No wrong professional choices, only learning experiences' says Raluca Gheorghes for AngajatorulMeu.ro

Founded in 2016, in Cluj-Napoca, Linnify is a software development company that has aimed, since its launch, to offer its customers the best solutions for simplifying processes, reducing costs, and business development. Its main area of ​​expertise is mobile and web development, with a particular focus on mobile applications.

After experiences in the press and in the NGO environment, Raluca Gheorghes discovered her passion for the field of human resources. Since this month, he has been part of the Linnify team, as Head of People & Culture, and has joined the companies' mission: to make Linnify a place where life-changing ideas around the world grow and develop.

AngajatorulMeu.ro: How did your adventure in the field of Human Resources begin? Is there someone - whether you've met them or not - who inspires you in your career?

Raluca Gheorgeș: Officially, my career in human resources started in early 2017, in an IT company. The adventure of working with people started in fact in 2004 timorously. Although I did not realize it at first, this journey prepared me and helped create the foundation for the profession that I practice with passion today, that of an expert in HR.

At first glance, it seems like a road with perhaps even distant domains, but they were based on a common value, very dear to me: 'people'. I started with journalism, as a field reporter in the print media and on local television, where he needed to constantly interact with people. I graduated from Babeș-Bolyai University, also specializing in journalism and communication sciences.

I advanced with my master's studies and professional experience in marketing, communication, and PR. In the context in which we built the experience in this activity, everything was found around a bridge between individual-company-individual - 'With, about and for people'.

I went through the NGO environment, where I went through several opportunities for learning and professional training: from a simple volunteer internship to specialization in writing, coordinating, implementing, and disseminating European projects, coordinating events, coordinating teams, and NGOs, to at what’s happening at the moment the specialization towards becoming a socio-educational guide for children, youth worker and trainer and mentor for adults.

After this period, I came in contact with the ‘virus’ of human resources. I can say that I have found my true calling. An important contribution was made by Andrei Popescu, at that time the coordinator of the former European funding program, Youth in Action (TiA), currently Erasmus +, managed by the National Agency for Community Programs in Vocational Education and Training (ANPCDEFP).

Andrei was an 'encyclopedia' of the program and the TiA guide and had with him a phenomenal team from the organization and other collaborating trainers. They had a phenomenal way to provide support and guidance in the development of young people. They gave us a boost and helped us catch the wings and the confidence not to take the flight, to further share what we learned in the TiA program. Thanks to Andrei and the TiA team, I developed a passion for people.

From then on, my focus was on continuous learning and improvement, until I, in turn, came to help those around me to grow, to gain confidence in their own strengths, to take wings as well.

Hence my professional motto: 

Empower wonderful people, help them discover what they already have within for beautifully building personal and professional growth.

From this state, I began to become trained for youth. We facilitated national and international classes and used non-formal education methods and tools. Gradually, we also switched to professional qualification/certification training for adults, especially towards the delivery of the courses of Project Management, Human Resources Inspector, and Human Resources Manager.

The inner reconfirmation that I am on the right track, that I am following my real passion, I acquired in the Global App Testing company, where I spent three and a half years. A superb company, with phenomenal people and a wow mentor, Fana Oprea, Head of People @GAT.

And now, my journey continues with Linnify, which, after a series of personal analyzes and evaluations, has the ‘official label’ of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious company. 😉

Any strategy must be adaptable according to needs, prior, talent, technical languages, deadline, projects, team, technical profile, budget, and many other aspects.

What does a day 'at the office' look like in the life of an HR person?

Question of the day in the context of the pandemic - which office? 🙂 We know very well that today, few Tech and IT companies have kept the ‘traditional’ on-site work. Hence the sweet-sour joke. 🙂 A day in the life of an HR is cool, textbook cool! First of all, it is so unpredictable, even if it does not seem so. Of course, we work according to a well-defined agenda, but most days we adapt to the needs of people and the company. We work in an agile environment and there must be room for adaptation.

How difficult is it to find the right employees in the field in which your company operates? What are the methods by which you try to attract specialists in the company and what do you do to keep the most valuable ones?

