What's your job about?

I work in a BPO company under the Talent Acquisition Team, popularly known as Recruitment. I am a Talent Sourcing Supervisor who handles different modes of talent attraction strategies. Given my role, I am in charge of creating strategies to come up with a good talent pool that may potentially be hired for our company. I am also in charge of implementing them and making sure that these initiatives are well rallied to get positive output.

Being part of talent acquisition, we can be all seen as recruiters who do interviews, and that is not wrong at all, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Being able to identify a qualified candidate is just one of the many things that we have to be able to do. We also have to know how to properly attract the right talent to efficiently fill the client’s needs on time.

What's your background?

I graduated with a degree in Secondary Education Major in English. After graduation, I worked as an online English instructor in a Korean company in Pasig and learned a lot of new things and made new friends outside the school community. During that time, I realized that there’s a whole new different world out there and I was very excited.

When I left the company in 2013, I decided to enter the amazing world of BPO and applied in one of the companies in Ortigas. During my application process as a CSR, I was asked if I would rather be interested to be hired as a recruiter instead, who would interview candidates. I had a tingly feeling all over and I just immediately fell in love with the opportunity presented to me. Since I had my major in English, my first assignment was to assess English communication skills via an Initial Interview of candidates who will be applying via our offsite events, such as job fairs and external hiring activities. My initial contract of three months had lasted for almost two years as I got to be exposed to learning talent sourcing strategies, coping with the changing marketing trends, and simply knowing where and how to get qualified candidates.

Those two years of exposure led me to my first promotion as a Talent Acquisition Specialist and I was assigned to handle internal company partnerships, third-party vendors for talent sourcing, and leading a group of pre-screeners who call candidates and do an initial assessment if a candidate is qualified.

After six years in the industry, I hoped for career growth to learn more by being entrusted with more responsibilities, and that’s how I got my current role in VXI in 2019.

2019 is the most amazing year for me by far because I landed a new opportunity in VXI and I got pregnant with my wonderful son.

I have been with VXI for more than 2 years now and I am still learning a lot.

Could someone with a different background do your job?

Being a graduate of Education, working in the field of Recruitment, under a team specializing in Marketing, my answer is a definite YES!

Having a background in Marketing may be a plus since most of what Talent Attraction do is to promote and evolve with the changing market trends. But anyone can learn what we are doing through experience. To come up with strategies and promotions better, it is important to be observant and sensitive to the needs of the applicants. Building rapport and relationships with different stakeholders is also a must.

The BPO industry has been very generous in sharing information about their companies online so it is very easy to learn and understand.

What's the coolest thing about your job?

The reason why I fell in love with this job is the wide diversity of things that you can experience and learn from. Every day is a different day.

I get to meet different people, from my co-workers, operations partners, representatives from government job placement departments, and applicants, and everyone has a different story to tell and each relationship bond created with every individual is different.

Doing this for the last nine years, I still get confronted with changing marketing trends and approaches. From a time when putting posters does the deal to this time where social media plays a big role in our approach to talent attraction shows that I never stop learning.

What are the limitations of your job?

I have learned to multi-task3 pieces of advice for myself when you were a student...æ over the course of time, however, sometimes, it really becomes challenging to meet deadlines on reports and other emails because of the many things that I have to attend to. Sometimes, when the targets become difficult to achieve because some instances do not go in our favour, I sometimes feel stressed mentally. So it is important to be open to your leader about these challenges to get help and support. I also learned the art of proper delegation of tasks to other team members because as the saying goes, no man is an island.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

1. First and foremost, take your time. I know you’re always dreaming of becoming successful and being part of something big when you graduate. You look forward to earning your own money and imagining how to spend it. But do not lose sight of what’s in front of you, there are many things written on that chalkboard or that book you are reading right now that will help you get through once you become a professional. Also, take time to build lasting friendships, because once you become older, you will miss the moments when you have a lot of time to hang out with friends and talk for hours.
    
2. Second, aim to be healthy and fit. I know that at a young age, it’s easy to be fit, digestion is easy and goes according to your favor, lifting things is a piece of cake, and running is nothing. But take care of your health as early as now. Do not wait to turn thirty before regularly showing up a dental check-up appointment, drink a lot of water, limit your screen time with mobile phones and computers, exercise daily even if it means just taking a walk or riding a bike, and lastly, eat healthily. You will have a lot of things to experience when you graduate, like the hustle at work, meeting your friends after work hours, being present at family birthdays and affairs and doing your hobby on the side, and for that, you need to be physically ready.
    
3. Lastly, learn everything that you can get your hands on—may it be a book, manuscript, researches, magazines, or articles online. Read and read and do not limit what you learn. Talk to people and learn from their life experiences.
   It’s a big world out there, and there are a lot of opportunities that will present themselves to you. Getting prepared in advance lessens your intimidation in grabbing opportunities.