HR professionals spend their careers helping other people develop, prepare for opportunities and navigate change. But how good are they at doing the same for themselves?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley speaks with Sandy Gibbs from Tribe about preparing for career opportunities, creating stronger CVs, interviewing effectively and understanding what organisations increasingly expect from senior People & Culture leaders.

Sandy sees a changing HR market, with growing businesses recognising the need for dedicated People & Culture capability while larger organisations reconsider how their HR operating models need to evolve. She also believes professionals need to become better prepared for their own career moves rather than waiting until an opportunity appears.

The conversation gets practical quickly.

Sandy explains why a CV needs more than responsibilities, why achievements should demonstrate commercial outcomes, and why AI can help with wording but should never remove the individual's voice and evidence from their CV.

Lisa and Sandy also unpack interview preparation, nerves, over-talking, researching the people interviewing you, choosing strong career examples and answering seemingly simple questions such as, “Tell me about yourself.”

The discussion then moves beyond getting the job and into what makes HR leadership genuinely effective.

From enterprise thinking and learning agility to organisational fit, career development and building accountability into the wider business, Sandy shares what she sees distinguishing technically capable HR professionals from those who become trusted senior leaders.

For Sandy, great HR leadership is not about HR holding responsibility for everything. The strongest practitioners equip leaders to own the people responsibilities within their own teams, giving HR the space to guide, influence and operate more strategically.

What You’ll Learn

• What Sandy is currently seeing in the New Zealand HR and People & Culture market

• Why HR professionals need to prepare for career opportunities before they need their next role

• How to make a CV sound like you rather than something generated entirely by AI

• Why CV achievements need evidence, context and commercial outcomes

• How to demonstrate the why behind your work

• Why strong interview preparation helps reduce over-talking

• How to keep interview answers concise while still giving enough evidence

• Why a small number of strong career examples can answer many different interview questions

• Whether older career examples are still relevant in interviews

• How to answer “Tell me about yourself”

• How to approach questions about weaknesses and development areas

• Why researching your interviewers can be as valuable as researching the organisation

• What questions candidates should ask at the end of an interview

• Why HR professionals need to demonstrate thinking beyond their functional lane

• How learning agility and curiosity show up in senior leadership

• Why chemistry and organisational fit matter alongside capability

• Why HR professionals often neglect their own career and development planning

• What separates good HR leadership from great HR leadership

• Why great HR leaders build accountability in others rather than holding everything themselves

• How listening and asking better questions can increase your influence

Key Takeaways

• Preparation starts before the interview. Career achievements, evidence and impact should be captured continuously rather than reconstructed when you suddenly need a CV.

• AI can help wordsmith a CV, but it shouldn’t write your career story for you. The facts, achievements and evidence still need to belong specifically to you.

• Commercial outcomes matter. Senior HR professionals need to demonstrate how their work contributed to organisational results, rather than only describing HR activities.

• The “why” matters. Explaining the rationale behind a decision helps move an example from transactional delivery towards strategic and commercial thinking.

• Interview technique is an art. Strong candidates know when to stop talking and give interviewers the opportunity to ask for more detail.

• Fit goes both ways. Capability alone cannot guarantee that a person, leader and organisation will work well together.

• Thought leadership is demonstrated, not declared. Curiosity, learning agility and the quality of the questions you ask can show how you think without needing to tell people you are strategic.

• Great HR leaders create accountability outside HR. They help business leaders become capable people leaders instead of positioning HR as the owner of every people decision.

• HR professionals need to practise what they preach. Career planning, feedback and development should apply to HR teams just as much as the rest of the organisation.

• You don’t always need to have the answer. Listening well and asking the right question can sometimes create more value than immediately providing advice.

About Sandy Gibbs

Sandy Gibbs brings 25 years of recruitment experience and leads Tribe’s HR consulting capability while also working across executive search in HR and People & Culture.

Her extensive experience working with both employers and candidates gives her a practical view of what organisations are looking for, what helps professionals stand out and the common mistakes people make when navigating their own careers.

Why This Episode Matters

HR professionals are often very good at helping everyone else with performance, development, succession and career planning.

Their own careers can be a different story.

This episode offers a practical look at how HR professionals can better articulate their impact, prepare for opportunities, navigate interviews and think about the kind of organisation and leadership environment where they will actually thrive.

It also challenges HR leaders to think beyond technical expertise. As organisations expect more commercial and enterprise-wide contribution from People & Culture, curiosity, learning agility, accountability and the ability to influence outside the HR function are becoming increasingly important.

Resources & Links

• Tribe: https://www.tribegroup.com/
• Connect with Sandy Gibbs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandygibbs-peopleandculture/
• HR Unlocked: https://linktr.ee/hrunlocked