Empowering Female TA Leaders | @ErinMcPeterson on The #SocialRecruiting Show

Women getting out of their own way | Empowering

This week’s guest “actually intended to be a recruiter”. This makes her a unicorn amongst talent acquisition and recruitment peers!. With this in mind, and acknowledging her wealth of experience as a Director of TA and HR professional. Who better to join us on the show to talk about empowering female talent acquisition leaders other than the super-engaging Erin Peterson.

We open the show, framing the conversation and Erin says, “it has more to do with how women, in many cases I think, underestimate themselves and their own capabilities.Even more than men underestimate them.So we have a tendency to get in our own way”.

She goes on to say, “this is not a men versus women thing – at least not from my perspective”. “In some cases, especially young female leaders, don’t really know themselves very well. They may or may not have been encouraged when it comes to ambition”.

Advocating for yourself

Erin goes on to talk about the female leaders taking the lead and how that could be challenging. She says, “all of it comes from my confidence in my ability to show up well, comfort with ambiguity and risk tolerance. A lot of those tend to come more naturally for men”.

More importantly, beyond the context of applying for a job, Erin talks about the internal dynamics of a working environment for women leaders and she offers the following opinion. “More to the point – and beyond applying for a job – how am I mentored, how am I sponsored”.

Offering advice to fellow female leaders, Erin says, “have a plan for your career, knowing what you want and then marshalling that comfort with ambiguity and risk tolerance – especially some women need help getting over that  – find a mentor, find a counsellor and get out of your own way”.

If that wasn’t enough, below you’ll see or hear Erin talk about: 

• Setting yourself up for success
• What is the ‘ambition gap’?
• Don’t quit before you quit
• Is ambition perceived differently in men and women? 
• Generational differences in the leadership space 
• Mentoring as a means to empower  

Thank you to our fabulous sponsor EnterpriseAlumni