Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
How to Network Like a Pro to Completely Change Careers
In this week's Work it Like a Mum episode, we welcome Warren Leigh, an in-house recruiter at Electric Square, a renowned games company. Today's conversation is all about Warren's remarkable journey—transitioning from a decade-long teaching career into the corporate world of recruitment.
What we Cover :
Warren's Path to Teaching: How Warren unexpectedly entered the teaching profession after studying electrical engineering.
Joy and Challenges in the Classroom: The rewards of teaching and the creative projects Warren led, like his video game history curriculum.
Realising the Need for Change: Warren's growing dissatisfaction with teaching and the impact of education becoming more corporate.
Making a Bold Career Pivot: The emotional and financial challenges Warren faced when leaving teaching without a backup plan.
Transition to Recruitment: How Warren found his way into a corporate role at Electric Square, using his strengths and interests in a new field.
Power of Networking: How building relationships and having open conversations helped guide Warren's new career path.
Why Listen:
This is a must-listen for anyone, particularly teachers, who feels stuck in their current role and is considering a change. Warren's story is inspiring and provides practical insights on approaching a successful career pivot.
Tune in for a robust and empowering discussion on embracing change, trusting your instincts, and carving out a fulfilling career path.
Connect with our host, Elizabeth Willetts, on LinkedIn
Connect with Warren Leigh on LinkedIn
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Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community. In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance. We cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
Speaker 1:This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries, ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
Speaker 1:Now back to the show. Hello, welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast. Today I am delighted because I am chatting with Warren Lee, who is an in-house recruiter at a games company called Electric Square. But today we're going to be talking about Warren's experience leaving teaching to move into corporate role, because I get a lot of messages from teachers that unfortunately want to move out of teaching and want a complete career pivot, and as Warren Warren has done that, I couldn't think of a better person to come on the podcast to talk about his experiences moving out of teaching into something completely different. So thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's lovely to be here. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited. So let's rewind back. So you obviously have left teaching. You're working as a recruiter now in-house for a games company, and what made you want to move into teaching in the first place?
Speaker 2:Teaching was an interesting career path because it had nothing to do with any of my sort of previously communicated sort of desires and aspirations as a child. It was completely, completely off field and very much on a whim and very much informed by a myriad of kind of personal circumstances at the time. Um, you know, I kind of I told the educational path I'd gone through gcses and a levels and, and when we got to this, the sort of the tail end of a levels, I I kind of fell out of love with the whole education system. I was like this is not for me. I'm just kind of following the crowd a little bit. I kind of need to take charge of what I want to do rather than just going. Oh, next year we do yet another qualification or we do just another. You know, it was a chance for me to go. Hey, I want to reset things a little bit. Like I've said, I think at that time in my life, looking back now, I was very immature, not really aware of what the world could offer me, or indeed what the world was all about.
Speaker 2:Um, and so walking away from education and getting a little job in a supermarket stacking shelves for 12 months, it was. It was horrible. I didn't enjoy it, I'll be honest, you know, it was all of a sudden. I think I'm probably being unfair there. It was horrible. I didn't enjoy it, I'll be honest, you know, it was all of a sudden. I think I'm probably being unfair there.
Speaker 2:It was a culture shock, is what I would say, because I kind of had the security blanket of education, but it opened my eyes and it really taught me that actually, you know, I do need to take charge of this If I want to do something for me. I am running out of time. To just think that it's going to come my way and I'm not saying that with some sense of virtue. It was a real sense of I'm just running out of time. Now I really need to do something about it. So I ended up going back to college and, of all things, I literally scrolled through the prospectus and chose a course at random that I thought would be of interest, and I ended up doing electrical engineering for two years.
Speaker 2:Oh, did you, so it wasn't education it wasn't education, um, which was, yeah, electrical engineering what a stranger on that was.
Speaker 1:And it was interesting related to your games company. It is a little bit.
Speaker 2:it was a real fundamental levels of programming, you know, pc building, spec and maintenance, a lot of uh electrical distribution systems, all these other things that I'd shown no interest in previously. But I kind of enjoyed it because it kind of demystified a whole world that I kind of have a bit of a speculative awareness of um. But at that time, because I'd taken time out of my my typical educational journey, a lot of my, my peers, my friends, who I'd sort of shared my school journey with, they'd all started university um, and I start. This was probably around about 2005. And I started to travel the country, visiting them all went to Sheffield, went down to London, went to Liverpool, went to the Lake District and I went to the Lake District where one of my friends was studying teaching.
Speaker 2:She'd just started. I think she'd been there about two months and we'd been out at the sort of the SU come back and she just said what do you want to do when you've finished your national diploma in electrical engineering? And I said I've absolutely no idea. And she said why don't you come up here and be a teacher? And I went okay, and I'll always remember this. It's the name of a person that, for some strange reason, has always stayed with me. As soon as I came back on the train back to Manchester, where I was living at the time, um, I emailed Margaret Hartley, who at the time was the admissions officer for St Martin's Teaching College in the Lake District and said this is me.
Speaker 2:What do I need to become a teacher? What do I need to be considered for entry on a teaching degree? And I'll always remember she said you need to get a merit overall in your current national diploma and you need a relevant school experience. And I was like, right, okay, I finally got something that I could work towards. I've got a bit of a tick list that I can utilize.