The need for talent is a constant, and the tech industry is very competitive, yet very dynamic. What many do not understand is that people feel you and most know how to read between the lines both online and in interviews. The benefits are essential, but they are no longer a real differentiator. 

The culture of an organization attracts or repels people.

At the same time, people who fail to read a culture that is inappropriate for them from the beginning, then leave. That's why I like to work with open-minded teams and organizations, able to put their people first. Organizations that deliver 'on their promise'.

Although I do not think there is a perfect recipe, I strongly believe that any strategy must be adaptable according to needs, priorities, talents, period, technical languages, deadline, projects, team, technical profile, budget, and many other aspects. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes more difficult, it depends on the context and these criteria. The recruitment methods I prefer are those that offer a real-time interactive experience of the candidates with the brand. If I were to make a summary, I would conclude that a quality EVP strategy is the essential one.

All team members are valuable to Linnify. Authenticity is one of the values ​​we promote and hold dear. The attention paid to maintaining talent is both at the group / collective level and adapted to the individual level. These values ​​are customized according to individual/group needs and the projects in which our people are involved.

One of my techniques is to constantly take the eNPS pulse, using different tools and through face-to-face discussions. Subsequently, together with the management teams, we will make a plan for continuous improvement, integrated within the organizational flow. Of course, according to the feedback received and the feasibility, within a balance between the needs of the company and the talents.

What would a 'robot portrait' of the candidate you want look like? In the hiring process, are his technical or interpersonal qualities more important?

I can't build a 'robot portrait'. After all, we are talking about talents, warm human beings with potential. I think it's more important to make sure of talent-team-company compatibility (especially in terms of values) than a perfect robot profile. Let's make sure that the needs correspond and we aim in the same direction for both parties involved.

Instead, I can confidently say that we place more emphasis on interpersonal qualities. Hard skills can be learned more easily in one way or another. They can be learned either logically, mechanically, or in specialized schools, or training on the job, etc. The soft skills part is more delicate and harder to learn. Not impossible, but it is a more difficult development process. The basis of soft skills is formed from a young age, it depends on n factors - from the family environment, values, ethics, entourage, personality, the baggage you come with, to various opportunities.

If we take in the team an extraordinary talent of good technique, but who does not know how to work in a team, is introverted, withdrawn, can not communicate with the team, has no listening skills, lacks patience, lacks a sense of time management, he is not trustworthy, he is not cooperative, he lacks common sense, he is certainly not the best teammate and it takes hard work to implement an improvement plan.

So, in the recruitment process, we put more emphasis on interpersonal qualities. Of course, they are not mutually exclusive. And the technical qualities are important, depending on the profile and technical experience required at the time.

The last year and a half has been a real 'stress test' for HR departments. What are the main lessons you learned during this period?

Adaptability, adaptability, and adaptability, 🙂 plus creativity. First, the department's focus has been on making sure that all colleagues are well and that they are coping emotionally.

Then, we took out our magic wands to find the ideal solutions for online events, to maintain an online engagement, for themed parties and virtual team buildings, for strategies with results and productivity equal to that of the pre-pandemic period. Up to emotional support

Then, we took out our magic wands to find the ideal solutions for online events, to maintain an online engagement, for themed parties and virtual team buildings, for strategies with results and productivity equal to that of the pre-pandemic period. To emotional support beyond the professional sphere. And here is the most delicate line. A thin line. We need to be aware when we reach the personal limit of the professional sphere and when it is necessary, guide our colleagues to help/specialized counseling.

An account with a detailed profile (short, to the point, and real, ideal in English) on LinkedIn is more helpful at the moment than a classic CV.

How has the strategy of promoting the employer brand changed during this period?

Our change and attention have been adapted internally. We insisted more on making sure our colleagues were okay. We insisted on mental health, personal fulfillment, on alternative methods of maintaining motivation and team connection at a distance. We came with a plus of workshops adaptable to each colleague and current needs (psychological counseling, healthy nutrition counseling cooked at home, yoga classes, meditations, online boarding games evenings, online social events).

