My 365 days with Terminal 1

Written by Bryant Chiang, Sr. Recruitment Consultant at Terminal 1.

"Life is what you make it" is one of my favorite mottos. It shows a very positive attitude to life living. And this is how I feel in T1.

In 2020, we were forced to stop our business from international recruitment and switched to build up a domestic recruitment service in Taiwan from scratch due to the COVID outbreak. During this kind of "Growing pains", Edwin (T1's CEO) always got our back to support the team to move on. For example, he kept sharing the quarterly review with us to let us know how we progressed in the past. Even making a little progress can go a long way, and this is how people in T1 deal with disappointment.

I hope you will have a better understanding of what makes T1 so special and what we'd accomplished in 2020 by reading these Q&As below. :)

BEFORE JOINING TERMINAL 1

I had served as a 360-degree recruitment consultant at the Adecco Group, one of the biggest recruitment firms in the world, for 2.5 years and mainly specialized in software talent acquisition ranging from the application to the infrastructure side.

DESCRIBE T1 BY ONE SENTENCE

"Keep trying to standardize the workflow logically and build up automated toolings from scratch, to ensure employees could work efficiently." This is what I've experienced after joining T1 for 1+ years. For example, as a recruiter, you could use our t1.me service to take notes online, and the pitch bar function to introduce openings may be suitable for candidates, instead of doing paperwork and keeping jobs in mind.

Q1. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO JOIN T1? 

When I started my journey in software technical recruitment, I felt like the hardest part is to know your partners (candidates and clients) well, and this would determine how you provide an 11-stars service to them. Therefore, I was always trying to find a surrounding (online-offline) that could help me learn software-related stacks/ terms properly and efficiently, and this would not only allow me to identify my partners accurately but also communicate with them easily, instead of pure searching and matching. Fortunately, I met T1 and was sure that this is the place where I would enjoy my work after having several talks with the team members in TW and HK. 

Q2. WHAT IS THE OVERALL ATMOSPHERE AND WORKING CULTURE OF THE T1 TEAM?

"Flexible and Transparent" are how I feel in T1. We are a technology startup, hence, we are keen to try and make mistakes to generate T1's best practice. Moreover, we have a flat organization, so it's easier for people to bring out their opinions. 

Q3. WHAT IS THE HARDEST CHALLENGE YOU'VE FACED IN YOUR GIVEN ROLE AT T1? 

When I served as a CM (Candidate Manager), I would say "CMs Bootcamp", a sprint to help recruiters to understand the level of talents within a specific domain (e.g. F2E, Data, Backend) from sourcing to engaging, and I was responsible for the candidates in Southeast Asia. There are so many blocks to me, such as new markets, language, culture, and a deeper understanding of the tech stack. But thanks to the Bootcamp, I'd broadened my comfort zone and deepened my interview skills with cross-national candidates.

Q4. WHAT IS THE MOST ENJOYABLE MOMENT IN YOUR T1 CAREER?

Overall, the most enjoyable thing is to see the progression of my skills in both technical understandings and interviews. These are the same results that I expected. 

Q5. HOW IS T1 DIFFERENT COMPARED WITH THE MOMENT YOU JOINED? 

I would say our system and workflow are getting better, to implement more useful features, such as pitch bar and handbooks. 

Q6. GOING FORWARD, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO ACCOMPLISHING WITH T1? 

Learn how to do frontend development and perform data analysis over programming.

Q7. DESCRIBE YOUR ROLE AT T1 AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM YOUR LAST ROLE?

I'd say the biggest difference is the professional allocation, our recruiters have their specialties, for example, I am specializing in Web Frontend/ backend talents acquisition. This allocation would allow us to accumulate different levels of candidates and know the jobs market within a specific position which means we could provide more efficient recruitment services for all tiers of companies.

Above are what I've experienced in the past 1 year. Feel free to PM me if you are keen to know T1 more! :)