Psyched Up Tech: Google's Issy Chappel on the value of combining Psychology with Tech
Google Insights: Issy Chappel
Issy Chappel is an Agency Development Manager at Google and a fellow University of Leeds Graduate. Issy and I met through the Leeds Network Mentorship scheme and since she has helped offer me relevant industry guidance and insights. I wanted to discuss how she landed her Google Role, Google recruitment tips, why she believes Psychology skills are vital to working at Google and the best advice for businesses post pandemic. Issy is an inspiration to me as she embodies an ambitious, modern day women, who is agile and dynamic in her work but is also a highly supportive and extremely collaborative individual.
Hannah: Could you briefly talk about your role/ your journey into Google?
Issy: I graduated from Leeds University in 2016 with a degree in English Literature, joined Google that summer as an Associate Account Strategist, and have been here ever since! To some it seems like an odd career move to go from an English degree to a career in marketing, however I knew from the start that literature was more of a personal interest and I actually wanted to pursue a career in business at the end of it. That encouraged me to pursue work experience opportunities alongside my studies; I took a gap year before university and did a few different internships in recruitment, business administration and sales. I then completed a placement year with Microsoft while I was at Leeds, working in their Advertising Sales department in London, which I loved! The role introduced me to the world of digital advertising and gave me the relevant experience to apply to Google.
Hannah: Brilliant! I think you are a great example of being proactive with work experience whilst at University. I know you have been involved in Google Recruitment, what do you believe are key stand-out skills? In allignment with HannahRoseInspired, what creative and psychological skills do you think are key?
Issy: It varies by role, but when I’ve been interviewing candidates to join our team there are some skills that stand out that are really transferable, and so should be widely useful in a creative or people-facing role.
1) The first I’m not sure is generally counted as a skill but I think it should be: a genuine curiosity and interest in other people (and the business you’re applying for). This goes beyond just being enthusiastic in an interview or putting “people person” in your LinkedIn bio - it’s about thoughtfulness, asking great questions, and probing beyond the surface of the conversation to understand the deeper goals and motivations behind what people say and do. In my experience, it’s a trait that helps people to be incredibly effective in a wide variety of roles.
2) Following on from that, of course, good communication skills, the ability to work well in a team, and the ability to make a tangible impact in your work are all important. These sound really broad, but if you look closely at them, creative and psychology grads are so well placed to demonstrate these skills: communication comes down to being precise with your language, great storytelling, but also an understanding of other people’s perspectives and how what you’re saying may be understood differently by different audiences.
The ability to work in a team and still make an individual impact again relies so much on being able to understand other personalities and then adapt to partner effectively with them, and to be able to react and make decisions when those partnerships take unexpected turns. They’re all valuable, sometimes underrated skills.
Hannah: Amazing, reassuringly you have illustrated the importance of psychology in having a genuine understanding of people and culture. I’m sure whoever is reading this will be noting those all down. I would love to know what has been a highlight of yours whilst working at Google and your biggest challenge?
‘Each year, we hold an event to celebrate this day - focused on the empowerment of girls - where Google employees bring their daughters, nieces, cousins, family friends, etc, of secondary school age to the office, and we organise a speaker panel of inspirational women leaders in Google and beyond to talk about different topics such as leadership, resilience, looking after your health, social media, and more.They also have the chance to play around with some cool tech and network with each other to meet other like minded young women. The event itself and the weeks leading up to it just always give me that warm fuzzy feeling of being part of something really meaningful, and it’s so inspiring to hear both from women I really look up to but also to see the next generation of women engaging with each other, lifting each other up, and getting excited about their own potential’.
Issy: It’s so tough to just choose one highlight, but I’d say one that springs to mind (given our recent celebrations of International Women’s Day) is when I had the opportunity to help to organise an event in our Dublin HQ for International Day of the Girl. Each year, we hold an event to celebrate this day - focused on the empowerment of girls - where Google employees bring their daughters, nieces, cousins, family friends, etc, of secondary school age to the office, and we organise a speaker panel of inspirational women leaders in Google and beyond to talk about different topics such as leadership, resilience, looking after your health, social media, and more.They also have the chance to play around with some cool tech and network with each other to meet other like minded young women. The event itself and the weeks leading up to it just always give me that warm fuzzy feeling of being part of something really meaningful, and it’s so inspiring to hear both from women I really look up to but also to see the next generation of women engaging with each other, lifting each other up, and getting excited about their own potential.
‘I’ve learned that working harder doesn’t always beat working smarter, that you need to look after yourself and find your moments of joy to be better and more productive in your work, and most importantly I’ve learned to enjoy the journey, not just focus on the destination’.
My biggest challenge I think has been learning to find the balance in my life, which the last 12 months has really made even more important. I’ve learned that working harder doesn’t always beat working smarter, that you need to look after yourself and find your moments of joy to be better and more productive in your work, and most importantly I’ve learned to enjoy the journey, not just focus on the destination.
Hannah: That sounds like such an inspiring event and what a joy to be a part of! I strongly resonate with the belief system that women should always empower one another. I like your focus on the journey, I think that will be relatable to many 20 somethings reading this, who often rush to tick off life’s milestones. Based upon your activities at Google, why do you think Psychology is important for businesses to consider and understand?
‘At the end of the day, we’re always more effective as people and businesses when we listen more, understand more, and think deeply about how we can be part of the solution’.
Issy: Psychology is such a broad topic, and so it’s important in so many different ways to businesses.
A couple of examples stand out to me;
1) First of all, it’s crucial for businesses to understand and engage with the mental health of their employees, to make the workplace a happy and healthy place to be - a hot topic in the past year, given all the challenges people have been facing.
