According to Edit Ilkei Smith, a senior talent acquisition specialist with multinational utility company National Grid, there is so much more to the recruitment process than people realize.
“Talent acquisition requires very complex and strategic project management,” she explains. “If you have 60 or 70 recruits that you have to hire, then you have 60 or 70 separate projects, and they are all different from each other. You need to be very organized and have to know how to approach project management.”
As a “people strategy person” at National Grid for the last four years, Ilkei Smith does everything from advise executives about how to best build and expand their teams to work with high-level professionals to negotiate their employment contracts. And after more than 20 years in the professional space, she also had a deep desire to enhance her own skills and develop her career further by going back to study at a world-renowned university. MIT was at the top of the Boston resident’s list, and in the spring of 2020, she decided to jump in by taking one MIT Sloan Executive Education course: Mastering Design Thinking. The experience led her in a direction she never expected.
A Whole New System
“The course was absolutely fascinating. Design thinking is really systemic thinking. The class allowed me to take a client-centered approach to what I do,” Ilkei Smith says of the course, which focuses on identifying opportunities through customer needs analysis, using a four-step method for planning and executing a prototype, and designing services for enriched customer experiences. And while Ilkei Smith does not design products as a talent acquisition specialist, she recognized that the science-backed teachings she garnered from the class do apply to her daily interactions with executive clients—and it transformed how she approaches those relationships. She continues, “It taught me how to provide customized solutions instead of copy-and-paste ones.”
Ilkei Smith was so captivated by the course that she quickly began searching for others in which to enroll, realizing that she could work towards an Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership. “I liked the idea that I could handpick the classes that interested me instead of having to follow a degree program,” she observes, noting that every course she ultimately selected allowed her to customize a toolbox of knowledge and skills that have helped her hone her approach to her profession.
"When I accepted my certificate, I said, ‘Every time I picked a class, I felt that it was the best class ever.’ My brain just got addicted to the MIT way of thinking in business and in life."
“Mastering Negotiation and Influence gave me some of the best content I’ve ever received that fits into what I do every day, which is negotiating salaries and packages for people I’m hiring,” she says. “It went very deep and offered pragmatic information. There was so much scientific research behind it, and it gave us a very conscious knowledge about how every human relationship requires negotiation. Talking is a negotiation. Trading information is a negotiation. And how it works all depends on how you approach it.”
Ilkei Smith followed her first two courses with Accelerating Digital Transformation with Algorithmic Business Thinking and Unlocking the Power of Perspectives: Problem Solving with Clarity, Creativity, and Collaboration, which allowed her to earn her Executive Certificate in December of 2021. Together, the courses she selected actually transformed her approach to the work she has been doing for two decades.
She notes, “I feel like I created a whole new system out of the courses I combined. I tried to pick classes to fill gaps in my previous education and thinking because I wanted a more well-rounded perspective. With Executive Education, I first moved toward this client-centered approach with design thinking. Then I learned how to stop talking and really listen to the other person in negotiations, which can help you turn a difficult conversation into a win-win situation. The digital transformation course gives you toolboxes that you can use regardless of where you work or which phase of a digital transformation you find yourself in—because you are going to find yourself in some type of digital transformation no matter what. That course showed me how to take any business situation and create algorithms to help you solve it. My final course, Unlocking the Power of Perspectives, was just mind-blowing; it really gets you thinking about what and how you are thinking and why you should try to start understanding things from someone else’s perspective. These classes gave me a level of knowledge that allows me to offer multiple solutions to all types of problems.”
The Next Step
When Ilkei Smith earned her Executive Certificate in December of 2021, she knew that it was not the end of her relationship with MIT Sloan.
“When I accepted my certificate, I said, ‘Every time I picked a class, I felt that it was the best class ever.’ My brain just got addicted to the MIT way of thinking in business and in life,” she reveals, adding that the combination of excellent and relevant topics, knowledgeable professors, and accomplished classmates sets Executive Education apart from other continuing education opportunities. With several credits already recorded towards an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation, she plans to continue moving in that direction and eventually secure her Advanced Certificate for Executives in Management, Innovation, and Technology (ACE).
“As a leader, this experience has shaped me,” Ilkei Smith concludes. “It changed the way I communicate and definitely changed my way of thinking. And I know, as I move forward, it will be a constant evolution. I’m looking forward to it and embracing the challenge.”
Learn more about MIT Sloan Executive Certificates.