What our talent researcher does: meet Joshua Turner
Anthony Haynes writes: As we announced in our previous post, we recently appointed Joshua Turner to the post of Researcher. Here's an interview designed to introduce both Josh and his role.
A: Your job title is Researcher. What exactly is the function of your role?
J: I source candidates to fill vacancies in specialist and senior roles. Our clients are membership organisations, awarding bodies, and education providers.
Our aim is to make sure we find the “jigsaw piece” (a phrase stolen from our MD, Fiona Wilson) that fits the client’s needs perfectly.
A: What does your work look like in practice?
J: The role is split into two.
Admin makes up 25% of the role and is shared with other members of the team. These tasks keep FJWilson running smoothly and help us all keep track of clients and candidates.
The major part of the role consists of doing actual research. A lot of the research I’m doing currently is reading into clients themselves, understanding their mission and values, something that will undoubtedly help me when searching for the right person for the job!
A: What kinds of activity do you do during the working day?
J: I ask lots of questions! Understanding job descriptions, roles, and even the companies themselves, especially as someone who is taking their first steps into the recruitment world, is a daunting task.
Fiona and the whole team have been very good at encouraging me to ‘ask away’. It’s helped me massively in terms of confidence and the openness of the team makes it easy to ask the silliest of questions.
A: What are the satisfactions of the role? What gives you the biggest buzz?
J: At the moment I’m enjoying the learning process most.
I can already see the progress I have made. Yesterday and today, I managed to find some great candidates for a vacancy we’ve been working on; it felt good finally being able to contribute to the team.
A: What skills do you find yourself deploying most?
J: I find myself analysing everything. Reading and re-reading job descriptions, breaking them down, and trying to understand what’s important. From my short time so far at FJWilson I have begun to understand job descriptions don’t tell you everything.
Sourcing information on the clients themselves, either through screenings or researching their website, helps the research team tune into the clients’ true wants and needs.
A: What about Josh outside FJWTS? What would you like to tell us about what you like doing out of work?
J: I live in Rochdale, a small town in Greater Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by farms and moorland which gives me loads of space to walk my two whippets.
My girlfriend Rachel and I are currently looking to move somewhere a little more exciting though.
Outside of work I spend most of my time talking about going on a run and then never really running. I have also been known to play tennis, very badly!
I also enjoy being creative, making collages, digital art, writing short stories, and so on.