Stephanie Dillon
Founder & CEO
Founder & CEO
Stephanie was a corporate recruiter for over a decade and a half before her own career break. She has interviewed over 3,000 candidates and placed hundreds of people into new positions. She uses this knowledge to support Returners, combined with her passion for enabling people to reignite their careers.
Stephanie has also run numerous training / bootcamp sessions supporting Returners with their job search and preparation for their return. She is also passionate about diversity & inclusion and runs training for Recruiters, both internal and agency side, on how to ensure hiring processes are inclusive.
I founded Inclusivity in 2015 with the intention of shining a light on hidden talent pools. As a society we have such a myopic view of what constitutes talent, and sadly as a result too many miss out on opportunities to have fulfilling careers in good organisations.
As a business we have supported Shell, Virgin Money, Nomura, CIBC, and Amazon to hire back returning talent, in addition to many smaller organisations with lesser known brand names. We enjoy working with businesses that have a true commitment to all components of diversity, not just gender.
My personal experience has been the inspiration behind setting up Inclusivity. When I was 22 my mother was made redundant from her role, aged 52. This coincided with me gaining a placement on the Michael Page graduate programme in Melbourne, Australia. I worked with her tirelessly sending out application after application, and watched as the rejection letters rolled in. This was my first exposure to ageism in the employment market, as her background was highly suitable for the roles she was applying to.
As time passed it became harder and harder as the career break became longer and longer, until eventually she gave up and never did return to her career.
This experience left a really strong impression on me. Her confidence and self-worth changed, and at that early age of 22 I knew that in my future I would establish my own business that focussed on helping people in this situation.
The vision I hope to build with Inclusivity is to build a fairer world when it comes to finding work.