We catch up with ISE Fellow Rebecca Fielding, Founder and Managing Director, Gradconsult 

We caught up with Rebecca to find out about how she has been supporting ISE in her role as an ISE Fellow.

Q: What is your role as an ISE Fellow?

RF: “Generally my role is to be an advocate and supporter of the ISE, the board and its members. I act as a brand ambassador for the ISE in the UK and beyond, speaking at multiple national and international conferences such as NACE, SAGEA, IHRE and CIPD and helping with media opportunities.

“I also support our strategic influencing and engagement agenda with senior and experienced managers/directors within HR and higher education. Internally, I help to drive, diversify and shape the membership strategy and offer to ensure the continued commercial success of the ISE.

“Spotting political opportunities for the ISE to shape future educational and employment policy and ensuring we proactively shape policy on behalf of members, rather than simply reactively responding, is also part of my remit.”

Q: How long have you been involved with the ISE? 

RF: “I’ve been involved in the ISE since 2002. I’ve sat on task groups, run committees, planned conferences, judged awards, written articles, hosted webinars, held a Board position and so much more.

“The ISE has been a huge part of my professional development and life for the last 20 years. To have this contribution recognised in a Fellowship nomination felt incredibly moving and also enables me to continue my long-standing contribution to the Institute and its members.”

Q: What have you been doing to support ISE? 

RF: “Well I like to think I answer the call whenever the ISE team or Board need me! So I’ve been involved in lots of different things since becoming a Fellow. Just some recent examples include popping up on the ISE Whatsapp groups signposting research, answering questions or offering advice, and supplying content for the ISE Complete Guide to Student Recruitment and Development.  

“I help shape the content and themes for conferences and you’ll also find me at lots of ISE webinars and events, as well as sharing content across my socials. I think one of my most important roles as Fellow is to actively support ISE and our members and ‘show up’.”

Q: What has been your biggest achievement as an ISE Fellow? 

RF: “Definitely my role welcoming and training well over 100 new professionals to the sector! “I’ve been actively involved in the professional learning content for ISE for a long time. I’ve delivered the ever popular introduction to our sector – the one-day Graduate Recruitment 101 workshop (in it’s various guises) since 2015. I particularly enjoy designing and delivering this programme and welcoming new members to our profession. It’s such a joy and we know makes a positive impact to learning and delivery in role.”

Q: What are you working on at the moment with ISE and what’s in the pipeline? 

RF: “I’m currently supporting the ED&I conference and a number of our members who work in the European (especially German) markets to build insight and community.”

Q: What is your biggest ambition for the ISE and its future? 

RF: “A lot of my work in the early careers/future talent space has been to champion unsung and undervalued voices within our community. This includes diversifying our available early careers pipelines to include over-looked talent pools and creating more opportunities and partnering with our brilliant colleagues across university careers and employability services – shifting the conversation from transactional events with the heavily targeted top 30.

“It also involves championing the opportunities created by less well known brands/graduate careers, mid-small sized employers and those smaller teams who do incredible work with less budget and resource.

“My biggest ambition for ISE is that we continue to make it a broad and inclusive community that values, supports, welcomes, represents and recognises all those involved in the future talent sphere.” 

Last few words…

RF: “I can’t convey how much my involvement in ISE has meant to me over the years. It really is a very special sector and professional body to be part of.

“I would love to see more people choosing early careers as a long-term career option – it’s an enormous area of growth for many organisations and our expertise has never been more in demand. As long as I continue my career in this sector I am committed to giving back and investing in our next generation of leaders.

“On a final note, I genuinely believe our sector has an enormous role to play in social change. We have a huge impact on the lives of tens of thousands of people every year. Our scope for positive impact in both the short and long term is enormous.

If I can encourage you to do anything it is to step into that role with positivity, confidence and bravery – be an agent for positive social change! And know there is an army of seasoned professionals behind you, whose shoulders you can stand on and will be there to lift you up through this wonderful community.”

ISE is currently recruiting for more Board directors. We would love to hear from members, please read our recruitment page for more information.

Read more about the careers of our fellows and members