Leading with Data: Jessica Simons Boswell on Building Functions, Teams & Careers

Sean Allen (: 00:01

Welcome to the More Than a CV podcast. I'm delighted to be joined today by Jessica Simons Boswell. Jessica is currently Enterprise Data Officer at Diligenta. Her experience spans roles from data engineering manager to head of data, working for brands such as BGL Group, The Workshop, and eServe Chartered Surveyors to name a few. Welcome, Jessica. Thank you for joining us. How are you?

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 00:23

Welcome, yes as we've kind of alluded to before but it's sort of really busy at the moment, it's still quite new even going on six months at Diligenta so non-stop building everything out from the beginning so yeah.

Sean Allen (: 00:41

Well thank you for sparing some time to chat with me today. I know it's hard to carve out time in diaries so I appreciate it and congrats on the new role or not so new role as you're here in six months. But it's a pleasure to have you with us today. I guess for any listeners that maybe don't know who you are it'd be lovely just to get a bit of background on you and your career today Jessica.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 01:05

Yeah, sure. So I've been working in data for over 20 years now. I stop at 20. I'm not telling people any more over that. But very much, I think for a lot of people who are in senior data positions like me now, we kind of fell into data in that we sort of got into other type, IT type functions. I mean, I did science stuff at university.

Sean Allen (: 01:12

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 01:33

and then kind of drifted into data by accident and stayed. we were kind of like that unwelcome guest. And very much that took me through a very long career so far, really. But it was quite a good one because I started in a telecom startup and really exciting time at the time because it was just two guys who were programmers who thought they could do better than the people who were buying the cards they wrote the firmware for.

Sean Allen (: 01:39

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 02:02

And so worked with that organization a very long time as they were transforming from using really small backend databases to big enterprise ones. And I became their SME, did loads of engineering for them, wrote loads and loads of code, developed through from being an engineer to a technical support manager. And this was in the days before we had Zoom and Teams. So your teams around the world were on the end of phones.

Sean Allen (: 02:29

Right.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 02:32

So it was a very interesting time for communication wise. But with them, we went through the whole sort of line of telecoms right through from fixed line through to bigger enterprise fixed line systems, right through to SIP communication and ended up with mobile networks. They were working on delivering to Vodafone for the MVNO platform. So quite a long varied career.

Sean Allen (: 02:54

Okay.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 03:02

and carried on in that sort of technical vein after that into technical architecture roles, solution architecture roles, which was always good fun. Sort of redesigning warehouses, ETLs, coming up with new solutions for ideas people had had. And then eventually kind of decided I needed to grow up a bit and move into that, fully into that leadership role, which sort of took me to BGL.

Sean Allen (: 03:24

Right.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 03:31

which was my sort of first engineering management position where they brought me in as very much a data SME within the group, but based initially within BGL life. So the life insurance part of the group, specifically with that sort of task of we're on premise, we want to go to the cloud, make it happen. And so quite exciting doing that and getting the business to sign in and agree to it.

They liked what I did and kind of moved me over into other parts of the business. BGL got sold off to Marker Study Insurance, but at that time I got headhunted out to a workshop. We were an online gaming gambling company. Anglo-Spanish organization, not like Betfred or 365, they actually just create the platforms and then sell them to organizations.

Sean Allen (: 04:15

Right.

Sean Allen (: 04:27

Okay.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 04:31

but really, really big data. So dealing with huge, big Hadoop estates and Kafka network. So again, a big exciting leap. Stayed with them for a year or so and then onto eServe. Now firmly in that sort of transformation space and taking them from not having any data leadership or real data structure.

taking them through that journey and a lot of transformation programs to put them on a really firm foundation because they didn't want to carry on just being the UK's biggest residential surveyor. They wanted to evolve that and produce data products and sell them back out of the business, but realized that you need good foundations to do that. So took them to that place. And now with Dilijenta, who quite a well kept secret.

