The 365 pod

Sandra Koutzenko   0:14
Welcome to the 365 Pod, a technology podcast which supports companies to successfully use and leverage their Microsoft product stack. We do this through news, insights, tips and more. I’m soodra kudsenko I’m the director of training services for 365 talent Portal, which is the company who is sponsoring this lovely podcast, and I am your host for today.
In our previous episode, we did a little bit of an interview. Your boss thing where?
I invited our CEO, Elena, who’s also the first person ever to join our company because she created it. So for today, we thought we’d do a little bit of symmetry and invite our newest team member, Imogen, who joins us earlier this year.
Imogen is with us, with us as a senior hiring manager, which means she is in charge of our hiring services and she is also in charge of our business development across all services.
I was really glad when Imogene joined because she’s got a really impressive profile image. It’s quite young still, and yet she already has 10 years of overall professional experience and she reached leadership roles very early in her career. Notably, she’s been working in Microsoft Tech recruitment for over 6 years, and she cares a lot about community and engagement. She is a part.
Example of women in dynamics. So that’s quite a lot for for someone so young and I’m really grateful, Imogen, that you join me today. How are you doing?

Imogen DeVille   2:02
Yeah, I’m good. Thank you. What a lovely introduction.
I appreciate it. Yeah, I’m good. Thank you.
Yeah. Excited to get into a conversation with you and just delve into some interesting topics.

Sandra Koutzenko   2:15
Awesome. Well, let’s get straight to it. First of all, I’d really like to talk a little more about your your background because it is a little bit unusual and notably the fact that she got into a position of leading Microsoft Tech recruitment teams in quite a large company at a very young age. So I’d really like to know more about that. First of all, how did you achieve this? What do you think were the factors that got you to that to that position in the way that she did? And how was that experience for you?

Imogen DeVille   2:47
Mm hmm. Yeah. So in the sense of.
How I worked my way up the channel to get in a more management role. I feel like you go a little bit further back because from my own like personal experience, even in school and then going through to my University of Jobs, I was always that person who kind of took on the lead role when I was given the opportunity. I think it, you know, you get people that like, naturally, extroverts natural like has to take control. Maybe it’s because someone.
Love to be in charge.
But I would definitely say.
Being in a large organisation at the start of Ukraine really just support you to learn from so many different aspects. There’s so many different varieties of characters you it was a huge open plan office. I could absorb what not to do from surface that managers what to do from specific managers and I do think the people above me really those who you know believed in me did really support me and we had a big push.
I was at one point, one of the only female managers. I think in my division of the business, which is quite funny. When I would go into the calls in the morning and they’re all a bunch of Essex, London blokes all chatting about football. And I just honestly had not the foggiest. So I used to like research and just pretend I was football fan for some time just to get involved in it. A bit of the rapport. But I mean, I do think you it’s a lot of luck and also hard work and determination and.

Sandra Koutzenko   3:51
Wow.
Ha ha ha.

Imogen DeVille   4:17
I really did take pride in wanting to support the team around me and helping people, and after the pandemic we came back and nobody was in the office.
And there were new trainees and I just kind of took them under my wing and was like, well, this is what you do. This is what you do. And I I’ve always enjoyed helping people and supporting people. And when you see them do incredibly well, it’s just lovely, isn’t it, really. So a bit of luck at hard work and determination. And I did. I did graft pretty a lot, to be honest with you. Yeah.

Sandra Koutzenko   4:47
Yeah, that’s quite interesting, because there’s often in success a combination of nature versus choices, right. So you’re going to have a certain level of natural inclination that’s going to make you successful at certain things and then you’re going to make some choices that will also push you. So with you, it sounds like a lot of it was about your natural skills. And natural predisposition is that, is that an accurate statement?

Imogen DeVille   5:12
Yeah, I would say so, especially especially towards the end of my career at that organisation, at the beginning, I think I was Kauai. I honestly because when I was on recruitment, I didn’t even know what it was. I just wanted a job so I could stay at a university and then I after two to three years, then I gained confidence in my capabilities and then I knew the market like the back of my hand and I was focused within dynamics business Central and I knew absolutely everything about the technology I knew.
I could walk into a kitchen and somebody’s house and tell them that ERP system of what the toaster, the OR the manufacture of the toaster use or who the fridge manufacturer was.
The fact that this company or the towels I knew that the manufacturer of their towels and the distributor I knew the ERP system of that. So I really did take pride in understanding the market and I think with that cameo confidence because when people ask me questions, I was able to answer that.
With full conviction and just actually know what I’m talking about. And I think that naturally, well, I know that naturally leads into more leadership and decisions because people have more trust in you and you know they want you to succeed because you are the expert in that field.
Yeah, that answers your question.

Sandra Koutzenko   6:26
And so I’d like to take you back to something you mentioned, which is that at one point you were the only female leader, team leader in the organisation where you were working. So have you observed the Microsoft Tech space in the recruitment area specifically to be still very masculine overall and like, how was it for you as a, as a woman, and what did you think it brought you to be a woman in that particular space?