Speaker 2:The next day I phoned my old primary school where I went as a kid. One of my good friends, aunties, was still teaching there. She was the year four teacher, mrs billing bless her and I said could I come in every wednesday as a voluntary ta? And she said yeah, yeah, absolutely, by all means. And I did that for two years while I was at college. Every wednesday, when it was a day where I had no um sort of lessons at college, I went to my primary school and I kept notes. I kept loads and loads of really furiously comprehensive, methodically recorded notes on everything that she did. Obviously I was sort of helping the kids at the same time.
Speaker 2:Um, and it was. I was desperate to understand what this was all about. Um, because it was just such a foreign concept, um, and they seemed happy with my enthusiasm, um, you know, happy with seeking out answers to things that I I didn't quite know. And, and you know, lo and behold, a few months later, after you know those two years, I got a place on the course and spent three years training to be a teacher, which I absolutely adored the experience it was. It was like going back to school, because every lecture was a maths lecture or an art lecture or a science lecture and it was just learning about how to deliver all the you know the pedagogical backgrounds or the theory behind the delivery of each of these sort of educational disciplines, and it was. It was absolutely fascinating. But yeah, you know, to go back to the original question, that's, that's kind of how I became a teacher.
Speaker 2:It very much was yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, let's, let's explore that. And it was much was yeah, I'll do it, yeah, let's explore that. And it was very much on a whim, very much spare in the moment. But the more I did it, the more I fell in love with it. I was like this is really interesting.
Speaker 2:And I remember someone at the time said to me you know, most teachers are still a child at heart, and I was like, okay, well, this could work for me because I am still quite a big kid at heart, for me, because I am still quite a big kid at heart. You know, my wife would absolutely attest to that. And teaching really worked for me. You know, I like you know I enjoyed working with children. I enjoyed working with young learners. I enjoyed the psychology behind teaching. I found you working with young minds so interesting.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, just watching the cogs turn behind an eight-year-old's eyes when you're introducing a new concept, and seeing you know that, that eureka moment or where suddenly a concept clicks, and and then the associated sense of pride that inevitably followed and there was a real sense of reward and achievement with that, um, and I genuinely, for the first few years, believed that teaching was going to be my future.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, those nearest and dearest to me said oh, you know, you can work your way up, can be, you know, deputy head, you can be head, you can do this. And I was like, yeah, this, this is now my path, this is what I'm going to do. Um started off in year three teaching uh, children new to key stage two, who'd obviously made the jump from infants. Um, that had its had, you know, that had its challenges, in that there was a greater expectation of them being a little bit more independent, taking a little bit more charge of themselves, looking after jumpers and water bottles. I mean, man, that was year three all over really my daughter's in year three, though yeah, year three.
Speaker 2:I I look back and I I enjoyed year three. It was, it was. It was a nice middle ground. It was a brilliant introductory year for anyone who's studying teaching because you are plonked right in the middle. You know you've got the best of both worlds, really. You know eight year olds is an interesting age to teach. But yeah, I got itchy feet after a few years, thought, right, let's try another year group you know I kept looking at the older children thinking, wow, what exciting things can you do with them.
Speaker 2:Moved across to year five, it's like wow, this is brilliant. They um moved across to year five it's like wow, this is brilliant. They can do loads. They're so much more independent. And I really enjoyed teaching the maths because it became so adventurous. You know converting between fractions, decimals and percentages, you know, you know introducing ratios, and it was, it was really, really interesting and I, I was really excited about teaching it as well. Um, it became quite self-indulgent. Um, you know, I had the support of our head teacher at the time.
Speaker 1:Um, but did you stay at the same school then same school yeah, same school.
Speaker 2:Um, I had no desire to leave. It was it was. It was a lovely school, had its challenges all schools do but, um, I felt entrenched, I felt a part of it. That you know, the the wider network was was so deeply um supportive and they really nurtured me as an individual, as a teacher as well.
Speaker 1:I think what's nice about a school and this is apparent it's a community, isn't it? And it's often at the heart of a community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll probably move on to that as to why I kind of left teaching, because I feel like that's very much diminishing in this day and age, or at least that's my opinion, or at least my snapshot of that. But no, I mean. What I was going to say is that you know, I ended up drafting a 14-week topic on the history of video games that I delivered to these really.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I know you're working there because, because I wanted to tap it, I went on some training where they said you know, some of the best um sort of cross-curricular topics are those informed by personal interest. And I was like, well, lifelong, you know interest in the history of video games, not just playing them, but also the stories behind them. Different game studios, different stories. You know different individuals within gaming. Um, you know nerd, if you want to call it that, you know that's the short version, um. And I had a head teacher who said, yeah, absolutely, if you can prove to me that you can, you know, include every um curriculum area, let's, let's go for it. And you know I wrote the children a letter as if I was the CEO of Sega saying we're going to reenter the console market. Can you help me for a design technology project?
Speaker 1:I remember doing projects like this at school.
Speaker 2:And it was one of those projects where the parents were coming in saying oh I had that. I had an Atari 2600. And it was brilliant. But as things kind of progressed, there was you sound like you were such a good teacher.