We are the financially regulated wing of Tata Consultancy Services, so huge backing behind us. But we do business processing services for the life and pensions market. And currently we cover about 75 % of all the life and pensions policies business processing for the whole of the UK. So quite a huge undertaking really. And quite rightly, the FCATECH quite a

good interest in us. And again, very much because they've grown so quickly and evolved so quickly, they've got to the point now where they're like, we're not happy with how things are going on the data side. We've got loads of data, but we're not necessarily informed by it. And we'd like to offer so much more back to all of our customers and clients with insights. So.

Sean Allen (: 06:16

Okay.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 06:26

decided to kind of take that forward and brought myself into the first data officer. But very much it is building a lot of the data functionality up from the ground and pulling in other bits which do exist and putting proper structure around things and proper development release cycle type work in there as well. yeah, lots to do at the moment.

Sean Allen (: 06:52

No mean feat. It's rare I hear people in data say that they fell into data. I think as a recruiter, hear 99 % of us say we fell into recruitment. But it's interesting that your career just sort of just kind of went that way as you just kept, I guess, being intrigued by opportunities that were in the businesses you were in at the time.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 07:00

Thanks.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 07:14

Yeah, I think nowadays, now data is more evolved and it is its own thing. You've got far more roles there now and people can choose that as a direction. People see it's quite well paid as well because there is a big shortage of really talented people still in data. And so nowadays we do see people focusing on data. This is what I want to do. This is my career.

sort of 20, 30 years ago, data roles were DBAs and that was very much it. And you either were unlucky enough to be pushed in that direction or lucky enough to kind of choose it as a direction. But it was kind of very much accidental in that we had no expertise. And so, yeah, I held my hand up and I'll do this and...

I think because it's exploded as a world, it's gone from being purely on-premise solutions to the cloud. It's still expanding and it's still such an exciting place to be.

Sean Allen (: 08:22

you definitely see the demand for it and the evolution of the roles as well. But that brings us nicely on obviously you're new in or not so new probably over your honeymoon period now with Diligenta. But obviously building something from the ground up is I imagine equal parts exciting and terrifying at the same time, not just the sort of foundations of that data practice and capability and like you mentioned the processes.

that are in place, but then actually growing a team to meet the demand and align into that broader organizational strategy. So how are you finding that? Have you started to look to recruit or are you still mapping out what skills and types of roles that you'll need within your capability?

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 09:14

Yeah, I was saying the other day to people when we were interviewing them, this is either the most exciting or most scary point of evolution, depending on how you look at things. So building from that ground up, it can be a bit unnerving when you start and you're like, hey, we've already got you a project manager because you're going to need to help with doing things. other than that, you

got to grow it, you tell us what you need. so mentally that kind of shapes out initially you think, well, you've done a quick gap analysis in terms of what they have haven't got. So you've got some mental ideas, but ultimately none of that really gets any shape until you start to create your sort of like strategies.

And you've got two phases to that. You've got your immediate data strategy, which is kind of tactical wins and sort of low hanging fruit and problems that people are coming to you with. And then you've got your target data strategy, which is the vision, which you have to sell and is the bigger pieces. And it's not until you kind of get those down on paper, but those ideas begin to crystallize out then because you can see that when you start to roadmap things as well, okay, we are going to need

these resources here and there'll be some overlap there, but then we're going to need some more resources. So once you've got that strategy down and the roadmaps and more importantly, got the board to agree to that and not scared them to death with how much it's potentially going to cost them, then at that point, at least you've got a really good idea then. And then it is about, OK.

Sean Allen (: 10:49

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 11:03

talking to your internal recruiters in-house, if you're blessed enough to have those around, do these role profiles exist? Have we got to create these from the ground up? But also thinking about technology as well, because if you're in the position where you're getting to build platforms, you can very much choose the technology. And so it gives you that luxury to kind of think about where are resources?

The latest, shiniest technology is great, but you can't always find really skilled people within that. There isn't a surplus of them. So sometimes you have to look at, what platform would be relevant for what we want to do and where we want to get to? And actually what resources can we find around those? Because ultimately when execs and boards sign off on your strategy, they want to see things happen.

Sean Allen (: 12:03

Yep.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 12:04

and they want to see it happen quickly. So you don't get the luxury to grow people through the organization at that point. You've got to hit the ground running. And so there's no other way about it. You've got to bring in skilled people here and then. And so it can be a very challenging point in time, actually getting resources in who can do things and keeping everyone else happy that things are moving as well.

