My role as a Recruitment Manager involves working with European institutions, colleagues and candidates to find the best person for each vacancy.
I help European institutions deploy excellent, quality-driven, state-of-the-art technical projects by providing the best-suited expertise and skill sets available across Europe.
I also support my colleagues and team members by brainstorming, sharing new strategies and advising on different, data-driven approaches, so that they don’t feel stuck in a complicated search or a challenging role to fill.
Finally, using my skills in psychology, communication and active listening, I build strong, genuine, trust-based relationships with candidates, not only to support them through the recruitment steps, but also to secure a smoother and swifter selection process.
What are you most proud of in your job?
I was contacted recently by a very senior space engineer, who was a former colleague I had recruited a long time ago and later left at the end of the project. He got in touch to ask about applying to rejoin. He told me that he had only good memories of our interactions and process, and of his experience in our company.
He added that our conversation reminded him of that warm and pleasant atmosphere. That meant a lot, because no matter the outcome of a process or a collaboration, when you care about people and treat them with consideration and respect, you build a network that lasts for years.
What’s the key skill you’ve developed in your role?
The skill I have developed that makes the biggest difference for me is negotiation. A lot of people fear that part of the role or dislike it. I don’t, because I don’t see negotiation as a battle I have to win by making the other side lose.
Negotiation is the art of understanding different perspectives and looking for common ground. I call it “happily and respectfully compromising”. What is essential to me? What is essential for the other party? And what can both parties accept to let go of in order to reach that common ground together?
As with every human relationship, for a pleasant and sustainable collaboration, some things have to be preserved and others have to be put aside.
What’s a common misconception about your job?
That it’s easy!
There’s no need to be a genius (or a rocket scientist!) to read CVs and decide who will become our next colleague, right? As if the job could be summed up as simply waiting for the CVs to come in, reading them and forward the best ones to the hiring managers.
People only see the tip of the iceberg and have no clue about all the work done behind the scenes. Actually, only recruiters really know how tough, energy-draining, demanding, frustrating, emotionally challenging and nerve-wracking the process can be. That’s why you need to love recruitment to keep doing it.
What problem do you most like solving?
The problem I love solving most is filling the open vacancy. An empty seat, a vacant role – these mean there is work that is not done and a project or a service that is not being delivered. And that means there’s a client in need and a service not generating revenue.
That’s why for each search and each open vacancy we take care of, we do so with dedication, commitment, focus and care. Some are easier to fill and others are extremely complex, but we still give our very best to solve them.