My Transformational Journey

As I approach my 8th anniversary at LinkedIn it seems like a lifetime ago that I was working in the recruitment industry. At the time I wanted to get into the software/technology sales industry and I knew that I wanted to move into management in the future. That is the space I recruited in and it seemed a good idea, however, I had no idea how I could make the first step without going in at a very junior level.

I remember receiving the email from LinkedIn saying that they were interested in having a chat but at that moment I had no idea how this opportunity would have such a big impact on the transformation of myself and my family. While interviewing I remember telling my wife that if I get the job it could change our lives, it was true but it has also changed me in more ways than I was expecting.

Thankfully I got offered the role and it was an easy decision but after 10 years in the industry and a family to support it all of a sudden became a bit scary.

I started in a new business role when there was only about 15 people in LinkedIn in London and that was the only office outside of the US – we now have about 30 offices and more than 10,000 employees!

As we grew I moved into an account management role and worked with some of our largest corporate clients in the UK and at the start of 2013 I moved into management to set up the UK Staffing business, managing a team that sell to the Recruitment Industry.

LinkedIn say that they help change the trajectory of your career and I can definitely say that my transformation journey means that I am very different in many ways to when I started.

As well as learning to be more open to other people’s views, thoughtful of others and, I guess emotionally intelligent I have learned a lot of business skills that will help me in my career.

One highlight was working with Alex Charraudeau, Dan Dackombe and Greg Stephenson on a project that we won an award for that would transform how LinkedIn sells to the staffing market globally. We built a structure to help recruitment companies set a strategy for success on social media. Hopefully this has had a bigger impact by helping LinkedIn members find jobs and getting closer to our vision of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

At LinkedIn we talk about Transformation of self, company and world. You will see this explained on John Mayhall’s post. 

It is amazing how at a company like LinkedIn your own transformation can be so immense, but also how it in turn transforms the company and the world around us.

I am still on my journey to achieve mastery of Sales Management and I can honestly say that I am loving every minute of it.