In the wake of the pandemic, Romania, like many countries, experienced a significant shift in the way people work. Remote work became the new normal, offering flexibility and safety amidst uncertainty. However, as we move forward, it is  crucial to recognize the importance of returning to the physical office, particularly in a Romanian context.

While employees in many sectors – advertising being on top – push towards a mixed working approach, at most (although the 100% remote is preferred), Romanian leaders, echoing global sentiments, emphasize the irreplaceable value of in-person collaboration and its role in driving innovation.

A commonly-shared belief is that while remote work has its advantages, especially during the pandemic, we have seen the limitations it imposes on creativity and teamwork. The physical office provides an environment where ideas flow freely and teams can collaborate seamlessly.

Moreover, the return to the physical office is essential for rejuvenating local economies, a particularly pertinent issue in Romanian urban centers. Clearly, many businesses in Romania, especially those catering to office workers, have suffered because of remote work. The return to the physical office will not only revitalize these businesses, but also will support the broader economic recovery.

In Romania, as in other parts of the world, the workforce presents arguments against returning to the physical office. Employees cite the flexibility and work-life balance offered by remote work as significant benefits. However, there are industries where remote work has faced greater opposition from employees. In Romania, sectors like IT and outsourcing, advertising and social media content creation, which have historically embraced remote work, may encounter resistance from employees who have grown accustomed to the flexibility of working from home.

Additionally, Romania’s knowledge-based industries, such as finance and consulting, may see pushback from employees reluctant to return to traditional office settings.

However, as companies adapt and implement hybrid models that combine the advantages of remote work with the benefits of in-person collaboration, these concerns can be addressed effectively.

At VON Consulting we believe that while remote work has played a crucial role in navigating the challenges posed by the pandemic, the return to the physical office is essential for driving innovation, supporting local economies and fostering a sense of community. By acknowledging and addressing the concerns of the workforce, particularly in industries where remote work is deeply entrenched, Romania can successfully transition to a hybrid work model that ensures both productivity and employee well-being.

Responsibilities:

• Design, technical delivery and project management of Central Voice Platforms and Services, in particular, focusing on Central Number Portability Database platform, including:
• Infrastructure design, delivery and testing, including configuration and development of new features and capabilities.
• Review and assess platform status based on best practices, engineering principles and operational key performance indicators.
• Creation and maintenance of the platform capacity plan and executing the capacity planning process.
• Service customers and suppliers on-boarding, including design, delivery and testing.
• 3rd level operational support (e.g. troubleshooting and problem management) during platform operation.

With these activities you will have a great impact on our business:

• Complete platform lifecycle management: definition and maintenance of the platform architecture and design principles, virtualized infrastructure and software releases.
• Management of new service functionalities, from assessment, to implementation, including roadmap release control, feature design, development, testing and acceptance, implementation and performance optimization.
• Customer and supplier onboarding, ensuring service levels and data quality.
• Drive platform’s quality and continuous improvement.
• Operational support (Level 3) and problem management during major incidents.

With these skills you are a great candidate:

• Solid understanding of number portability platforms architecture and functionalities.
• Strong experience in national and international interconnect and roaming infrastructure, including signaling platforms (experience with NetNumber technology would be preferable) and relevant protocols (e.g. ENUM, DNS, SIP, Diameter, SS7).
• Good knowledge of platform infrastructure, including OSs (Linux), database management, IP connectivity and virtualized environments (VMWare).
• Track record of capacity and SW release management incl. planning, delivery and reporting.
• Telecommunications industry and project delivery experience.

We’ve got even more to offer:

•Work from Home – You can have home office 2 days per week
•Medical and dental services
•Life insurance
•Dedicated employee phone subscription
•Special discounts for gyms and retailers
•Annual Company Bonus
•Ongoing Education – we continuously invest in you to ensure you have everything needed to excel on the job and enhance your skills
•You get to work with tried and trusted web-technology
•Getting in on the ground floor of a technology changing company
•Flexible Vacation – Take time off when you need it, we trust you

The interview is drawing to an end and you still don’t know much about the job you applied for, besides what was written in the add and the scarce information the recruiter offered you.

You just can’t not be curious: if you get the job, the better part of your every day, for a long time, will be spent at work.

Ask. Enquire. Probe for information. It’s your right to know.

But what is it that you would actually want to find out?

Go to the interview with your homework done. Be prepared. Think about what you know about the role and about the company, and aim to compose a list of what you don’t know, but would like to.

Anything. You can sort through the questions later but, for now, just be curious.

For some of your questions you will get indirect clues, during the visit to the company’s offices, for the interview: what is the atmosphere like? How are people treated in this company?

For such queries you most deffinitely can formulate an answer by yourself, if you think about them well enough: have you been greeted respectfully? Were you welcomed well? What was happening in the lobby when you arrived? Did anyone acknowledge you right away? Were any confidential matters being discussed in the hallway? How many employees were on a „smoking break”? Did anyone send you smile without having been previously introduced? Were you left waiting for a long time? Did you have the interview in an appropriate space? Did the interviewer ask before calling you by your name? Did they explain what the discussion will be about and what are the „rules of the game”?

