Recruit for Attitude, Train for Skill in Practice – Valentina Culatti, UNIT9

We are very famous to be the ones that recruit people from the schools or remote locations around the world – so much that sometimes they call us UNI9 instead of UNIT9, you know, as we train them.

And the other day there was a guy that we hired three months ago and he just finished his probation as a creative, and he came to me and he thanked me, and said “thank you so much for confirming me in the job, because nobody would ever have given me a chance because of my CV, my profile. It’s so weird, I want to be a creative in this industry but I come from architecture – so when they were looking at my video, they couldn’t see the potential, they couldn’t see how I would have performed, so it was an immediate barrier.” But we didn’t – we just see the potential in the guy and he’s doing great.

In another example, this is a bit random, I was interviewing a Project Manager, and he was perfect, perfectly dressed. And when you think about the UNIT9 crew, you think about those London hipsters that trashed the London fields recently, right, so that’s the kind of crowd you’re talking to! So if you get a guy who has great manners, very polite, and the CV is perfect – and yes on paper, but where is the quirky angle, how are you going to fit in this environment, how are you going to get on well with your peers, with your colleagues?

Because that is key, because it’s team building, team management, and then I asked him a random question because it’s what I do, that’s how I feel my gut, I interview not based on the curriculum, but on my gut. “What music do you like?” and it was perfect, he was wearing a suit, and he was like, I am a fan of heavy metal. And I said oh, okay, now I get it, and I wasn’t expecting it – so he got the job, and he’s doing brilliantly.