Speaker 2:You know what I enjoyed it. But there was always a niggle at the back of my mind throughout my entire profession within education. Hand on heart, I did jump into that career path on a whim, and there's only so far you can be truthful with yourself. There's only so far you can kind of pretend, and as my career sort of started to progress, you know, I I always maintained my, my sort of high expectations of myself, much to my detriment, and I started to you know I hear this a lot in the games industry, ironically. But imposter syndrome was something that I really started to. It started to rear its ugly head really.
Speaker 1:Really, even after you'd been doing teaching for such a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. And you know, I'd have quite heart to hearts with some teachers that I was sort of quite close to and they'd say, oh, you know, and I'm not blowing my own trumpet. But they'd say, oh, but you know, you're really good at it. And I had this real sort of internal conflict of have I genuinely done the right thing? You know, as I was approaching 10 years in my career, I'm thinking, oh man, you know, I'm in my mid-30s now, I'm running out of time to move away, Am I trapped in this? And all these little sort of voices of doubt started to rear their head. And that was kind of compounded with a bit of a change in landscape in education. You know, there was the rise of, of academization now academization.
Speaker 2:If you speak to teachers of certain experience levels they will probably have quite an impassioned opinion on whether or not they're for or they're against academization, and I've heard both camps. I found academization had its benefits, but I also found that it kind of compromised a bit of the community spirit a little bit. It became very corporate. Do you know what you?
Speaker 1:mean about the corporate, because our school is an academy and the person in charge. It's. You know, learning cannabis is connected to the secondary school and he's a CEO um, ceo, yeah, I mean my, my wife bless her.
Speaker 2:She, she's a an assistant head at her school. She's been there for for 12 years now and obviously they've become part of an academy a good few years ago. And you, you, yeah, I wanted to work for a school, I didn't want to work for a big corporation. Um, you know, they're, they're very different things. I found one was very child oriented and one was very, quite cold in comparison. And again, I appreciate that that's my, my opinion and that there will absolutely be some teachers out there, particularly young teachers who perhaps started their career post-academization, who are absolutely flourishing and I sincerely wish them all the best.
Speaker 2:But for me and my start in in the in the world of education, I started to question whether or not it was for me, because I didn't like that cold, business-oriented approach to education and it didn't straightaway put me off. I was just thinking, oh, I don't like the storm on the horizon, I don't like, perhaps, what's around the corner, and after a few years teaching I handed my notes in without anything to go to. I just thought you know what this has really come to a head now. I ended up having a brief stint of counselling to try and really get my head around this dialogue and one of the things that she said to me and it's one thing that she stayed with me she said how can you be thankful for something that you never truly wanted? And I was like, wow, ok, and that was the seed that was planted. And I was like, yeah, okay, I've done this before, I've taken charge of my future before let's, let's hand my notice in and you have no idea what you wanted to do.
Speaker 1:No, no, um, I mean, I was really sad because I do a lot of speak to a lot of people that I don't know what they want to do, are probably, you know, similar age mid-30s, 40 and they've ended up falling into something not necessarily teaching.
Speaker 2:I, and this is it and I don't want to sort of sugarcoat this, because I flip-flopped a lot I ended up coming back and and really tried to inform that decision moving forward, but I handed my notice without a job to go to and it all went through, um, and I was like right crunch time. My wife bless her, oh god, so lucky with her, but me, she must have been pulling her hair out. Um, I mean, we're both grayer because of this, this sort of period in our lives. But, um, you know, I ended up speaking to a local security firm. Uh, I literally just knocked on the door and said, hey, is there anyone there who'd be willing to have a chat with someone like me from my background? Um, and we just had an atta, we just had a chat. Um, and that was kind of my approach really. I, I wanted to make an informed sort of decision moving forward and I thought anyone who was willing to have a chat with me, I will have a chat and I'll just be open, frank, honest, I'll be myself and if I'm not for you or you're not for me, fine, let's move on. That's you know. I'm not going to be arrogant about it, I'm not going to um, you know, inflate my own uh opinion of myself. I'm going to be very open and honest and I'm just wanting to use this as a fact-finding mission. Um, and ironically they said have you ever considered a job in sales? Because you're very good at talking. And I was like, well, I don't know if that's a compliment or not. Um, but again, I kind of walked away from that.
Speaker 2:I applied to um, an educational resourcing company based in sheffield, um, and as the weeks went on it got to about four weeks the word mortgage was brought up a few times, not not in an argument, but I was really starting to worry about this and I was like, oh mate, what am I going to do?
Speaker 2:And at the same time, the academy that had then taken over the school that I worked at were trying to offer me a job. They were trying to sort of bring me back um, and I kind of relented because of the pressures of, like I say, and they said look, we can offer you a job as a teaching consultant, teaching across several different schools ended up being seven different schools and championing computing, which was previously IT, but then it sort of migrated across to the new computing curriculum, which is probably now 10 years old, saying that, and I accepted and I went back. And then, funnily enough, I ended up getting a call that night from that educational resource company saying I'd got the job, and I was like, oh, this is awkward. And I was like I said look, I'm going to have to pursue this. You know, let's leave on the greatest of terms. And so I spent another two years teaching, albeit from a different perspective.
