Working remotely from Argentina: Annemijn’s story
Argentina, South Africa, Spain, and the UK are only some of the places our star players worked from. We encourage our employees to pack their laptops and enjoy the perks of remote work every time they can. Some of them will wrap up the day and become a tourist, and some others will use this opportunity to work from their home countries and spend some time with family.
Regardless of how they spend their precious time once that laptop is closed, internal alignment and coordination are highly important when working remotely. A great example of how to rock remote work is Annemijn Tielen, the lead of the Tech Talent Magic team. Read more to discover how Argentinian mate fueled her successful hiring for a month! 🧉
Who are you? What do you like the most about your job?
Hello everyone, I am Annemijn from the House of Talent! Currently, I lead our team of Talent Magicians (recruiters) in scouting the best talent for our tech teams.
I love that I can talk with candidates from all over the world, with different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures. I love trying to see if their tech skills and personality match the Sendcloud culture, while we must be a match for them too!
Something else that is very special to me it's closely related to remote work. When I'm working from another country, I coordinate the whole hiring process remotely, and it's only at the end that I meet the new hire in person, as a colleague in our Eindhoven HQ. When I first see them in real life, it's always an incredible feeling to think back to when I first met them through my screen on the other side of the world!
What does your Sendcloud journey look like?
My journey started almost two years ago when I joined Sendcloud as the third member of our recruitment team. It seems crazy now that we have a whole team for it, but back then, I was the first Talent Magician to have a complete focus on tech vacancies!
Later on, the team expanded to cope with our recruitment needs, and I got the opportunity to create my own team. So, since October, I've been the Team Lead of the Talent Magician tech hub, and I'm loving it!
If you could swap roles for a day with someone else in the organization, which role would you like and why?
Ooh, that’s a tough one! If I could choose, I think I would pick a senior software engineer role, granted that the role swap came with the needed brains and knowledge, LOL! I would love to get a deeper, hands-on understanding of how they do things in Development.
Where did you work from, and for how long was it?
Last year, for over three months, I worked remotely from Argentina, my boyfriend's home country. Another great remote work experience was when we went to Croatia on workation with the whole House of Talent for a week!
Which challenges did you encounter when working remotely?
I think the biggest challenge had to be working in another time zone! Argentina is four hours behind the Netherlands, which meant that to work on Dutch time, I had to wake up at 4 am... something I was not planning to do.
Instead, I carefully designed a schedule that worked for my team and me, creating time for team meetings in the mornings (when everyone was online) and reserving the afternoon for interviews (when no emails or Slack messages would come in!).
Besides that, sometimes it was challenging to miss out on events and in-person meetings, as I love being in the office and hanging out with colleagues face-to-face. I don't think I could ever work 100% remotely!
What is the best aspect of working remotely?
Some of the best aspects were spending time with my boyfriend in his home country, getting to know his family and friends better, and practicing my Spanish! Also, it was always great to see how positively candidates reacted to Sendcloud's flexibility 😊
Which tips would you give to people who are considering working remotely?
1. Clearly define your working hours! ⏰
Be clear in your communications about the time difference, and make a plan that works for you, and your colleagues/stakeholders
2. Travel prepared! 💻
Make sure you have a comfortable remote office: a second screen, keyboard, mouse, essentials, and of course, Wi-Fi!
3. Communication is the key! 🔑
Communicate your plan to co-workers in advance and create awareness about your situation. For this purpose, I included a note in my email signature with my working hours in CET time, together with info about how long I'd be working remotely.
4. Comfortable accommodation! 🏠
If you go with your team or with a group of people on workation, make sure to have a comfortable environment that can facilitate all of you to work and live together effortlessly. When we went to Croatia with our team, we rented a villa where all of us had a private room and bathroom.
🔍 Curious to read more about Annemijn's remote experience? Check out her blog!
Hi there! 👋 I am Malvina and I am part of the Employer Branding team at Sendcloud. We are a Dutch SaaS company that’s revolutionizing e-commerce around Europe thanks to our cutting-edge platform. Feel free to browse our People stories here, or our tech articles on Dev.to. Make sure to also browse our Jobs page if you see yourself as part of our bunch, we’re always on the search for our next star player!
