Magazine BEAST #16 2019

14 #Business | Human Capital
HOW HR AND TALENTS
ARE DRIVING THE CHANGE
BY ALEXANDRE
AT ZALANDO KEILMANN
Manjuri Sinha leads the Technology Talent Acquisition Team
for Europe’s Leading e-commerce platform, Zalando SE. Based
in Berlin, and before travelling to Luxembourg on November
26 th , 2019 to share her knowledge and best practices during the
very first edition of Human Capital Europe, she met with BEAST.
We notably discussed the group’s recruitment processes, but also
the importance of diversity, as the former local startup has now
become one of the world’s e-commerce leaders in fashion retail, in
just more than a decade.
According to Global Senior Team Lead - Technology Talent
Acquisition, Zalando SE, when it comes to the current
recruitment trends, we are currently noticing «a clear shift
towards AI-based tools notably to reduce bias. In today’s
digital world and ever-changing work environment, an
increasing efficiency is the norm of the day». Therefore, such
AI-powered tools can accelerate the selection process, before
actually meeting recruiters and potential future colleagues. «As
the company transforms from an online fashion retailer to a
multi-services platform, it is always striving to find and scale
bold concepts and technologies that remove barriers between
people and style: the same mentality can also be applied to HR
and recruitment,» underlined Manjuri Sinha. She then explained
that the challenges we threefold: the scarcity of good quality
profiles, the local availability of potential candidates, and
finally the lack of understanding of right choice of channels,
to reach out to potential candidates.
«For instance, when it comes to the engineering
profiles, the selection process begins with a coding
challenge, followed by technical interviews and
meetings to cover the candidates’ capabilities and our
founding principles, to assess their potential culture
add», commented the HR expert. According to her,
and the overall Zalando strategy, «every single role
makes an impact: that is the reason why we are always
looking for people who are eager to grow personally
and professionally. You explore, you start, you fail, you
learn, you improve, and move forward. Whether as a
warehouse worker or customer care agent, a fashion
buyer or merchandiser, product designer (UX/UI),
product manager, software engineer, data scientist or
in any other area at Zalando, you can contribute to
the success story of the company but also make it
your own».
MANJURI SINHA
Heading Technology
Talent Acquisition
Team
The expert – an avid traveler, speaker, mentor and also blogger
– also highlighted the fact that teams at Zalando work in small
and yet dynamic groups and stated: «openness and idea
exchange are not only encouraged, they are lived, literally.
Collaboration extends beyond your immediate team, as we pull
together across functions, locations and management levels to
achieve shared goals.»
Pushing innovation at all levels,
for the benefit of customers and employees
With tens of different jobs, from logistics forecasting
experts and software engineers to data scientists and
UX designers, the recruitment process within Zalando
actually depends on the specific type of position, and
changes from job family to job family.
BEAST MAGAZINE #16