Speaker 1:And so I. What were you teaching? Computing.
Speaker 2:It was just primary computing, but I took charge of the entire curriculum, for it was seven primary schools and I ended up mentoring 10 student teachers. On top of that and and essentially going in one day a week across these different schools, different year groups, I enjoyed the challenge of it, widening my exposure to education, because I thought, right, okay, this can be, this can be the final hurrah, you know if this can really inform my decision, if I am ever to walk away from this. I'm now exposing myself to foundation stage all the way up to year six, across across different locations, you know, across different catchments, across the entirety of South Yorkshire and, and I was kind of left alone to my own devices. There wasn't really a job spec to it, and so I'm a big lover of a project as well. I was given this little office, this cupboard, and I just ran with it and I just made it my own education bible with photographs, and it was essentially it was two-tiered. It was me evidencing what I'd been doing for the first 12 months of that role.
Speaker 2:But then at the same time I thought, well, rather than just creating a portfolio, let's kind of internally publish this and make a guidance document for those teachers who were just entering education and go oh, computing I don't know computers which was often the case, and that was kind of my contribution. I thought you know, while I'm not there, if I'm at your school on a Wednesday afternoon, what are you doing the other five and a half days of the week? Sorry, four and a half days a week, that's embarrassing, you know. I wanted to give them a reference point and when it got to sort of two years after that, they basically turned around and said, yeah, we want you back in the classroom now, but we want you teaching at this school because this teacher's going off and we want you teaching.
Speaker 2:And I'd heard rumors that there was, um, a bit of a staff shortage and it was, and it was a staff shortage at the schools that had a lot of challenges and things like that. And I thought, well, I can either toe the line and I can go back on what you've promised me in terms of this role and return to what I've already walked away from once before, or I can go right, you've kind of backed me into a corner, I'm off, and that's what I did. Really, again, I left on the best of terms but I said right, okay, I've dipped into it a second time.
Speaker 1:So you basically were back in that situation again, where you had nothing, where you weren't stirring.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they kind of did a little bit of a U-turn. I'm not bitter, I completely appreciate that that circumstances were what they were and the role that I had for two years as this strange hybrid consultant role was very nuanced, it was very unique. But I thought, right now I've been in this situation before let's. But I thought right now I've been in the situation before let's go um.
Speaker 2:And this is where I really started to network you know, like I said, with that security firm, I was like, right, who do I know? Who do I know? Who knows someone you know, who can I speak to? And, funnily enough, when I was doing many, many years ago, prior to that, that, that video game topic, our head teacher at the time, craig. He put me in contact with one of the parents who at the time, had children at our school, the school that I was teaching at previously and all I knew was that he had ties in the games industry and, similar to my approach previously, I basically just reached out to him via email and said, hey, this is me, just handed my notice in. You know, really silly thing to do, um, looking to explore opportunities in the games industry because it is an area of extreme interest.
Speaker 2:it's an area that I would bite the hand off that feeds, if you know someone were to offer me a role within the games yeah however, with someone with my background, I have absolutely no idea what role that would look like at this stage in my career I honestly didn't know that recruitment was a thing. Of course it's a thing, but at that stage I didn't realize that there was this big recruitment industry within the games industry you know, it was a world that I'd never dipped into, um, and he just invited me in for a chat.
Speaker 2:And then we went and had another chat and then I met the co-director of the business and then he invited me. They used to do careers talks at different universities and he invited me to accompany them when they delivered a careers talk at Staffordshire University. And we were just chewing each other's ear off in the car generally on the way there, and after that he basically said I kind of need someone to help run the graduate recruitment desk. You know we've got someone on it already. Uh, someone's left. It's usually a two-man team. Would that be something that's of interest to you? And again, I I didn't say yes straight away, I just said hey, I'm interested. However, I would need training in this. I would. You know I can bring certain things to the role, but I just want to make absolutely sure that you are aware of my background. You know I'm not gonna say I'm something I'm not and said, yeah, we can train you up. You know, at the end of the day, if you're, if you're personable, if you can interact with people, if you can manage people and processes, I think recruitment is something that you could perhaps dip into and so I ended up joining this recruitment company.
Speaker 2:It was an agency, um, and the the the educational side of it. But there was two sort of main chunks to it. There was the careers talks, uh, which was like um sort of a year-long traveling about to different universities and giving advice, which was interesting for me because giving that advice kind of cemented it for myself as well in terms of, you know, I'm new to the games industry, so how typically do these other people get started in the games industry? And so it was quite nice to practice and preach at the same time. But there was also a big annual games industry competition which involved a lot of students, a lot of educational partnerships and things like that and a lot of managing those processes as well.
Speaker 2:And so again I was suddenly in this situation where I had a project. You know I was collaborating very closely with, you know, the other person who was on the grand desk at the time, and between us there was a lot of very interesting things that we did, and I started to have those pangs of doubt again. And again I'm going to sound like a broken record and arguably somewhat pathetic at this stage, but I started to think okay, I had, much to my detriment, a somewhat ill-informed and somewhat rose-tinted and maybe romantic view of what the games industry is. I don't know if this work environment or this particular role is really me. You know, it was quite sales.
