Interview: Angel Kilian, Career Coach, Diversity & Inclusion Champion, Founder of Career inFocus

By Angela Tai

You have worked for noteworthy companies. How did you get into the talent management and career coaching industry? 

Throughout my career I’ve enjoyed finding the best talents for companies but I wanted to do more. I wanted to develop people once they’ve joined top companies to further develop their potential. That’s when I started partnering with the learning and development team. From there, I further developed my coaching skills to have a more holistic skillset - recruiting, training and coaching. I didn’t want to just give them the answers, I wanted to help them get to the answer themselves. How do I get people to their next roles? That’s how I really got into the world of career coaching and development. 

You were also the Learning & Development Partner at WeWork. You dedicate a portion of your time on creating a safe learning environment for learners and enabling their career growth. What has been the most rewarding aspect of this experience for you?

So much I believe! It was the aspect of coming full circle that was most rewarding. Not only was I able to find top talent, playing a role in helping to further develop their career was very fulfilling.

I also help them see what the future of an organization will be like. You can be at an organization for five years but in those five years, what can we do to fully prepare for their next role or the next level? That’s something that has been very fulfilling for me. Hiring and developing is almost like nudging your kids and letting them graduate into the whole world again. 

Your mission is to build diverse and inclusive workforces. What are some practical tips that organizations can benefit from in order to build a diverse company culture (vs just lip service)?

That’s a great question. D&I isn't something that we just talk about - the data is showing that when workplaces are diverse and inclusive, revenue goes up significantly and businesses make more money that way. But again, it starts from the top-down and it’s not something that only one person can implement. It’s more about really taking a step back and starting with the hiring process and asking, “are our interview panels diverse?” If you want to build an inclusive and diverse workplace, are you really showing that your interview panels are diverse? Those are simple things where you don’t need to set aside $10 million dollars in strategy - it’s about being aware of the people you put in your interview panels. Even before attracting these people, you have to make sure that your policies are already inclusive in a way that will help nurture these candidates who are from different backgrounds. I think it’s a continuous question and we could go on and on about it. Getting our basics right helps build that credibility for organizations and helps employees look forward to their career paths. I would say to start with a diverse hiring panel, perhaps one simple step would be implementing diversity goals and holding that accountable to bonus targets or being held accountable for how your team looks. There are two elements — accountability and responsibility — that need to be tied to someone’s KPI’s or targets, it needs to stem back to someone’s goals. That’s what we’ve been helping business with so far.

What is the most common mistake that you see in organizations that try to boost their DE&I representation?

I think even taking a step back it is important; when we speak to organizations in this region it’s a bit different. For a long time, D&I wasn’t something that was discussed here in Singapore and even as a lot of international companies have started introducing D&I to the picture, there’s still a massive gap in this part of the world. It’s something that has been discussed in the U.S. and in Europe but not in this region but now people are starting to ask the questions about what your goals are vs. what your headquarters are seeing. One big mismatch has been the gap where they’ll do something in the U.S. but they don’t have the capacity to roll it out in Asia yet. What D&I means is completely different in Asia. We’re a whole new market so we’re looking at how we translate things like Black Lives Matter into something that’s very contextualized in Asia. Traditionally, when you look at D&I in Singapore, it means women in tech but what else other than women in tech can D&I support? Companies are realising the importance of gender representation in leadership roles too. The data shows that you need an average of four women in order for one voice to be heard. So it’s constantly thinking about what you need to do to build a proper voice for women to be represented in leadership teams. I think that is one gap that we’ve seen so far. The second one is often when organizations think that in order for them to reach their diversity goals, they need more women in leadership roles but it’s a lot more than that. To get some representation of women in leadership, you need to have a balanced internally and externally talent strategy. Internally, what are you doing to develop your women in those roles? We all know that everyone has gaps - both men and women. But it’s not just your hard skills, it’s about your soft skills as well. What do you need to do to nurture both your external and internal capabilities to get more diverse women in leadership roles? If you aren’t willing to invest in supporting women in their careers, it is going to be difficult to reach those goals. There’s still a lot of conversation that we need to talk about, in terms of how we build an inclusive workplace, how can we include people with disabilities and people who look different? There is a huge opportunity to start having those conversations in Asia and we’re just getting started and I’m excited to see how this region develops!

You founded Career inFocus to empower individuals to proactively reach their professional goals. How has your own career evolved since you got into the industry? 

Oh so much! 2020 has been a year where I’ve proven to myself that I am capable of achieving  any goals I want. I think as females, we often think that we’re not good enough or we need to do more of something before we deserve a chance. But for me, 2020 has been a year where I’ve really reinvented my entire life and career. It truly goes to show that our minds are our only limiting factor. Before this year came along, I was so afraid of going after my career dreams never thought that I could reinvent myself because it’s such a topic that nobody talks about. You assume that you have to stick to one career path for the rest of your life and there’s no real exit plan if you’re not happy with where you’re at. So I think investing in myself and figuring out what was most important to me as well as creating something that I’m so passionate about has changed my entire career. It has evolved in so many ways and brought me so much benefits!

How has your work style as a career coach changed as a result of COVID? 

