Landing Your Dream CX Role—Even in a Tough Market, with Kerry Sudale
Episode #809 Show Notes:
Clare
We’re back with another episode of the Inspiring Women in CX podcast! A series dedicated to real-talk conversations between women in customer experience and technology. For Series 8, we’re raising the bar—pushing boundaries, sparking bold ideas, and challenging the CX status quo. Expect fresh perspectives, fearless discussions, and a celebration of women driving change in our industry.
I’ll be your host, Clare Muscutt, and in today’s episode, I’ll be talking to a seriously inspiring lady from the UK about why so many talented CX leaders are currently on the open market – and what it really takes to stand out and secure the right role. She is the Founder of Sudale Search and Select, where she champions inclusive hiring and leads recruitment for customer experience and contact centre leadership roles.
With a strong focus on creating equitable hiring processes and fostering flexible working cultures, she helps businesses enhance their talent acquisition strategies. Passionate about putting people first, she’s driving change in the recruitment space – transforming the way companies attract and retain their top talent.
Allow me to introduce you to today’s inspiring guest, Kerry Sudale!
Clare
Hi, Kerry!
Kerry
Hey Clare, how are you?
Clare
I'm wonderful. It's so fabulous to have you on the Inspiring Women in CX podcast today.
Kerry
Thank you! I am not living in a cave; I've had to close the curtains. My six-kilo border terrier thinks it's great to guard the house, so this stops him from doing it and interrupting our flow.
Clare
It's a little bit dark in there for anyone who's listening and not watching. It does look like she's in a cave. So let's jump right in then. I'm sure our listeners would love to know a little bit more about your career journey and how you ended up where you are today.
Kerry
Well, like most people that are hiring across CX and contact centre operations, it was a bit of an accidental career, an argument with my Dad, actually, about working in a call centre, funnily enough, after I'd got my degree, and I decided just on a whim to apply for a job. A week later, I was interviewing with Michael Page and then got the job a few weeks later. I moved to London and started my career in recruitment.
As life always does, my Dad has had a problem with depression and bipolar disorder, which therefore led to alcohol abuse. It meant that my half-brother, my teenage brother, whose Mum had died when he was four, was about to go into care. So I relocated back to the Midlands and became a young carer at the age of 22 for my brother as he was going through his GCSEs. We got him through his apprenticeship - still there now, actually, in terms of the same place that he's at - and then settled in and built out a business in the Midlands for Michael Page for their Secretarial and Business Support Division. They had to give me a bit of homeworking before homeworking was popular, and a bit of flexible working hours, because nobody can do an eight-to-six in the city centre of Birmingham. An hour or two hours commute each way with the traffic, and look after a 15-year-old.
Clare
Yeah. Spaghetti Junction, I remember that. I lived in Birmingham for 10 years. Do not miss that traffic.
Kerry
My problem is I was on the 42-38-M6 - I've not done that in the right order. If there was traffic on any of them, you were stuck. Then I went off on maternity leave. I had a surprise in my son in 2018 and came back to set up our contact centre and customer experience division. It was something brand new; we'd been doing it as part of the business support side. So I set that up, and then we went into lockdown. Everything changed, all teams were furloughed, and we had to build a business when people weren't hiring. But we know it bounced back pretty quickly. The thing that didn't work was when people were starting to look at the return to office mandate and discussions about, "Hey, should I still be leading teams whilst being a parent if I couldn't make it to the office every day?" and all of that kind of stuff.
Having heard that conversation from a number of my customers, I thought this is a problem for everyone, for every Mum or Dad. I was a single parent at the time, so it was just on me. And so I decided to set up a business that would put voice to that because it's often that thing of, “Is it me? Am I unable to manage what I was doing before? Am I unable to drive my career forward while looking after my family?” I think that sometimes it's just certain businesses and infrastructures just aren't set up for that.
Clare
I agree.
Kerry
But since working on my own, there are plenty of businesses out there; you just have to look for them.
Clare
That's quite a story, and to have gone through so much trauma yourself personally, then having to make that really difficult decision to put your family first at that time with your brother and then becoming a mother yourself and then not being supported through that. But you turned all of that into this amazing business that aims to make a difference in the world for people who have caring responsibilities. Being able to say “My career got limited because of a lack of understanding and appreciation, but I'm here to do something about that.” I think that's really powerful – definite tick on the ‘Inspiring Women in CX’ box straight away.
Kerry
The funny thing is, it was the same as I was talking to a candidate the other day who's a Dad. And he'd had a change because he'd always been able to grow his career. It didn't matter where he was working because Mum picked up the majority of the workload at home. They said, “For the last two years, my career has been on pause because I've been a single Dad and being very much more 50-50 in terms of how we're doing things.” So it's not a problem for women, it's a problem for anyone who could all of a sudden become a carer for whatever reason. Because even if you're not a parent yourself, but you've got nieces and nephews and you wanted to step into that…I mean, it was not what I was expecting at the age of 22, I tell you.