Imogen DeVille   6:54
I think in my area of the business, which was the focus within the new United Kingdom and then it was just more Microsoft’s focus, I was the only female manager at various points. So sometimes people would come and they would go, they would get promoted, but then they would move into a more of an account manager position or more just pure business development. And we were fortunate enough that we had a very, you know, admirable CEO who was a female and she was big on pushing female talent. And then we had various mentor programmes within the organisation.
If they saw that there was somebody who would be a possible leader, they were actually getting mentored, regardless of somebody, somebody’s gender, somebody more higher up in the company. I would say in terms of the wider tech space and recruitment as well, both of those are more male dominated industries. When I first at one point when I was more of a senior consultant, I think it was the only female in the team. I think there was like 13 lads and there was only me and you definitely do have to have the capacity to have ladbang tour. I would say, which isn’t always the best, but I do think as things have evolved over the past six years.

Sandra Koutzenko   7:51
OK.

Imogen DeVille   8:01
That mentality and that sales look culture, I guess you could argue has really diminished over time and well, especially in, you know, my previous employers. And when I speak to other organisations, but I can’t say that as a sweeping statement for the whole of the industry because I imagine certain recruitment firms are a very flattish culture.

Sandra Koutzenko   8:23
Can’t imagine that, yeah.

Imogen DeVille   8:23
It’s just one of it’s just it is unfortunately one of those things at the moment. But you, you do have to have a bit of a thick skin, but I think in any sales, well, I know in any sales position, that’s just the nature of the beast.
‘Cause it is, I do say recruitment is the hardest form of sales because you’re not selling a product that you can control, you’re selling. It sounds awful to put it in this way, but you are selling a skill set and a person and a personality. And I could tell you some horrendous horror stories where people have gone to interviews and you’ve spent hours with them on the phone with teams talking to them. This is an amazing opportunity. The offers coming, then they rock up to an interview in, you know, a joggers in a hoodie and free pandemic that was not allowed, you know, they were going into Canary Wharf and.

Sandra Koutzenko   8:44
That’s true.

Imogen DeVille   9:09
Yeah, it’s just a horrendous stories like that or people were hired and then they found out that they were criminals and all these things because they’d lie to you in the time. Yeah, there’s odd genuinely a lot of horror stories. I don’t think I could even go into detail around them because some of them are horrific. But it is difficult because as I said, you’re not just selling telephone. You’re not selling a solution you’re selling.

Sandra Koutzenko   9:16
Gosh.

Imogen DeVille   9:31
A person like in their character, which is again awful to put it, but it is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult forms of sales.

Sandra Koutzenko   9:38
A very challenging area, especially in tech.

Imogen DeVille   9:42
Yes, so competitive.
Possibly, yeah.

Sandra Koutzenko   10:09
Be thinking about who’s the person who’s helping you find your talent and how their personal life experience might affect the choose. The choices they make, what candidates they’re going to put forward, what candidates they’re going to support, how they’re going to guide the candidates, how they’re going to advise you like there’s actually a lot of impact on.

Imogen DeVille   10:26
Definitely.

Sandra Koutzenko   10:28
Yeah.

Imogen DeVille   10:29
And I think as well just to just to point out, like in terms of understanding the requirements of specific candidates and being empathetic, if you have a bunch of 22 year old lads who are on your hiring team, again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But obviously they’re going to attract a specific type of candidate. They won’t necessarily attract a working mother who needs part time. And would they understand that a working mother needs part time without there, they need more flexibility because they haven’t been in that position yet in their lives or if they will be.

Sandra Koutzenko   10:47
Exactly.

Imogen DeVille   11:00
So it’s that character as well. I guess that’s a really interesting point. I’ve never even considered that. That’s why I think recruitment strategies from a constant review of who you have in your team, why are what you’re sort of Calibur, you’re attracting and what strategies you have in place to attract and retain talent is key, especially at the start of a company, you have these huge, huge organisations who have been in the tech space for years, who have really established recruitment teams. But if they’re always the same team and they don’t rely on our external resources.
Surely there are always going to be resulting from the same pool and that Cale that quantity of candidates will often always be the same as much as we like to pretend there’s new people coming into the market and into the ecosystem, there definitely isn’t the same. Obviously that’s something I’ve discussed quite a lot of several conferences recently where.

Sandra Koutzenko   11:34
Yes.

Imogen DeVille   11:52
We don’t have that skills.
I can’t think of the word we don’t have that influx. There we are. Thanks, Sandra. We don’t have that influx of new tech talent coming from younger generations. All the partners have the same conversation with the recruiters. We need somebody with five to seven years experience. We need a senior consultant. We need them on site four days a week. That’s just not going to fly anymore. If you want those people, you’re going to have to take from your, your, your possible partners, especially in the BC space. Most people actually work together, rely on each other.

Sandra Koutzenko   11:57
Well, skill influx, right?