When I started Career inFocus, we were still traveling at that point. I started it out of an airbnb in Amsterdam when we were visiting family, and just started showing up daily from there. The pandemic has shown how adaptive and agile we all need to be. The in person interaction still trumps virtual connections. But it has also made us innovate to think about how else we can create a great experience for our clients. COVID has forced me to be creative in designing coaching conversations for Career inFocus. Things like, how can I show appreciation for my clients or what are little acts of kindness that I can do everyday? I really had to think on how else I could differentiate myself other than simply doing virtual sessions through zoom.

What steps can every manager take to eliminate bias from their respective hiring processes?

I’m not sure whether this is a common practice in the U.S. but a lot of companies in this part of the world don’t focus on unconscious bias training, it’s not something many are even aware of. Data has shown that people tend to hire people who look like them; when we can naturally identify with others, we gravitate towards those who look like us or who we can connect with.  Teams can start with simple steps to eliminate these biases by ensuring that there is a diverse interview and to hold interviewers accountable. Being aware of their biases and ensuring we back it up with the right actions to ensure fairness are great ways every manager and business can start with to build diverse and inclusive teams. I’ve also seen companies introducing blind resumes to the business. Taking out names and pictures of resumes that are being represented to hiring managers themselves to ensure that someone isn’t shortlisted based on their name, school or picture. It’s definitely a learning process but I think being aware of the smaller bits do help. 

Have you faced resistance when trying to champion or implement these bias training tools or trying to reinforce awareness? 

I think in terms of unconscious bias, because it’s a conversation that has only become more common recently, lots of people feel that they don’t need to have any training. In reality, there’s something that we’re all unconsciously biased towards. I think having that conversation in a tactful way is very important, one of the resistances is finding that people may claim that they’re not biased so you definitely have to be tactful around that conversation. Coming to the table with the data and numbers to be able to explain why businesses have benefited from this has been very beneficial.

Your Instagram page is incredibly helpful to job seekers (everything from decoding interview questions, turning job rejections into offers, salary negotiation, etc.). How did you navigate the challenges of building your own personal brand? 

To be honest, it’s something that I had to learn from scratch because I didn’t come from a design or marketing background. It was about investing in myself and learning from people who specialize in personal branding, I had to think about what I wanted to be known for. At the same time, who am I as a person? I am the brand in a lot of the sense and it’s about putting a plan together on showing up everyday to add value and build trust and credibility. I have to give a little insight into my background and how I live my life. It was a mix of planning, doing what I really wanted to do, and showing my audience what I stand for and backing it up. 

These unprecedented times have been very challenging for many people. On the other hand, you’ve helped your clients land roles at reputable companies such as Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Oracle in the midst of the pandemic. How can people maintain an optimistic mindset (or shift to a more positive mindset) during their job search? 

Mindset is almost the deciding factor! The difference between people who have landed roles or who have not landed roles don’t always come down to their skillsets. It’s often what they believe is true for them. When you operate in the mindset of, nobody’s going to pick me or I’m not going to get what I want and the energy they turn up with everyday is going to be just that. That makes all the difference in your job search - what you truly believe will come true for you in the end. Yes, there’s going to be hard and shit days. There will be days where you won’t really know what you’re doing. Mindset is the fundamental thing of everything that you do and that has been the main differentiating factor from people landing roles at companies like Apple and Oracle within a couple of months versus people who haven’t had much luck. The job search process has changed so much and it’s normal to be scared or nervous but nothing is going to truly happen until we believe that we’re deserving and go after it. We always have a choice - we can either process the emotions and remain stagnant or I can process all of the emotions and take action. The ones who have taken action are the ones that are able to move forward. 

One of your Instagram posts in particular stood out to us. You stated that “a career change does not equate to a massive reset button” and you go on to talk about your own career pivot. What are some ways to cope with job transition and career change? 

I like that, I think especially in our 30’s and stuff we see a huge influx of candidates coming through. There are so many of them who say, “there surely has to be more to life than this job.” Nobody teaches you how to pivot and move and stuff;  think people often get to that stage where they need a transition and are unsure of how to get there. We can start by focusing on a job title and an industry. Often, you are focusing on something external in the transition versus something more internal. It’s important to focus on your strengths and look at the problems that you might be solving. It’s all about that transition - what are your strengths and passions versus the external title that the world sees. I think even before any transition, look at what is important to you and what kind of transition you want to make. Ask yourself why you’re transitioning and what do you want to get out of that transition? If you don’t figure out what is truly important to you before you make the move, you could find yourself on a hamster wheel where you make the move but you’re struggling again. Doing that groundwork before doing that pivot has more benefits in the long run as well. 

What do you love most about being an entrepreneur? Is there anything (if at all) that you miss about working for a company?

That is so funny I was just talking to my best friends about that today as well. Here’s what I miss most about working for a company: sometimes you have really bad days and you go into work and things feel much better because you have lots of people around you and bounce energy off of one another. As an entrepreneur, it can be quite a lonely journey so I have to figure out another way to seek out that community element. I love the flexibility and being able to try new things; I can create revenue in so many different ways. One day, I might want to try something else and the magic of it is that I can hire different people and can always help create something that is truly mine that way. 

If you had to describe this year in an adjective, what would it be and why?

The first thing that comes to mind is an absolute rollercoaster. I think there have been super high highs and lows that have been very low but at the end of the day, the rollercoaster still becomes stable as much as we go up and down. I think we can look back and see everything we’ve gained so much more than we’ve lost since COVID happened. It shows how agility and being adaptable is such a big core element of all of our lives. When it comes, it comes and you just have to be ready to adapt.