Nicky has worked for Unlocking Potential since October 2004 and heads up the ‘Finding Talent’ activity for the organisation. Nicky is our resident people expert and is passionate about recruitment, employability, motivation and development. On a day to day basis this involves heading up the recruitment, employability and graduate development activities for the organisation’s projects. Before joining Unlocking Potential, she was working in recruitment in consultancies and within HR for a Deloitte subsidiary. Since coming to Cornwall in 2001, she also successfully ran the Cornish branch of Young Enterprise for 4½ years.

She is BPS qualified to deliver psychometric tests and profiles, enjoys coaching others and seeing people succeed in achieving their goals. Nicky and her team have secured two awards for the Unlocking Potential team; the 2015 Works Wise Award which recognised the Stand Out from the Crowd graduate employability course and in 2012, the best Newcomer award for the Jobs Board, GradCornwall from the prestigious National Online Recruitment Awards (NORA).

Nicky, tell us more about your role:

My role is really to be a jack of all trades for the team and I consider myself to be a ‘people’ specialist.  Day to day, I can be found doing anything from managing the operations team and overseeing the delivery of our recruitment service to developing and delivering close-up personal development workshops.  I am usually running various internal projects for the team, whether new system development or team logistics.  I also have responsibility for our team’s happiness and professional development to make sure we are all motivated and able to do our jobs to the best of our abilities and I am passionate about being our values champion and developing our internal culture.

What do you most enjoy about working with UP?

Our team is hugely important to me.  I want to challenge and help develop our individuals to deliver the very best service to our clients.  Our work is diverse and constantly changing, so keeping up (and making sure everyone else is kept up) with all that movement whilst maintaining our upbeat team-spirit and reputation is what makes my job interesting and challenging.

How do you stay inspired?

I think it helps that I work for a very enthusiastic boss who always amazes me with her dynamism and drive.  This sounds like I am brown nosing entirely but it’s true!  I feel privileged to work in an organisation where I have had the opportunity to support and change so many peoples’ lives over the years and to meet so many amazing business leaders and employees.  It’s great to hear back from people how they are getting on to have been part of key turning points in their lives.

What Disney character would you be?

Tigger – Tigger embraces life and others with enthusiasm and boundless energy and fun.  I like to think that I bring fun to the workplace and keep others buoyant… Seriously though, Tiggers are honest and open and have nothing to hide – I think it’s important to be up front, to the point and if you can enjoy your work (and help others enjoy theirs) then life is better for everyone!

What’s your biggest phobia?

Spiders and heights – I can’t choose between them.  But if I was stuck between a bungee jump and a spider, I couldn’t tell you which way I would go!

If you had an endless supply of food, what would it be?

This is a tough question for a foodie – but honestly, I think it would have to be curry; a nice jalfrezi or biryani or sag aloo, mmmmmm ….