Francesca Lewton

Francesca Lewton 

Tell us about your career journey so far 

I had been in recruitment for about four years prior to joining Cogito. I enjoyed that role, but just found that I wasn’t really enjoying the sales element of recruitment, so I took a little bit of time out to go travelling. I came back to Bristol and then decided to start putting a few feelers out. But I wasn’t really too interested in going back to the recruitment agency type of work. So when I saw an advert for a position where I could utilise my recruitment experience but where I didn’t need to do sales and business development, that really appealed. I liked that it was more project-based and the offerings were more value-added propositions. 

It clearly wasn’t just your regular recruitment, which is very much transactional. There were other additional elements that clients would find helpful. Insights into how they can attract people to their business themselves. Advice on how we could help them change their recruitment process as well. 

I started as a Researcher and after a couple of years got promoted into a Lead Research Consultant position, which is the role I’m in now. This role’s more about leading projects from end to end. Liaising with clients to understand their needs. I’m really owning that whole research piece and helping more junior members with their research work. 

What does a typical day look like? 

 One of the things that I like most about Cogito is that the projects and the clients massively vary. So, it’s not a place where every week is going to be the same. 

But typically, I’ll be working on more senior-level hiring projects. I’ll be speaking to the clients and understanding their requirements, conducting any research tasks relating to that and identifying candidate profiles. Then I’ll be talking to the candidates. Understanding what they’re looking for from their next role and qualifying them for the job requirements. Then, later on, I’ll be translating that data into reports that are then presented back to the clients. I’ll also be setting up interviews and managing that end process as well. 

What do you enjoy about the role? 

I definitely enjoy the variety of work just because it is so vast. We often have quite a range of different clients as well. So, some days you could be working for a small start-up, helping them try and scale. Other days, you could be working for a substantially well-known household name who are looking for their next CIO, CTO to join the team and drive the business forward. 

I also really like the people in the business as well. I value the people in my team a lot because we get on so well. They’re not just colleagues, we are also friends outside of work as well. So, that and the work combined is really rewarding. 

What does it feel like to work at Cogito? 

 It’s very friendly and supportive. When you initially join, everyone’s trying to help you understand things in a manageable way, which is great I think for somebody who probably hadn’t worked in that environment where it could probably be a bit overwhelming. 

We just get on very well, to be honest. There’s quite a lot of banter in the office and we enjoy each other’s company. I’ve seen quite a change from it being a small handful of people moving into a medium-sized business and continuing to grow, but it’s still kept that little family feel.  

I certainly see myself staying here long-term. I enjoy the progress that we’re making and where we’re going to go next. It’s very much an exciting time to be with Cogito.`