A career change with mental health benefits

Created by VERCIDA for DCMS

Danielle realised early in her career that a high-pressure, sales-focused role was not for her and made the move to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, which had a positive impact on her mental health.

I started my recruitment career in the private sector in a sales and business development role – and then the pandemic happened. This changed the recruitment market and challenged my personal feelings about the organisation where I was working. We were still under the same pressure to make all those sales calls and I didn’t feel comfortable in that culture anymore.

This definitely had an impact on my mental health – I found the job really stressful and the pandemic exacerbated this. The expectation that we had to try and win new business at pre-pandemic levels left me incredibly stressed. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, I was dreading going to work and I lacked motivation.

When I ended up taking some time off work for my mental health, I knew I needed to do something different in a new environment. I was experiencing low mood and anxiety, and was struggling to sleep at night. At the time, I was only 23. There had to be more to life than doing a job that was not making me happy!

Which is where DCMS came along. My recruitment experience at DCMS was incredibly positive and whilst I didn’t secure the role I initially interviewed for, the feedback was comprehensive and valuable. Soon after, I was onboarded into a different role within DCMS and I haven’t looked back. 

When I joined, I started in a Recruitment Policy Manager role. Now, I’ve been promoted to Head of Recruitment Policy and Strategy. The role is really broad but focuses on diversity and inclusion within recruitment, improving recruitment policy and processes and managing a team of people.

Mental health and wellbeing support

At DCMS, the culture is incredibly supportive and inclusive and every employee really lives and breathes the values of the organisation. They prioritise employee wellbeing and value work/life balance, which really motivates me. 

DCMS have put a lot in place to support employees with their mental health and wellbeing. For example, the Headspace app which is offered free of charge to all employees. Previously, I’d never really done any meditation, but I found the meditation programmes on the app to be so effective. When I’m feeling anxious, there are recordings I listen to and breathing exercises I work through to help in those moments.

At DCMS there is also an excellent Employee Assistance Programme – I haven’t had to use it, but many colleagues have found it to be really helpful. It provides support on a wide range of topics, such as financial wellbeing, anxiety, stress, managing your workload and navigating challenging conversations.

Employee wellbeing is a key focus in every monthly review with your line manager. We are asked how we’re feeling and if DCMS can do anything to support us. This gives people the confidence to speak up – a big change from my previous job, where I was too nervous to talk about my mental health.

Supporting DCMS candidates

As someone who works in recruitment, I play my part in helping new employees. We’re always trying to think of innovative ways to support candidates through the recruitment process. Soon, we will be publishing guidance on Civil Service job applications and interviews to hopefully relieve a lot of the anxiety for, particularly external, jobseekers.

Making reasonable adjustments is also really important and we are committed to supporting every candidate to be able to perform at their best. Currently, we are trialling an initiative of sharing interview questions in advance to try and relieve some of the anxieties associated with interviewing and enable candidates to prepare effectively.

In addition to that, there are many other adjustments we can make to help people feel more comfortable in interviews, such as sharing the questions in the chat function during video interviews, which helps ensure people don’t lose their train of thought. After all, there are very few situations at work when you will have someone constantly firing questions at you, so why does that need to be part of the interview process?

I hope to have a long career in HR within the Civil Service. At the moment, DCMS is supporting me to obtain my CIPD qualification, including setting aside time at work for me to study. DCMS is a brilliant place to work and has such a vast array of job opportunites, it has made me realise that having a job you enjoy and feel valued in can have a huge positive impact on your mental health and wellbeing.