🎤 Inside Stuart: Maria Luchita — Head of Talent Acquisition
Get to know Maria Luchita, our Head of Talent Acquisition, and what drives her passion to hire the best Engineers at Stuart. Discover her inspiring journey and the day-to-day challenges she tackles at Stuart.
🏡 Cities: Chisinau ➡️ Paris ➡️ Berlin ➡️ Jakarta ➡️ Paris
💼 Job title: Head of Talent Acquisition
🎓 Studies: Masters Degree in Economics at Dauphine University in Paris
🔮 Languages: French 🇫🇷 English 🇬🇧 Russian 🇷🇺 German 🇩🇪
👣 How do you commute at work? When it's lovely weather I walk — it's my daily "sports break" if you will.
🧳 Travel dreams: I'm quite jealous of people who write on their resumes: "climbed Mount Everest", "rode a Camel in the Gobi desert", "dogsled to meet Santa Claus in Lapland." My travels so far have been limited to perfectly safe and touristic hotspots mostly in Europe — I'd love to experiment and try something out of the ordinary.
🎬 Favourite book: "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, which I read when I was 14 years old and reread from time to time because it made me realise that everyone can achieve great things and should count on themselves to do so. People that are successful aren't necessarily smarter or stronger — they dare when others don't.
📌 Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
I have had a few professional lives before I joined Stuart. My very first and most memorable experience was my end-of-studies internship in the United Nations Development Programme in Jakarta, followed by a Sales role within a Parisian Design Agency. Before moving to Stuart I worked as a Tech recruitment consultant in two Parisian agencies for 5 years. As a people enthusiast I'm passionate about helping to create great work environments; on the one side I want teams and companies to acquire the talent they need to shape the growth dreams that they have in mind, and on the other side support candidates in finding the perfect next step in their careers.
📌 What are the biggest challenges in the work of a Tech Talent Acquisition Manager?
The demand for tech talent is extremely high and the biggest challenge is to capture their attention and stand out from the competition. My team and I put a lot of energy into proactively sourcing passive and well sought candidates using a mix of Sales and Marketing techniques in order to promote Stuart and our roles. Fortunately our Employer Value Proposition is very attractive: we have incredible talent on board already, as well as strong company values and a meaningful product.
📌 How do you build a talent pipeline? What do you look for when recruiting a candidate?
Experienced professionals receive several messages from recruiters on a weekly basis and don't need to apply to jobs anymore. A big part of my time is spent on proactively sourcing these types of candidates on LinkedIn, following up via email, and convincing them through calls & meetings. I'm also lucky to receive numerous incoming applications and referrals 🙌 which demonstrates the attractiveness of Stuart as a good place to work.
For tech positions we are naturally looking for specific hard skills sets, combined with a good culture fit, as we like to foster a happy and collaborative environment for people to work and grow alongside each other.
The cultural fit is crucial to ensure success since we spend so much of our time at work!
📌 How do you ensure a positive candidate experience?
I make it a point of professional honour to constantly improve the candidate experience, as I believe that happy candidates allow us to spread the word of the great work that we're doing at Stuart. I focus on several roles at a time and don't publish any role if I'm not actively working on it. It's important to reply to each applicant within 48 hours maximum, with either a positive or negative reply.
My candidates appreciate a fast tempo through the recruitment process, quick feedback after each step and availability to reply to any questions they might have at any moment. I'm the main point of contact for them to turn to, so I need to be efficient, thorough and personable. My average time to hire is 45 days — which is 2 days faster than at Google 😎 whose bullet proof selection process inspires a lot of recruiters like myself. In order to measure the satisfaction of our candidates and improve our processes, we'll be rolling out Net Promoter Scores surveys similar to the ones sent to our clients.
📌 What are the possibilities for professional and personal growth at Stuart?
Tremendous! I joined Stuart in February 2019 with the intuition that the best way to grow fast is to join a promising tech company that grows fast as well! We support internal promotions and many colleagues are rewarded for their loyalty and endeavours by accessing higher-level positions in a short time frame. Despite the hyper growth, every new person that joins us has a great impact on the team, the organisation and beyond that on the company's day to day. I'm extremely proud to work at Stuart as I share the values of the company, namely in terms of innovation, as we revolutionise last-mile delivery, and sustainable development, as we seek to achieve our goal with the minimum ecological footprint. It's rewarding to work on a project that brings meaning to many stakeholders: end customers like myself who benefit from fast, geo-localised and cost-efficient deliveries, our clients who can offer that service to their clients and thus counteract the supremacy of "Amazon Prime", and finally to all the couriers 💙.
📌 What was your dream job when you were a child?
Believe it or not I achieved it 🙂 My parents are farmers and work very hard 7 days a week. As a child I helped them during all my summer holidays and my hands were always full of dirt and my clothes were ragged. I dreamed of something different — I could picture myself getting an "interesting and useful job" (didn't know what that would be) in an amazing office in the centre of an equally amazing city like Paris, wearing preppy clothes and meeting tons of people! That's my everyday now!
📌 What do you like to do outside of work?
Discovering Paris and France, a country that I adore. I love history, art and good food and France is an amazing place that offers a lot of that!
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