Clare
Definitely, I think the point that you raised there, that the lion's share of responsibility tends to fall to women because of societal expectations, I guess. There is a really interesting example there, actually, isn't there? How different a man experiences work when he no longer has the traditional wife in the caretaking role and how his career went on pause, which isn't a story that you typically hear with heterosexual couples, is it?
Kerry
No, and I think it feeds into the fact that sometimes as well there's that whole problem internally – again everybody's problem – because if you're going to your CEO or COO, “Can I have this time off because I want to go and see my kids show?”, a lot of Dad's hear "Can't your wife do that?" Or you know, "Can't your father do that?" Well, probably, but we might both want to go.
Clare
Very insightful. Yeah.
Kerry
It's not going to affect me. There's nothing I'm missing out on here.
Clare
Just the assumption, isn't it? The automatic assumption is classic of a broken system or a biased system.
Kerry
Definitely, and it's still the same, almost to this point, because my partner lives in a very traditional world. He's a builder, well, a joiner. He can't work from home. So we still have that balance. You see the same when men sometimes have their partners who are nurses or doctors. Again, they have to find that balance for a career or needing more flexible working patterns because you can't be a nurse from home. You can't be a doctor from home. It's one of those things.
Clare
I suppose with tele-health these days, who knows? I was thinking about some of the most successful senior women that have really made it to the top that I know. Their husbands took on the traditionally female role - I hate even saying that - but they were the ones who chose to stay at home, look after the kids, so that those women could go and do what they needed to do.
Kerry
Yes.
Clare
The guilt that they experienced in doing that, I'd never heard men talk about that, men with careers and seniority that had to spend a lot of time away from home for example, they weren't wracked by the ‘Mum shame’ that came because again of the societal expectation and the bias and the... gosh I could waxing lyrical all day but we're here to talk…
Kerry
Oh my God, Clare, honestly, one of my best friends said it to me when I first became a Mum, and I was juggling the six o'clock drop-offs to my sister to make it into the office for seven to avoid the traffic. I used to start early, seven, half seven, and she used to go to me, "God, I could never do what you do." And I went, "What do you mean?" And she went, "Well, I couldn't let my nursery raise my kids."
Clare
What!
Kerry
I'm like, the nursery isn't raising your kids, but I'm a single parent. What choice do I have? Either live off the government, or…I don't have a rich family that could have given me a handout or anything like that. I think that's the reality of the world now. Even now, when we shift and say that the man is taking on the traditional female role, we've all seen the cost of living crisis going insane and actually, both people, more so than ever, both people in the household want to work.
Clare
Yeah, have to work. But then I was just thinking about some examples. And this isn't actually what we're to talk about today. But I've got some examples of friends who live in London, and they have no choice but to both work full-time, because the childcare costs are so high that when you've got a mortgage, childcare is the next biggest expense.
Kerry
Yes. Well, Clare, just so you know, I got my 30 hours, and I thought, “Let's see what this does,” because my daughter just turned three. 50 pounds a week it saved me!
Clare
Wow, that's crazy. I did IVF last year on my own with a donor, and I think that's one of the things I just can't square at the moment, is financially being able to afford to take the time off to raise a baby by myself or afford the childcare. My dream option would be to be able to hire a live-in nanny who could help and actually be that role to support me with caretaking and housework responsibilities. I have absolute admiration for any woman who's managed to do that by herself and to keep working within that as well. ‘Inspiring Women in CX’ box tick number two, achieved there, Kerry!
Kerry
It's crazy. This is what everyone always tells me. They go to me sometimes, "How do you do it all?" I was like, “Well, my car is trashed. It's an absolute mess all the time. Yeah, my house is either clean or tidy. Usually clean, not very tidy.”
Clare
Yeah, my house is a mess.
Kerry
Other than those couple of hours of the evening when the kids have gone to bed, and everything is clean and tidy. And then in the morning, you get up and you're like, “Oh yeah, we're back to this again.”
Clare
I was going to say that I don't have kids yet, and I may not, but I have a horse and a cat, and that's my family. The horse is actually quite a full-time job, and with running a business as well, I can't do it all. Even though most of the time my house does get messy, that's the thing I choose to have to let go of, but nobody lives with me, so it's only me and the cat that have to put up with the mess!
Kerry
Well, this is it. As long as you're neat and tidy where you're recording your podcasts and meetings, we're good!
Clare
Well, it's a good camera angle here, you can't really see what's going on. Anyway, we're here today - even though we just talked about a lot of big feminist issues there - we're here today to talk about landing your dream CX role even in a tough market. This conversation really came about with seeing this massive increase in women applying for scholarships to the Women in CX Inner Circle. If anyone isn't aware of that, we give free places out for three months to help women get back into work. And just this huge surge in women in the CX space being out of work and needing that resource.
