Finding a full-time job through a more collaborative approach to hiring

In this post Rania Nur shares her experiences of being part of the Collaborative Future work placement programme and celebrates her new job as an associate product manager.

Close headshot of Rania wearing a pink headscarf

‘What do you want to be when you are older?’ is a question I heard constantly growing up. From my parents, to my teachers, uncles, aunts, friends, random strangers- you name it. The older I got, the more ‘I don’t know’ began to feel like an unacceptable answer. But the certainty with which they expected me to respond always confused me. After all, how could anyone possibly know what they wanted to be for the rest of their life at 15, or 17 or even 20, for that matter. Especially when the options for career pathways are so much more than we assumed as children on the playground at school, discussing our possible futures- doctor, teacher, engineer. None of which ever seemed to suit me.

This led me, I like to think inevitably, to Collaborative Future. The programme does not bother asking you unanswerable questions like ‘what do you want to be for the rest of your life?’. Nor does it ask about your grades or your degree. Collaborative Future asks you to describe yourself, your motivations, your likes and dislikes. The programme matches you with businesses on the basis of your skills and enthusiasm.

The truth is, I always knew what I wanted to do with my life, if not what i wanted to be. I knew I liked learning things, and completing projects and feeling fulfilled. I knew I wanted to research and analyse and interpret. But my parents and teachers, aunts and uncles never asked about that.

The Collaborative Future programme offered me support in the form of coaches, opportunities to train in the form of workshops, community in my fellow interns and the chance to feel understood.

Within an hour of meeting Tess, she had gleaned an understanding of my character. A day after my interview, I received, along with my acceptance on to the programme, Tess’s suggestion for a placement- William Joseph Design. This company, she explained, was using the programme as an opportunity for recruitment. Two weeks later, I was on a video call with James Peet and Ellie Budd, who were explaining the tasks I would be completing in place of a regular application. It was a real world task, responding to the needs of a long time client of theirs.

Over the next week, as I plugged away during the hours allocated for me to complete this task, I was afforded a chance to truly understand the reality of what working with William Joseph Design would look like. As I presented my findings to James and Ellie, while dodging the antics of my over enthusiastic nephew who has yet to understand the sanctity of a video call, we engaged in a conversation that allowed us all to gauge whether this was the right fit.

That was not my last video call with James and Ellie. Luckily, they felt as I did, and as of 1st September 2020 I will be starting a full time position at William Joseph Design as Associate Product Manager.

During the entire process I did not once hand over a CV, either to Tess or William Joseph Design. I never brushed off my cover letter. Unconventional, yes, but positively so. While those documents that I so diligently combed over post graduation may speak of my achievements, they could not have told Ellie or James what they learnt of my character or me what I learned of theirs during our recruitment process. And I never had to deal with paper, just people.