What’s my career story so far and how did I become a Career Coach?
I started my recruitment career in Hays Recruitment where I learned a huge amount about sales, recruitment and client management.
I left to work in my dream company; Google. I was there for nearly 9 years and absolutely adored it. I had amazing opportunities and got to work with wonderful people. I got to travel extensively (Australia, Singapore, Washington, San Fran, India, Netherlands, Oslo… and more). The photo is when I met Goofy at a team building offsite in Disney California.
I worked mainly as a Staffing Business Partner/ Recruitment Assistant advising Directors and VPs on hiring strategies, delivering training and finding top talent for their teams.
I also worked on on the Corporate Social Responsibility team for two years where I managed a national campaign to help older people get online and volunteering programmes in Delhi.
I left after returning from my 2nd maternity leave, I was commuting 3 hours a day (with 2 kids under 2.5 years) and in hindsight I also had terrible anxiety which I had self-diagnosed as lack of confidence and tiredness.
I took some time off and in between I took a maternity cover contract with Fidelity Investments. It was a great place to work, really good work/life balance and only a 10 min drive from my house.
Last May I started in Microsoft. The position was great, the pay and benefits were wonderful but my anxiety got so bad that I was awake from 4 o’clock every morning worrying about very normal day to day tasks. I was performing well but constantly had intrusive, catastrophic thoughts and I also started to get bad physical symptoms so I made the decision to leave after just 6 months.
One thing that was constant throughout my career is a love of helping others through career coaching, mentoring and training. I also understood what it is to be unwell at work and I knew that I wanted to help people be happier in their careers. I completed a Diploma in Coaching and started a Masters Sci. in Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology. I’ve also started a Diploma in CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy).
I’m so happy that I have started Positive Prospects, it’s exactly what I should be doing. I feel that all my experiences to date had brought me to this point. My aim is to help people be happier at work and to enable them to navigate their career with confidence. I also love to deliver corporate training programs on wellbeing topics to help teams be happier at work.
