Isabel Ceniza

I attribute a lot of my success to the people that I work with. I wouldn't be anywhere without having people take a chance on me and trusting me with their careers, trusting me with building their teams. A lot of this business can be transactional, but what makes it rewarding is the relationships built from it, which turn into business relationships that turn into friendships, that turn into human being colleagues. A lot of where I've seen momentum in my career has been where people come back to me and want to continue working with me, and even if it didn't work out the first time, or even if we didn't find success, we can still remember each other's favorite things, and that just feels meaningful.

The best career advice I've received is to just believe in yourself, don't get in your own way, and trust yourself. Don't give up. Someone once told me 'impress me' and 'get out of your own way,' and I made that choice to myself that whatever decisions I make in my life, I have to stick with it and see it through. No matter what happens, I have to do the best job that I can. It could work out, it could not work out, but if anything, I want to leave this place to say she gave it all and she tried her best, even though she sucked. And I did suck for a long time, but I really did try to impress the people around me. I have a lot of reminders in my phone of 'don't give up,' especially during those times where I wasn't making money and was really bumming it, and then COVID hit.

Don't doubt yourself, which is so much easier said than done. You're meant to be where you are, you're meant to try things out and build skills, and don't doubt yourself. There's a lot of doubting yourself in this industry, a lot of thinking you're spending time doing something where you should be doing something else, a lot of time can be spent where it's time wasted, you're building the wrong connections, you're not finding the right talent, but I would just say don't doubt yourself. After managing a team for three years, the women that I managed always doubted themselves, and the men never did. The men that I hired never doubted themselves. I respect that they're very strong-willed and they always knew what they think is right until you offer different perspectives. For anyone who's going to join recruiting or sales or anything, just don't doubt yourself.

I think some of the biggest challenges within recruiting are making sure that you're differentiating yourself from the rest. This field can be pretty saturated, but what matters is that the people that you work with know that you're a human and know that you're there to advocate for them and they're in your corner. The rise of AI makes it very difficult as well. I don't believe that AI is going to take my job, because for anyone trying to find a job, you still want to have that unbiased middleman broker that's going to help advise you and give you suggestions and advice throughout the interview process and help you negotiate the best type of offer. On the client side, AI won't know what they ate for breakfast yesterday and what their dog's name is and all of that. Your network is your net worth, and remembering whoever you help out and who you have in your corner, it's always going to come back to you.

Making sure things are equitable is very important to me. Externally, I believe that everyone should have a shot at success and finding something that makes them really happy. On the other hand, internally, I want to be given or try and get every opportunity that I can. Advocacy is another value that's really important, whether that's advocating for myself, advocating for my clients, advocating for my candidates to get where we want to go and where we believe we should be. Both of those can lead to a seat at the table, and I think it starts with building those types of skills and recognizing that that's something that is intrinsic to me, and I want to make sure that I do that for others.