For all those women who join, I meet them, I give them a free coaching session slash sometimes it feels like a counselling session, talking about my own previous experiences of things like redundancy and activating my network to then help them find those opportunities. But my first question, Kerry, is, why are so many talented CX leaders on the open market right now? Do you have a view as a recruiter on why that is?
Kerry
I think let's just call a spade a spade. Generally, CX is one of those things that is seen as a little bit fluffy sometimes, until you're not there. Sometimes leadership don't realise what's missing. And then they realise things are missing, and then people start hiring on mass again. But I think one of the biggest challenges of why there are so many people open at the moment is that there was, first of all, this big return to office mandate for certain big businesses. And you would probably be surprised, or maybe not, by how many smaller businesses follow suit or increase the number of days in the office. And people go, “What was the big deal? We're just increasing from two to three or three to four or whatever. And we were doing it fine.”
And you think about the cost of transport, the cost of childcare, and the timing of childcare. Because with the funded hours and things that are coming in, nurseries can't make money off the hours that the government funds. So you have these things called supplementary costs that pay for everything, by the wet wipe, pretty much.
Clare
Wow.
Kerry
So, what is the cost of that? People got dogs in lockdown - what's the cost of an extra day travelling, with the extra cost of the dog walkers? Salaries aren't going up massively either. So, where are you supposed to accrue these extra funds from? For some people, it does break them, and they still…
Clare
I was going to say quality of life cost as well, right? Because a lot of jobs became more sustainable. So there's the financial implication, but it's also quite a big health and well-being implication. If you start having to do the commute again. I know, talking to my friends that have been through that kind of situation, they went from having a job that they really loved that changed significantly during the pandemic, but then they ended up with a job and a life that they really loved. And the consequence of this mandated return, in some cases like five days a week, that job has become a lot less satisfying, and the salary has become a lot less valuable in that mix. Just really hearing that myself too.
Kerry
There's a shame about it as well because people are shaming you from everywhere, like these guys are, they've made multi-millions, they're CEOs of these big companies, saying, “People are lazy, they don't want to be in the office.” It's such a privileged view to go, do you even know why people don't want to be in the office? It's not that people don't want to be in the office; it's the question of what's the point? Why?
Clare
Yeah, you could get like three hours back in your day, even can't you? You start at nine and finish at five, but it is really start at nine and finish at five, with a commute, it could be an extra hour either side of that. And then not being able to be around to do the things that…I don't know, go to exercise classes anymore, because the time that's removed from that.
Kerry
There is obviously a benefit to that as well. There have been studies done, and I've not got the data in front of me right now, but I'm big on it in terms of going back to it. But there are specific benefits. I think Gymshark talks about them a lot about why they've got gyms on site, because performance is increased when people get the time to invest in their health and wellbeing.
Clare
Yeah.
Kerry
The thing is, do you want to hire the best person who can only be in the office five days a week during those hours? And especially if there are two parents that work because, shock horror, men and women can both be directors now. You could have two powerhouses, a powerhouse couple, with kids who don't necessarily have a nanny service, or they don't have the system set up. Parents are working for longer as well now. So it's not like Grandma is at home like they used to be able to.
Clare
True, significantly increasing the age of retirement, haven't they, as well?
Kerry
Absolutely. And how people manage it sometimes is they've moved in their Mum or their mother-in-law, who's now single, and they've moved them into an annexe, and they help out with childcare. But let's be honest, it's not realistic for everyone. People are breaking into boardrooms, into SLT, now that don't have that privileged family set up. You know, they have very few people. I have my Mum and my sister. That's it. They both work and obviously my partner, but if I'm to go, "Hey, I need some family to look after [my children]." The logistics when I'm in London for a couple of days or at various events are crazy, trying to figure them out. If you have to do that every day, you're not calling in a loan favour.
And the funny thing is, as you know, Clare, who is going to hire somebody, specifically when we're talking about senior leadership positions over £100K, or £50-60K, people who have worked their way up, who go to work to do a bad job? Who's going to sit there, who realistically is going to be a director, running a CX function, they're working on projects. What do you think they're doing? Sitting and watching Netflix at home? Because people have mentioned that they'll go and stick a wash on. How long does it take to load a washing machine and stick it on? Two minutes? You're not losing anything.
I think that's why so many people are…I think the question is, why are so many people on the market? I think there is a little disconnect between companies hiring and those looking for work. I think the more some of those conversations we talked about, big topics that affect women, you need to bring them together because people are thinking, "Well, they can just have them in childcare." Okay, my childcare options are open 07:30 until 18:00. That's as long as they do. That's the longest provision in our area. Other than if you looked at child minding and then, of course, if your child minder is sick, you've got the problem of you've got no childcare, you have to be at home. So if I were to go back into Birmingham, I would be back in Birmingham five days a week, and Patrick is working on-site because he's a builder. I'm not going to be able to do anywhere near the hours that enable me to get there between eight and six.
