Profiles of our people

Kunjal

Name : 

Kunjal

Job Title : 

Manager

Location : 

New York

Joined company : 

Mar-2002

Studied : 

BA French & Spanish

Introduction

I did door-to-door sales while I was at university and did really well. But when I graduated, I ended up working in IT for two years. It wasn’t for me. No matter how hard I worked, I always got paid the same – I hated that. I missed working in a target driven environment - like sales. So I went along to a graduate career fair and got set up with three interviews within the SThree group. I got offered the job by all three. I chose Real Resourcing (Real IT at the time) because someone put up a deal during my interview and they celebrated the success by ringing a bell while the whole office cheered! My type of place!

My role

I started as a Trainee in an office in London and made deals fairly quickly. My first came within six weeks. I was never really worried about the deals. I knew that if I stuck to the basics and did enough of the ‘controllables’ (adding managers, canvassing, client meetings), they would soon fall into place. When they started coming more consistently, I identified the top two in my office, looked at their monthly activity, and made sure I beat them on the ‘controllables’ every single week. I was Top Rookie that year and top salesperson the year after: ‘The Best in the Office’. I never got tired of hearing that.

I’m an ambitious person. I wanted some international experience, so I approached Huxley. They were the first company within SThree to be opening an office outside Europe. Personally, I thought it’d be amazing to live and work in New York. Professionally, it was an opportunity to be part of the Group’s growth across the Americas. There were many highs. The first month I billed over £100,000. There were also back-to-back months of earning 10k – 20k. We started to hire local staff -we were growing!

There were lows as well. A couple of years of being in New York and I’ll admit it: I got lazy. I thought the wins would keep coming without the old effort. My results started to decline. It hurt. I lost a lot of confidence. Luckily, my manager was very supportive. Slowly but surely I reconnected with what motivated me and started putting in the hours again. That meant getting to work at 7.15am and staying until 9pm or later. The success soon returned and I did my largest deal: $125k! My confidence was back and I was able to think beyond just billing and more about growing a team of people.

That’s been a whole new challenge. Identifying good people and constantly motivating requires a different skill set to billing. I’ve tried to grow my team based on agreed standards of performance. Everyone knows what’s expected of them. One of the recent highlights of my career is the record month my team had in May 2011. The best moment of my SThree career so far? It’s got to be becoming the top biller!

Training

Since I joined, the training people receive has really evolved. My Induction training was excellent though. It taught me everything I needed. Better still, my managers would then supplement what I learned in the classroom with ‘on the desk’ training.

I love the fact that the training ‘grows with you’. What I mean by that is: I have always received training that is relevant for where I am in my career. The most recent management training I’ve been getting has focused on how to motivate a group of people to work as a team. It’s been really interesting to learn different techniques to empower people to become the best salespeople they can be.

Working at SThree

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to work here. Then I talk to my friends who work in larger organisations. They’re so far removed from any of the key decision makers. Here, it’s a genuine open-door policy. Everyone is driven by the same goal: let’s make this an even better company for our clients, candidates and employees.

And it’s fun. Throughout my career, friends have met my work colleagues and they’re always surprised at how involved senior people are in making sure that SThree employees enjoy working here. They love hearing about all the incentives we run - from the company trips to the dressing up.

For me, to work at SThree you need a very clear idea of what you are motivated by. I’d say for most people here, it’s earning great money or being the best at something. Then you need the drive and determination to work hard enough to hit these goals.