Imogen DeVille   12:26
Within the Isvs, So what does that do? It creates a negative atmosphere and that not that Community sense that Microsoft want. So people really need to invest in new talent and find potential and also the cross training element. This is something I know it’s been discussed quite significantly and I personally have placed a lot of cross trainers from other ERP systems or other industries and those candidates because of their onboarding and they tend to be more.

Sandra Koutzenko   12:31
Mm.

Imogen DeVille   12:55
Invested into the process rather than just chasing the high salaries, which often you can find.

Sandra Koutzenko   12:59
Mm hmm.

Imogen DeVille   13:02
Especially post pandemic with the salary and inflation within the space because that was mad at some points. I had developers requesting £75,000 on the home they had five years experience and I’m like I’m sorry.

Sandra Koutzenko   13:14
Yeah, it it got really crazy with the salaries. Yeah, that’s true.

Imogen DeVille   13:18
Yeah. And some of the bigger partners obviously can pay that because they’ve got the budgets they’ve got, they’ve got that those projects in place. But what does that do to the small partners? It’s not fair for them. So that’s another issue in itself. We can probably talk about that for 45 minutes.

Sandra Koutzenko   13:28
Absolutely.
So, well, let’s stay a little bit in talent strategies because we we do want to leverage what you know about this. And as you know, so this podcast is mostly for Microsoft End users and we talked a little bit about the challenges within the Microsoft Tech recruitment industry as a whole. Now when you’re coming into this as an end user company.

Imogen DeVille   13:40
100.
Yes.

Sandra Koutzenko   13:56
You’re not specialising in tech recruitment, it’s not your area of expertise because you’re recruiting across the board and you’re tech hiring is just a tiny part of your overall hiring strategy, so.
What are some of the top tips you could share with end users who people who don’t know that much about tech recruitment, but they will need more and more tech skills now and it’s really important to have the right tech people in place internally? So if I’m an engineer company and I’m wanting to hire Microsoft talent and I’m not used to it and I don’t really know where to start, like, what are some things I can do to find the right talent? What are the top tips for things I would need to keep in mind?
When I’m conducting my.
Current strategies.

Imogen DeVille   14:41
Mm hmm. Yeah, definitely. I I always find that end users.
Often the best customers to work with majority of the time because you know that that person that you place at that company is is gonna be life changing for the organisation in terms of their processes, their business systems, whether it’s the business systems analyst, I’ve done quite a few of them. We’re skilled within power platform, you know or you’ve done your senior at Cto’s and everything like that. I find end users you know and they also are in a position where they want to learn because as you said it is very difficult often.
Several of them have coming into the industry.
Relatively naive in a way you don’t necessarily know what to do, what to expect, how competitive it is. It’s not like just hiring for your standard IT support person. If you want a highest, more senior professional or somebody who was solo focused skills within Microsoft Technologies, you know there’s majority of the time there’s seven or eight or organisations who are trying to fight for this person as well. So.

Sandra Koutzenko   15:42
Right.

Imogen DeVille   15:44
There are two things I would always say to every end user. Well, probably 3 actually one of them. One of them is.
That you have attractive technologies. OK, you want to be competitive? Most people want to work for a partner because like, well, I’ll be working with the latest technologies. I’ll be working on really interesting projects. But if you offer them the same opportunity but within an end user space, that tends to be often more stable jobs or more of a job for life that it often is a character within the end user space. If you’re working with AI or you have a really updated system, but you’ve got a budget allocated and they can come in and take full ownership of that.
So attractive to so many candidates out there, the way that I would divide candidates, especially pre pandemic, was people who wanted to work for partners and people wanted to work for end users and you would have the conversation with them. But would you prefer end user or partner? And they would say one or the other. There’s a couple of people that would say, oh, I’m not really bothered, but the reason is because partners used to be on the date road four or five days a week. You know, you’d be if you’re on an F&R project, you’d be gallivanting around the world. And it’s not as glamorous as it seems. You tend to spend your most of your life in airports or in the office of a random place in a city somewhere.

Sandra Koutzenko   16:48
That’s.