And now the other cue is that my Mum works in a school, but she doesn't drive. So she couldn't get to my kid's nursery to go and collect them. They live in a different area to her. Leicestershire, we're odd, we're different to Derbyshire. And I'm talking about an individual circumstance. But I am not the only individual with that circumstance. There are lots of people who are in the same boat. So I think the return to office mandate…because we're all lazy and we shouldn't want to work from home. No, it worked because systems are not set up, and the government funding childcare and operating hours for childcare and stuff like that, adapted to that flexible working approach. There were times in lockdown when we were allowed to work with our kids in the background. Can you imagine being corporately employed and having your kids in the background doing their homework at the age of five and six? No, doesn't happen. So I think that's part of the problem.
Then, to add to that now, there is seemingly an overflow of really talented people on the market. We've seen an increase in the number of applicants, talking about the FinTech industry, which is one of mine. In the last two years alone, there has been an increase from a typical average of four interviews for a hiring process to over six interviews per hire. The biggest one that I heard about was actually 12 interviews, which included three psychometric assessments.
Clare
Wow. Why has that increased?
Kerry
What happens to us all as human beings when we are presented with a market full of choice? Everyone's saying there are green banners everywhere, people are really talented on the market, the question is, “But can we do better?” Can we do better? Especially if you've got something like 800 applications and you're thinking. "Are they the best, though? Do I know the market's really tough at the moment? Lots of people are looking. Is this the best person for the job?" So you keep questioning, and it causes a period of indecisiveness.
Clare
I understand it from businesses like Amazon, for example, who've got this incredibly difficult recruiting process, but it's also very intentional in terms of ensuring that they do get the right calibre, quality, cultural fit. They invest massively in the first three months of training to ensure that the person they've employed does learn the Amazon way. But what I'm hearing is, particularly from people going through this at the moment, that it seems more arbitrary. It's more like jumping through hoops, and it's not actually for a clear purpose to do that. It's just really challenging, well, just really difficult. I've heard some really...
Kerry
“Let's have an informal chat with the CEO. Let's have an informal chat about this.” But an informal chat for what? I think the killer is when people have gone through things like testing presentations, projects, and then a 15-minute meeting with the CEO, where they talked about the weather for five minutes of it. And you're like, “What's the feedback?” Not the right vibe.
Clare
That's a bad one, yeah. They're like, “No, don't like you.”
Kerry
If you're doing a vibe check, that's at the beginning of the process. That is certainly not at the end.
Clare
Yeah, not the end. I've heard stories from women in the community that they're in this kind of situation. Some of them have been out of work now for like 18 months, two years. And their confidence is getting absolutely destroyed. But they're being asked to basically create projects and present them as part of the interview process. And they're taking these incredible women's experience, creativity, and ingenuity and getting to keep that afterwards. They're not getting the role.
Kerry
I would call a spade a spade and sometimes ask how many people are interviewing at that stage, where you present a project. Because I had a CX director a couple of years ago, and she was presenting at a final stage interview alongside eight people.
Clare
You can't have a final stage for eight people.
Kerry
That is free consultancy because you ask for the CX…
Clare
Yeah, exactly. It's called what it is.
Kerry
Yeah. It was CX strategy building based on them specifically, which was an hour's worth of work. You go to someone like a CX consultancy to deliver that. What are you charging for that?
Clare
You're going to have a bill, exactly. That's terrible.
Kerry
If they said to you, Clare, I want you to build a strategy for me, how much are you charging for that?
Clare
Well, it depends on the amount of work and pre-work, but probably a strategy would be running up to around £100K.
Kerry
Yeah. Do you know what? It's that sort of thing where you go, if it looks and feels like free consultancy, it is. And I think having a project or a program is good as part of an interview, some mini thing, some mini testing is good as part of an interview, because some people don't present as well in the question and answer proportion, but they shine in…
Clare
Yeah, if it's for that reason, like it's to test something, not actually to do the work. Because again, the women that I'm talking about have been told, “Actually, we've decided not to hire” because they've got the answers and they're now not hiring for that more senior role. They've elevated somebody and said this is what you need to do.
Kerry
Yeah, exactly. But I think too many people - and we can all feel guilty of it, especially founders, sorry guys - that launch their own business and think, people, everyone wants to work with us. We're doing something great. Amazon only have that process now. They didn't have it in the early days. They are now an aspirational brand that people want to work with because they think that if they can get Amazon on their CV, it looks great. People will jump through more hoops for that than Mr. Tim Potten & Co., who could become the next Amazon. But you're not attractive, you're not an Amazon-esque business looking to grow through that. I always think that. It's why I always say in the interview process, when you're immediately available, you push on the open doors. What I mean by that is stop wasting your energy fighting against something like an Amazon that wants to do five days a week in the office. Clare, no matter how much of a great CX director you are, you're not going to convince them in an interview that they should hire you and let you work remotely or work two days a week in the office.
