I’m a true philomath. During my business administration and management studies in Spain, I did an Erasmus exchange program in Poland to explore a totally new culture and to get to know new people I could learn from. Being away from home for the first time for a full year, not only brought me a lot of knowledge, it also gave me the chance to learn more about myself as a person, and what I want from life. It was a real enriching period in my life.

Keen to learn more about the business world, I decided to move to Antwerp to do an advanced master in entrepreneurship and innovation and to launch my career in a product marketing role. But I felt I was missing something in this position. I wanted to make an impact on people’s lives and started looking for a role that would allow me to do so, but also give me the opportunity to expand my personal learning curve.

Quite soon I realised that a career in recruitment would be a great next step for me. I joined the Robert Walters team in Antwerp because from all the recruitment agencies I spoke to, I felt this organisation was totally in line with my personal values and I could really sense the strong team spirit within. What convinced me the most though to join Robert Walters was the continuous learning opportunities that are available. After an intense training course with several people from our management team, I was given the opportunity to join networking events which allowed me to meet high-level finance and human resource professionals from both Bel20 and start-up organisations. I would never have thought I would be at the same dinner table for three hours with such interesting people at the start of my career. I’m a very eager to learn and curious person and events like these, and client meetings I attend, allow me to learn a lot about the way of working in different sectors, the worries and challenges that business leaders are facing and how we can help them with their hunt for the right talent to grow their organisation.

Although I like working from home every now and then, I prefer to spend my working days in the open space at the office. I am surrounded by talented people all day and by just listening to them, I benefit from on-the-job learning as well. Listening to people’s stories is what makes our job so interesting and rewarding. To make an impact on someone’s life, I feel it is important to take the time to actively listen to business leaders’ needs, and to do the same with potential candidates I meet. Over the past year, I have learnt that by asking the right questions and taking the time to explore opportunities, I can be successful in finding the right match.

For professionals who feel they are currently not reaching their full potential and are keen to make an impact on people’s lives, I can only recommend taking the jump and considering a career in recruitment.