Speaker 2:And obviously someone who spent 10 years as a primary school teacher. I didn't have a sales bone in my body. You know I can't sell to people, or at least I was very much convinced that that was my overall weakness and so, reluctantly, I thought you know what? I've still got time on my side, I'm going to have my notice in. And I walked away again positively. You know we left on great terms and I went and did supply teaching. I thought have I done the right thing?
Speaker 1:um, and I had you've had like such a squiggly career at this point, oh, and you know what?
Speaker 2:yeah, and for someone who now reviews CVs and question the sort of backwards and forths as long as people don't look at my own cv for the past sort of four or five years, six years, um, but I I kind of feel each step was it was, it was there was an awful lot of sort of soul searching. So I ended up doing supply teaching for a year and a half and I thought, right, have I truly done the right thing? You know, my grand blesser back in manchester kept saying you could always go back to teaching, and I'd always joke and say, look, I know that you're only going to be proud of me if I return back to teaching, and so I kind of had that voice in my ear as well. So I did supply teaching for a year and a half and again, much like that consultancy role. I travelled around South Yorkshire to our foundation stage all the way up to year six, a really uh sort of wide, um sort of snapshot of different uh sort of schools and different academies and things like that, and some were lovely, some were challenging, everywhere in between, as you can appreciate, um, but then kovid hit and then all of a sudden the supply market just completely dried up and I was like, oh okay, well, decision made, what do I do now?
Speaker 2:Um, I was, you know, like many, many people out there at that time. I was furloughed for a little bit, um, but I, I was getting itchy feet. I was like I, I can't do this, I need to be busy. Um, so I contacted my local nursery. I was like you know what, let's, let's, let's do this. And I had a call with them. Um, they're a forest school nursery not a million miles away from where I live. I ended up working there for six months and I was like you know what? I've never really taught nursery age. I've kind of dipped into sort of foundation stage and things like that, but not a private nursery. And again, it was just fascinating. You know, typically there's very few men that are nursery practitioners. You know, uh, working in in that field. Um, I think a lot of the children found it quite novel, this six turning up yeah and it was really, really interesting and I I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:I mean, and you know the side of it that I really enjoyed and at this stage I wasn't a father. At the time I was, me and my wife were going through ivf, and so it was something that. And obviously ivf, as you can appreciate through covid, oh I mean, what a process that was because my my daughter's ivf, so she was before covid, so I can't imagine yeah yeah, I mean that that in itself was quite a journey.
Speaker 2:But the at the nursery, the, the room that I was always fascinated with was the baby room and the occasional instances where they they'd sort of draft me into just you know, perhaps help out things again, I'd sort of just watch and did you find it painful doing that when you were going through IVF?
Speaker 1:I found it very painful, like looking and being around children and babies when I was going through IVF.
Speaker 2:I think we didn't necessarily start to hit the roadblocks with IVF until after I'd moved away from that role and my good ex-colleague had dragged me not kicking and screaming back into the games industry. That's when the interesting years started with IVF. We were still optimistic and bright-eyed and excited.
Speaker 1:You stage um you weren't world weary of it.
Speaker 2:No, we were like oh, this is dead easy, this. Yeah, we were a bit naive at that stage, um, but now, working with the babies, again, you know, it kind of reminded me when I first became a teacher and I was just so interested in watching the way they eat, watching the way they play, watching the way they communicate, yeah, watching the things that excites them. You know, there was a particular little baby bless it, I mean, it'll be six now or something like that and you know, baby shark, it just so excited, screaming with excitement. I was like, wow, what an absolute little cutie.
Speaker 2:Um, but then at this stage, about six months later, and again, this wasn't necessarily anything, um, this, this was purely informed by this particular phone call when I worked at this, this particular agency. Um, you know, prior to supply teaching, so we're going back two years prior to that, um, I became good friends with a particular individual there, someone who had just really clicked. We've had a similar sense of humor. Turns out that, to quote him conveniently, he doesn't live a million miles away from me, so it's a convenient friendship as well um.
Speaker 2:But he had left that agency and he joined um, a multi-disciplined agency, so a recruitment agency that recruited for, you know, plastics and polymers and building and all these different disciplines that I didn't have a clue about and he was brought on to basically build a gaming recruitment desk and he said, look, I know that that itch you've got is not being scratched. I need someone who can engage candidates. I need someone who can work with me, someone who can be the second person to my team. I'd experimented with games, industry-themed content creation when I was at agency and as a supply teacher, and a little bit of that ended up being freelance as well, which was interesting, going the whole world of freelance.
Speaker 2:And so he knew that, the nerd that I am, I like talking about all things games, not just hey, have you played the latest Call of Duty? You know talking about the history of studios. You know, like I've said earlier, you know key people in the industry and you know certain milestones and things like that. So I ended up joining this agency again and it was a completely different environment. You know it was completely remote. I'd never worked remote before. Obviously, going through ivf and working remote and also having an employer that was very much invested in flexible working. You know he would say hey, if you wanted you know.
Speaker 2:If you want a two-hour lunch to go to the gym, please do. Please do that. So all the appointments that we had through IVF because we had numerous scares and we had to have an MRI and we've got so many scans because of all these sort of issues that reared their head throughout the pregnancy I had the support to do that and working from home was a real godsend at that stage of my life.
