Limerick Business Leader: ‘Make most of every moment and seize every opportunity’
Businesswoman Karen O’Reilly, founded the unique recruitment agency Employmum – after an inspiring journey in the south of France:
Tell us a little about Employmum?
Employmum is a flexible recruitment agency. We find flexible work for professional candidates. The types of roles we recruit for are part time/job share/term time/remote work/compressed hours/annualised hours and project work. These roles can allow parents to continue with their careers, particularly women, who tend to be the primary care givers in the home. We also have a panel of life and career coaches that support us as we found that many women lacked in confidence when re-entering the workforce – to reach a wider audience, we also run free Back to Work workshops. We have seen a real shift in employers’ attitudes to flexible work since we came into existence just over two years ago. Employers are realising, that to obtain and retain the best talent, they need to offer some flexibility. Our Limerick office in based in Castletroy, and is headed by Fergus Chawke.
What does your own role entail?
I founded Employmum just over three years ago and for the first two years ran the business on my own – with a very limited budget. My role involved everything from sales and digital marketing, building a website, recruitment, accounting, admin and general office dogsbody. Luckily in 2017, I was in a position to bring another person on board. Helen Walsh does all the recruitment now so I can focus on growing the business and the strategic side. Our main business is recruitment and we have over 3,000 people registered with us.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in the Ennis Road and lived there until my early 20s. After qualifying as an accountant, I left Ireland and travelled the world working in different finance roles. I eventually settled in the south of France where I lived for 12 years with my husband Brian Harrington, also from Limerick. We decided to return to Ireland with our two children five years ago and moved to Clonakilty where my mum was living.
What is your educational background?
I am a qualified accountant – I studied in Waterford Institute of Technology for four years and then trained with BDO Simpson Xavier in Michael Street Limerick.
How did you get to where you are today?
My career has taken a very meandering route so far – after studying for seven years to become an accountant, I realised it was not for me, but took advantage of the qualifications to travel the world, living in the Britain, Luxembourg and Australia in various finance roles. In 2002, I visited my sister in the south of France – she was setting up a new business as a property agency and with no kids or major commitments, I upped sticks and joined her. We ran a very successful bilingual agency in Perpignan where we became the largest English speaking agency in the south of France. With the crash in 2008, the bottom fell out of the market and overnight, our clientele disappeared.
What happened then?
With a great love and knowledge of the region and a desire to stay living in France, we re-invented ourselves and started a Bespoke Tour Company, eventually specialising in wine tours. We did this successfully for a number of years until 2013, when our children were eight and six, we decided we wanted them to be Irish and moved to Clonakilty. But on our return, I found it impossible to find flexible work and that’s when I came up with the idea of Employmum – a flexible recruitment agency for professional parents which I started in 2016.
What are your goals for the next 12 months?
We have an office in Cork where we employ one other person – We opened our second office in Limerick this September and aim to have a Dublin office open by Christmas.
We are currently seeking funding to develop our business to a cloud based platform to enable us to scale internationally. With 55 million at middle management level globally not working, this is the market we are going after
In business and life, who do you admire?
Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook is an amazing lady – her book ‘Lean In’ is Employmum’s bible. I love her quote: ‘there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women’.
In business and life, are you guided by any particular motto?
Quite recently, I took part in the Exxcel incubator programme in the Cork Institute of Technology, an entrepreneurial programme for women with a science, technology, engineering and maths background.
One of our mentors , the fabulous Eleanor Lynch Kelly started her presentation stating 'we all have 1,000 months' that's all we have on average on the planet. I went home and painted these words on the wall of my office opposite my desk and every time I look up, it reminds me to make the most of every moment and to seize every opportunity, both professionally and personally. A very powerful message.
Away from work, what are your pastimes and hobbies?
I live in Clonakilty and feel like I have won the lottery having chosen here after moving back from France five years ago.
Inchydoney beach is a short drive from us so I can be found there most days with our new addition to the family, Buddy, the dog.
Nothing like a walk on the beach to clear the head!