Reflections on Year 1 at Personio

A year ago, I made the choice to join Personio as VP Talent Acquisition – and what a year it has been. Since my team is responsible for identifying, attracting and hiring world-class people, I thought I’d share a bit about my own decision to join, how my journey has been so far, and what’s next for Talent Acquisition (TA) at Personio.

Why I joined Personio

I’ve been lucky to work within some amazing recruiting and TA teams throughout my career. Working in this space has also given me some helpful perspectives on how to uncover whether a job will be the right fit.

I typically consider three main things when thinking about a potential new role, in no particular order:

Product

Can I get behind the product and its potential? This is important to consider, particularly when working in TA, as we have to be able to pitch the business and the product trajectory to prospective hires.

When I was introduced to Personio, I could see the company had a ton of runway ahead. Despite being the leading HR software platform for SMEs in Europe, Personio was only scratching the surface of the opportunity. There are 1.7 million small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe with 10 to 2,000 employees, and Personio serves just 0.6% of them. It was also helpful that Personio operates in HR Tech, so the product felt “close to home” given my long experience in the HR space.

People

No matter where I go, I want to work with inspiring, world-class people who are genuine and values-driven. Speaking with Personios made it clear I had found a team with an abundance of these traits. Everyone I met – from our CEO Hanno Renner and his Exec team to all the folks working in People, Workplace and IT (PW&I) were consistently collaborative, empathetic, and caring. I was excited at the thought of working with them every day.

Impact

While driving a ton of impact, the TA team was still in the early stages of their journey toward becoming a truly strategic function that supports Personio to build a world-class organization. I was excited about the opportunity I would have to drive their continued impact. I could take TA from working relatively reactively and transactionally towards being trusted business partners that facilitate and drive our company’s growth. While this is never an easy task in scaling organizations, it’s one I continually gravitate to in my career.

Based on my experience as a candidate and conversations with Personios, I knew my boxes were checked in all three of these areas. I was excited to jump on board.

Initial goals: process, data, and structure

Being a part of a high-growth company requires us to work at a fast pace. While we have to be scrappy and move at speed we also need to be consistent, data-driven and structured. And try to fix the inefficiencies that slow hiring down.

As I settled into my role, I set three initial goals that would shape my strategic vision for TA at Personio:

1. Process improvements for our hiring efforts
2. Data-driven decision-making
3. Scalable structure and approach

Process

During my first few months, I focused on establishing consistent operating procedures for the TA team. This involved standardizing our interactions with candidates and hiring managers across all locations and departments. It also involved streamlining our hiring process to ensure uniformity, removing unnecessary friction within our operations, and eliminating silos within the team. By driving a more seamless and efficient recruitment experience, we continued to lay a strong foundation to support Personio's ambitious growth.

Data

Driving a data-driven mentality within the team was also a key focus. I prioritized building a strong foundation through key metrics—quality, experience, time, and source—that aligned with our leadership’s objectives and addressed critical business needs. Collaborating closely with our data team, we’ve invested in education, tools, and training sessions for the entire team. Looking ahead, we’ll focus on utilizing data to drive actionable insights to develop a proactive recruitment strategy that supports Personio as we scale.

Structure

A revised Talent Acquisition (TA) team structure was needed to scale more effectively. This included our newly formed Executive Recruiting team, additional investment in Talent Operations, and integrating Employer Branding (EB) and Global Mobility (GM) into the team to drive a holistic talent strategy.

We reduced costs by bringing more of our subject matter expertise and processes in-house to support our amazing recruiting team to reduce their reliance on external parties such as Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPOs), freelancers, and agencies.

Our team has also had a busy and productive year in high-level leadership hiring. We’ve supported the hiring of more than ten new Personios at the VP level+, including two members of our executive team: Lenke Taylor, Chief People Officer and Naman Khan, Chief Marketing Officer.

Throughout my first year at Personio, I have been lucky to be welcomed so quickly by my team. The culture here is collaborative and warm, which gave me the space to ease into my role.?

On a more personal level, it felt like a win to have the decisions I was making taken positively by the team. I appreciated the TA team's trust, which enabled me to make fast decisions, driven by my experiences in similar environments.

Looking ahead: What’s next for Talent Acquisition at Personio?

It’s an exciting time to be in TA at Personio: There’s a growing awareness of our brand and a positive buzz about where we’re heading across key European markets as well as the US. I feel confident in our leadership team and our values-driven approach. So what’s next?

Our TA strategy will continue down the same path, scaling up to match the pace of Personio’s growth. We’ll continue to optimize our processes, data capabilities, and tools to become a strategic partner to the overall business. We’ll support new markets and product launches. And of course, we’ll work to build a strong employer brand across all our geographies and functions.

My first year as a Personio has brought significant growth and the momentum continues to build. I can’t wait to see what our team achieves in the months to come.

We’re hiring across most teams within Personio for roles in the US and our seven locations in Europe! Check out our careers page to apply.