Speaker 2:So I ended up staying with those guys for a year and a half, engaging candidates, doing a lot of recruitment, mainly working the US market, but at the same time, because it was an agency that it was essentially only me and my friend who were working games, we kind of were able to build our own little niche within the market.
Speaker 2:You know the pair of us attended Develop the conference Games Industry Conference within the market. You know the pair of us attended developed the conference games industry conference down in brighton, representing us as as essentially the gaming sector of this, this agency um, and it was. I started to really enjoy it because it was a completely different way of working. It wasn't salesy, it was more contributing to the betterment of this industry that I had a genuine interest in, and that that was that was motivating for me. I you know I often joke with people now that I'm not, you know, a 3D character artist, I'm not a C++ programmer, I'm a recruiter and in my own little way, it's nice to know that I can contribute to these exciting projects that are around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you're hiring the people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and you're hiring the talent that people yeah absolutely brings it to life completely.
Speaker 2:And you know, when I, when I speak to people, like even now that you know I've been working on these exciting projects, I'm still so excited for all them because I'm like, hey, can't wait to play it, um. So, yeah, I I sort of stayed there for a year and a half and the only reason I left it was, um, my wife was in the maternity ward, um, for for a week and I obviously visited her every single day and I got a call from my friend and he said, hey, I've just been offered a job, uh, as a recruitment manager with one of our us, uh, clients. I was like, so you're leaving? And he went, yeah, and I was like, okay, interesting, so it would just be me, because obviously up until this point we we'd kind of been a duo yeah, you'd been a pair, yeah yeah, and I found it quite jarring.
Speaker 2:Uh, I sincerely wished them all the very best because it was so exciting and we're still good mates, um. But I thought, okay, could this be an opportunity to again start networking, start speaking to people, just to put my feelers out there. You know, I now got to the stage where I'd become so aware that networking wasn't only something that I tended to default to, but it was also something that was so beneficial, particularly in the games industry. You know, the games industry is often viewed as this multi, multi-billion dollar industry, but it is the more that I work in it, the more years that I amass working in the games industry. It is so small and everyone knows everyone, someone will have worked with xyz down the line.
Speaker 1:I find that there was a lot of industries yeah, I was gonna say they're all small, like recruitment. You know, actually people just know. You know, like you say, even if you don't know that person, you know somebody that used to work with that person and this is it, and I thought you know what the next chapter for me potentially is to go internal.
Speaker 2:You know I want increased visibility on these projects. You know, agency, you are always pretending to represent. You know, you're always pretending to be just a step beyond.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed that role but, being a middleman, I wanted to explore whether or not I could be more ingratiated with the teams that have the hands on these projects. Um, you know, I always found that that selling something is easier if you're living it and you're a part of it. You know, and genuinely you're excited by it. Um, you know, whereas you know, occasionally agency recruiters, they do get these difficult roles where they're thinking, wow, how do I jazz that one up?
Speaker 1:um, whereas working internally exactly um. And so I again. I just put my feelings out there and I was.
Speaker 2:I was approached, um, I jazzed that one up Whereas working internally, and then I met a client, exactly, and so, again, I just put my feelings out there and I was approached by a studio called Gunzilla. Funnily enough, they actually approached one of my ex-colleagues who said, oh, I know, warren's looking, had a call with their talent acquisition director and I really really just found them. I found her in particular Lisa, bless her so humane, so lovely. I thought, yeah, you know what, I could absolutely work for you, and they did a great job of selling the project to me. They're a studio based in Kiev, ukraine, and Frankfurt, germany, and they have a presence in the UK as well, still working on their project. It's just hit early access on consoles and so it's. It's still nice to sort of see that panning out in the way that it is because they're such a such a passionate team uh, such a talented team, it has to be said. Um, and I stayed with them for for sort of 10 months really. I sort of attended gamescom with them where, wow, the sheer spectacle and scale of what we were sharing and, you know, our booth was I'd never seen anything like it and I I was like wow, to be a part of this. This is a major, major project with a Hollywood director attributed to it, and it was so exciting and it was lovely to again play that role in helping this particular project come to be. You know, there's still a lot of people that I encounter on LinkedIn and sort of various sort of platforms that are still working there. They've progressed their way up or they've moved on and we still keep in touch.
Speaker 2:And again, the only reason I ended up leaving that particular studio was when I was working at that agency with my friend, we went to develop for the first time, like I said, to try and really bring on business. You know it was a bit of a business development opportunity. And I crossed paths with Electric Square and really bring on business. You know it was a bit of a business development opportunity. Um, and I crossed paths with electric square. Um, obviously you know the five studios now, but the, the oldest studio is is based in brighton and obviously developed brighton was on their doorstep. They had a big presence at the conference. Um, my friend knew charlotte, the talent acquisition manager, uh, very well, having crossed paths with her previously. Um, he introduced me to her and we just chewed each other's ears off, uh, for quite a long time, and you know I really clicked with what the studio was all about. Um, I like to think, uh, looking back, that I've made a half decent impression with them as well, and I just kept in touch with charlotte. I said, hey, if there's ever a vacancy with you guys, I'd love to work with you guys, because what you work on is just so exciting. And I also just found the studio quite cool. You know, a studio that values well-being and absolutely lives up to it as well.
