The Moment | Emily Steger
We are so excited to start this year by launching a brand new interview series: The Moment. We believe that life is a collection of Moments. Some ever so big, some fleeting, some small. It is in these Moments and the choices we make within them, that shape the people we become and what our lives will stand for.
We are reaching out to the most interesting, inspiring & successful leaders around the world to ask them about their Moments. In the spirit of our number one value, collaboration, our goal with this series is for you to experience development and enrichment from today's most inspirational leaders.
Emily Steger’s sheer drive and determination has resulted in her rise to the top of the Talent Acquisition industry. Residing in New York City Emily is leading a team of 4 Recruiters that source and select the best talent globally for one of our favourite iconic brands, Club Monaco.
Emily, tells us about The Moment....
...You realized you had a great teacher or leader
"I feel like I have a great mentor and leader when they expose me to everything in their day to day and they bring me in to their meetings and important things they’re doing throughout their day. This doesn’t just happen though. You have to earn their trust. Working with a senior level leader, you get the most from observing and listening to them. In turn, as a mentor I make sure to invest in people and their exposure to the business."
...You knew you were finally on the right path in your career
"When I started to interview for my next role, I knew I would be in this career for the rest of my life when I could genuinely answer the questions. What I mean is my experience is completely transferable, I can bring my skills, ideas and thoughts to the interview with ease and communicate what works for me and what motivates me. You get to this point in your career when you can really answer from your past experience and you can hear about challenges the current company may be facing and you know what you can bring to the table and really bring to life the function. That’s how I knew I was on the right path."
...You failed hard
"In a previous role, I wrote a really defensive email back to a client about needing candidate feedback. It was a frustrating situation and I had to keep telling the candidate to be patient and was getting nowhere. I wrote an email to the client (its funny I recently came across the email because I had it printed out and kept it). At the time I didn’t think I was being aggressive and thought I was representing the client. My boss jumped into the email right away (she was cc’d) and was extremely upset. “You have to remember these people are paying us, they are still the client”. That moment has really stuck with me, obviously since I had it printed out. Remembering who the audience is and actually coming in-house made me realize what is going on in-house, you don’t know the internal situation that is happening. Knowing your audience and taking a moment to realize that they could be going through things that you may have no idea about."
...You couldn’t sleep because that thought was going through your head
"Waiting to close a search! The amount of times I have gone to bed really hoping they send that signed offer letter. I am really personally invested in my work, probably an opportunity to not feel as personal about it. Even if it’s the right person for the right role at the end of the day you never know."
...You wake. And the ritual you have to start your day
"I am not a morning person, I wish I could say I wake up and make a green smoothie and do yoga. In reality I hit snooze 5 times, I am a night owl. I do my workout in the evening, come home and eat dinner and sometimes long back on to do email. You know being in this world your email can get backed up from internals and externals. Really my morning ritual is coffee. Me time is in the evening. I can do one day a week where I get up and do a class but will never do it 5 days a week."
...You made your best hire
"Coming in house is such a different feel. From agency you don’t get to see how they do and how they flourish and just the ins and outs of how the business functions. Honestly some of my best hires are referrals. I would love to say I headhunted my best hire but really listening to your network is key, even when you find someone on LinkedIn see who you have in common and try and get connected directly. I love a great referral, start a search with who you know and its how you’ll make your best hires."
...You felt the most successful
"A couple of great hires come to mind, I’m not going to lie but also promoting my team members. Being able to promote someone is so exciting. I have seen assistants when I was at agency that have grown into a director role, and just knowing I had some kind of influence on their development is amazing. Just love that feeling."
...You received feedback that was hard to hear but worth listening to
"Actually this year, from my direct boss and cross functional partners I had been given feedback on being aware of my personality traits and how they are being perceived. Let’s use for example coming across as arrogant, to me that is being confident. You really need to understand your audience and who you are talking to and how you are being perceived. It’s important to take a step back, even before I walk into a store, they know who I am and I am aware of how they are going to perceive me. I think feedback in general, people need to be so open to it. That’s how you are going to grow and develop. If you are fortunate enough to have a brave leader that can tell you honest feedback, that’s the best thing that can happen to you."
...You chose to walk away from someone or something
"Taking the risk of moving to the next challenge in my career comes to mind. My poor parents, there were a lot of pro and con lists – I am a big relationship person so it took a lot of thought. Walking away from people and taking on a new opportunity, it was the relationships that would be effected that made me pause - I had to do it the right way."
...Bit off more than you could chew
"I’m someone who is like “give me more and give me more!” It’s been interesting taking on the retail piece in my role, it’s very new to me. Not that it’s more
then I can handle but more how do I balance such different search work. How do I partner with the head of retail and what do they want out of talent acquisition. Retail doesn’t come as natural to me but it’s also important in your career to know your strengths so if you walk into a role again with that scope you know how you are you going to handle it and be successful."
...Saw yourself & your true potential
"When I first came to my role and the req count was insanely high I was scared, I didn't even know what technical design was coming from executive search. When I started filling roles (keep in mind the CEO would meet with every single hire) and building a relationship with the COO, that’s when I knew everything was going to be fine and this was the right decision. It was exciting and motivating. The first 6-12 months is about building those strong relationships and trust."
...You understood what you would have told yourself 10 years ago
"With our millennial population and people having a negative connotation of the millennials it’s really seeing the bigger picture in your career. As hard as it is to think ahead, you need to. Where do you want to be in 5 years? Very few people can answer that and I mostly save that question for executives but the millennial population needs to think about this way more. It’s so important and I don’t think I would have been as jumpy in my career at the beginning because of it. Thinking of the bigger picture on a daily basis is what I would have told myself 10 years ago."
