F#@k 2020, lets rock this New Year 2021

An overview of the 2020 year for a Consultancy R&S company, wrote by one geek Recruitment Operations Manager.

When we started Damia, back in 2017, it was nowhere near in our minds that we would be faced with a year like the one that we just closed. I was challenged to write this post by our Marketing guru — Sofia — and share with you all, our challenges, mistakes, and lessons that we learned at Damia during this year.

A Pandemic as is to be expected, hits especially hard on businesses that provide services to other companies, Damia core business has been since it’s inception Recruitment and Selection, and when the Pandemic just started in Portugal the panic was set, suddenly we started to see a lot of different companies firing their employees, due to the closure of projects or divisions that were no longer “core” to their business, at the same time most of our clients stopped their hiring processes, either waiting for a word of their investors (suddenly their next financial round was uncertain?) or they were just waiting for the storm to pass and understand the next step, just like we were!

At Damia suddenly we had a fully remote team recruiting for very few clients, with recruiters doing not much more than one position at once, and I cannot lie if I wouldn’t tell you that things looked grim if we didn’t look over the horizon.

We have a fantastic team, and for us, it didn’t make any sense to use lay-offs or anything else. We would destroy our culture and our values, and also we believe that in a few months after we would go back to the same demand as beforehand.

Thus we decided that we should look inwards for the solutions rather than just expecting the outside to give us an answer.

And the solution came from the previous suggestions that we had from the team that they wanted to work on different projects! Now, with much less volume of recruiting than before, it just sounded like a perfect time, to structure Damia and give the autonomy to change several processes that were amiss from the organization.

At Damia, we still had a long list of things we wanted to implement, but that we always delayed due to the sheer volume of work. During this time we were able to organize our ATS & create a manual for it, prepare workshops, client surveys, Damia employee handbook, interview scripts, internal Wiki…

All of those were created by everyone from our team, everyone had a voice and the opportunity to create more structure and level up our company to the next level.

Often it takes something or someone to push us from our comfort zone, 2020 took us abruptly there. The year that challenged us to grow, build confidence, build strength, and learn.

Some people were forced into months of unbroken solitude, others trapped for weeks on end with an espouse, some saw it as a positive experience, a welcome opportunity to slow down, go for walks and relax with a loving partner, or enjoy quality time with their children.

Whichever way the lockdown played out, it abruptly disrupted our daily routines and living arrangements in ways that would not normally occur.

Whether people were forced to adapt because of redundancy, or whether the global situation made us affect our own transformation, it has become the year of resilience, learning, and personal development.

That’s what we did at Damia! We took advantage to grow, to work on things together, as a team, we work on our culture, on our commitment 💙

The work done was fantastic, and it’s now hard to find any company with the same number of employees as such an organization.

Two months after our clients started to recruit again and our team was ready to pick up where we had left before, but now, with a company that was more organized and stronger than before 💪

So if anything, 2020 just made us stronger and united, and with a Damia that is organized and prepared to scale for the years to come.

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About Damia Portugal:
We are an international innovative IT recruitment company with over 25 years of experience working across all levels, from support right up to executive board level, with our HQ based in the UK.

We came to Portugal with the promise to shake up the market and redefine how one engages with clients. Our core goal is to develop relationships across the market, offer a disruptive (but positive!) approach with both clients and candidates, always based on open and transparent communication.

We take the stresses out of recruitment and engage the right professionals who will excel in your organization.

We use out-of-the-box sourcing techniques.

We are innovative, disruptive, transparent, and relaxed.

We came to the market to do it differently and we love it!

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About Hélio:

Hélio it’s our Damia partner and recruitment Operations Manager. He’s The Recruiter who could be part of an engineering team, if he didn’t like recruiting so much.

For better describe Hélio we ‘stole’ a LinkedIn recommendation from João Trindade:
“Hélio is different than other recruiters. He doesn’t look for buzzwords in candidates. He strives to understand the culture and technical fit by studying deeply the candidate and the team he will work at. It is frequent to see Hélio mingle with the engineering group, understanding our team dynamics and geeky topics. He then looks for people that would suit these specific characteristics. I feel that this particular approach to talent acquisition is the correct one and Hélio does it perfectly.”

Don’t be shy! Say hello to Hélio and tell him what did you thought about this article 🔥