Speaker 2:There was a real pivotal moment at one of the after parties at the conference, where they were there giving out merchandise, and one of the things that they were giving out were electric square themed baby grows. And at one of the things that they were giving out were electric square themed baby grows and at the time my wife was four months pregnant and I was like I'm gonna take one of those. When my baby's born, I will send you a photograph and you can use it as the best sort of uh, sort of branding, sort of marketing, you know, post on linkedin, um, and I just found that quite novel, um, because I said, oh, you've got baby girls. I said, yeah, we've got loads of families at our studio and I was like I like you guys, I'd love to sort of work with you and, um, after sort of 10 months working at this, this studio based in kiev and frankfurt, charlotte reached out to me and she said hey, you know, are you free for a quick chat at lunchtime?
Speaker 2:And this was like two hours beforehand and I went, yeah, yeah, I'll jump on a call. Um. And she said I'm looking to expand my team. And I was like, yeah, absolutely I'd love to join you guys. Yeah, and I suppose the rest is history really. And obviously I've been there over a year and a half now. You know, touch wood, no intentions of moving anywhere.
Speaker 2:We work on some really exciting things and you know, reflecting on sort of the path that I've taken, certainly, when people perhaps reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, hey, I saw that you jumped disciplines, that you jumped career paths, what advice would you give? I always say to them be prepared to, you know, to take many, many steps back before you start taking steps forward. You know a lot of. I've got so many years that I wouldn't consider a waste because every single one of them was a stepping stone. Every single one of them was valuable in terms of the experience something from everything absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, I went from a very sales agency to not a very sales agency. I went from an international internal recruitment role, which was completely distant, to one where I can now visit the studio every now and then, um, and you know, it's a little bit more personable, purely because of the sort of geographical sort of limitations of it, and so each one has kind of brought its own increased sense of reward. Um, and then you know, the the big kid in me is like, you know, I've had my name in the credits of some of these games and I'm like, wow, you know, if I could, you know, go back in time and say to my eight-year-old self hey, you're finally going to be, you know, contributing in in a little way to to these games being made, which is still such a motivating factor and I know it is for all of us. Um, at lecturing square, you know, we're so invested and excited by what we do, um, but, like I've said, you know people who sort of ask me how did you get started Networking?
Speaker 1:That's what I was going to say, I think. This is what I've taken from it, and this is, I think, an act for anybody that wants to change careers, whether they're a teacher or not, or even just advance their careers, is this networking, it's the power of building these relationships and picking up the phone and seeing if people will meet you.
Speaker 2:This is precisely it and I kind of defaulted to networking before I knew what networking was, before I could kind of give it a name. You know I like to make an informed decision moving forward and I don't pretend to be an expert. You know you've got to be truthful with yourself. And if you know networking is great in that, with yourself and if you know networking is great in that it can unearth hidden opportunities, it can open doors, you know you can find every single job it sounds you've got, especially in recent years, was never advertised.
Speaker 1:It was came from relationships you'd built and people just calling you saying would you be interested this?
Speaker 2:is it the last job that I kind of explicitly well, I mean, it wasn't even an advertised sort of vacancy, but that nursery job it was just a case of, hey, would you even consider me from my background? Yeah, let's look, can we meet you face to face? And then it kind of led to the thing. I think the last job I explicitly applied for was that teaching resource company. I mean, we're going back sort of eight years now.
Speaker 1:I mean we're going back sort of eight years now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and you know, I kind of find you know, particularly on platforms such as LinkedIn, networking, I worry that it's kind of lost its focus because it's been given this name oh, networking. But when you peel back the layers it's not that hard. It just means speaking to people and asking questions. And I found and I hope I would remain optimistic that it's the same in in in many different industries. But I've certainly found in the games industry that a call for help or a call for advice is very rarely ignored as I was gonna say, because I speak to people and they say you know how do I do it?
Speaker 1:and I say you know, if you just basically touch base, if they'd be up for a virtual coffee, what you know, if you, as somebody in a, in a recruitment room you must get these messages the time what sort of messages are the ones that you're willing to say yes to?
Speaker 2:Oh God, completely. I mean, there was a student recently who asked me the best way to approach people, because we'd kind of gone off on this tangent, and I said, hey, you need to network, you need to reach out people. If you've got a portfolio, you can use that as the dangling character perhaps for the backbone of any conversations and things like that.
Speaker 2:I said the only thing that I would advise is going confident, but obviously not overconfident. You know, be humble but confident. I think that you know genuinely people succeed when they are confident but still modest. You know there's a fine line. People can sometimes come across a little bit overconfident, which people tend to be a bit detracted by, um, but go in, just don't push your agenda. Um, you know, go in and say, hey, have you got a? You know a few minutes. It would be great to pick your brain at some point. You know, or not even you know, try and make it as personable as you can. You have noticed that you recently posted about attending this particular conference. It'd be brilliant to just touch base with you. Are you going to be on the stand so I can maybe pick your brain? Or, like I've said, you know, for people who are in particular, uh sort of job roles in the games industry that do have a portfolio or some kind of personal website or a blog, share it with people. You know you get to know the standard that's out there. You know there's a lot of conversations that uh recruiters have with you know, particularly juniors, where we're trying to establish for them the expectations of securing that first role.
