The Experts: Joanie Bily on Making Career Connections

Joanie Bily

President, RemX, Professional Division of EmployBridge

Joanie Bily is President for the Professional Division of EmployBridge which includes the RemX, Decca and Resdin brands. Joanie joined the EmployBridge family in 2016 with a 20 plus year proven track record in professional and commercial staffing, including executive roles with two of the largest employment firms in the world.

Welcome to our video series, The Experts. In the series, we interview staffing and recruitment leaders to hear their perspectives on industry trends, lessons they’ve learned in the careers, and their leadership philosophies.

In this clip, Joanie Bily, CMO and RemX President at EmployBridge, recently joined The Experts to discuss the value of making authentic connections throughout your career.

How important is building a network?

Joanie Bily: When I look at navigating your career, I think having a network is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. It has to start from the beginning of your career internally within your company but also needs to be external in your industry and profession.

I just wrote an article on how to make the most of your internship because people are getting into internships this time of year and they really can lay the foundation for your success. One of the most important pieces of advice is to really build your network because you never know where relationships are going to lead, both professionally and personally. Networking is really about how you connect with individuals and how you can help someone else. Maybe you make a connection to help them with their next job or they make that connection for you and introduce you to your next boss. 

It’s very important to be treating people right, doing the right thing, truly helping others, making that difference. The “paying it forward” concept is really important and can go so far. The advice I give to people when building a network is that it’s not just about what you’re going to get from it, it’s more about what you can give to your network, internally and externally. The magic of that is that it always comes back tenfold. 

 

What do you know now that you wish you knew when starting your career?

JB: I would say that I wish I knew to dream big, even bigger than I could imagine. Because when I think back to graduating college and starting out my career, even though I was ambitious and driven and wanted to climb the corporate ladder, I probably never dreamed that I would be in a role or do the things that I do today. And now I feel like I wish someone had told me there are no limits and to reach for the stars. And you hear those things, you think they’re cliché, but if I could talk to my younger self, I would tell myself to dream big and go for it. Don’t let anyone hold you back. And it’s probably the same advice I’d give to myself today. I still see a long runway ahead and I’m not going to stop.