Imogen DeVille   16:58
And then you’ve got the.
End users, who will you know, want something that’s relatively local? I just want to more relaxed life and I want to be able to make a difference and see the quote. The quote pretty much everybody would say was see the difference I make as a person and see all my hard work and what that has on the company. That’s what a lot of the end user candidates. But since cloud teams, the pandemic, obviously those two lines have come a lot more blurred and more merged. So it’s really about finding what that candidate wants and how you as an organisation suit him what’s appealing.
So attractive technology, modern technology or a budget and a strategy in place to ensure that you attract these talents. Just be honest with the candidates. If you have a horrendous NAV 2009 system that’s so massively.
Like customised, it’s not even recognisable from now then that’s fine. But tell the candidate they’re not going to be frustrated with you as long as they know, so being honest.
Another avenue I would say is.
‘Cause, obviously it’s I am biassed, but you use a recruiter. User consultant use somebody who has an external expertise, ’cause. If you’re coming into this industry relatively blind, you’ve not actually hired for this position for the last 15 years, because the person’s retiring, or that we’ve talked to another company or or, you know, they just have gone part time.
You the space has changed so much in the past three years that you actually are coming in with blinders on because you genuinely have no idea what’s happening. So if you even have a conversation with a recruiter, get their expertise.
Have a consultant come in? The reason the recruitment industry is an industry separate now to HR is because it has become so competitive. It is so intense people are fighting.
For several right positions, especially the senior talent in the market, they’ve got four or five offers coming into the table. It’s honestly it’s a bit of a minefield out there. So you really want to have the support and the expertise of a of a consultant who’s relatively senior in their industry.
So that you can rely upon them and then a lot of, in my opinion, all the recruiters I’ve ever worked with don’t want to provide you with a candidate that will leave in six months time because it’s not good for us. We don’t want to provide you with a product that you don’t like at the end of the day. So we’ve got a vested interest, especially the malcolmi’s within the industry for retaining that relationship with you guys, making sure that you find the best candidate that’s going to make the most difference. So rely upon those experts. There’s experts. We do it 6070 hours a week sometimes and we’re the ones who are.
The front lines dealing with all these issues.
Happens and counteroffers is something everyone’s dealing with at the moment, and every recruitment consultant have strategies in place in their own personal process to alleviate that issue, and we will be a very transparent if especially the way that we work as an organisation is we have these processes in place. If I think a candidate’s money motivated, I’m not going to waste your time and put that profile in front of you. Why would I do that? So a lot of end users don’t even have time. All the expertise to get somebody on their team.
Why not use somebody outsource the responsibilities. It saves you so much time and effort, and at the end of the day you’ll you should be provided with a premium product. It sounds awful to say it in these ways. I do feel guilty by using this terminology, but that’s how you simplify it.
To to finding the best tech talent is if you don’t have that person in your team internally to find somebody, rely on somebody externally. So if you can do user, recruiter or just get their opinion.
There’s a lot of recruits out there you might know, somebody who knows, somebody who can give you a bit of advice. Obviously, just reach out to them, have a conversation, ensure that you’ve got attractive technology. And the final point I would say is the recruitment process in itself is very important.
Years ago, I would always recommend you know the shop this process.
In as possible you know one stage, get them in the door. I would never recommend that these days. I would always try and advise at least for a face to face meeting if it’s going to be one stage.

Sandra Koutzenko   21:20
Right.

Imogen DeVille   21:20
Oh, for A and I kind of shoot myself in the foot. This is a lot of recruiters will be listening to this kind of way saying that but.
He used to be the candidate had to impress the hiring manager. Nowadays he as a customer, because it is candidate shop market. You’re the ones who are actually need to impress the candidate because of how many people that will they will be speaking to. So if you’ve got a process where you meet them face to face, show your personality, show the company character, have those values and represent that you’re a modern progressive company, probably flexible working. If that’s not a possibility. Again be honest with the candidates, but they want to feel.
As though they are valued as a person, that you’re investing time in this process, which again is why you should always give candidates feedback. If it’s a yes No 3 bags full, they don’t care, give them feedback. The industry is very small that really matters. So yeah, investing time in them, I have had candidates before who have actually taken offers £10,000 less than another offer because they genuinely felt that that company cared more about them and they because of the recruitment process. It was two stages in person.
And if that’s not a possibility, that’s OK. Obviously we’re a more organisations but have that rapport with the candidates. Make sure and if the candidate at the end of the day, if you’re interviewing them, I mean you think they’re not the personality I want. That’s fine. But you also need to know this before you go and hire someone. And then you realise they’re not the team culture. Obviously that’s also key, making sure that the person fits.

Sandra Koutzenko   22:41
Mm hmm.

Imogen DeVille   22:51
Yeah. So they’re three points again, I could go into a lot of detail surrounding those topics and I do believe it is on a case by case basis.
Generalised question for the end users. Good strategy if you know if you need assistance on that, use a recruiter and have attractive talent or released a budget to move that forward.

Sandra Koutzenko   23:11
Alright, yeah. And that makes a lot of sense because if you think about it, it’s it’s quite a complex area, right? Like even just how do you build your job adverts when you’re not really clear about what are the latest tech skills that you might need based on the technology that you’ve got in your, in your organisation? That’s the first huddle. Then how do you actually know who’s a good candidate versus who’s not if you don’t have the technical know how to screen for that and then and then there’s another part that I’d like to get your thoughts about as well. Because when.

Imogen DeVille   23:35
Yeah.

Sandra Koutzenko   23:42
You’re a consultant and you’re joining a Microsoft partners, which is.
Large proportion of consultants go usually you’re going to have a career track, you’re going to have a lot of support with training, with, like adapted to your specific role. When you’re an end user, you might not have those things in place. How do you actually nudge a tech talent? So do you have some tips you can share with end users for how they can retain tech talent if they don’t have that whole, you know, infrastructure already in place for it for it?

