As an organisation we recognise that our greatest assets are our people and that the key to growth and retaining talent is nurturing their individual strengths.
That's why we allow recruiters to follow their passion and move away from the traditional 360º sales role and into more specialised roles focused solely on either candidates or clients. One person who’s taken advantage of this change is Dainah Ghijzen, Sales Development Coach at SThree in the Netherlands. Let’s take a look at her story and hear how it’s changed her life.
How Dainah began her career in recruitment
In the summer of June 2011 Dainah was training to be a teacher and had just returned home to Amsterdam from a trip to Aruba when she heard about SThree. Despite having never considered a career in recruitment she was attracted by the opportunities it offered. She was impressed by the obvious strength of the company and impressed by the support she could get from her colleagues to develop her career.
She decided to take the plunge and joined Real as a trainee recruiter. 18 months on and Dainah took advantage of the mobility offered by SThree to join Computer Futures as a Recruitment Consultant specialising in the Business Intelligence market.
What Dainah’s learned from being a recruiter
Dainah has learnt a lot during her time as a recruiter, not just about the job but about herself. A career in recruitment is, she thinks the perfect place to learn what kind of person you are (analytical, collaborative, spontaneous, determent, rational); and give you the opportunity to use those skills to their fullest extent.
The inevitable ups and downs as a recruitment consultant has taught her that to succeed you need to be able to see your goals through to the end. The best recruiters she says also learn to look ahead and see what the future holds for sectors and businesses and adapt to take advantage of the opportunities it offers.
You also need to be honest with yourself and make sure you’re happy with the direction your career is heading, after all it’s important that what you do at work makes you happy.
Following your strengths
Knowing and using your strengths is key to being successful and feeling fulfilled in your job. For herself Dainah found out that helping and coaching others was something she was really good at and wanted to pursue.
In August 2014 Dainah became a mother and coming back after maternity leave she felt her priorities had changed and her previous role wasn’t quite right for her. With the help of her manager and with the mentorship of a female Director within SThree she went about building a good balance between her private life and her career. Dainah refocused her career; she was given the opportunity to establish a new role and first work as Performance Coach for CF and later as a Sales Development Coach for SThree.
Finding your true vocation
Dainah is now coaching new starters within SThree in their first 6 months with the business. She finds developing people is very close to her heart, it fits her personality and who she is as a person and also as a mother. That’s why, as much as she is challenged in her job, she finds it enormously rewarding to help others.
The thing she likes most about SThree is the energy within the company and how working with young people means she can make a difference by helping them grow in their role and careers. “For me mom qualities certainly help to be a good coach, as attention, positive feedback and clear values are essential in helping someone to grow”.
If you want to find out more about the different recruitment career paths within SThree, watch the following three videos on our Careers Website.