I have always had a great sense of adventure and for as long as I can remember, I wanted to live overseas and experience something, well, just different. I think it probably came from growing up in a small town in the South East of England where you can’t even pop to the shops for a pint of milk without bumping into 3 friends, your old primary school teacher and the Dr who has known you and your Dad since you were both in nappies (at different times of course!). There is a comfort in the familiar of course but I couldn’t wait to see what else was out there in the big wide world and start a new adventure.
After seeing an advert inviting me to ‘Come to Australia!’ in one of the free newspapers (yes I am THAT old!) on the tube in London one dreary Tuesday evening on my way home from work, I thought, well here is my chance and swiftly applied for a role in Sydney as a Recruitment Consultant. The rest, as they say is history and 15 years later I’m still here, albeit with a brief stint back in Blightly to see if I was ready to return ‘home’ it turns out I wasn’t.
When I arrived in 2007, I was surprised by how different the working culture in Australia felt compared to the UK, and London in particular; why was everyone going out for coffee every 5 seconds and where were all the pre-made sandwich meal deals I was used to for lunch (I still miss you Pret!). Above all though, I was struck by how far behind Australia seemed to be in the diversity and inclusion stakes. I remember clearly one day at work speaking with a client looking for an HR Coordinator and when taking the brief they said ‘I don’t want anyone with an accent’. I was shocked, I had never come across that request before. Discussing this with a colleague I was soon to discover that this was quite usual and many clients made the same request. What had I gotten myself into?! Another common barrier I faced with getting candidates over the line was if they didn’t have ‘local experience’, again, something that I had never come across in the UK. Surely this was just very loosely veiled discrimination? Why was this being tolerated, or worse, accepted as the norm?
15 years later and it seems that these same barriers still exist. Recently, I’ve supported some very talented professionals who are in Australia on Humanitarian visas and that all too familiar common barrier to gain employment in their field has been their lack of ‘local experience’. This is the cause of much confusion and frustration for how can you gain local experience if no one will allow you the opportunity? It’s not for want of trying or the motivation to work, these are people who have the capability, skills and experience to do an amazing job but they’re being overlooked day after day.
The most baffling thing about this situation is that I hear so many employers talk about how important diversity and inclusion are in their workplaces and sometimes even allocating large budgets to DE&I strategies each year, and yet they fall down at the first hurdle by simply rejecting someone on the basis of their lack of local experience.
If employers instead focus on the ability of the candidate to adapt to new situations, their commitment to continuous learning and improvement, their willingness to adopt a growth mindset, their values, then perhaps we would see a significant shift. More diversity in the workplace, more opportunities for those who have felt excluded in the past, more inclusion in general.
So next time you are reviewing a CV or an application I urge you to think beyond the place that person has gained their experience and instead ask yourself how that diverse experience could add value to your team and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.