Imogen DeVille   24:15
Definitely.
I would say if you can do try and get the infrastructure in place in terms of the onboarding process. That again is. So key. I’ve spoken to a lot of candidates have placed end users over the years and this is again from it suicide support through to CTO. You know they’ve joined the company, there’s no documentation. They have no idea what to do. They don’t know what the issue is. So first if there’s a possibility and you’ve got time there, get your documentation up to scratch. So they actually actually know actually know what the joining or what they could be in for.
Onboarding process is key because that’s when the 1st 6 to 8 weeks, 12 weeks, six months depending on your is hand holding, making sure that you do weekly check insurance with the candidate, especially if they’re working from home. They don’t want to be sat there in a room not feeling as if they’re part of an organisation. Some people like that but majority of the time they want to feel like they’re valued and they’ve got purpose within the organisation. So refine that there are specific organisations who have mentoring programmes. I know that that’s something yourself. Sandra have looked quite a lot into when you’ve designed a mentor programme so there are resources out there out there which.

Sandra Koutzenko   25:11
Yeah, of course.

Imogen DeVille   25:25
End users can reach out to rely upon.
To teach internal staff how to correctly onboard people and how to.
Ensure that they are invested in the organisation. Another point I would say is.
Ask them what they want, you know.
It’s sounds a bit obvious, but if you’ve got somebody who wants to be the ITA operations manager in the future.
Then awesome. OK, well, that’s the job I want. Eventually I want to retire in the next 10 years, so let’s put you on a pathway there. How did I make it there? All right. And get that constant feedback from the candidate. We’ve been in a position where I’ve spoken to end users about actually altering job titles and developing positions. But to retain a strong candidate is to ensure that they think that they’re valued and cared about. You’ve got that progression for them. No glass ceiling. That’s the most frustrating thing for any candidate for the next step for me.

Sandra Koutzenko   26:20
Mm hmm.

Imogen DeVille   26:23
If he’s not going to retire or she’s not going to retire in the next five years, then why am I going to go? Well, OK, have these conversations with them to ensure that they know that your where your heads are and that you’re on their side and that it’s not them fighting against you to get that promotion or anything on those lines.

Sandra Koutzenko   26:27
Mm hmm.

Imogen DeVille   26:41
But yeah, really just ask the candidates what they want and see what you can do. Investing in them in terms of certifications, a lot of candidates we work with, you know, they want to be working with the power platform. They want to be building apps. They want to be doing that and all of that is in their full responsibilities. If that’s something that they’re passionate about.
Why not fund that and then they could be so heavily involved in different building, different processes supporting your finance team, you know creating.
A power Bi dashboard that could save your finance department three days a week that will help everybody. So if they’ve got this talent, really foster that and invest time in it because they will value that as a as a person because again, it gives them purpose. You’re respecting what they want, their boundaries and it is. It is unfortunately to a lot of people out though the customers out there, it is a candidates are in charge these days. So that’s really what you want to do.

Sandra Koutzenko   27:13
Mm.

Imogen DeVille   27:33
Also, they’ll be happier and they’ll bring them up more. Better atmosphere to the organisation if they if they feel like you’ve got the back, they’re just going to be a better employee to work with. So that was my two two cents on that one.

Sandra Koutzenko   27:46
And that makes a lot of sense because when you think about it, if you upscale your tech talent properly, everyone wins, right? You’ve got, there’s always new things happening in technology. There’s always new things for someone to learn. And if you’re especially if you’re an end user and you have a small IT team with just a few people, the more they know, the more they can actually support you to roll out your internal technology. So it’s definitely a win, win, win, win, win, just to to do this.

Imogen DeVille   27:51
Yeah.
Definitely.
Yeah.
100% because if you just a little bit money in them then it’ll in the long run it’ll save you so much of time efficiency. So although it’s an initial investment, it will save you time and money down the line, which is what everybody wants these days. You know loves a bit of automation, don’t we in the in the market.

Sandra Koutzenko   28:25
Absolutely.
So let’s talk a bit more about skills, because right now we’ve got two really big things happening in our space Microsoft technology. So if you’re a Microsoft technology end user, you’ve probably had a great deal about Co pilot recently. And there’s also power platform, which is a big thing. It’s a little well, it started a few years ago, but it’s it’s getting bigger and bigger and it’s definitely a technology that’s extremely successful.

Imogen DeVille   28:47
Thanks.
Huh.

Sandra Koutzenko   28:57
And there’s a number of companies that haven’t yet gotten into those technologies, so.
What would be, from your point of view, the skills that are going to be important as an end user to target thinking about future proofing your company because eventually most companies who want to be successful, they’re going to have to move to power platform, they’re going to have to move to copilot or equivalent solutions. So what are the skills, the tech skills that are going to be most important in the next few years when you look at what’s happening in our space right now?

