Camila Niedzwiecki is curious. From exploring a wide range of careers to moving halfway across the world, she’s always down for a new adventure. A psychologist by training, Camila tested the waters of several different career paths before settling on HR, and joined Softensity as a technical recruiter last year. When she’s not searching for tech talent, she’s doing yoga, watching a documentary, or strolling through her new city – London, England.Â
How did you start your career in HR?Â
I’m a psychologist. So when I finished university, I had the opportunity to learn a little bit about every area of my degree. I worked as a therapist, then I worked in forensics and eventually in HR. Ultimately, I was most fond of HR. So I decided to leave the other things that I was doing and focus 100% on recruiting. In my first recruiting position, I started as a talent acquisition specialist but also focused on HR and on the well-being of people in the company that I was working for.Â
What is it like to work with IT professionals from all over the world?Â
What I really love to do is hire people from many different countries. I get to learn about all of the different walks of life and cultures, and that’s really what makes my job fun. I work with Latin America, but at the moment I’m really focused on Eastern Europe and Asia as we work toward expanding into Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and more into Turkey.
I love meeting people from every country but I’ve really enjoyed meeting people from Poland because that’s where my family originally came from before they moved to Argentina around 100 years ago. So it’s fun for me to get to know how Polish people really are.Â
Is it different to recruit for an IT company compared to other industries?
Yes, completely different. In IT, you have to work hard to find people, whereas, in most other areas, the candidates tend to come to you or apply for a job. So the role of recruiters in other industries, especially those that are unrelated to tech, is much more passive compared to IT.Â
What has it been like recruiting during the tech labor shortage?
There’s a lot of competition. Recruiters have been so important because our main skill is to find those talented people who are in demand and not easy to find. I’ve had the most difficulty finding candidates to fill architect and team leader roles. But the difficulty is part of the job and part of the challenge.Â
Have you faced any challenges working as a woman in the IT world?Â
Simply put, being a woman is always more difficult than being a man, or at least most of the time. My experience is different from that of women who are software engineers, but there are definitely times when I find myself in awkward situations when talking to candidates. Sometimes they think it’s ok to ask me out on a date, which is super unprofessional. I might be wrong but I don’t think that sort of uncomfortable situation would come up between two men.
How has Softensity supported your growth professionally?
I think they give you a lot of responsibilities, which in return gives you the possibility to grow and to continue expanding your skills. They also encouraged me to follow my dreams of moving to Europe and allowed that dream to mesh with my work life. Instead of losing my job when I moved to London, we collaborated to help my move match the company’s goals of hiring more people in Europe.Â
Do you have any advice for other women who are interested in either a career in IT or HR?
If you are studying to be a software engineer, please push through and do it! We really want to hire girls and more women in the IT industry. As far as HR, my best advice would be to study English. That way you can work for companies abroad, and it will really open doors for you.