Then, pay close attention to what the interviewer will ask you.

What kinds of questions are they insisting upon? Do they offer enough details about the workplace? Do they have a pre-made list of questions and desired answers?

Don’t be shy. Ask if you may interrupt with appropriate questions, whenever their explanations are not clear enough to you. It’s not a problem if you interrupt with a question, as long as it’s on point, and relevant to the topic you were discussing at that particular time.

It is, however, a problem if, while the recruiter is explaining something, you interrupt to enquire about a previous topic or one which you are especially interested in, but haven’t got to that part yet. Gather the questions you have that do not fit anywhere during the discussion in a sort of „bunch”, and ask if you are permitted to address them at the end, before the final stage of the meeting, while mentioning that they are odd questions on topics which haven’t been covered so far.

Don’t be indifferent. Don’t ask solely about the material benefits, no matter how much you are interested in them. If not for a more practical reason (wanting to know where and how you will have to work, that is), at least through the perspective that it’s not the least flattering for the employer to learn that you are not one bit interested in their company and the opportunity they present you with. Why would they hire you, provided that you’re not interested in what they are doing or their environment, but exclusively on the material gains?

Be sharp. Asked directly, people tend to get embarassed and few actually still manage to lie. So ask short, straight-to-the-point questions.

Don’t be so sure you can always get your answers later.

So we don’t want to host classes or pretend we are experts in career counseling. We will try though, with our  recruitment expertise, to offer some pointers to consider when thinking about your CAREER.

Self-evaluation

Questions to ask yourself

What are your strong points? (I know these questions seem over-rated, but they are very important. You will be able to know and describe what is best fitted to your abilities).

Which would you think are your weak points? (what do you view as a weak point? – sometimes a weak point in a certain area can be a strong one in another. If you are the kind of person who gets bored by a sting of code, but you are still passionate about everything technical, you may  be perfectly suited for a sales role in this field, or, perhaps for technical support)

Which are the activities you enjoy the most?

What is the context in which you have the best results?

What is the general field in which you would enjoy working? Why?

What is your learning style? (do you like to learn about something by reading how it’s done? Observing someone doing it? Or, perhaps, examining someone else’s results, in order to learn from them?)

What kind of company/environment is best for you?

Which of the two scenarios do you see as more suitable for you?

Entrepreneur

The entrepreneur is the person who enjoys having the freedom to make decisions, have ideas and initiatives, as well as implementing them, overseeing their entire completion process. With endless courage, an entrepreneur tackles risks and responsibilities, which oftentimes could prove to be more work than one can handle.

Naturally, some are also very deliberate entrepreneurs, for whom every step must pe perfecctly documented and planned before taking action. But more often than not, an entrepreneur acts on impulse.

What to do if the above describes you perfectly? Well, most likely you won’t have the monetary resources – and perhaps nor the experience-  to build your own business right away.

What is important, however, is to feel like an entrepreneur, to feel like you can suggest or implement new ideas of changes, that you have freedom of movement, that you’re not bound by old patterns and that you have flexibility.

You may also find all these as an employee. The question you must ask yourself is where can I have all of these?

It is more likely to find this kind of flexibility in start-ups, rather than in multinational companies with hundreds upon thousands of employees. If the employer has more than 100 employees, it already becomes difficult to benefit from such an environment. Those who do, however, have a very big rate of tenure, because their envolvement is apposite.

You must take it upon yourself to, at every interview, find out details about the hiring company and find out if you can fit in and perform easily there.

If you will feel constricted by „n” types of reports or fixed working hours or activities that seem redundant and red-tape-ish, but you are not allowed to bring improvement to any process, or any idea that you have is thoughtlessly tossed aside, you feel as if you are just another unimportant face in the system, you are wasting your time and you can not grow as you would like to. You should consider the fact that this particular environment may not be suitable for you.

Employee

Generally speaking, what defines an employee is the need for financial security. I believe no one would still be employed if everyone was financially sound. Everyone would prefer to run their own business, become an entrepreneur or, maybe, as some say, to slack off, because one is financially assured.

All of us need financial predictability. Both employees and entrepreneurs.

There is no clear distinction, but one could say there are candidates who are „the entrepreneurial type”, and candidates who are „the employee type”.

The first type is defined, most probably, by a greater need for freedom and involvement, while the second through a need of strict rules, procedures, predictability.

There is no clear line between the two typologies, each of us could just as easily be an employee in cetain environments and an entrepreneur in others. What matters in the end is to know what kind of environment and company is best suited for us.

You can easily solve this mistery- no 6 month long internships or work experiencce required.  You simply have to think really hard about what are the things you like, in what work condidtions do you feel particularly happy and what is it that gets your „creative juices flowing”.

Do you prefer to be involved in taking the tough decisions or are you most comfortable following others’?