ADLIB Life – The One About Tegan

Tegan joined us 9 months ago. Before that she earned a 1^st class Business and Team Entrepreneurship degree and had a couple of years recruitment experience under her belt. Since joining us, Tegan smashed it. She was quick to get her first placements in and has consistently billed, placing at least one candidate a month in her first 6 months in the role. Great hire!

From the start, Tegan had been great with candidates, but hadn’t done as much on the client and business development side of things. She quickly immersed herself into her market and built up further knowledge in the insight & analytics space and showed real credibility with her candidates. She gelled with the team straight away and is now a really valued member of the business.

Tegan heard about us via a friend who knew that she was over KPIs in recruitment and that she wanted to work within a purpose-driven business, surrounded by like-minded people with shared values. She had some great chats with Tim and decided to give ADLIB a shot. Thank you Tim, we are truly grateful!

Here, Tegan shares her experience, in particular, what her first 6 months with us have been like, what she thinks makes ADLIB who we are and what matters to her.

“I was looking for a new career opportunity when a friend recommended that I look into ADLIB as they felt like this is the place for me, the way that they described the environment and the people sounded very much like a place and mission I wanted to be a part of.”

When I joined ADLIB, I had been in recruitment for 2 years, but my personal experience in the working environment previously was not necessarily the sort of environment I wanted to be in, and I think I blamed recruitment for it more so than the company or the environment or the ethos or whatever it may be.

I actually thought recruitment was just not for me anymore. I wanted something different and wasn’t convinced that I could find the right environment within the recruitment industry. I questioned what it would looked like or if it even existed. I think I blamed the reputation of recruitment so I didn’t want to consider another recruitment company until I heard, and I learned that it could be different, and I went down the route of “what’s the harm” of at least speaking to Steve or speaking to Alex.

My first chat with Alex was surprisingly informal and it made me think that these people aren’t people that I think of as “typical recruiters”, so the company must not be a typical recruitment company as they’re just friendly people and they’re nice. It’s not a place of dog eat dog, they big each other up with the attitude of “this is what we can do for you”. The culture is so fostered in the people and how they live and what they believe in and what they want to do.

It’s just different.
I don’t think there’s a single person that I wouldn’t stop and talk to or have a chat with or go on a lunch with, that’s in the office and beyond that, when we meet coincidentally on the streets of Bristol or Brighton or somewhere else in the UK (some of the team work entirely from remote). There’s not an odd one out. Everybody fits, yet we’re all unique, with different ideas and views on everything.

Everyone has that mentality and attitude of wanting to do something extra, something that matters, and to go that extra mile, so it’s a great thing to be a part of.

One thing about ADLIB is all the meetups that we do and initiatives purpose that we have created and are owning as a collective. It’s not only interesting to hear the specialists talk but it’s inspirational to see so many of the team here at ADLIB getting involved in a range of good causes. It makes me want to get involved too and to do more.

Since I’ve started at ADLIB I’ve started donating more and giving clothes away to charities and being more conscious of my buying habits. I didn’t necessarily not do it before, but I just didn’t do as much and I didn’t do it as consciously as I am now, which is a product of being around colleagues and in the ALDIB environment.”

I’m excited most about my personal progression here, which I feel has really been considered and made clear and tailored to what I want to achieve, and that’s being considered when my progression plan is being put into place and it’s actively talked about.

It’s not just something that when I join, they say, ok, ‘this is what your promotion is going to look like’. I can sit down on a quarterly basis or a monthly basis, or I can just call my boss and say, can we have a chat about. Progression is actively talked about and enabled, it’s not ignored until I next address it.

It’s great to know there’s a clear plan and knowing what I need to do to get a promotion and that the guidelines or goal posts won’t change. It’s the level of security around it and I can see that I’m doing it and I know that I’ll be rewarded for.

Here, no matter who you are, no matter if you’re a recruiter or you’re in marketing or your HR, there’s not an inner circle that you feel like you’re constantly trying to get into, it’s just ADLIB, and you’re part of it. For that, it doesn’t matter if you’re working from home or you’re in the office.

Everybody is also free and encouraged to be part of other projects such as the employee Council, events/meetups and partnerships with different companies. Everybody has a voice, especially with things like the EOT and us being a B Corp, we’re obviously so different in those ways.

We’re all working towards the same goal whilst not losing our personal goals either, they’re part of what makes the company unique.”

Thank you Tegan for sharing!

Tegan is ambitious and wants to progress into managing a team down the line here at ADLIB. We want to hire another person to work alongside her in her market who she can help mentor and develop and when she’s ready move into management. Alex her manager is committed to helping her achieve this goal and is looking forward to helping her and watching her fly!

Tegan Fenn is an Insight & Analytics recruiter who brings together all manner of data, insight & digital analytics professionals with blue chip organisations, data-driven businesses, through to start-ups and high growth scale-ups across the South West, M4 Corridor and London.

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