Too many people during this process can help themselves by stopping fighting so hard for something when actually you're thinking, “I need to secure my next job role for my confidence to pay my bills.” Save that fight for when you have secured the fight and got your job role by looking at the people that you know, you've worked with, they've worked with you, and they know what superstar you are. Spend the time, go out, grab coffee with them, have virtual meetings with them, whatever. Signal to them that you're looking for work. Ask them what their biggest challenges are. Help them with them. They're your friends. They're your network. Invest in them. Mentor somebody who's in a more junior role than you, because concentrating entirely just on your job search can be soul-destroying. Bring value to somebody else. Say if you're a Director or a Head of, and you can help a CX manager or contact centre manager in their search. Say what you want to see in the CV. Do that. That's a good fight to have. And it reminds you that you’ve got a lot of good value to bring to the market. Same as podcasts, appearances and things like that. It reminds you, "My God, I do have valuable things to say that people want to listen to." Because I think concentrating just on your job search, if in 18 months, two years, to your note, you've not secured a job, in your head, all you're thinking is “Failure, failure, failure. I've not achieved what I wanted to achieve.” But what if during that period of time, you helped three or four people into job roles and things like that, you keep going. It gives you that added bit of mental resilience.
Another thing is to apply for the jobs that want you, that realistically you're going to want to be at, whether it's a local job that you can actually do that amount of days in the office, you can do two or three days in the office and really fight for it. Remote jobs are really competitive unless you tick every box. It’s unlikely that you're going to get a remote role in the UK because they're so sought after. I had 800 applications for a Head of Customer Support £70,000 role. You needed to pretty much tick every box. And this is probably the other part of it, through the use of AI-generated…
Clare
Yeah, let's talk about that. Because I think what we're saying here is, it's getting more and more competitive. Eight hundred people are applying for a job. Wow, especially the ones that are in high demand, like fully remote roles, you have to be the cream of the crop. So how can you stand out? I think I know what you're going to say about how people on a job search are using AI. Do you want to give us a little bit more insight into that and the impact it's having on them or their chances?
Kerry
So let's see how many job roles are out there. There's been a rise in things like 'Easy Apply', so those 800 applications, 800 people aren't going to be able to do the job role, or they've not got the right experience. But especially…It helps because when I write a job advert, I sell a job role. I don't write every single thing that you need on there because here's the challenge for companies, you will write a job description and most internal talent teams - or hiring managers, I'm looking at you - you're using ChatGPT, other large language models available or similar to write a job description or fluff up the job description that you've got somewhere buried in the HR archives with adding a few things on, like AI deployment etc and all of those AI implementations and those kinds of things. So you generate a job description with ChatGPT or another model. You then put it out there as an advert, which it's not, by the way, it's just a description of things that you're doing, but you think people will be looking. And everybody else, applicants, have access to this, whether they are a legitimate CX director who is looking for a role or not. You can pass your CV straight through ChatGPT; generated job description, ‘please create me a ChatGPT-generated CV’, merge them together, and what you end up with is a sea of vagueness. And from a hiring manager's perspective and a talent person's perspective, they're going, "So many people fit these." So what you need to do is you're going to have to call through to them. Some people will just ignore them, and you won't end up in the list or whatever.
As an applicant, what you can do is tell a better story. By all means, pass it through, check the information, because it's often been given the wrong information. In interview, that's what a lot of people are coming to me to say now, like we interviewed a few people, they looked good, but discrepancies in the CV just broke the trust through the interview process. So, put the story in there. Why are people going to want to hire you? What problems have you solved? What was the problem you were in at the time? Because ChatGPT can only generate what's in the job description. So it will mainly generate things like “In the contact centre world, led a contact centre operation.” Doesn't tell you how many FTE, doesn't tell you the industry, doesn't tell you any of those things. So by all means use it, but add in your own story. Why are people going to want to hire you? In a market where the cost of living is really high, people are worried about job security, people are worried about hindered growth within the market - they want to hire you because they want to know that you can drive growth within the organisation. Showcase that, showcase it, how you've used AI, how you've implemented it, and use it in your human language, speaking to a human.
