Her Story
About Hannah
Hannah Chancellor has been working in recruitment since 2018. Originally from the UK, she relocated to Houston, TX, with her husband's work and sought a career in a true meritocracy where she could be competitive and financially motivated. Her work focuses on civil construction recruitment throughout the Southeast, especially in the data center market, where she partners with business owners and CEOs. In her role, she makes key decisions while working closely with the board, Director of Sales, and COO. She has driven the development of a custom tech platform to improve recruitment deliverability. Hannah values recognizing and rewarding her team's hard work. She advises trusting one's gut in decision-making and encourages young women to enter the field wholeheartedly, noting its meritocratic structure where effort at the start leads to greater ease as one advances.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Hannah
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Trust your gut. I've received thousands and thousands of pieces of advice over the years. I've read countless endless books. But truthfully, there's nothing better when you're making decisions, and obviously, if you've got the nature of the decision, and what, ultimately, what you're trying to make a decision for is for the business, and ultimately for you, then, you know, you're gonna make the right decision if you trust your gut. It's your first brain.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Do it, jump head first, take on all the advice that you can. It's not an industry where you can hide, so if you're looking for a career where you can sit behind a pillar and not get away with things, it's not the right industry, but you can make your own build your own desk from scratch. You can see the true reap the true kind of reward from the role itself. It's a true meritocracy, as I've already said, so the world's kind of your oyster in that effect, like you can grow, you can find, you can build teams, you can have your own desks. It's the only job I know where the harder that you work at the beginning, it actually gets easier as you climb the ladder.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is retention for a lot of the younger people that are coming through generations now. There's very few committed, loyal individuals that want to stick out a career. There's been a big push in terms of civil construction across the Southeast in the sort of data center market. A lot of these bigger companies are swallowing up a lot of the smaller companies. The staffing numbers in themselves, just within civil construction, were like 350,000 light, just in the southeast, and that's anticipated in 2027 to go up to over 400,000. It's a very candidate short industry.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Probably reward. I like to take care of my team and my staff. If they've been working really hard and they've done really well, it's important that they get that recognition. It's just something that I take very seriously with my staff, and they know that.
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