My love affair with Recruitment & my wish to transfer this passion for the human being within Gentis
2 weeks ago, I went on lunch with one of our consultants who asked me a lot of questions around how we started Gentis. He told me it would be very interesting to share it with everyone that’s how I decided to tell you more about the one & only Gentis story. Don’t believe in overnight success. There are no other routes for success in entrepreneurship rather than to put in a consistent daily effort for a (very very) long time.
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT ? not really …
IT WAS ALL JUST A BIG COINCIDENCE. Well, to be very honest, I came into this job “accidentally”. If I go back to my youth, I have always been passionate about people and their behaviors. At a very young age I wanted to be a teacher. This would later change to wanting to become a lawyer or psychologist. I wanted to live the “wolf of wall street” kind of life but with a human twist. That’s how I started my career within recruitment.
After 2 weeks in recruitment, I gave my resignation : too much pressure, people calling all the time, those bells ringing for deals, all the noise, I didn’t get anything and wanted to go as far away as I could.
I spoke to a manager, who told me : “ recruitment is like a 1st year in marriage, the first months are the most difficult ones with lots of emotional rollercoaster, keep it up and let’s talk in 1 year”
2 weeks later, I was doing my first deal — which was a drop out, which led to an incredible amount of tears and wall boxing — but that’s the moment where I truly fell in love with recruitment.
I had had an impact in the candidate’s life and the client trusted me to find the right solution for him.
This client became a gold one and I made several placements in 18 months within this bank.
That’s also the moment where I became top junior of the year, went to las vegas, lived the real deal of recruitment.
I was surfing on a vague, living my love story with recruitment, placing people, making clients satisfied.
All this time, my current partner in crime, Farid, was living his own love story in IT, whilst I was taking care of the Finance team.
When my other current partners, Hassane & Olivier started at our previous company, it was a real crush and we all knew we would “end up together” but didn’t know how. We already knew the roles in our “couple” : Steph the planner, Hassane the pacifier always going for compromises, Olivier the fun geek always trying to find new tech solutions to improve things with a twist of humour & farid, the guru dreamer, the guy who wanted to conquer the world.
We decided to set up a Gentis with one goal : delivering the best service possible to both candidates and clients. And always being on top of the trends.
2011 : Brussels office opening — 4 people — smashing the bell on the sales floor with the 4 of us, trying to celebrate every little win and make sure we would build a strong foundation for the future.
2011–2014 : we went from 4 to 16 people — those 3 years have been a financial & emotional rollercoaster. We were going from very bad to very good news. We’ve had to toughen up, expand and show a lot of strengths whilst facing financial ups & downs. We’ve had to keep smiling and driving people whilst we were sometimes going home not sleeping & eating white rice at the end of several months in a row. We’ve had to pay commissions, offer champagne & trips whilst almost not paying ourselves at the end of the month to cover all of that. But that’s also the moment where our relationship got stronger than ever, we stick together, never lost faith, kept expanding, and had 1.000 ideas at a time.
2014 : first thoughts about Hireme — we were having drinks at the beach and we thought “the world is changing, people move always faster from jobs & there are more & more freelancers, why not launching a platform to make things faster for people & companies” yes it took a while to process it & launch it 😊 many years of upgrades, development but I can honestly say that this all hireme team managed to build a rolls Royce over the past 2 years and watch out this car is already riding very fast
January 2015 : Casablanca office opening — 6 people, Imane, our current manager, still laughs about her first day in our little office & we remember this boiling period where we were setting this brand new office on a new continent — Why Morocco? Morocco has flown in 2 partners blood since the beginning and it’s actually now flowing in my children’s blood too. We’ve always seen Morocco as a huge opportunity of development, the door to Africa, the country where everything is possible but nothing is certain
September 2015 : Antwerp office opening — 6 people — those Flemish guys were really good closers — the current leaders over there will back me up on that — and they convinced us to open this office in order to improve their productivity and efficiency, which was completely right.