But also more than that, be prepared. The best talent teams and recruiters in a sea of vagueness will be ringing through because there'll be lots more perfect fit applications to decipher through. Even if the CVs are a bit naff, we'll just ask you to adapt or change them a little bit to make sure they sound more human. But you will get called, and the amount of people who don't answer the phone, who do a message or a text message like, “Is my CV doing the talking here?” No. In a digital era - especially in something with AI speaking to AI, and it's all in chaos - human connection is going to be your best friend in getting you the job role. If you've applied for a job role that is awesome, stop doing the hard work in finding the recruiter and the hiring manager and sending an AI-generated message that's the same as everybody else's. It does nothing, make someone laugh, make somebody think about something, but whatever, just be human. Because I truly believe, and I don't know if you're the same Clare, I think it's the same in the CX industry in general and how the world's going to be. The differentiator in the digital and AI age is going to be your ability to storytell, your ability to connect with humans, essentially your humanity.
Clare
Yes.
Kerry
It's the differentiator because there are lots of things that AI can do now that we could do before. Even looking at large data sets and analysing trends, fraud detection and stuff that people used to be geniuses at spotting the patterns, AI can spot the patterns quicker. So what's your place within that? You've got to figure it out. And generally it's the human place. It's the way to create business cases and get them over the line.
Clare
Yeah. Impact, influence, leadership. I'm focusing on those goals and examples. Do you know what came to my mind then, Kerry? I was thinking about an experience that we've shared recently, which was the Inspiring Women in CX Awards process. And the women who won the awards ultimately gave the best application for that award. The kinds of things that they were doing were “Here's what I did.” But they didn't stop there.
Kerry
Yeah! Absolutely.
Clare
“Here's how they did it, and here was the outcome. Here's the result that I delivered and the more tangible proof points, measurable, quantifiable things that they could add to the end of it.” Because of the way that the scoring system works, that entry is going to score more highly than someone who just said, ”I did this thing.” But not what the impact was or how they did it. And it's the same in interviews, isn't it?
Kerry
Yeah.
Clare
And even in CVs, even to get that door opened in the first place, you've got to answer the question that you're being asked to provide the evidence. I'd be really, really clear about it. I think in the conversations I have with women who are on the market, there is a lot of ChatGPT. I'll put the job description in, and I'll get it to match it. But it's not doing the job of, as you said, telling the story, how I did it, what the results were that I got, showing the real leadership and human capabilities that it took to make that happen.
Kerry
And you do not need to change your CV for every role in a big overhaul. The way that I like to think of it is the time to boil a kettle is the changes that you would need to make if you're applying for the right jobs. Because there are none that are wildly different. What I would be changing off is I'm having a key impact, key achievement sector, which says that impact really clearly, pounds, pence, percentages, operational efficiencies, what it generated in revenue or customer loyalty, how much you increased or reduced retention and attrition, all that kind of stuff.
Clare
Yeah, that's the facts that should always be in there. Is it like the personal statement bit at the top or the covering letter?
Kerry
Yeah, but it doesn't need to be ‘War and Peace’ because imagine if you're going through 800 applications as either a recruiter or a hiring manager. I know people love to demonise recruiters, but you know, if you're going through them as anybody and it is going through it with human eyes, realistically, Clare, are you reading the personal statement or are you reading the key achievements and where they've worked and what they've done? You go into that. The personal impact and statement bit is the bit to read afterwards. I am interviewing Clare now. I've determined that from her experience. So now I'm going to read her CV in its entirety and make notes. And I'm going to interview her based on that. Or I'm going to interview you based on these things that I'm interviewing a number of other people on.
And one thing that I would always say for when people are going to interview, in my opinion, an interview shouldn't be a surprise. And most talent people in HR don't want it to be a surprise. Ask what the first interview is assessing, ask what the second interview is assessing. Some companies will even give you a question list, but I would always think that you should know what someone's assessing, because if you've got 20 years' worth of experience, there's a lot in there.
Clare
A lot in there, yeah.
Kerry
I always think that if you're underprepared, it's really difficult. You can only know that if you uncover what you are trying to test and assess within this interview. As well, sometimes, especially if you've been looking for a while, you can question yourself, question your input. You can start questioning your whole ability to present an interview. Just ask the questions. "Hey, what's this interview assessing?"
Clare
Yeah, you help yourself out a bit there. I was just thinking about some advice that I quite often give to women. In particular, interview stage competency-based interviews are the STAR model, which might sound a bit twee, but it really works. So STAR stands for situation, task, action, result.
Kerry
Yeah, it does. Task, action and results.
Clare
And, if you've had a career like mine, there will probably be five or six big projects in your career that really stand out because of the results that you've driven. Within that, you'll have displayed all of the competencies that the recruiter hiring person is looking for. For me, I think getting into the practice of really learning that story, writing that story, telling that story, so that when it comes to an interview question, you're able to really confidently talk about that story of what you actually did and achieved, and the results that came with it, but also for the person that's interviewing you, giving them that roadmap of situation, task ect., it helps them as well to follow that story.