Speaker 2:Yes, the games industry, at the moment in particular, is very, very difficult. You know. There's very, very few roles. It is very competitive, it is very, very dog-eat-dog, and I think, more so that's driven the importance of not just relying on your CV, your applications, your portfolio, but making sure that you do something with them. You know, make sure that you do attend events. Something with them, you know, make sure that you do attend, uh, events. Make sure that you, if your aspiration is looking to be, for example, an environment artist, look for environment artists that either stylistically very similar to where you see yourself in the future or work on the projects that you kind of aspirationally want to be a part of, and pick their brain. You know, just reach out to them. The worst that they can say is no, or actually the worst that they can do is completely ignore you. But so what? There's thousands more out there. You know, um, yeah, I genuinely have been very, very lucky that just just just being yourself and not pushing an agenda and just saying, hey, this is me. Um, you know, I'm not.
Speaker 2:I like to think that when I speak to people, they understand who I am. I kind of live my life on my shoulder and I found that it's kind of got me this far, so I mustn't be doing something too negative. But I found that the more I sort of live and breathe talent acquisition and recruitment, people quite like that approach. People want to speak to human beings, and one thing that I said to a few people at Develop this year was that a lot of studios out there say, for example, they're advertising for a junior programmer role.
Speaker 2:Yes, that studio wants a junior programmer. Yes, they have a job spec. That is this figurative checklist, this figurative recipe of skills and experiences that they're looking for. But at the end of the day, they are looking for a human being who happens to be a junior programmer. And it's that other facet of you that's completely over to you as to how you communicate that. If you've already engaged in conversation with these people, for example on LinkedIn, if you're already you know to be somewhat crass a known entity, you know, if you've already introduced yourself and then you apply, why wouldn't you be pipping other people to the post in that regard?
Speaker 2:you've already engaged with the community. You're already a participant of this, thriving very, very socially, um sort of structured games community, before then going in completely blind with a cover letter and application going hey, this is me. That will never do a good job of introducing you. Um, it will do a job to an extent, but people want to know who you are, um, and the best way to do that is to just try and form these relationships before you kind of need these relationships.
Speaker 2:I was going to say, before you're actually looking, plant the seeds and it's hard to say that without sounding like you're being quite sinister, like oh, I'm just going to bank you for later. No, no, no, no. I genuinely like the networking side of it. You know there's so many people out there that are just so interesting and every time I screen people, every time that I chat to people, my calls overrun as I'm sure will come as no surprise to you because I just hang on their every word. You know I love hearing how they got started. I love hearing their stories. I love hearing what they're working on, what they're doing and showing that genuine interest. People will remember that.
Speaker 2:You know I had some training recently about unconscious bias and unspoken perceptions. You know you do right by someone and they will remember that. You know if you don't have a role for someone or you're unable to give advice, but you're perhaps able to do right by them in other ways, you know, signpost something else or share a particular resource, or put them in contact with someone else. That is the backbone of a thriving industry. You know it isn't as transactional as this is me on a piece of paper. Can I have the role?
Speaker 2:And again, I appreciate that I'm being unfair and I'm completely generalizing, but I do feel that if you are ever finding yourself in a position where you want to change careers, you have to ask yourself the question of do I really want it? Because I did, but then I changed my mind and then I went back and I did. If you've got time on your side, that might work for you, but you want to make as an informed decision as possible and networking will allow you to make that informed decision. You know, if you're wanting to make that jump, start dipping into things, start reaching out to people, asking questions and figure out what doors can perhaps open to you in that respect. But yeah, just speaking to people and forming those relationships is absolutely paramount this has been a such a powerful conversation.
Speaker 1:I'm going to literally send this conversation to so many people, teachers or not, because I think this has been the most powerful conversation I've had in a long time and it is all about these relationships. So thank you so much, warren, for joining me today. Where can people find you, connect with you, get inspired by you and your journey?
Speaker 2:uh, just find me on linkedin. Uh, yeah, just search for my name on LinkedIn, or, I think, my URL. What is my URL? Let's have a look. Oh, level up with Warren.
Speaker 1:Level up with Warren. There you go, you can level up with Warren on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say you know one of the things that I have done. You know, maybe particularly important for those people who are maybe looking at the games industry. You know I've written a few articles of you. Know how to interview in the games industry, how games industry. You know I've written a few articles of you. Know how to interview in the games industry, how to write.
Speaker 2:You know how to do your portfolio, how to, how to network is one of the last ones I wrote. You know, if, if there's anyone out there who feels that they may be of interest, absolutely but at the same time, do feel free to reach out because it's you know, I I can offer a case study. I don't think there are any true experts out there, but I can maybe offer something that you can take some frames of reference and personalize and move forward. But you know, for every, every one person that you speak to, I kind of encourage people to speak to another 10, you know, and try and get that as varied an opinion of how to move forward as possible.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I hope that's useful oh, it was so helpful, thank you, so so much. Thank you for listening to another episode of the work. It like a mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're on linkedin, please send me a connection request at elizabeth willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site investing in women on linkedin, facebook and instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams. Also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.