Meet Ellison Bloomfield. Writer. Consultant. Predator. Aside from her uncanny resemblance to the red-haired character Hawkgirl, one of the few seriously hard-hitting female comic book superheros, Ellison is a unique story in the history of job search in Australia.
As a young professional, she successfully used social media to hunt down and capture her dream job in leadership development at Deloitte, a gutsy feat which landed her a meeting with the company's CEO.
You're probably thinking, "Great garrisons of the Roman Legion, how did she do that?!"
To explain, we must begin with the hunt. To begin the hunt, we must wind our clocks all the way back to a primitive, pre-iPad 2 era: two-thousand-and-ten.
At the time, Ellison was a Melbourne-based 24-year-old who was doing what was all the rage for young 20-somethings working in the corporate jungle: suffering.
Unhappily employed in administrative HR, she began to wonder what kind of life she might lead, the type of work she would really like to be doing . . . and spent some time perched on a rock gazing out at the horizon. Just, you know, thinking.
In her delirium, Ellison decided to start a blog called Humane Resource in early 2010 to share thoughts about HR, business, and life in general. She wrote about the things she wanted most in an employer — the values, the mission, the culture, her ideal role — the whole shemozzle.
A shortlist of companies was drawn up that best matched her core values. Deloitte topped the list. The company had a reputation as one of the world's leading professional services organisations. It was an ambitious target.
Now this part is the hunt, the interesting part, so pay attention. Ellison used Twitter and Google Adwords to do something that was practically unheard-of for a young university student. She publicly advertised herself to Deloitte, followed-up by a running commentary on her blog.
Going to such lengths to work for a company caught the attention of the recruitment industry, including a blogger called Justin Hillier. He wrote a post called "Deloitte, I think someone really wants to work for you!" … which was, incidentally, read by Pete Williams … the head of Deloitte Digital … who then arranged to contact Ellison.
She would have to see through many long months, interviews, emails — a job offer that wasn't right — more emails, a return to her perch on the rock, and a commitment to her dream that would be seriously tested, but eventually Ellison was offered a position as Leadership Development Consultant with Deloitte Digital (her dream job).
Horay!
Not long after, she would catch the eye of the CEO of Deloitte Australia, Giam Swiegers, whom she would be invited to meet with. But that story, and more, is better described on Ellison's blog.
Here is a presentation that Ellison used to promote herself via an interactive presentation software called Prezi (like PowerPoint, but way more trippy).