Life at Wilson | Ileana's career journey

Hi, I'm Ileana. I'm based in Bucharest, Romania. I'm part of the delivery team, senior TAS, and I'm going to talk to you about my career journey.

Yeah, I remember my very first role. I was a talent acquisition specialist. And it was a great experience for me. It was very good for me to start off as a talent attraction specialist and working mainly with candidates and focusing on that specific service to be top notch. And I learned to do it very well.

So I was working as a travel agent and I was doing lots of client facing and it was one of my strong suits, communication, dealing with various situations with clients. And then after five years there, I was just looking for another career for myself. I had a one-year experience with a company and I had to look at their CVs, their profiles. So those skills were transferable into recruitment. I ended up working for the tobacco industry back then. After that one year, I joined Wilson. And here I joined as a TAS and it was very good for me to take it step by step to actually learn to do this Sorcerer role and learn all those tools, all that sourcing, and I developed a detective-like profile. I really enjoyed it, actually. One of the reasons I stayed for in this company for so long. Besides the culture that I think is very fit for me, I had the opportunity to grow. So after two years, in the TAS role, I went to an associate recruiter role and I think I stayed there for less than a year and then an opportunity arose evolved into a recruiter role. So I had more requisitions to look after, lots of client facing and I loved that part. I really enjoyed that ownership of the recruitment process, like talking to the candidates, talking to the managers, understanding their strategy and then developing my own strategy when going into the market. So that's how I evolved from a task to a recruiter role. And then I did a lateral step because I have analytical skills. So I enjoyed looking at the market and understanding how I can be more strategic to attract those candidates and present them in a good way to the client. So therefore I moved from a recruiter role into the market intelligence team. So I was back then a market analyst and I was working mainly with internal teams whenever they had challenging roles that they couldn't feel that have been open for a long time, they would come to.

So I moved into that role for like a year. Then I was on maternity leave and Then I came back into a project where I'm part of the selection process for graduates for a brewing company. It's really think the most valuable one is to listen. Because as a recruiter, you also get to talk a lot. Maybe you have to sell roles, you have to get in touch with candidates, it's important to listen, to listen to what's relevant to the other person so that you know what you actually bring them. It's also important to listen to feedback from leaders, from colleagues, just to see what they have to say. And that was a big lesson for me when I joined the company, was a task. After some point, wasn't delivering the rhythm the business needed me to. So I just opened up to feedback. After that, when I started to be like on my feet and hitting the ground and being a high performer, yeah, my confidence really grew.

I think people really inspire me. I remember when I was recruiting lots of engineers and I was so inspired by the work that they do. And it was, to be honest, it was my only chance to hear those kinds of stories they were telling me what kind of work they do and what kind of technology they use, and that was really inspiring for me. I really get motivated when I see that a team is cohesive and we work well together. For example, in this role that I am now, I really enjoy the team dynamics. The kind of, you know, we support each other. Maybe we have a laugh, we say a joke, but then it's really hard work and we work together towards a goal. So that really motivates me and if you're just starting in this field, I think it's important to understand which part you really enjoy and you're really good at doing. Maybe you are really good at Excel files. Maybe you really, really like working with people. So I think it's important to be aware of your own motivators, And then there will be other parts that need to be developed and you need to be open to feedback for.

I would like to go into leadership, but starting with mentoring first. and just take these steps into going into a recruiter team leader, task team leader, an opportunity that's available to start leading people because I know that's something I need to learn. but I think it's something that might be good for me so that's what I would like to do in the next month, years.

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