On Thursday 27th May 2021, our Founder, Paul Toms, joined futura21 for its latest live futura21 event.

This webinar, Be Proactive in your Job Search – Learn how to be Targeted by using “The 1 Pager”, was hosted by futura21’s Diana Ritchie from 11:00 to 12:00 CET.

Paul explained how to ensure your job application stands out, with a focus on “the 1 pager”. Paul discussed what “the 1 pager” is, how to use it and how businesses are reacting to a proactive approach to recruitment.

He also gave an overview of the current job market in Switzerland and the challenges that job seekers - and hiring managers - are facing. 

Paul ended the session by answering some audience questions live.

futura21 supports executives in career management and professional transition in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

Diana Ritchie provides coaching and training in French and English. She supports the creation, adaptation and delivery of training material.

This event was held in English.

Paul set up EMEA Recruitment in 2007 with a focus on recruitment in Switzerland and the Netherlands. He is now expanding the business into Singapore and the wider APAC region.

Paul is a proactive recruitment leader and career mentor, with over 20 years’ experience. He has a unique and proven approach to helping jobseekers and employers alike. He is also the host of the EMEA Recruitment podcast, regularly interviewing business leaders about their career stories and life successes.

If you'd like to connect with Paul, you can visit his LinkedIn profile here: linkedin.com/in/paultoms/

To stay up to date with all future events, please visit our website: https://www.emearecruitment.com/events

We were delighted to host a webinar on Growth Mindset, in collaboration with Netflix, Heineken and Danone.

Due to popular demand from our network, we explored the culture of Growth Mindset within top multi-national businesses across the Netherlands.

Covering their Growth Mindset journeys across Finance, Human Resources and Procurement, these leaders shared their unique knowledge on this hot topic.

On Thursday 20th May, from 12:00 to 13:00 CET, we hosted talks via Zoom from each of the three speakers, followed by a Q&A session. 

Meet our Growth Mindset Leaders

Robertjan Dekker: Vice-President, Controller EMEA, APAC, LATAM at Netflix

Robertjan shared his thoughts on the challenges in hiring, growing, automating and evolving a Finance team from 1 person in 2014 to a big team in Amsterdam, Singapore, Brazil, London and India in 2021.

What type of Growth Mindset is required and how does a company's culture play a role?

Melissa Muirhead: Global HR Director - Finance at Heineken

Melissa discussed how her passion for people, and interest in how we build and drive capability and performance has driven her career as an HR leader.

Our mindset either enables or disables us to fulfil our potential and what we think is possible (or not) for us. Dr Carol Dweck’s work on Growth Mindset has repeatedly been proven to build resilience, increase performance in times of challenge and open our minds to trying new things.

With the world feeling so out of control so much of the time, we have control over our mindset and understanding how to view the world through a Growth Mindset is life-changing (and proven to be so).

Armijn Verweij: VP Procurement Excellence at Danone

Armijn looked at what future skills are needed, assessing the importance of change management in moving organisations and people to work in a different way. What is the role of the ecosystem, partners and integrations in new organisations?

In the digital space, how much will jobs, processes and value creation change, and – importantly - how fast? We must prepare for evolution in data, analytics, AI, RPA and more.

In this journey, we should question the role of the leader, the role of the company and the role of the individual. As we prepare for the 4th industrial revolution, we must understand what it means.

Thank you to all who attended the webinar and to our speakers for a truly engaging session.

John Bower, our Director – Finance in Switzerland, was honoured to be invited back to the American University in Switzerland (AUS), to deliver another presentation as part of its AUS Speaker Series.

Last year, John delivered the first virtual lecture for AUS’s Speaker Series on Career Control. On Tuesday 18th May 2021, he conducted another virtual session about Career Consultancy for AUS students.

John’s presentation mirrored a live session that EMEA Recruitment goes through with every candidate we have at the final interview stage during the recruitment process. Some recruitment agencies believe that a 40 to 45-minute session with candidates is unnecessary, but we’re proud to focus on the candidate’s journey into a new role.

There is also a personal reason that John finds it important to highlight career planning; no one gave him this level of insight when he was at school or university, so he believes it’s best for people to receive this information at the earliest point possible in their careers.

John used his expertise in Finance & Accountancy to talk through the three stages of a career, explaining that the same model can be used for all other business disciplines. He explained the skills needed to move from the technical stage, to the managerial stage, to the strategic stage in a career, culminating in the reasons that those in strategic positions can earn such high salaries.

He spoke through the differences between being a Specialist and a Generalist, and why Generalisation can make someone more employable.

John will return to AUS in October to deliver a complementary seminar on building your own career plan. He left the students with a simple exercise to complete ahead of the second session, which we perform with candidates before their job interviews.

During the Q&A at the end of John’s presentations, some common concerns were revealed amongst the students. John will seek to advise on some of these issues in October’s interactive session.

If you have any questions about Career Consultancy, please contact John at: [email protected]

EMEA Recruitment recently joined our career development partner, Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), for its Inside Talk webinar series.

We presented at the Securing a Job in the Digital Age: Don’t Just Hit Apply event on Monday 22nc March 2021, and went into further detail on some of the topics covered in a previous talk at the IMA’s Management Accounting conference.  

Even if you’re not actively searching for a new role, we explained the importance of actively putting in the groundwork now to be in a better position when you do want or need a new job.

