Our entry into the company

Because of Corona we have to face many challenges in our daily lives. One of them is to hire new employees. Sounds unimaginable for many, but in some industries it was normal. How do you hire new employees during Corona? How do the application procedures and job interviews proceed? How can I train new employees and introduce them to the team?

A few questions... We, that are Karo and Lea, want to answer them. We had the chance to to find a new job as a working student in times of Corona! We will tell you  how the whole process went and how we managed the challenge together with our company.

Hi, I'm Karolina Neb and I study media design in Düsseldorf. I was searching for a company, where i can work and found Werk II on the internet. After my application and a few e-mails, I was in the office for my job interview, in December 2019. After some days, i get good news: I can start as a student at Werk II, in April 2020.

But then everything turned out differently than planned. Corona turned everything upside down. Safety measures, distance rules, everywhere you hear  "stay home" and my first day at Werk II getting closer and closer.

The solution: getting my laptop out of the office and starting home office. It's a strange feeling when you don't know the employees. You don't know how they work. You don't know the programs. You don't know anything. Nevertheless, on my first day of work, I was at home with my laptop in front of me and a piece of paper with access data.

Some programs opened and I was attacked with a lot of mails. I read through everything and tried to understand a little bit, but I couldn't really follow.

Aftrer that I had a call with my colleagues and we discussed how we will work the next time. I was told from the beginning that I can always talk to them, if i have questions or problems. The first days were, as usual, planned as training days and consisted mainly of calls, where my colleagues showed and explained a lot of different things to me. Everything was new to me.

After some time I got my first tasks. In case of questions I chatted with my collegaues or we  made a short phone call. Although I was "alone" in home office, I was not on my own.

In the first weeks we introduced our "Daily". Every morning at 9 o'clock we talk  in our small group  about news and everything that is coming up. So everyone stays up to date.

In September we decided to go to the office for a few days. Even though I've been at priint for a few months, the first day in the office was quite new again. You are with your colleagues in one room and get to know each other from a different side. Short questions can be exchange very fast and in between you can also talk about things that have nothing to do with work, especially during lunch breaks.

When I look back to the first few weeks, I have to say that I was very skeptical about the first working days. I always thought that I was on my own in the home office and if you don't have any experience, it can make you very insecure. I only work three days a week, so it was difficult to overview all at the beginning. In two days, when you are not around, a lot of new things happen and you have to be updated. Now I am in the workflow and it is easier for me.

My conclusion: A training in the home office is possible! You just need the right support, time and above all patience.

Hey, I am Lea and I am currently studying International Management at the University of Applied Sciences Südwestfalen in Meschede. Since my previous employment contract was unfortunately terminated by Corona in March 2020, I was looking for a new job at that time. Of course I was aware that the chances of finding a new job at such times are very low.

I was very happy when I made aware of nexoma's job advertisement by a friend. It was in the area of Marketing/ Content Creation/ Social Media - exactly what I had done before. Nevertheless, a job with an IT service provider sounded like quite a challenge!

Fortunately, after I had applied, I received an invitation for an interview. But of course we couldn't doit  in the office as usual, but via video call via teams. I have to admit I was quite nervous and was worried that the interview would be kind of weird. Especially if you don't sit across from each other in person, but everything is done through the camera. But the worry was absolutely unnecessary! The conversation with Guido Sauerland (Managing Director) and Fabian Fischer (Sales/Business Development) was really relaxed and easy going. The friendly nature of the two took the tension away after the first few minutes and it was simply fun to talk. It was great to be aked  whether I could start working for nexoma the next day!

But how does a training from the home office work? I was really curious to see how everything would work out.

Personally, I had to overcome two minor hurdles first. The first was to introduce myself to the team in the daily "Good Morning" meeting. The meeting is of course a great way to keep in regular contact with your colleagues and to exchange ideas every morning. Nevertheless, the thought of having to introduce myself to 13 people via video made me quite nervous. But because everyone was so cool and relaxed, the nervousness vanished and I immediately felt well received!

The second hurdle was to install all the programs I needed to work on my computer... Very complicated if you don't know anything about it. But luckily my new colleagues supported me a lot and I could start to work quickly!

The first days were still a bit difficult in terms of organization. At first I didn't have fixed working hours and of course I had to be assigned suitable work. In the beginning I participated a lot in customer meetings to learn more about our company, our solutions and to simply learn something new. So the first 2 weeks consisted a lot of listening and asking questions, which was absolutely helpful. The fact that I had checked an appointment directly and arrived half an hour late was probably less helpful, but fortunately I was not blamed. From then on we decided that it is easier to schedule fixed working days so that everything gets a bit more structured.

It was also helpful that nobody expected me to understand everything directly. Since what we do is quite complex, it takes some time to get into it. But thanks to the good support of my colleagues, it was possible in the home office and I grew into the company and the work very well.

After 6 months I can  say that I am very happy hat I found the company. All challenges were managed together and I cann't  notice any disadvantages compared to the training in "normal" times. It takes a little bit longer, but it is definitely possible!