Imogen DeVille   29:18
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
In terms of when you’re hiring for people who have the potential to develop these skills, I would always is that the way?
That’s the way I would look at that this question, sorry. So what the way I would approach it is I always find that candidates who have that attention to detail and everybody says this right, especially me to speak a lot of the finance professionals who are transitioning into this, all them they’ve done the AA TS or yeah, AA, Ts have started their SCCA and like oh, I don’t know if I want this, you do a lot on Excel, you realise, Oh my gosh, this is interesting. And then you want to then you start delving into power Bi and you’re like Oh my gosh, this is definitely where I want to be.

Sandra Koutzenko   29:44
Right.

Imogen DeVille   30:13
So there is a wide tech talent pool that hasn’t been recognised within finance and you know those departments, admin operations as well because these people are naturally able to spot out the tiny deed to the tiniest details and then maybe at school they just didn’t realise that we were just told. Obviously developers, developers, that’s all technology is and now there’s such a wider especially with the release of low code these things are so much more exciting. It’s not just boring. You’re not sat there.

Sandra Koutzenko   30:34
Mm.

Imogen DeVille   30:43
With a black screen, typing in Python or, you know, C# for 15 hours a day, you can be more involved and you can actually make these probably dashboards creative appealing. So you’ve you’ve got that skill set. So I say definitely look into the finance skills, attention to detail. People are organised with their work, not always prefer personally because those things don’t always tie into. So that’s what I would. I would really look for is that because it’s such a transferable skill into anything.
People that are passionate into working with innovation, and if they’re they’ve joined a company and they look at all the processes and they’re like, Oh my gosh, this is so slow, so inefficient. You want that person that is hungry to make that more.

Sandra Koutzenko   31:19
Mm.

Imogen DeVille   31:29
That process more efficient. That is also a character, so you could ask them questions in the interview process. You know what? You know, your last organisation, what business processes have you changed to make them quicker and ask these sorts of case study questions to philtre through the candidates that you think actually this is the kind of character that we want because of the local trend that we’re seeing.
You know, reskilling, always encouraging your employees to upskill because you might even have people within your own departments that have this talent. You don’t have to go externally.

Sandra Koutzenko   32:00
That’s true.

Imogen DeVille   32:03
And not also again helps to retention because you’re recognising that they set the you they have this potential like oh gosh, they’re amazing at it a couple of weeks ago, I spoke to a head of Transformation and they were.
Implementing F&O on a global scale really interesting and rather than build an external team that would leave after the project she resolved within the accounts payable team, she got the accounts receivable manager on board the finance manager.
And now she’s realised all these people are amazing. They’re working with APIs, they’re building things. That’s now. It’s integrating into the Salesforce system that they have, and they’re doing so many different things. And that’s because she knew that that finance team had that foundation piece and she could encourage them to take this passion because, I mean, I’ve got it in my own personal friendship group as well. They are good at this. And there’s such. And it’s such a transition into it.

Sandra Koutzenko   32:34
Mm hmm.

Imogen DeVille   32:58
So really look into your own divisions. What people want. You don’t always have to go externally.
Obviously, you’ll probably have to replace them, but that’s the thing you’d rather have somebody in the company who’s worked there for a couple for a couple of years. Who knows? Everybody then moves up into this sort of role. There’s a lot of the time they’ll be going around gathering the requirements and it’s easier to have a conversation with somebody that you’ve known for five years than just a stranger because you actually know how the processes are working at the minute and probably know what needs changing, updating.

Sandra Koutzenko   33:06
Yes.

Imogen DeVille   33:28
But yeah, so that’s that’s what I would say about that one.

Sandra Koutzenko   33:31
Yeah, that’s very true. And that’s something I see a lot on the training side as well. So we do quite a bit of end user up skilling and like exactly the scenario where the end users decide they want to upscale their internal talents to be able to work on a dynamics system. And that’s always very successful because first of all, they’re very exciting. It’s an opportunity, it’s something new and they get to transfer a lot of their industry knowledge and company knowledge into the way they’re going to work into the system. So it’s actually easier to train somebody on dynamics.

Imogen DeVille   33:42
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Yep.

Sandra Koutzenko   34:01
To train somebody on how your company works and on all the industry knowledge behind it. So it is, it is a brilliant strategy.

Imogen DeVille   34:04
Exactly.
Yeah.

Sandra Koutzenko   34:10
For for sure. And so it’s not like you’re saying soft skills are going to be more important than hard skills in the next years. Is that the right understanding?

Imogen DeVille   34:12
I think.
Yeah. And I have always advocated for this, especially since the skills shortage within the ecosystem. You know, when BC was upgraded, people are always struggling to find consultants and people within dynamics within power platform. But yeah, the soft skills are more E in a lot of the areas I do say to hiring managers all the time and I’ve never had somebody disagree with me in the hundreds of customers I’ve helped over the past couple of years is that you can’t teach personality, but you can teach technology.
And we’re not talking about.
Developer you know, but with AI, dare I say it, you know, is the developer role is probably going to turn into more of a product manager role or it will evolve over time. It will be something different but the soft skills is that you actually can’t teach somebody that what they’re like and how they react in a situation, whether they’re proactive or reactive or if they’re an angry person or a person who you can actually work with and that personality.

