Breaking HR Norms: Revolutionizing Practices—An Insightful Dialogue

In a candid interview, Madalina, a trailblazer in Romania’s Human Resources sector, shares her extensive journey and the innovative strategies that have marked her three-decade career.

As the founder of CareerAdvisor and PortalHR, she has significantly influenced HR practices, specializing in headhunting, people development, and HR automation. Her unique approach, particularly in “Headhunting & Techunting,” has revolutionized talent acquisition, especially in the high-demand tech sector. Madalina’s passion extends beyond entrepreneurship; as a career coach and educator, she empowers professionals to align their careers with personal values, significantly impacting individual and organizational growth.

Her comprehensive expertise in business development, recruitment, and HR technology, complemented by her academic and consultancy roles, has positioned her as a pivotal figure, reshaping how HR navigates the complexities of the modern workforce.

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Can you tell us about your experience supporting clients and partners in the Human Resources market in Romania?

Being active in a service field in an emerging market gives you a better ability to adjust and adapt your services to changing market needs and, thus, a more agile approach to your client servicing, which makes us very adapted to the volatile world we all experience. We have supported both multinational clients entering the Romanian market with setting up their local leadership teams and local entrepreneurs, which is slowly becoming a large part of our business here.

What services does CareerAdvisor offer as a local HR company founded by you in 2010?

We are focusing on headhunting for leadership positions and extended this to technology a couple of years ago, while assisting our clients in various people development services related to hiring, employer branding, and candidate experience. We also have an evolving HR Tech division where we assist companies interested in optimising their HR processes through the use of applicant tracking systems, e-learning, or process optimization through AI.

Could you explain the concept of “Headhunting & Techunting” and how it benefits organizations?

The headhunting process stands basically for directly approaching candidates who are not actively searching for a role but are fit for the projects we are commissioned to handle by our clients. We do that for any leadership role across industries, while developing lately a vertical for tech/IT roles, where we extend the same approach from leadership to expert and senior roles. Given the high demand in the tech/IT sector lately, the availability of candidates is rather low, so the only way to fill the needed roles is to headhunt the appropriate profiles. We do that for Romania and also for Europe and the UAE, with a presence also in Austria and Switzerland, focusing mostly on Romanian professionals working abroad or willing to.

In what ways does People Development play a crucial role in helping individuals and organizations reach their full potential?

Under the People Development umbrella, we tailor programmes targeting hiring skills for both HR people and managers, create development programmes for HR people, and also audit recruitment processes and craft better candidate journeys. Investing in the right training and development for HR teams strengthens their capacity to hire and retain the best talents on the market.

How does HR Automation contribute to streamlining HR processes and improving efficiency?

In HR, we actually deal with a lot of data, and most of our work involves seamless communication with both candidates and colleagues, while project management and stakeholder management are also highly valuable. Thus, any system that can help automate workflows and generate valuable data can help in making the right management decisions to implement business strategy.

What sparked your passion for facilitating, coaching, and empowering individuals and organizations?

I always believed that the time we spend in our careers can drastically influence our overall outlook on life and the level of perceived happiness and life satisfaction. Thus, I trust that investing in developing a better way to evolve as a team and as individuals has a great impact both on the business results and the individual satisfaction of team members.

Can you tell us more about your role as a Career Coach and the impact it has on individuals’ career development?

We are all prone to social pressure that can detour us from our authentic direction, from our values and passions, and we try to ensure proper alignment to the most rewarding professional path of each leader that goes through our career coaching services. Moreover, if the leader is aligned with his mission, the whole team will have better results and will be empowered to align with their own mission, for the benefit of organisations and their own professional satisfaction. We tailor the interventions, taking into consideration the personal paths of each individual and their unique contribution.

What led you to found PortalHR, and how does it provide valuable HR insights and resources to the HR community and beyond?

We started the project in 2009, when in Romania there was the beginning of online media on HR topics, starting from our passion to be informed on the newest international trends and our pragmatic and humanistic approach to HR. Thus, we managed to create valuable content to provide easy access to very well-curated information for both managers and HR people. Our mission is to focus on positive and empowering information and ideas, connecting local professionals with expats working here, repats, and the Romanian diaspora, and facilitating communication and a sense of community for HR professionals and leaders all over the world.

Could you elaborate on your specialties in Business Development, Recruitment Strategies and Processes, Career Management, Employer Branding, and HR Automation?

While our T shape was always headhunting, in 30 years I realised how this process is intertwined with the recruitment, employer branding, and automation strategies of our clients. Should the processes be more efficient, all the services that we provide will have a bigger impact on the results of our clients and on the careers of our candidates as well. This is how I came up with different ideas and developed additional services while expanding our target market to Europe and now targeting the expansion to the UAE.

How has your experience as an Associate HR Professor at Bucharest School of Management and a Board Member at Mindit Consulting shaped your understanding of the HR industry and its challenges?

HR’s value is mainly related to the impact on business results, and the main clients are business managers, which were the cohorts that I had the opportunity to interact with at Bucharest School of Management (Romanian-Canadian MBA). I found great value in having the opportunity to interact with so many business managers on their path to development during the 7 years that I was an associate professor in the MBA programme. The board member experience in Mindit offered me the opportunity to interact with other business people, and it was a two-way learning experience, applying my understanding of the HR industry to other services and another business model. Lately, I have been active as an angel investor in the WIT Angels Club, where I find the same value in sharing business perspectives and evaluating different business opportunities to invest in.

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