Yeah, we all know that most people are on 3 months notice periods now as well, so in the best will in the world you're looking at a 4 month end to end process if you're lucky.

Sean Allen (: 12:49

Yeah. Yeah. And that's if you've really streamlined your process and identifying the talent quickly, right? I guess there's a really fine balance there, isn't there, of you talking about, you know, the strategy in place of the short, the medium, the long-term building your team to be able to help deliver that. And I guess mapping out that growth of that team against that organizational long-term strategy.

But then there's that, again, that balance of maybe I do want this shiny thing and maybe that will be best for us, but that need, we need that in five years. I don't need it in one to three. So actually can I look at the tooling and the platforms I'm using in one way, what enables me to unlock the talent after you've mapped out what the talent market looks like and you can upskill them on the way then currently for that longer term.

pivot in the technology or platforms that you're using as well.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 13:42

Yeah, and it's that whole development and retaining talent is a big part of that as well. If you look at CVs for most data engineers nowadays, they're very short tenures and in the industry sort of short tenures used to be frowned upon unless you'd been a contractor. But nowadays very much within data, especially in data leadership, a sort of two year tenure.

is quite common in leadership and a lot shorter within engineering. And so you've got to look at, actually, how do we keep these people as well? And how do we utilize them to also fill our resources? So how do we make it attractive enough for them to stay, offer them the development pathways so they offer us more?

but also so they're getting more out of it as well and you give them that ability to evolve and grow within the organisation. it can be quite complex and I'm still quite, I think, quite analogue in a lot of things. So I do like to plan things out and I'm quite a pen and paper girl still. But actually, I know that...

Sean Allen (: 15:00

Nothing wrong with the pen and paper.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 15:04

sort of very much mapping things out on a time scale, overlaying your strategies onto that and your roadmaps. And then you can actually see it make sense. And quite often that's easiest way to show back to people as well to illustrate, well, we need to start recruitment process now because in four months time, we've identified that because of this overlap with the strategy.

we need these people, need these skills to come in here and things like that can be quite good to demonstrate that, to show people and they're like wow yeah no I can visualize it, I can see it, that's where we're at, that's where we need them, that's your recruitment bit end to end there, yeah she's right we need to start the process now even though it's four months away that we need someone.

Sean Allen (: 15:59

It's really interesting you say that though, because I think having, when I was working in talent acquisition, you know, I think when you get close to people like yourself that are leading a data function and capability, you know, obviously I'm never going to understand it.

a scratch of the surface of the knowledge you have, but it gets exciting when you speak to someone they can tell you what they can do with data. And I think in acquisition or recruitment, you've got some people in companies doing great things with it and a lot that are still behind. And you're trying to make that headway, but simple things like workforce planning, you know, new headcount years and using the data you've got from previous hires of that time of going to market to offer to someone actually starting.

Enables like you say for you to plan if you've got people

starting in Q3 in your head count for the year, you might know you need to kick off at the end of Q1 based on what the conditions, the data is telling you have been and notice periods, you say, process, etc. So it's nice to hear that you take that approach from a recruiter's perspective, speaking for all in-house or agency, that's just dreamy because, you know, you're not going, well, I kind of needed them yesterday and I'm now paying a contractor X amount.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 17:14

Yeah.

Sean Allen (: 17:15

a day on top. it's again the power of data, right?

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 17:21

I know. And, you know, I think the longer you're in the business as well, and the further up you go, the more you understand that it's not just your function. You know, you understand the business value, but you understand the accountability. And so it's a case of, okay, right. It would be wonderful to say, I need all these people and everyone just signed them off. No problem. But we all know that actually you, no matter what your level, you've then got to go cap in hand and say,

I need these people. This is why this is the business justification. This is what it will unlock. But also this is how much it's likely to cost us because that's got to hit a bottom line somewhere. And especially when you're growing from the start, it's very handy to be able to say this is what the next 18 to 24 months look like per quarter within the financial year. How much we're going to add.

to each of that so that people can plan ahead as well on the financial side.

