9. December 2020

People @ Personio – Sanne Fernhout, SDR at Dublin

You recently moved to Dublin, can you tell us about your background? Did you live in other countries before?

I lived in several countries before moving to Dublin, I was born in the Netherlands and lived there till I was 4 years old. Then I moved to Italy where I grew up in a small town close to Lake Garda. I moved to Milan for my bachelor degree and studied in a really international environment, which made me curious about how it would be living abroad far from home and to discover new cultures.

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How was your onboarding experience like?
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How would you describe a typical good day at Personio?
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What is the most fun part of your job?
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What has been your biggest challenge recently?
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You are our very first SDR in Dublin, what advice would you give to someone who wants to apply as a SDR in the Dublin team?

With this in mind, I decided to spend a semester abroad in Adelaide, South Australia. I finished my bachelor in Italy and still had the feeling that my international experience could not end there, therefore I decided to do my Master's degree in Lund, Sweden. Now I live in Dublin, which makes this the 5th country I have been living in so far!

How was your onboarding experience like?

I started working at Personio in July, and at the time I was still living in Italy. Due to the fact that it was not really safe togather many people at the office in Munich, I did my onboarding remotely. At first, I was a bit afraid because I had a lot of questions and I just did not feel comfortable like texting my colleagues the whole time, but I was nicely surprised about how everyone was so open to help me out, plus I had a great "buddy" that booked 1:1 time with me regularly to guide me through the processes of my new role. All in all, I think onboarding can be quite a challenge for every company, it takes time to make the employee familiar with the company’s processes and ways of working, and doing this all remotely can be even harder. Nevertheless, I had the support of all my colleagues at Personio at every hour of the day, which made me feel part of the team and comfortable enough to ask all my questions. So, I would say my onboarding experience was great.

How would you describe a typical good day at Personio?

My job has been almost fully remotely. A good day for me is starting my morning with a nice cup of coffee and planning my tasks for the day. The first activities in the morning are contacting people either via email or phone, I personally feel that people are more active in listening to me when they just go into the office and this has been working well, of course a good day would be at least one positive conversation with a company. When I complete my outreaching, the planning and research start, here I start looking who I want to contact and what a good door opener could be. I personally really like looking up this information and being creative in my strategic outreach planning, this makes my day good. However, no matter what my day looks like, I always fill in some breaks with colleagues to catch up on zoom and just relax a bit and get to know new people as well.

What is the most fun part of your job?

The most fun part of the job is meeting many different people from different companies but with similar HR requirements. I love having conversations and building relationships with potential customers. Also, I really enjoy meeting my colleagues – I cannot wait to meet everyone finally in person! We are a really multicultural team and people working in the international team at Personio come from all over the world. I am really happy that…

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I found the international environment similar to the one I had during my university years that I was looking for. You never stop learning about other cultures.

What has been your biggest challenge recently?

The most challenging part for me has been, as for every employee during this global pandemic, working remotely. It can be lonely sometimes, especially if you are living abroad. However, the priority is to make the best out of it and stay active. My suggestion here is to always:

You are our very first SDR in Dublin, what advice would you give to someone who wants to apply as a SDR in the Dublin team?

Come with a lot of energy, willingness to learn and of course a good mood! There is so much you can learn from this job and also from all the colleagues that will be working with you every day. Never be shy because there are no stupid questions, and also be active in sharing wins and losses! As a team, we never stop learning from each other, that is how we keep growing.