Tao, Recruiting Specialist, on Filling up the Rocket Ship

Tao is a recruiting specialist on our Sydney team. As a recruiting specialist, he is supporting over 13 teams across the APJ region with their recruiting needs as well as supporting interview logistics. Tao is about to celebrate his first work anniversary with the Qualtrics team!

With an academic background in psychology and linguistics, as well as a professional background in HR, I've always enjoyed learning about the drivers behind our actions, thoughts, and speech. It's helped me become more self-aware of my actions and the actions of others.

About halfway through my time in university, I started to develop a keen interest in the human element behind how great organisations and companies work, or the secret sauce, if you will. Whilst I still have much to learn about the recipe, I do know that one of the key ingredients is having great people.

So, stumbling across Qualtrics after graduating, I was instantly gripped by the conversations I had with my interviewers: the vision of XM, the TACOS culture, the hyper-growth trajectory, and the great people at the heart of it all.

I knew at that moment I needed to grab a ticket onboard this departing rocket-ship. It just so happened, my ticket was the recruiting specialist role! It was the first position of its kind for the APJ region and the perfect starting point for my interests and experiences. I get the chance to work with over 20 different hiring managers across 80 different roles in a team of about 10 talent acquisition partners. I help to find the best talent and take them through our unique hiring process from start to finish.

What attracted you to Qualtrics in the first place?

The opportunity and challenge to work in a hyper-growth company, as well as kick-starting a new function in the region!

What does your day look like?

I start the day by checking my different requests from our talent partners, hiring managers, and others involved in the hiring process. Usually, these are requests to schedule varying meetings between interviewers and candidates. On any given week, I book around 60 interviews across various roles in multiple locations (Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, and other new offices in India, South Korea, or Hong Kong). Whilst the process does not differ too much from role to role, there are small nuances with each candidate and each request that I need to delicately balance to ensure we deliver the best possible experience! Outside of the coordination piece, I also get the chance to wear multiple hats by supporting different areas of the talent organization, whether that be looking through applications, sourcing great talent, meeting candidates, or arranging flights.

What is your favorite part of your role?

Hearing from our candidates about the positive experience they went through in our hiring process. Since I'm in contact with just about every candidate that applies to our APJ area roles, I get to see their journey from start to finish and then meet them in the office!

Any tips for someone who is considering a role at Qualtrics?

I see a lot of candidates who reach out to me on LinkedIn expressing their interest in Qualtrics. Truth is, our whole talent team is working on different positions and get an incredible amount of messages and applications. If you want to get seen, make sure you're reaching out to the right talent partner/recruiter for the role you are considering! You can usually find this out from our Linkedin profiles. Tell us exactly what you're looking for and how we can help you. The talent team at Qualtrics is here to work with both you and the hiring team to ensure the best alignment!

Other tips:

- Give your specialist as many times you can make available for interviews as possible. This will help us speed up the process for you and cut down on email back and forth. 🙂

- Connect with your talent partners early to discuss what you're looking for, so there's no misalignment throughout the process.

- Reach out to current employees in the role(s) you're considering! We're more than happy to point you in the right direction.

Qualtrics is growing, and if you're ready to find your "why" at a place like this, you can explore our open opportunities at any time by visiting our career page. Looking to discover more reasons "Why Qualtrics"? You can find the whole series here.

Want to chat? You can get in touch by checking out Qualtrics Life on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

	Tao is an alumnus of University of Sydney and started his career at Qualtrics. He is a coffee geek and has tried the coffee in 14 countries.