Sean Allen (: 18:27

Yeah, like that you mentioned.

earlier about role profiles. And I think there's always a debate when people talk about role profiles and adverts. your advert is your shortened attention grabbing, want to get people talking to me, but you mentioned around role profiles and then skills. that something that obviously you're building a team and you having to build those out from scratch or are there some super inherent outdated ones that haven't been tinkered with for 10 years that you're having to update and base off?

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 19:00

No, with the ones we're using here, everything is brand new, which in a way is good because you can make sure that you can learn from so many mistakes you've seen previously, but also you know what things may be indirectly relevant because if you write a job description or role profile and that gets put out into the wider market, that's quite direct.

and the amount of people, just that if you look at it, sort of very black and white, it's not going to hit a lot of people and so you potentially want people to read it and see other parts of it and say well actually I've done that and you know that well actually those are cross skills which are really relevant so we might not find that direct hit.

but we can find something close to it and we know if they've got that, it's very easy for them to pick up the other bits. But it is very much, it's quite a, it can seem a thankless task sometimes writing all your role profiles when you've got a whole heap to write and then they've got to be graded internally as well. So as well as in... Yeah. So you're having to say this...

Sean Allen (: 20:20

You learn the tricks don't you? Before you need to get it up or down a grade, right? I've done that before.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 20:27

This is what I know I want, but if this goes to our reward people and they're not technical people, they will very much look at it and go, I don't know what's on our averages here. Does that sound about right? And it's sort of like, really. And so then you very much got to relook at the role. What can we add to it? What do we need to add to?

Because a lot of the time as well, we very much take for granted of what a data engineer will do. And if you're a data engineer, you expect it. So you've got to make sure that you actually highlight a lot of those really key points that other people see it will see and go, wow, that's, that's quite important, isn't it? That, that bumps it up a grade. And very often you will take that for granted. And the amount of times I've had graded profiles come back and I'm like,

I'm never going to employ anybody with that sort of grading.

Sean Allen (: 21:27

It's interesting though, because I've seen that before and we find in this sort of technology market as well, there can be quite sudden sort of shifts with certain technologies or skill sets that usually, and it's not a slight reward, because it's really, when you're doing reward for a whole organization and all the different types of roles that an organization has.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 21:36

Yeah.

Sean Allen (: 21:50

You know, you couldn't just keep refreshing every two or three months. So I always find once it's done, it's kind of already a year out of date. And if you have a sudden shift in a certain part of a market, you sort of fight in an uphill battle to contend with that, aren't you? Because you're going, I'm finding the right people. Yeah, I'm falling just short when it comes to, you know, overall package if you base salary and the other benefits.

And it's quite frustrating, isn't it? Cause then you're kind of losing out on these great people that you could be lining up to start and you end up in a conversation trying to tell, well, you know, we're not going to find the people with these skills for what we've banded it as say, but then if I'm going lower, then I'm going to have to sacrifice so much on what we've committed to deliver for the next 12, 18 months, because it will take me that time to get.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 22:15

Yeah.

Sean Allen (: 22:41

someone else close to that skill set level essentially.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 22:45

Yeah, and I've been sort of in various situations with this, where organizations who tend to be sort of maybe small or medium size, they've got a bit more flexibility quite often. And I've had sort of more senior people come to me saying, what's the average going to be? And it's sort of, I very much keep my eye on the market all the way across it to try and follow it. And it's one that, and it's banding. And then they'll come back a day later and go, yeah, that's fine.

find somebody in that range and then the larger the organisations you kind of lose that flexibility and you do like you say you've got reward people who are working across the whole organisation from sort of call handlers right through to software developers and to expect them to know every nuance of every role it's not fair on them so nowadays I very much I'm a lot more indulgent

and just say like, hey look, we've got one to grade here, I think it properly represents it, have a look about, have a look through it, then let's just put five, ten minutes in the diary and we'll talk it through, tell me what you think, if I think it's great, we get, you know, five, ten minutes back, otherwise I can talk you through it and maybe then you understand a little bit more of a nuance which I missed.

in actually penning it and so again it's kind of like an evolution of an approach but it's it is it's something which the more you get into it the further up you go the more of challenge it becomes and having to write those profiles is can be sometimes as difficult as having to work with outdated ones.