2016 : we moved to casa in order to support office’s expansion going from 15 to 60 employees in 2 years, with the big help of the 2 managers over there. They became the backbone of the Casa office. Working with family is not always simple as you get to talk about business 24/7 even on Sundays evening dinners but it’s also a big strength. We share the same values and support each other in every kind of situation. So, I won’t go into details but those 2 years in Morocco were a real MBA where we lived so many different situations and learned so many things about human & management. Those managers grew as strong leaders for the business. Always being loyal, they managed set up an amazing working environment where employees feel at home while they are working. Also encouraging communication throughout the day — bringing the right people together, and getting things done in the most efficient manner possible
That’s also the moment where our strong captains in Brussels were officially taking the lead in Belgium. Working on daily basis with them, having long discussions, sometimes fights, brainstorming sessions at eleven o clock in the evening or waking up with 20 messages of them or on a Sunday makes me realize that everything that has been built over those last 3 years is, amongst others, thanks to those 2 crazy guys, one obsessed with figures & strategies, the other constantly looking for the best in every person. The mixture of that gives, like we always say, the perfect manager. In good & hard times, I saw 2 teamleaders evolving in real strong managers able to make decisions & drive the people every single day. 2 people, always thinking about the best for Gentis, able to make little juniors grow into unbelievable top performers.
2017 : keep on jumping on opportunities : we received a call from a manager in engineering from a competitor who wanted to move with other people, 2 weeks later, we received the application of another manager in recruitment, Finance Manager, who wanted to move with people from the team — that’s how we decide to launch the Paris office opening — 9 people
2018 : at some point last year, we had built a boat of 100 employees but were still lacking structure, that’s the moment where we decided to build the strongest back office department ever. And I can honestly say we wouldn’t be here without them. Managing Payroll, Marketing, Accounting. Effective back office operations help the company to achieve more in terms of productivity and cost efficiency. And they’re managing both internal & external clients, always looking for solutions. I would like to thank them all as they’re the backstage managers and the boat would have been sinking if they were not there.
2019 : where are we today ? Well, internal Recruitment is booming — we wanted and still want to grow every team in every office. Coming together was the a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together will be our success
Navigating crazy situations became second nature to all of us. Over the last 10 years, I’ve met more than 2000 candidates, placed over a 100, and hired over 300 people, we’ve had 15 couples meeting within Gentis, 12 babies & 9 others coming next year . Life is a series of interactions between individuals. Some grow into blossoming flowers while others pass in the wind. Each and every conversation is a journey of wonder to me. Making that initial connection and finding that common bond and then letting it grow from there. There is nothing more precious in all of the business world.
And to be quite honest, I am amazed when I see our team members passionate & dedicated like we are. What I heard during some end of year evaluations those last weeks impressed me so much in terms of maturity, ambition, and drive. This is simply making me feel we are building something really really huge out here right now.
The market is constantly changing, so the need to adapt to these changes has made it even more interesting year on year. Don’t be scared about it but rather feel being part of a huge change that is already happening in the recruitment’s industry.
This industry is and will always be a people-thing. It’s made up of you, me, clients and candidates. The lives that are shaped and changed and the businesses that are grown from this are all a result of your hard work and dedication.
So as we are talking about love story and a “wedding” all together — Here are my wishes for each of us this year :
- Passion : let’s be passionate about people — their motivations, behaviors, their success stories, main achievements and also reasons for failure. let’s be grateful to have the opportunity to meet talented people and learn every day about their jobs.
- Set personal goals & be results driven : Recruitment is a career in which your skills and hard work are directly linked to your results, which can make it incredibly rewarding.
- adapt to every situation & seeing problems as the fuel for action : The journey of an entrepreneur is full of obstacles and unanticipated problems and so is your career .
- Always be learning : make every day a school day. The more you know, the more you’ll have to offer
- Recognize the importance of teamwork : “talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence wins championships”
- Be proud about the impact you have : Placing people in their dream jobs is something you get the chance to do most days. It’s important to remind yourself of this (particularly on the hard days)
Really, I can’t say that I regret my decision to go into recruitment for one day. If we all would love our jobs and careers, this world would be a much better place. And I am dedicated to influence that as much, as I only can. And I do encourage you to follow your passion as well.
We truly believe in creating your own luck. Do the same, think of it like building your own business : Your own love story in recruitment and make sure you’ll live happily for ever after…