2) Secondly, the ability to understand your customers motivations, concerns, and the “why” behind their behaviour is so important to ensure you’re giving them the right solutions that actually meet their needs. At Google we published Decoding Decisions just over a year ago, which was a piece of research into consumer purchasing behaviour, and it really challenged us on the advertising sales team to think differently about how consumers engage with ads and what’s needed for effective innovation in the industry. At the end of the day, we’re always more effective as people and businesses when we listen more, understand more, and think deeply about how we can be part of the solution.
‘so it’s really forced us to be creative and innovative with our basic work processes in a way that I’ve loved. We took a long hard look at how we currently worked and what we needed to cut out to be more efficient and effective, and then came up with new ways to create that human interaction that we all really missed. I hope we all take conscious and deliberate decision making forward with us, and that we continue to question the way we do things and to innovate at a different pace to before’.
Hannah: Yes, I think the pandemic brought mental health to the forefront of business agenda. I love your reference to being part of the solution, I think the next generation particularly are becoming increasingly conscious, concerned and aware with the impact their individual and collective actions have. You referenced the pandemic, what has been the biggest changes in how you do your job?
Issy: We’ve just passed the one year mark of working from home, which feels mad to say. I for one was convinced that when we were packing up our laptops last March that we’d be back for summer! I was a bit naive in retrospect. The biggest change for me has been the need to be much more intentional about fostering collaboration and partnerships when you aren’t in the same room as your colleagues, or you can’t go and visit your clients face to face. We all quickly realised endless video conferencing is exhausting and the answer isn’t just more hours in front of our screens, so it’s really forced us to be creative and innovative with our basic work processes in a way that I’ve loved. We took a long hard look at how we currently worked and what we needed to cut out to be more efficient and effective, and then came up with new ways to create that human interaction that we all really missed. I hope we all take conscious and deliberate decision making forward with us, and that we continue to question the way we do things and to innovate at a different pace to before.
Hannah: Yes it has forced creativity and innovation to be executed at rapid speed too. I hope so too. I would be interested to know how you think consumer behaviour has changed and how do you think businesses can adapt to maintain relevance in the future?
‘One of the things this pandemic has taught us is that nobody can predict the future, and that sometimes it’s not actually that useful to try. Maybe what’s better is to constantly be ready for change: to be really connected to your customers and what it is they need from you, to invest in insights and be on the lookout for new developments, to be unafraid of innovation, to test and learn at scale and quickly, and to remove the operational bottlenecks that hold you back from adapting’.
Issy: From what we can see, over the last 12 months there are some trends in consumer behaviour that have accelerated at a rate we couldn’t have predicted, such as e-commerce as a % of total retail sales, and there are new pockets of behaviour in those wider trends of new and interesting developments, such as curbside pickup becoming so mainstream so quickly, and the sudden huge increase in over 65s doing their grocery shopping online. One of the things this pandemic has taught us is that nobody can predict the future, and that sometimes it’s not actually that useful to try. Maybe what’s better is to constantly be ready for change: to be really connected to your customers and what it is they need from you, to invest in insights and be on the lookout for new developments, to be unafraid of innovation, to test and learn at scale and quickly, and to remove the operational bottlenecks that hold you back from adapting. That way you are always adapting, spotting new opportunities, and ensuring you stay relevant.
Hannah: Interesting, I think that’s a very relevant point. For anyone in creative industries, how can they utilise Google to effectively market & grow their brand?
Issy: There’s so many different tools that you could use, the most obvious being YouTube. According to comScore, YouTube is used by 92% of online adults in the UK each month watching on average 38 minutes per day (2019), so there’s so much potential there to create connections with audiences who share your interests or have a need for your products or services. Tools such as Google Trends and Market Finder (both publicly available and free to use) can help brands to understand what consumers are looking for and where the demand is internationally, and plan accordingly. And finally there’s the paid avenue of Google Ads for brands looking to execute on proactive marketing plans and reach customers who are in-market for their services. It’s a totally self-serve platform, so brands can learn all about it via our help centre and choose the strategy that is right for them.
Hannah: Good to know. Finally, What are your sources of inspiration? What do you do for fun outside of work? How do you balance other areas of your life?
Issy: Personally I love reading, mostly fiction, and getting creative; magazines, Pinterest, and interior design blogs for some reason are so calming for me. I find inspiration in the most unrelated places sometimes, but more often than not it’s just about purposefully disconnecting my brain from work, so that I can be more creative when I am focused. Balance is essential for me to be creative, an exhausted brain is not a creative brain, so I schedule my calendar deliberately to give myself breathing room just to think and reflect, to go to the gym and totally switch off for an hour, to hug my cat, or to explore the countryside where I’ve been living since the start of the first lockdown.
I find I make more interesting connections and come up with better ideas almost in the background of my mind when I’m not trying to force it, so I do the research, get the ideas started, and then go and do something totally different and not too taxing so my brain can get to work putting it all together.
It sounds cheesy but I’m also so inspired by my family and friends, they all do totally different and wonderful things with their lives from running independent fashion boutiques to personal training and holistic health coaching, from counselling and teaching, to professional services and commercial sales coaching, so having that variety of different experiences and perspectives to engage with usually gets me on the right track, and it’s a double win getting to spend more time with them too.
Hannah: Wow such varied sources there! I couldn’t agree more that seeing your family and friends and their different experiences, aspirations and passions is so inspiring. Thank you so much Issy for taking the time to offer your fabulous insights!