Sean Allen (: 24:37

Yeah, yeah.

It's nice building, isn't it? Because when you're building a team, can sort of make sure you're working with rewards, set the right bands early. Whereas I think when you talk about that, that's sort of smaller to mid-size might have more flex. You're in a bigger company. go, well, if we need to pay 10 grand more, then how do we look at these 50, 100, 200 people that suddenly fall behind? And it's, yeah, you can't go where's half a million, a million, you know, extra to give everyone a pay rise. So it's, it's, it's a real balancing act, isn't it? From that raw profile to reward.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 25:01

Yeah.

Sean Allen (: 25:09

alignment to make sure that you're setting yourself up with your team for success, you know, five years down the road.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 25:10

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 25:14

And I think it can be quite easy to become frustrated by it as well, because you do just see your narrow channel. It's like, these are my people. Why shouldn't you indulge me? I'm really important. Whereas like you say, you can't just hike one part up because everyone else in the business has got to get some kind of reciprocal one as well. it...

Sean Allen (: 25:27

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 25:40

It's something you have to begin to learn and understand and not get frustrated about and seeing that bigger picture.

Sean Allen (: 25:47

Yeah, I know you're very passionate about diversity and inclusion when it comes to, well, I say tech, but just workforce in general. want to pigeonhole it to tech. And you've spoken a lot through this conversation around sort of developmental opportunities and whilst you're growing your team, appreciating you're going to need certain skills in at the beginning to get those foundations down. But that obviously enables you to be more flexible.

only talked about that flexibility and the skills and background should bring in. So it'd be great just to hear more how you approach hiring with that DNI lens on. Because I know for you, it's not a tick box exercise going into a company. It's a passion of this should be woven into everything we do when it comes to hiring.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 26:38

Yeah, I think it's very much when I worked with the workshop as well, we had a really good talent acquisition team there who, and at BGL as well, a lot of things which you take for granted in terms of those diversity hiring processes, you don't realize that they're there because they've done so well.

And it starts off with things like the way adverts are written. So we know, for example, that men will apply for a role even if they think they just hit a third to a half of the criteria, whereas women won't apply for a role unless they feel they meet 100 % of the criteria which is specified in the role. And so the wording within adverts is very important in itself.

and the way things are phrased because if you phrase things quite aggressively and saying it's a really, you know, super tough time and that very much filters out the kind of people that actually would want to get and sidelines them, whether like that doesn't sound like it's for me at all. And so the language in job adverts is very much a big starting point because you want to make sure that

no matter who the person is, when they read that they think, that sounds really good and interesting. And it sounds like I could fit in and I could actually do the role. Where I think, you know, that's where a lot of specialist recruiters come in really handy because they know that hitting the exact mark is quite difficult, but they know what surrounding

things are really relevant. And so if you're looking for somebody who's going to stay the course, then somebody put it to me once, if you see someone whose favourite hobby is marathon running, and but you know, maybe they only meet about two thirds of what you need. Actually, you know that they're good at sticking to something and staying the course. And so it's about what else may be relevant there. And so

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 29:02

That whole initial language part is very important and it's not about sort of bringing in people who just for the sake of it who aren't qualified. It's about getting the best qualified person regardless of who they are, but making it attractive to them to want to come and work for you because you want everyone wants the best talent. We all do and

by not using really good diversity processes, you're actually hobbling back for yourself. You're making it more difficult as an organization because nowadays people will, especially in data, because there's so many roles out there, they will look at the company and they'll look at the, about us and people at wherever to see that, well, are they actually doing things other than buying pizza?

That's the one that everyone always goes for. But you know, are they celebrating lots of things throughout the year in terms of different religious holidays? Do they actually make the effort so that people do feel they're actually fitting in? I mean, people always say that whole, you're part of the family can be quite cringy. And some people say it's... Yeah.

Sean Allen (: 30:02

Yeah.