Sandra Koutzenko   35:03
Mm hmm mm.

Imogen DeVille   35:20
Is key and then you can rescale them low code AI.
These are all things that Microsoft and other organisations have designed to be relatively user friendly. Obviously there’s a lot of tweaks at the moment. The resources aren’t necessarily always out there for upskilling, but that’s why people like yourself. You know they are. You are creating programmes to train people on AI, so if you are struggling, there are opportunities. Outlook at the soft skills because I mean, I’ve been trained on Co pilot and my I’m for history and political science background. I am my I’m not technical at all. Excel used absolutely terrify me but once I went.
You know, spent a couple of hours upskilling now. I’m relatively aware, definitely not as good as a lot of people I know, but the soft skills are so much more important than the technical skills in today’s market.

Sandra Koutzenko   36:11
There’s one thing that’s actually going to become increasingly important, and its agility and the ability to learn it, because the tech is evolving so quickly now. So if you’re especially if you’re an end user, you’re going to want those people who have the hunger to go and look for what’s the latest update and how can I use those latest latest features to make my company even more effective. So that’s going to be a very valuable skill that not everybody has and that you bring you to look for as a, as a company, I would say.

Imogen DeVille   36:16
Exactly, yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, they chill the words out my mouth that that first not hunger fiddling, working, working with the latest technology, staying up to date. There’s new releases every couple of hours now like they these people have to find it so enjoyable. They just love to work with it. And that’s the character that you really need. There’s there’s ways that obviously you can philtre through and find that, but you can tell how passionate somebody is even on the teams call these days. So yeah, that’s definitely important.

Sandra Koutzenko   36:45
Mm hmm.
It’s crazy. It’s really mad.
And the other thing is creativity as well, because with AI, we’ve only just scratched the surface of how it can be used. I don’t think we really know right now what’s the full potential of this tool that we started to, even the people who’ve created it, I think probably don’t fully realise the full potential. So if you’ve got those people on your team who can come up with super creative, innovative ways of using AI in your company, that’s also going to get you quite far ahead of everybody else. So that’s an interesting thing to look for, I would think.

Imogen DeVille   37:14
Yeah.
Uh huh.
Creativity, soft skills, thinking out-of-the-box, people from different walks of life as well. Something I do on the diversity side. When I speak at conferences that I always talk about, you know, if you’ve all come from the same school, you’re all from the same village. You’re all the products that you’re creating. It’s all going to be appealing to the same person. But if you bring in people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, different genders, sexual orientations, if we have an amalgamation of different personalities, it will make the product better, more creative, more innovative.

Sandra Koutzenko   37:50
Mm hmm.

Imogen DeVille   38:02
And then they’ll be thinking, Oh well, they’ve definitely worked at a different company, but that might have a different price. This process merges that with your process. All the AI tool that you’ve created, perfect. And it just is different and that really feeds into that diversity piece. So I mean we we’ve discussed quite numerous times on that one, Sandra, haven’t we?

Sandra Koutzenko   38:21
It’s a big topic, isn’t it? It just keeps being a topic no matter how much you you talk about it, it seems.

Imogen DeVille   38:21
Mm hmm.
Definitely.

Sandra Koutzenko   38:28
Now as you know, we have a question that we ask all our guests and it’s about failure, a failure. It’s tends to be a bit of a scary topic. It’s a little bit demonised, still culturally, right. We’re all afraid to fail, especially maybe your generation, a little less. My generation grew up with this notion that failing was the worst thing you could possibly do. And that kind of creates a fear of trying things. And it creates just because, like, if you think you might fail.

Imogen DeVille   38:34
Mm hmm.
Yeah.

Sandra Koutzenko   38:59
This is worse than so you’d rather not try so that you don’t fail rather than trying and maybe succeeding. So this is something that can stop people quite a bit. And we’re trying as a company in, in this podcast to maybe get people a little bit more comfortable with the notion of potentially failing and you know, the notion that failure in some circumstances might not be so terrible. So, Imogen, can you tell us about either a reset or reset or a significant time in your life when you failed either in your personal or professional life?

Imogen DeVille   39:35
Mm hmm.

Sandra Koutzenko   39:35
How you reacted and what you learned from it.

Imogen DeVille   39:38
OK, this is a tricky one. ’cause you are right, I think everybody is fairly researched. A-Team. Nice concept.
I do think as the generations are evolving, that mentality is slowly shifting and you know what? What’s the saying? Failure. Oh, what is it? Failure to succeed or succeed or succeed into failure. I can’t remember the. There’s a beautiful saying out there which basically says that if you don’t try, you know, try and try again like you need to give it a go.

Sandra Koutzenko   40:16
That’s true.

Imogen DeVille   40:17
Even if it you know you’re nervous of wearing specific outfit, it sounds so silly, but these these certain tweaks in your life can make a big difference. And you know, I think on a personal level and lots of times I’ve I’ve failed that you could kind of merge the personal and professional. It’s quite niche and not that huge deal. But one thing I’m really struggling with professionally and personally is working from home at the moment and I don’t know whether this is something a lot of people can relate to because I think a lot of people have been fortunate enough that they get a balance between the two, but.
Staying focused whilst working from home is a big extrovert is very difficult for myself and I am finding that as a as a personal and professional feeling because I now I can’t separate the two because I’m in an environment where I’m there all the time.

