This is a story of how one British Indian made her way into the BBC and has flourished there for over three decades. She is now working on the biggest expansion the BBC has ever initiated.
Describing herself
Rani says she would describe herself as a skilled HR professional with proven multi-tasking organisational abilities: identifying, planning, implementing and developing HR & Recruitment strategies and systems. She says that she is particularly driven by delivering the right people, at the right time for the business. She has a record of success as a senior recruitment professional in media and publishing. Creating a compelling vision, devising an engaging strategy and making it happen in the service of engaging the best talent for the BBC is her passion. All whilst balancing commercials, innovation and candidate experience. In her spare time she likes to paint abstract art!
Getting Into The BBC
Qualified with a distinction in the Institute of Marketing Diploma Rani has always approached her work and life with a creativity of thought designed to not just look at the obvious result but to ensure all options are considered to achieve the desired outcome.
Her working life started in April 1984 with a 12 month work experience placement with the BBC in Birmingham, which was required as part of the BA Business Studies course she was doing at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. The break came after she conscientiously wrote speculative letters to over 140 employers in and around the Midlands. The BBC (she remembers clearly to this day her 120th letter) answered her plea to take her on a paid placement and she never left! This work placement seamlessly played to her strengths and aspirations. With an HR focus she built her career working initially in regional news and local programmes and two years ago she turned her attention to Central Resourcing & Talent Attraction pan BBC, but soon returned to her first love of Resourcing for BBC News Group.
Background
Rani, born in Birmingham and the eldest of five children, recalls she was the first to go to University in the family and it was only after she managed to persuade her Dad and Uncles the merits of further education was she given the go ahead. Having failed all her GCSEs the first time round she went on to win a college prize for achieving the highest progress when she passed all her GCSEs and gained a place at University.
Her mum and dad - Shavinder and Bhajan Dosanjh are from the Punjab in India, a village called Dosanjh Kalan just outside Phagwara. They came over to the UK in the early 1960s, where Dad worked in iron foundries in Smethwick; Mum held a number of part-time roles in-between bringing up Rani and her siblings. They both are now retired and live in Wolverhampton.
Latest Challenge
Rani took up her current role as the Lead Resourcing and Talent Business Partner for News, Radio and the International Group in September 2016. Aligned to the BBC News Group she now leads an in-house team of 23 recruiters based across the UK delivering an exemplary end to end resourcing function for all permanent and fixed term contract hires. Rani says that this essentially involves workforce planning to collaborative working to improve the client and candidate experience; her team provides proactive candidate engagement, focusing on candidate attraction, talent pooling and mapping.
The BBC News Group, formed in April 2011 incorporates BBC Network News — News Channels, Mobile and Online, Current Affairs, Daily News Programmes, Newsgathering, and Production Operations teams — along with English Regions and the World Service Group. The News Group makes up more than a third of the BBC with over 8,500 staff around the UK and the world serving a huge variety of audiences.
Rani’s latest talking point is the expansion of the BBC World Service - the largest expansion since the 1940s, meaning it will soon be available in forty languages including English. Over the next three years to 2020, Rani is leading on the recruitment of 1400 roles (UK & overseas) for 12 new services soon to launch in the following languages – Korean; Oromo; Amharic; Tigrinya; Gujarati; Telugu; Punjabi; Marathi; Yoruba; Pidgin Igbo and Serbian, and there will be significant investment into new platforms and programmes.
Check out the latest vacancies on the dedicated BBC website for World Service: www.bbc.co.uk/wscareers
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Leading on the recruitment for the largest expansion in the BBC since the 1940s