What can candidates do to increase their visibility and be noticed by recruiters, especially during this 'special' period?

I confidently suggest a profile tailored to current recruitment tools, depending on the field. Most recruiters use LinkedIn as their primary recruitment tool. An account with a detailed profile (short, to the point, and real, ideal in English) on LinkedIn is more helpful at the moment than a classic CV. A major difference is the networking part, which can be associated with a social networking platform (for example, Facebook). Careful! Not to be confused with each other. If you want to make posts, it's a good idea to keep posts professional.

If you were to give advice to a young person at the beginning of their career, what would it sound like? What would you advise him to avoid capping and making the right choices in his professional life? What do you say to those who want fast, spectacular career growth?

The rapid, spectacular jobless growth and visible results are a fairy tale. It is not impossible, but only with a lot of work, continuous learning, and patience, in baby steps, step by step.

There are no wrong choices, but experiences from which you can learn. Try, probe with curiosity, until you discover your vocation, the direction of performance, confidence, and do not give up, but take into account the constructive feedback you receive from specialists and try to improve/persevere day by day.

In addition to the baby steps mentioned above, you can take their example of curiosity, exploration, and perseverance. For example, when a baby starts walking, he often falls. Well, he gets up and makes the next attempt. He gets up whenever he falls and starts all over again. You just have to take the time to relearn this skill.

The capping is largely due to the lack of professional opportunities/blockages you have, but it is also related to you, as an individual. It is your duty to be in a continuous learning process, and this applies individually, on your own. At the same time, take advantage of every professional learning challenge and assimilate as much as possible, but with an emphasis on quality, not quantity.

If the opportunity for learning and promotion is limited to the current job, learn everything that can be learned (deep, not superficial) and then, after mastering extremely well what you learned there, you can reorient to us professional opportunities.

Personally, I believe that after leaving school/university, before embarking on your professional life, it is good to have a break for yourself, for your personal development. I encourage all young people to take advantage of international volunteer programs and only after they have done a volunteer internship to turn their attention to the professional field.

There are short-term internships, up to 12 months, in different countries, in different fields, organized free of charge by NGOs, through programs managed by ANPCDEFP. It offers you the opportunity for personal and professional development, as you failed to accumulate in all the years of classical education.

There are programs with internships in the chosen field, in which you will benefit from the opportunity to learn through volunteering, you will benefit from local language courses in the country you will go to, you will have accommodation, meals, pocket money, dedicated mentoring and permanent support. From such a program you can return more decisively to a professional direction.

If the life situation requires you to enter the field of work directly, but you do not know where to take it, I recommend an ikigai self-assessment.

What was the most important decision you had to make in your career as an HR professional? Are you ever thinking of trying something else, in another field of activity?

I think that the most important and difficult decision in my career, on a personal level, was a very recent situation: the professional change from a company where I was extremely satisfied, appreciated, and, somewhat, in a comfort zone, in a company nine, just as promising.

In the new company, I felt that more guidance was needed, and my help was more needed. I love helping people catch wings, and that helped me decide to accept a new challenge. To accept the journey in the direction where I am most needed. At my former job, in over three years, I managed to build stability, and things were already working out of inertia. At the current job, everything must be readjusted and thought according to the new needs and the accelerated flow of growth.

In the new environment, we found some phenomenal people who are beautiful, intelligent, and passionate, with extraordinary potential. I was deeply impressed by what they have managed to build so far, some ambitious young people, and resonate enormously with their cultural values, which are not just written on a piece of paper. Things have worked very well so far, only the time has come when they need an extra helping hand and I can't wait to be with them on this journey of 'shaping the future together'. 🙂

At the moment, I am not thinking of reorienting myself to another field. I am crazy about the principle of 'lifelong learning' and non-formal education, and at one point I was flirting with the idea of ​​becoming a university teacher, but this passion is fulfilled due to the courses I provide in parallel. Therefore, there is no specific desire for reorientation. I am one of the lucky ones who love their job.

Translated article first seen on AngajatorulMeu.ro