Justine and Ayoub, HR Recruiters for Syngenia

Double profile: Justine Aerts and Ayoub Al Yousif, HR Recruiters for Syngenia

Plenty of psychology, an open mind, an interest in people and a good knowledge of languages. Add in some solid training and experience, and you have the ideal recipe for becoming an HR Recruiter at Syngenia.

Justine and Ayoub each have their own characteristics, but the team draws its strength from their great complementarity. With her Master in Psychology, Justine is interested in people’s typologies, while Ayoub, with his qualifications in HR and management, is keen on technological innovation and knows all about different cultures.

Fluent in French, Dutch and English, Justine focuses mainly on the Belgian market while Ayoub, thanks to his knowledge of English, Arabic, French and Spanish has the mission of responding to requests from international clients, particularly in Asia, the Middle East and South America.

We met up for a talk.

  • What’s your mission?

Justine: We seek out the ideal candidates either to work directly for our clients on a Syngenia contract or else to be immediately hired by Syngenia’s clients. We start by listening to the clients in order to understand their needs. Then, on that basis, we look for talents that match the desired profile. We meet the selected candidates and then present a number of them to our client. Sometimes, we coach the candidates in order to prepare them better for their interview with the client.

Ayoub: In the case of international requests, you have to bear in mind the need to understand and translate the titles and functions correctly. Depending on the vacancies to be filled in, our searches will cover both “would-be expatriates” and locals. As long as the technical challenge interests them, we found out that candidates are very willing to get mobile and are ready to travel a very long way for a new job.

  • What aspects of a candidate do you take into account?

Ayoub: Naturally, we look at their training and experience, but we’ll also assess their motivations, personality, education and so on. So we make an overall assessment of the candidate.

Justine: The way the interview develops, and the impression the candidate gives us, are crucial too, because that’s how we’re going to judge whether or not the person is capable of integrating easily into the new function and partner firm. So we need to do a thorough upstream job when getting to know the client and its environment. A good knowledge of the client firm’s culture is thus a big plus when you’re looking for the ideal candidate. This improves the chances that he or she will be settled in quickly.

  • Any tips for candidates?

Ayoub: I always advise candidates to think long-term. If they don’t get one job, they certainly must keep go on positively. Just doing a job interview is a sort of training, and I explain that it’s always a beginning and not an end.

Justine: I tell the candidates just to be themselves and not to oversell their skills or experiences in order to match the job on offer. Being honest about your career, personality and professional motivations will lead to the sound basis of confidence we’re all looking for (Client-Syngenia-Candidate).