An Interview with Bernice Brennan

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The 8th March was International Women’s Day. We’ve so many wonderful and talented women working at Recruitment Plus, so we decided to interview one of them! 

Meet Bernice Brennan. Bernice has over 20 years of experience in the Irish recruitment market across diverse disciplines. She is a dog lover and an avid reader.  

We asked Bernice a couple of questions about women in the workforce and about her hopes for the future: 

  1. What is your current job role?

I am primarily Business Development Manager for the Group, supporting consultants in our Dublin, Dundalk and Limerick offices.

  1. What industries do you work closely with?

I have a broad remit and work with existing and potential clients in the Pharmaceutical/Medical Devices, Property, Finance, HR, Sales/ Marketing, Engineering and Office Support.

  1. What challenges do women face in the  profession/ academia?

There still seems to be a lack of social encouragement and self-perception in young women,” said Fionnuala Meehan, Sales Director for Google, gender coding competition last year. Only one girl out of 1,500 girls who took part advanced to a further round.

It is the 21st century. The world talks about progression and creating an environment where all people are treated equally. 

But, why does it stop when it comes to women? 

Why does it happen that women are expected to balance between their career and home while men are supposed to be the breadwinners of the family?

While there are men who have come forward to support women in all their endeavours, why is the word “feminism” branded with, in my opinion,  contempt? 

It’s time we shatter toxic masculinity and make people understand that feminism’s goal is to reduce gender gaps and achieve political, economic, personal, and social gender equality.

It is good to see that this can be industry-specific. There are industries that have a gender preference though this is not a “hard and fast” rule. I believe that mandatory shared parental leave, more affordable childcare and initiatives to tackle gender stereotyping are amongst the measures needed to address the gender pay gap in Ireland.

  1. What are your hopes for women in the workforce in the future? 

I hope that the next generation has even more opportunities and experience and increases the value of their contributions as women. I hope they will help take us all to the next level in achieving gender equity. I already see a level of strength and vulnerability in the next generation that I believe has the power to make great strides forward.

We wish we could show off and celebrate all of our staff this week. However, Bernice is an excellent example of the women we are lucky enough to work with every day.  

 

Recommending Reading: An Interview with Mhairi-Therese Gallagher