hypocritical.

It was in the pub later that evening that a recruitment consultant at Morgan Hunt (whom I won’t embarrass) phoned me having found my CV on there and introduced the prospect of recruitment to me. Before taking that call, it wasn’t on my radar, and I was instead looking at sales and marketing graduate schemes. I did subsequently meet with other recruiters in other sectors, but I opted for Morgan Hunt owing largely to the graduate training programme they enrolled me in, and the fact I found the prospect of working with public sector organisations more interesting than investment banks.

Eighteen months at Morgan Hunt put me on the radar of Allen Lane, when I first met Liam and who I joined to work for in February 2012. I have worked for Liam ever since and he has not only been a great influence on my career, but he’s also become one of my closest friends. Of course, it is from that base that Ambient People launched.

As many know, it was at Allen Lane that I also met Bryony, and having somehow convinced her that marrying me would be a reasonable idea, we now share a life and two wonderful children together.

What scared me is this. Had that individual not taken it upon himself to go searching for graduates and pick up the phone to me that day, it isn’t too much of stretch to say that my life would have turned out very differently. I might not have ended up working in recruitment at all, but I almost certainly wouldn’t have ended up at Morgan Hunt, and therefore not Allen Lane …you get the idea. What would I be doing right now if he hadn’t? Because I wouldn’t be here now talking as Ambient People and I wouldn’t be married to Bryony either.

Plenty of what has happened since I made happen under my own steam, but I have found it an eye-opening reality that the absolute starting point for the biggest things in my life today was instigated by someone else’s initiative rather than my own.

I hate to repeat myself, but what if he hadn’t?!

Careers are full of sliding doors moments and that is one that seriously stands out for me. Most will be able to trace back to their earlier life and pinpoint similar moments. I’d love to hear them if so, especially if you owe someone some gratitude for setting in motion a chain of events that you’re incredibly grateful for!