Her Story
About Laura
I've been in talent acquisition and software technology for about 15 years now. After graduating college, the market was a little unwavering, so I started in a recruiter role within a staffing agency, primarily recruiting healthcare and specifically nursing. My career just grew from there - I tried my hand in sales, was successful, but realized that recruiting is really where my heart is. I decided to move in-house as a corporate recruiter, where it is much more relationship-driven and you can get more holistic experience across the business, not just with recruitment, but into the people function as well. I've done a lot outside of recruiting, including employment brand, HR operations, employee onboarding, benefits, and compensation benchmarking - really being able to span across most of the HR function, not just talent. I've focused most of my time on the go-to-market side, so I started recruiting in sales and branched out to be all of go-to-market, everything from individual contributor level all the way up to executive searches. I even branched out on my own in 2020, which was such a lovely year when I had my son. I realized that it was just very difficult to have no childcare and to be working, so I decided to go on my own, which was part-time and turned full-time. I was pretty successful, and ultimately when I needed better benefits, I went back in-house once he was a little bit older. When I was out on my own, I partnered with a former manager and friend who had a women-owned business and worked with women-owned businesses in recruitment. That was really fun. I'm still in the tech space today, in the startup world with a very lean team. My typical day involves a lot of bobbing and weaving and trying to navigate my time. I'm on the phone a lot, interviewing candidates, working with executives and hiring teams, and planning recruitment processes for roles. I run a full recruiting cycle, everything from gathering requirements, opening the role, benchmarking, all the way through to bringing folks through an interview process and offer stage, and then onboarding them at the company.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Laura
01What do you attribute your success to?
I'd say it's mostly the relationships that I've built with people and the trust that you gain working very closely with them. They're honestly relationships that I've had throughout my career - I've continued to keep in touch and foster those relationships, which actually helped me to branch out on my own, because I had that network and those relationships that I built from early on.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think things are still a little unbalanced between men and women in the workforce, especially if you are a mother. Companies will say that they're open and family first, but it's very difficult, because as a mom, you really have two jobs - you have your job that pays the bills, and then you have the job of being a parent. I feel in a lot of homes, the mother is still the default parent, so I think there is that struggle of balance. Even when you balance it well and you think you're doing it, there's always going to be that guilt that you carry, that you're still not doing enough as a mother. Not only as just a woman in general, with trying to always prove yourself to climb the corporate ladder and get ahead, I think also the challenge is there when you're a mother as well, and you pretty much have two full-time jobs.
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