Sean Allen (: 30:25

Yeah, you don't stack your family do you if the numbers... your EBITDA is dropping, you know.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 30:31

Yeah, some people say it's a bit of a red flag that but actually I think that a company which makes you want to be part of what it's doing and actually invest in it is really important for myself. But also there's a lot of things out there about actually trying to bring people into STEM and tech who don't necessarily see it as a career path. And there's quite a few

good organisations now like DIGdata, Women in Tech, Women in Data, who look at actually women as a whole as a group don't necessarily have parity in headcount in tech and STEM. And it's not because they're not being given the roles, they're not seeing it as a viable career or a role for them. And a lot of that is because image in the media and

It's not made to look attractive, let's be fair. And so it's about what can we do to change that image, change that perception, but also get people at the right times in their life. So kids at school show them that this could be a career path for them. Tech isn't just about wearing a hoodie in a darkened room with loads of screens with green ink sort of going across them.

Sean Allen (: 31:34

Yeah, that's...

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 31:58

There's so many different roles and it's about saying, look, here's about all the roles are here's all the things you can do. And actually here's some exercises to show you that actually data can be exciting. So sitting down with groups of kids and say, look, here's some spreadsheets about sales. Let's work through about how, if we wanted to, we could see which ones would be the best. could do a new advertising campaign and showing people how data fits into that.

Because some quite often you speak to a lot of people who work with data, don't realize they are working with data. You know, it's sort of like it or love it. Excel is a data platform. At the end of the day.

Sean Allen (: 32:42

I love you.

I'm terrible with Excel. But I think there's a case in point when we talk about STEM sort of subjects, isn't there? think, you when I left school and quickly dropped out of sixth form, you know, there weren't a lot of options to get into sort of the technology industry unless you were going to a university. And let's be honest, most kids don't know what they want to do or what they're good at, can align to something out in the world. But you see so much more now

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 33:07

Yes.

Sean Allen (: 33:13

with the internships, the apprenticeships, entry-level ways in to careers in tech that definitely weren't there. When I was a young boy, was kind of, you know, apprenticeships for plumbers, electricians, and that sounded like too much hard work for me. So, you know, it's...

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 33:29

Yeah.

Thank

Sean Allen (: 33:33

and since you're going to recruitment and sit behind the laptop. But you know, there are more of those options out there. think there's a casing point you're making around it's education at school level of what types of jobs are out there.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 33:41

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 33:46

It is and you know it's sort of you can't just keep bringing in the highly skilled people into your organisation. It's not a scalable approach because you're just paying more and more in money and you're paying them more and more each year to stay with you as well. You know there's a real fear then that you're going to lose that talent and also you're losing that knowledge and so

once you kind of reach that sustainable point, then at that point you can start looking at, well actually how can we bring, how can we open up our pipelines to bring in talent from other directions and things like graduate programs. So even if you find a workshop we were looking at doing it with sort of computer science graduates and saying hey look we're an Anglo-Spanish company, how about in your summer holidays

you come to Spain, we will pay you to come to Spain, but work and you know we'll teach you about what we do and we'll help you with your coding because then if they're good we stay in touch actually maybe you give them a bursar ship to help them stay through and keep them join you at the end of it and so it's about hitting those people early but like you say apprenticeships there's um someone was telling me the other year that

they're actually finding a lot more of a higher grade at students looking at going into apprenticeships now than they are at university purely because they can earn money and they're not seeing that, you know, instead of saying, I'm three years at university, I'm going to be 30 grand in debt. It's like, well, actually I'm being paid and they'll support me and I'm not going to be in debt. So

Actually, apprenticeships are really a good one for organizations because they get to bring people through and help them develop. But also for those people as well, it sort of brings them in, gives them more skills, but actually gets them working. And so there's plenty of other pipelines and you've got to start looking at all of them. can't just throw another sack of money at another developer to come in. It just doesn't work.

Sean Allen (: 35:59

Yeah. Yeah, I need.

