Recruiters with Talents: Brandon Astle

Many of IT/IQ’s team members have special talents or abilities that are worth highlighting. Within our team, there’s personal trainers, basketball players, soccer players, Michael Jackson dance experts, and several other special individuals. In addition to being excellent recruiters, they spend their time away from work excelling at other things. One recruiter with a special talent, is Brandon Astle.

Brandon Astle

Brandon Astle is a newly-promoted Recruitment Specialist at IT/IQ. He is excited to be able to mentor new Recruitment Associates and take on more of a leadership role as Recruitment Specialist. He has been at IT/IQ for one year and eight months. But on top of recruiting, Brandon has some special talents. He is the play-by-play commentator for the newest professional lacrosse team in the downtown Vancouver area, the Vancouver Warriors. On Fridays, he walks from IT/IQ’s office on West Georgia and Thurlow down to Rogers Arena to set up in his second office, the commentary box. IT/IQ’s Marketing and Communications Associate, Ryan Judd, interviewed him to understand how he started his commentary career, and how he balances it with recruitment.

Interview

Ryan: Wow, so on the side you do play-by-play commentary for the Vancouver Warriors?

Brandon: Yeah, so I just got this position over the last few weeks. The Warriors, for those who don’t know are the newest professional indoor lacrosse team in the downtown core area. They’re going to be playing out of Roger’s Arena starting in late December here. They’ll have nine home games, and the exciting part about it is that the Canucks franchise bought them, so they are a member of the Vancouver Canucks organization which is pretty neat. And obviously being a kid growing up in the Vancouver Area, being a Canucks fan, going to Rogers arena, looking up at the broadcast booth, I always wondered what it would be like to call a game from up there and to experience that is going to be pretty cool.

Ryan: So how do you get in to that? What prompted that?

Brandon: I knew what I wanted to do at an early age. When I went to Grade 6, I talked to my counsellors and said I wanted to be a play-by-play guy. I already had my courses picked out after I graduated high school, and so I went to broadcasting school 10 to11 years ago. I got a hockey play-by-play gig right out of there, and before that I had a co-op program with the Coquitlam Adanacks Junior B lacrosse team. And then for the past four seasons, I’ve called WLA Lacrosse for the New Westminster Salmon Bellies. Then this opportunity opened-up with the Vancouver Warriors, and here I am.

Ryan: And how do you balance it with doing recruitment as well?

Brandon: It’s actually going to be pretty nice, because it’s a weekend gig. Obviously, IT/IQ is located downtown, it’s only a five-minute walk from Rogers Arena, there’s the odd game on a Friday so I can just head out after work at 5, call a game at 7 PM, and go home after that. There will be some Saturday and Sunday games as well so, it won’t take up a whole lot of time. So, the juggling act shouldn’t be too bad.

Ryan: Is there anything between the two jobs that you’re transferring the same skillsets to one another, or does it not really crossover?

Brandon: The more I think about it, the more similarities there are. The first one I guess is painting the picture. So, with broadcasting you’re obviously trying to tell a story and paint a picture, to the listener or to the fan who can’t make it to the game, either watching at home or listening in the car. You want to be able to paint a picture where it seems like they’re there and they can I guess, in their head see what’s going on. And in recruitment, as well, when I’m on the phone with a Candidate, I want them to picture being on site with one of our clients and tell them what would be like a typical day, and what kind of technologies they’d be using. If I can get a candidate to look up and be like okay, this could be a good fit. That’s where a similarity is. And another one would be, in broadcasting you’ve got to know the players, you’ve got to know the backgrounds, what’s their top skills, what kind of players they are, so on and so forth, where they come from, and you got to know the candidate well. You’ve got to know where they’ve worked in the past, where their skillset lies, where their motivators lie, so that’s another similarity that comes between the two.

Conclusion

Look out for more upcoming blog posts highlighting our team members and the abilities or talents they possess. Or if you like the sounds of being a recruiter and joining our team, check out our internal positions available here!

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