Sharing our thoughts with delegates, we stated that: “Sometimes we’re lucky and jobs fall into our laps, but usually there’s been some hard work that’s gone on in the background. If you want to have a competitive edge over candidates in the market, you need to take control of your career.”

We began the presentation by discussing career planning and gave attendees five questions that they could ask themselves after the event, in order to start plotting out their career goals.

We also gave advice on updating your CV/resume and getting the first impression of yourself right to a potential employer.

Looking at applying for jobs digitally, we explained the importance of using LinkedIn as an online CV/resume, and how this can help recruiters find you on the platform or assist you when applying for roles.

However, we warned against solely relying on LinkedIn’s Easy Apply feature, insisting that it’s always worth putting time into a full application.

The presentation finished with a focus on preparing for interviews, especially how to succeed at video calls in the current market. We equipped attendees with a checklist and key takeaway points to help them kickstart their career plans.

A question-and-answer session was hosted by Terry Mormile, the Director of Educational Initiatives & Career Services at IMA.

Members of the audience asked about the following:

• What to do about gaps in your resume
• If you need to write a cover letter
• Where to make the cut-off on your CV if you’ve had a long career
• Advice for people who’ve moved to another country
• Whether recruiters look at frequently changing jobs poorly

If you wish to discuss career planning in more detail, please contact either:

John Byrne, CH Country Director, if you are in Switzerland: [email protected]

Richard Bailey, Managing Director, if you are located in the Netherlands: [email protected] 

Paul Toms, Founder of EMEA Recruitment, if you are in the Nordics: [email protected]

On Tuesday 16th March 2021, we hosted an online webinar on The Art of the Possible with People Analytics, in collaboration with Crunchr.

This session was hosted for an exclusive group of leading Human Resources professionals across the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The webinar was designed to provide concrete analytical examples of talent development, succession planning, flight risk and sourcing strategies, to help leaders evolve HR into a stronger strategic function tomorrow.

Katie Insley, our Associate Director who leads our HR division in the Netherlands, was joined by Dirk Jonker, the Founder & CEO of Crunchr Workforce Analytics. The webinar began with an inspiring introduction from Dirk on the three focus areas of HR analytics.

After looking at the power of analytics in HR, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dirk went on to highlight several use cases, including how to identify opportunities to reduce costs, mitigating business risk and assessing the wellbeing of employees.

We looked at how much potential data HR leaders are sitting on, as well as how to use this information for strategic planning purposes.

Katie and Dirk looked at whether companies should build, buy or borrow their talent, as well as how to analyse failed hires and identify flight risks.

In order to tailor the session to the audience’s needs, we conducted a quick poll on where attendees feel they’re currently at in their data analytics journey. We then left delegates with some powerful insights that will help them make a greater impact within their organisations.

Dirk Jonker is a thought leader in people analytics, is passionate about business transformation and is an expert in adoption. He is currently researching strategic (workforce) planning and the data science of adoption.

Crunchr is the most intuitive solution for workforce reporting, people analytics and strategic planning. It consolidates your data into one clean version of the truth and provides you with actionable insights across HR domains. How can we reduce turnover? Do we offer equal pay? Crunchr empowers you to answer big talent questions in seconds, and is trusted by Nouryon, Rabobank and GrandVision.

If you are interested in attending similar HR events in the future, please contact Katie on: [email protected]

We were proud to host a virtual event with Professor David Larson, the Dean of Academics at the American University in Switzerland.

The Storytelling: How to make Presentations more Impactful, Interesting & Meaningful session was held on Monday 8th March 2021 at 13:00-14:00 CET.

David was joined by our Director – Finance, John Bower, to host this engaging lecture for our Swiss network.

You rarely hear someone say, “Wow, I’m so excited to go sit in this budget presentation!”. Most people dread sitting through presentations. Most people hate giving presentations. Most presentations are horribly boring and painful to listen to, and to deliver.

Everything conveys a message; we just need to craft a stimulating and engaging way to tell that message.

In this session, we explored how you can use storytelling and interactivity to bring to life any presentation, and create that engaging information flow. We looked at introductions, laying the foundation, building the climax and then how to wrap it all up in a dynamic conclusion. At the end, our audience should have had a better understanding of how to design more thought-provoking, memorable and powerful presentations.

We are proud to continue our strong working relationship with the American University in Switzerland. We recently held a virtual lecture for the students on managing your career: https://www.emearecruitment.com/events/career-control-with-john-bower-aus-speaker-series/158

David Larson has more than 20 years’ experience of designing, developing and delivering adult education. He has lived in Jerusalem, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Ukraine, and worked in dozens of other countries, creating and implementing experiential learning opportunities for government and community leaders, including seminars, courses, workshops, coaching and mentoring.

In addition to face-to-face activities, he has written numerous guidebooks, case studies and tool kits. Most of his work has been building up and supporting young leaders around the world, including founding a youth leadership organisation in Ukraine.

David has an extensive management background, from managing upwards of 30 programs simultaneously, to being the chief Administration and Finance Advisor to the Afghan Electoral Commission and heading the National Democratic Institute’s West Bank/Gaza country office.

He has briefed international ministers, US secretaries, ambassadors, diplomats, US members of Congress, and senior US military and civilian leaders, and has worked closely with senior government officials.

David has worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and has consulted with the US Department of State, US Peace Corps, the Special Olympics, the National Democratic Institute, the Global Fund, Gavi and the McKellar Corporation.

To stay up to date with other events that we have planned, please see our website: https://www.emearecruitment.com/events