YEAR FIVE of rèlier
What a journey our first 4 years of business has been. Since launching in 2020, we’ve navigated COVID, pivoted our service offering, grown our team and worked with the best brands in Australia to create dream talent pairings. As we enter our fifth year, we asked our Director Lauren five questions about her business journey so far.
Tell us about your biggest learnings so far?
Making mistakes in business has felt very different to making mistakes as an employee. It has felt much scarier in business because when mistakes have happened, I have felt like the whole world was going to come crashing down on me… But it’s amazing how easily you can rectify and fix things if you have resilience, pick yourself up and keep going. Learning that things can be fixed with a conversation and hard work and that often you can get a better outcome the second time round has been monumental and now mistakes aren’t nearly as scary as they used to be. Everything can be fixed as long as you are operating with integrity, asking for feedback, being graceful in receiving it and pivoting to get improved results. It’s all about mindset.
Any upcoming/exciting plans for Relier as you move into year 5?
I’m working in a new capacity this year versus other years as I was on Maternity Leave up until January, so I’m looking at the business through a strategic lease rather than through a direct-to-client service sense. It’s a new perspective for me to take and a new challenge to lead the business through team leadership and creative direction rather than through actually servicing the clients. I’m looking forward to mastering this ‘new role’ in year 5! This is a really exciting challenge in itself for me as I look to empower my team to lead the recruitment channel of the business while I spend my time on marketing, mentorship, financial deliverables and market reviews.
With this new role in place, this year is all about stabilising what we do whilst not actively servicing clients myself. As a team we are working towards mastering the changes in the recruitment market and workshopping service improvement in the new recruitment market (for both clients and candidates). We’ve seen big shifts in the way clients hire and the calibre of candidate that we’re working with so we are workshopping how we can put our best foot forward for all clients and candidates to get results.
The last few years were all about innovation and growth, which was of course incredibly exciting. But year 5 is all about stabilisation, team training and achieving consistency.
What are you most proud of?
I’m proud of everything we’ve done as a team to get here. Entering year 5 feels surreal. I’ve let go of a lot of the imposter syndrome that I carried for the first few years and Rèlier itself feels very real (despite only existing in the digital world being a remote business), but it is still a surreal feeling to have made it this far. In that first year or two I remember often wondering if Rèlier could ever make me a true income, if I would ever be able to afford my first hire, if I could repeat the results I’d achieved. I still very often have thoughts around how far we can continue pushing and growing but have to remind myself of how far I’ve come and how far there is to grow!
What inspires you?
I’m inspired by change. I’ve always loved new challenges when it comes to my career. New roles, new companies, new programs, new training opportunities and so on. Agency recruitment is a perfect fit for me because there is always newness coming our way. New roles, new clients, new market happenings. Right now we are learning about how the changes in the economy impacts the way candidates job search, the way clients select candidates and we are revisiting our service standards to rise to the occasion. So I can confidently say that I’m inspired by Relier and the new challenges we face every day. It’s really the perfect career for me…
What do you love about the fashion industry?
That within the industry are so many different cultural pockets and brand types. I’m not saying it’s necessarily easy to find your people, but once you do find the companies and people you align with, it’s really very empowering and easy to be motivated to do your best work. Some pockets of the industry get a bad wrap, but I have had the opportunity to work in-house and externally for some amazing brands and with a selection of very inspiring people.
And just for fun, we took a quick trip back through memory lane to include a brand image of our branding photos from over the years ⚡️ From 2020 ➔ Now, Lauren is proud to have played a role in creating so any perfect pairings.
See you on the Job Board soon x
