Corina Soare, Recruitment Manager of ALTEN Romania, told us about diversity, mobility and teamwork within the company, values ​​that are reflected in the mission and organizational culture. There is a lot of emphasis on communication and transparency, factors that determine employees to choose ALTEN every day.

You currently have 594 employees. What is the element that keeps employees connected to the organization's mission?

We promote talent, skills development, career and mobility management, safety and personal development of our employees. Why? All this helps us to fulfill our mission to provide technological expertise to our customers through a multisectoral approach, through stability and teamwork. And diversity and mobility are the two elements that keep employees connected to the company's mission.
ALTEN combines the advantages of a large group (28 countries, over 37,000 employees) with the dynamism of projects in which employees remain the main component behind the success. In Romania, ALTEN has both local and international clients in various fields, such as telecom, financial-banking, automotive, retail, energy, but also medical and academic. Sectoral mobility and project diversity generate a space where everyone can reach their potential and develop their career - a combination that, I believe, manages to keep employees involved and connected to our mission.

How would you describe your organizational culture in 3 words?

Development, collaboration and care for people. Specifically, employee development takes place in a collaborative environment, where each of us contributes to the success of the team. Decisions that impact employees are very well evaluated and we try, through concrete actions and constantly, to rise and even exceed their expectations.

What are the opportunities for internal mobility in your organization?

As mentioned before, the company places a lot of emphasis on the diversity of projects and sectoral mobility. For example, an engineer working in ALTEN may enter a Data Analyst position for a client in the banking industry and move to the same position, but for the telecom industry. Also, the fact that we have clients from so many industries, helps us to give employees access to a variety of technologies, projects and methodologies from which to choose, depending on their profile.

What are those details that define your organization's culture, but can't be found in an office tour?

Our culture is based on values ​​shared by our employees. I think one detail that cannot be seen from a simple tour of the office is organizational involvement. Even if, at the moment, we cannot carry out our activities in this area, the ALTEN team is involved in a wide range of events and initiatives aimed at creating a perfect combination between technological events, social responsibility and moments of relaxation. Workshops and technical meetings, social events and educational actions, donations and initiatives represent the network of cultural and social commitments that make ALTEN a united team. One of these events, which we can organize in the current conditions, is ALTENTalks - internal knowledge sharing sessions, organized monthly. We believe in the exchange of technical experiences, that is why the employees with expertise on certain topics hold a monthly online technical presentation, to which any ALTEN Romania employee interested in that subject can register.

What are the focus elements for the management line, when it comes to employee experience for employees?

The diversity, mobility and teamwork that are found in our company contribute significantly to the professional development of employees. Moreover, we try to constantly update the technical equipment, so that employees can carry out their activity without impediments. Easy and transparent communication is important for the smooth running of things, and among our concrete actions related to this, I must mention the internal VentBox program. VentBox is an added element in the internal newsletter through which employees can share their grievances and through which management has constant feedback to implement new ideas for improvement for certain processes / activities within the organization. Since March 2020, working from home has been implemented for more than 90% of employees, the concern at the management level being the safety of employees.

In a market with fierce competition for staff, what makes your employees choose you, as an employer, every day?

The varied opportunities within the company and the work environment are two of the most important elements that determine the employees to stay in the company. If a certain person is no longer satisfied with the position he has on a certain project, he always has the support of the manager to look for a new position in the company. We put a lot of emphasis on communication and transparency, factors that I think bring us a considerable plus. Also, each employee has annual evaluations that allow career development. We support the evolution of the people from ALTEN, that's why we have examples of employees who started their career in the company after graduating, and after three years they obtained a position of team lead or project manager. Also, the average length of service in the company is about 5 years, a good average considering the speed with which jobs change in the current market, and more than 15% of employees are over 10 years old.

How many positions are you expected to recruit during this year and what are the channels through which you will communicate the team expansion actions?

We estimate around 100 new employees during this year, and the communication will be done both internally, through our referral programs, and externally, on the LinkedIn pages of our recruiters and on our career page - careers.altenromania.ro. Usually, for jobs that require special skills, we also start campaigns on Facebook.

What are the roles for which you find it difficult to find candidates in general? Why and how do you prepare for these challenges?

Highly niche engineering roles are a challenge due to industry-specific knowledge requirements along with other elements that make the process difficult, such as French, German, etc. Fortunately, in Romania there are very good engineers for any specialization, the difficulty is given by their attraction in the company, because their number is considerably smaller than the market requires. In our company, among the most sought after positions are QA Engineers, Business Analysts, developers of different technologies, Project Managers and Architects - in the IT area, and mainly Software Engineers - Embedded C, Tester, Developer - in the engineering area.

In the end, what do you recommend to those who want to get to know you better and assess whether your mission and values ​​create the opportunities they need?

Feedback from both employees / former employees and people who just went through our hiring process on our page on Undelucram.ro are a good starting point. We are also present in Social Media - Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn - I recommend following our accounts, where we post news and insights from life at ALTEN. For those who have specific questions, they can contact our recruiters directly on LinkedIn - they are always open to communication with people interested in the company.

Article published by Undelucram.ro.