Sandra Koutzenko   41:04
Right.

Imogen DeVille   41:07
So I’d say that is something I’m feeling because I don’t find myself being as productive and it’s not necessarily that I’m not being held accountable because.
You know, I I do get my work done, but it’s as if I feel that me sat at home and my lovely little office space is almost cheating because I was so used to being in an office before. I’m like, is this OK? Like, so I’ve got that almost internal feeling of failure because it’s like, am I doing my job to the best of my ability because I’m not being challenged in the environment that I’m surrounded by because I’m just alone. I’ve got a little bit of table, got a couple of friends that come and visit me every day on my birthday. But other than that and then.
I don’t know. There are so many avenues that I could delve into.

Sandra Koutzenko   41:53
I think that’s an interesting example, so I I understand that’s something that you’re still kind of going through and figuring out. But like, what’s your your attitude like? How can you how is thinking of turning this into like a positive or a lesson or something that can actually support you?

Imogen DeVille   41:58
Yeah, definitely.
I guess I need to.
Take advantage of the fact that I can work from anywhere. Do you know? Like, why is this? Is such an exciting opportunity for me? Because I’m so subconsciously programmed to be like you need to be doing this. You need to be working 7 till 7:00 every day. You need to be sat in that chair. And if you’re not on the mobile phone, if you’re not calling somebody or emailing somebody, then you’re failing. And I think I need to have a mindset change which over I mean, over time it will definitely come. And it’s it’s almost me reprogramming my brain to think differently, but I can work from home means I can go spend more time with the family elsewhere. I can go.
And stay with my friends in Spain.
Portugal, who live in these lovely houses with these amazing outside spaces. Why am I not grasping on these opportunities? So I’m still not there yet because I I think that that’s cheating. So like subconsciously there’s something telling me like you shouldn’t do that. That’s not work, Imogen. But no, it sounds so funny, doesn’t it? But maybe it’s because I’m still programmed old school, you know, night 5 Ford manufacturing style. Whereas you know the world is changing. The reason that AI when we’re having all this technology changes is because we want to be more proactive. We want to be more efficient and we want to be able to give people these opportunities.
And I still I need to get out of the millennial mindset and change more Gen Z. And I think maybe it’s because I’m born in 96. So there’s a bit of a blurred line there between the two. So I just need to, it is a mental shift I think and that’s one thing I’m struggling with at the moment, both personally and professionally.

Sandra Koutzenko   43:21
S.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Imogen DeVille   43:38
And it’s a small it’s a small thing, but it is, to me, quite a big thing at the moment.

Sandra Koutzenko   43:43
As well, I hope you find your your solution and yeah we this. It’s definitely an opportunity to find, you know, your ideal work environment because you have a lot of control actually of where you work from when you work from home. And then I went to travel last year, I think I spent over six weeks working from different countries just because I wanted to. So that’s and it’s a really cool thing to do. So I I do hope you find your your your solution to. So it’s nice that you’ve got all these ideas already.

Imogen DeVille   43:45
Me too. Thanks.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, I’m. I’m moving there, but it it does take time. I just. I’ve gotta reprogram my brain to think that me working from Spain and probably for myself, staying out of the sun because I’m so pale but still being in Spain and having access to all the amazing food and the culture and the people. You know, why am I not capitalising on this opportunity? Why am I still thinking that I’m supposed to sit in the north of England, in the rain to be successful?

Sandra Koutzenko   44:14
The as the starting point.

Imogen DeVille   44:38
I need to definitely change that I’m on the path, but we’re still not halfway there, I would say.

Sandra Koutzenko   44:44
Well, I look forward to an update when you found your like nice photos of sunny places.

Imogen DeVille   44:45
Yeah, I’ll let you know. Thank you.
Yeah, fingers crossed. I’ll send you a few updates. Maybe I’ll be on a beach somewhere in a couple of weeks here.

Sandra Koutzenko   44:56
I look forward to that.

Imogen DeVille   44:57
Yeah.

Sandra Koutzenko   44:59
So that’s our episode for today. Thank you so much, Imogen. It was a pleasure to interview you and get all those super interesting tips about talent strategy. I think we managed to cover actually quite a lot today.

Imogen DeVille   45:14
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much for having me on and obviously happy to have another conversation with with anyone or anything about this, because I do find it very important to have that open dialogue. So a lot of people don’t know what’s happening in the ecosystem. If you’re relatively new to it. So yeah, interested to to speak on it further, if you’ll have me on a couple of months again.

Sandra Koutzenko   45:29
That’s very true.
Well, thank you very much for offering that and thank you to everybody who listened. If you enjoyed this episode, please support us by following our channel.

Imogen DeVille   45:38
Perfect.