Kerry
You know what, people hate competency-based interviews - don't hate competency-based interviews! When people go, "Oh, I want a general chat." General chat is a nightmare. And I'll tell you why general chat is a nightmare. Because it's just how much are we similar? What do we connect on? You can go down rabbit holes and tasks and things, and you'll be assessed differently from everybody else. At least with competency-based questions…
Clare
It's clear.
Kerry
Yes. And you're being assessed, and you can get feedback that's not, “It didn't feel quite right.” No, no one cares. What didn't you answer correctly? What wasn't I clear enough on? What impact didn't I share enough with you?
Clare
Yeah. And the awards were a great example of that again, wasn't it? So we were able to then give very clear feedback to everybody who didn't get through, and kept the people that shortlisted that didn't win, because it was something that we could actually benchmark against a set of criteria. “Yes, this is what we were looking for. You didn't demonstrate this, this and this. And that's why you didn't get through. Next time, if you could increase your examples or outcomes, or description of the results you delivered, you would do better.” It's the same thing.
Kerry
Yeah, and you go, here we go…and can I just one more thing, actually sorry, because I know we're going to have gone over, but five minutes…
Clare
We're totally over time, aren't we? Yeah.
Kerry
One of the biggest questions that people fall down on as well is "Tell me a bit about yourself." And for me personally, if you're going into an interview, most people will ask you the question, “Tell me a bit about yourself.” Whether you love it or hate it, have a curated answer ready to give based on what the key requirements and nice-to-have requirements are of the job role. And then eke it in nicely with a personal story about resilience, if resilience is one of those key ones, with a big one about driving results, if it's one, and tell them about the result that you've driven. Especially if in the first stage you have got a recruiter or somebody in HR who, especially for some smaller businesses, founder-led, that are just building out talent teams, they might have one person who hires for every function.
Clare
Yeah.
Kerry
You can't be a specialist in every function. It's your job as the person interviewing. I know the interviewer can be, but you're the one looking for the job role at this time. You educate them, and you have them going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick in the first five minutes. Like, “Oh my God, they've marked off these things in the job description.” Yeah, because that's all they want to know. They want to be able to put somebody forward to the hiring manager and tell them these things. What they don't want, which I've seen people have, is 45 minutes of ‘Tell Me About Yourself’ of an hour's interview.
Clare
Yeah, but I suppose this is like the ultimate competency that we need as CX professionals in this world today, and even more so in the future, is the ability to be able to tell those stories. Hopefully well-practised if you're going for those kinds of roles anyway, but if not, now is the time to really work on how to paint a picture, tell a story, convince with data, support with outcomes and results. But we are fully out of time now, Kerry, and I could have asked you a million more questions. But when you and I get chatting, we could just keep going for hours. We've touched on so many different subjects there. Not just great advice in terms of how to find and land your dream role, but also the acknowledgement of some of the systemic barriers that genuinely exist. For me, the point around really using your network, not just when you're looking for a job, but investing in it all the time, even when you're employed and very comfortable, keeping those connections live is fundamentally critical to you in the future, no matter what it is you're trying to achieve, whether it's that you need a mentor or someone to bounce a question off. And it may well be that when you’ve actually been made redundant and are looking for a role, the more people that you have an active relationship with, the greater the chance of that.
I can tell anyone listening, there's nothing more annoying to me than the people who only appear in my inbox on LinkedIn or WhatsApp on my phone when they need something from me, when they're in that position of, "I'm on the job search again, can you help me?" And I never hear from them again after that, or I've invested massively my time in supporting and coaching them, introducing them to the right people, and they get the role, then just disappear off into the ether, and I never hear from them again. It's actually...
Kerry
Normally, they're the first ones to be on LinkedIn complaining that they've sent out messages that people haven't replied to. And I had to call out a guy, and he said so many times when he was actively looking, "No one helped me with this." He said all these things about recruiters. I was like, "Actually, I think first of all, you've recommended this guy who posts a lot about CV tips, etc. Did I or did I not recommend him to you?" And you know, you feel a bit sassy about it.
Clare
Yeah.
Kerry
And I was like, "Hey, here are all the things that I…”. "Yeah, sorry, you did do that." Stop sensationalising things, because also that's the other thing about your LinkedIn. Don't forget the value that you bring because if you're constantly complaining about your job search process, which you know, sometimes can be a pain in the backside, that's your digital footprint. When people come to look, if it's all posts of you complaining about job search processes, sometimes people may, whether it's…
Clare
Yeah. You're not going to pass the vibe check.
Kerry
People may think, "Oh, she's the problem, or he's the problem." I think you've got so much value to bring, and you think what's going to get eyes on your job search is sharing stories of value.
Clare
Yeah, and LinkedIn is a great place for that to practice your STAR storytelling, obviously, with a nice selfie these days, the way the algorithm works. But I think it is super important to manage that kind of brand presence, but it is also a great way to convey some of those stories. And if you do get checked out on LinkedIn, which does happen a lot more now, doesn't it? Because we're quite often replying through LinkedIn or we're finding jobs through LinkedIn, someone being able to read through like a catalogue of your posts, biggest achievements and success stories and passing on advice and sharing thought leadership.