Sean Allen (: 36:11

Yeah, you sort of got a multi-pronged strategy, attraction strategy, haven't you? Of all those different avenues. I think apprenticeship levy as well, how many companies probably don't use their apprenticeship levy fully, know, giving it, you know, giving that money straight back to the government. So if it's there, you've got an opportunity to invest in your people, haven't you, at the end of the day.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 36:15

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 36:24

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 36:31

Yeah, and I think so many people don't realise about that if your organisation's paying into the levy, what a brilliant resource it is. You know, as an organisation, you've got to be willing to invest back into your people to do that, to give them the time, to give them the time out to complete it. But it's such a wonderful resource. mean, we as well, because we have a lot of call centres and

We've started, we put all our internal vacancies out to our call centres. Sometimes you know you probably won't fill them. But what we find in with a lot of the analytics ones is actually we've got a lot of data science graduates who are answering phones because that's the only job they could get. And so for certain areas, we have actually got some really skilled people, but just sitting on the end of the phone. So.

Sean Allen (: 37:15

Okay.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 37:28

You know, if you've got that kind of pool, it's great to develop from. And BGL, we were really good for that with course and staff development. would, the majority of the people you would speak to in the organization had worked their way through. So they had so much knowledge and understanding, which is great as well when somebody's working on a new project. And if everybody's been isolated from that, you can have quite a binary view of something.

but have one of your developers say, well, no, actually in the call center, when this happens, they do this. It's like, okay. So you get that actual more relevant knowledge flowing through as well.

Sean Allen (: 38:12

Yeah, I really, yeah, I really liked that. I think you, it's almost like sometimes when you're in bigger companies, you need to do like an internal road show just to showcase what you actually do and what it involves. Cause you may be sitting on some absolute gems in the business that could move in any which direction. You just not weren't aware of what opportunities were, were there. Why there conscious of time, Jessica. So I guess for our listeners, I mean, you've shared a lot there to be found. know we could talk for hours, but is there any advice?

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 38:23

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 38:32

Yes.

Sean Allen (: 38:42

or tips that you'd give to our listeners when it comes to hiring in data specifically, whether that's starting from scratch or just maybe looking at a different approach.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 38:54

Yeah, I think it is a challenging market hiring in data.

very much organizations tend to take a scatter gun approach where they sort of actually would let's cover all our bases. And so profiles within data can be quite wide spectrum, which means you might eventually find that unicorn, but you're going to have to wait maybe six months to find them and pay a lot more than you thought about. And so think very much about

actually what are the key things that you need from this person or other key skills, but also what would be relevant and structuring that actual sort of advert in terms of that saying like these are the key parts of this role would be really useful or we would like to hear from you if you have also done these things because there's always a lot to cross over.

And quite often people are super adaptable and it's not a big effort to actually say, well, you know what, if we help you and do this, they can then do that. They bring the other skills with them. so very, very much look at the roles that you need and try and find out what bits of crossover might be relevant, but also try and don't try and cover all your bases.

actually think about what you need this person for. You can upskill them, you can train them to do other things. But if you're asking for somebody who can do Java, Python, Rust, knows how to write flawless SQL, can administer a SQL server and knows about Hadoop, Snowflake and Databricks all in one advert, which to be fair, I've seen them and then they say at the bottom, I must know about data governance as well.

Sean Allen (: 40:53

You

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 40:54

you know, you're not likely to find that person or if somebody does seem to be really good and fit all of those things, they've probably not got that much understanding or knowledge where you do want it. And so rather than just trying to cover all your bases, try to be a little bit more focused. Look where this crossover, look at what else they've been doing and make sure you're putting that out there in terms of we would also like to hear from people who done this or done that.

Sean Allen (: 41:25

Perfect, I like that. And for anybody who wants to connect with you, Jessica, if they want to know more about what you've chatted about and try and find time in your busy schedule, as you build a whole new capability, or just want to connect and follow you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 41:34

Yeah.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 41:45

probably, yeah, reach out, connect on LinkedIn, as long as you're not trying to sell me something. But yeah, no, always happy to connect with people on LinkedIn. And also people who are looking for that kind of career path within data as well. Always happy to talk to people through offer a bit of advice and some help as well.

Sean Allen (: 41:50

I'll add that bit in the show notes as well.

Sean Allen (: 42:09

Nice. It's beautiful. What a way to end it. But thank you so much, Jessica. Love talking to you as always. Thank you for your time. Cheers. See you soon.

Jessica Simons-boswell (: 42:15

You're welcome. Bye.