Kerry
And that's my biggest advice: be the human. You know, and I know, Clare, you will speak to people with incredible stories, stories about how they moved to the UK with no English, and then they've become directors of these big challenger brands that have been sold for a mass amount of money and people are after them, they're ‘something or other’, in front of the ‘X-Fang’ company.
Clare
Yeah.
Kerry
And you go…”That story is incredible!” Not just about the company, because people don't care about that, they care about the pounds, pence and the kudos that goes with that. But how did you do it? Why were you the driving force behind that? Because things like, "Hey, I overcame this or I overcame that." Those are really important stories. You don't need to tell people, “I am resilient” Just by sharing parts of your story, people think, “Man, Clare's resilient.”
I think that's the biggest thing. People want those people to win. If you've got a good story behind you, people think, “I want them to win!” And it's not…I hate people on LinkedIn going "Yeah, I don't want to share a sob story." It's not a sob story. It's your story.
Clare
No, I love that!
Kerry
I don't think people think my story about my Dad being bipolar and alcoholic and me looking after my brother, is a sob story. I don't sit sobbing about that story. I think back to that and go, if I could do that at 22, I sure as hell can do this at 35.
Clare
Yeah, and so often other people get value from hearing that kind of thing, don't they, as in, “I identify with that, that really resonates with me, I've been through something similar.” There are some people out there who do just post sob stories for likes, and I'm definitely not down with that. Sharing valuable experience that helps you get to where you are today to help other people with that intention, you can't go far wrong.
So that's it for today. As I said, we covered so many topics. We were just doing a summary and ended up going down another rabbit hole again. If there was one piece of advice or top takeaway you'd like to leave our listeners with today, what would that be? Be human?
Kerry
It's be the human, be the human. That is the bit that AI can't replace. It could spot the trends in the data, can spot those things, but curating them into stories that make people sit up and listen. That is the human bit.
Clare
Yeah, and practice that when you're in your recruitment processes, because if you can demonstrate that you're going to get hired because that's what people are looking for in these CX jobs these days.
Kerry
Absolutely.
Clare
So how can our listeners connect with you, then, Kerry? What would be the best way to get in touch with you?
Kerry
You can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll share my LinkedIn handle on there. I am always available on there. And WhatsApp is my new favourite channel because it's so easy for being able to voicenote. I've got it on the desktop now because so many times you get a text message, a LinkedIn message, an email inbox - no offence to AI - but I get full of sales spam just in my email inbox now and LinkedIn.
Clare
Yes. Oh, me too! And LinkedIn. I miss so many messages now because I literally get hundreds every single day in my inbox and in my LinkedIn inbox that are just spam. I started to use the filters on my email, and I've turned them up so they're really strong to be able to pick out if there is actually a genuine email from somebody that I do want to talk to or needs to talk to me, but it's in amongst trash. Anyway, oh gosh, we're doing it again!
Kerry
That's probably the other thing - sorry, actually, one more bit! Covering on that - don't be afraid to send a secondary message. You are not being ignored. You may be lost in noise. Too many people go, "Oh my god, I don't really want to send this secondary message." I'm terrible for it. I don't like sending secondary messages, but sometimes I will see a message from someone I've been like, “Oh my god, that was from weeks ago!” And I will feel terrible.
Clare
Yeah, me too. Terrible, but you totally missed it. With this special filter that I've got now, sometimes I don't see the first email, and I only see it when it's the second one, and my email filter shows that there's a previous conversation that I've not read. So the same applies to me. Secondary messages on that side. Also, if you tried to get in touch with me and I haven't replied, do try again because it won't because I don't want to speak to you. It will be because I've missed the message entirely.
We must go now. Even when we got to the last question, we still went off on another tangent again. But thank you so much for joining us today, Kerry. Thanks to everybody who listened or watched along wherever you are. And we'll see you all on the Inspiring Women in CX…well, actually next season. This is our final episode of season eight. So yeah, all come back and join us to see series nine, where we're going to be talking about those all-important Inspiring Women in CX award winners who are going to be pulling back the curtain and revealing how they achieved what they achieved, which meant that they won our 2025 awards. See you all next time.
Kerry
Thank you, Clare.
Clare
Bye for now.
Kerry
See you. Bye.
Clare
Thanks for listening to the Inspiring Women in CX podcast with me, Clare Muscutt. If you enjoyed the episode and you don’t already, please, please, please do drop us a like and subscribe to our channel – the bigger the following, the bigger the impact we can create on our mission to amplify the voices of women working in CX and technology! Well, that’s all for now! See you again next time.
