Who is Joinrs?
Joinrs is the meeting point for students, junior profiles, and companies. Thanks to our AI model, we help job seekers discover the best job ads aligned with their ambitions. At the same time, over 150 client companies use our platform for employer branding and talent acquisition strategies, aiming to attract candidates who align with their company's values. If you are a company and would like to learn more, click here.
HR conversations with Joinrs 
At Joinrs, we go beyond just matching candidates with opportunities. In addition to facilitating connections, we conduct insightful interviews with professionals from diverse backgrounds and industries. Through these conversations, we provide valuable insights and perspectives to our users, enriching their knowledge and experience on our platform. Join us in exploring the depth and breadth of expertise across various fields to enhance your career journey. Today David is sharing his journey and advice with us!
David White
Global Emerging Talent Recruiter
1) You’ve recruited tech profiles across all seniority levels, and then chose to focus exclusively on junior talent. What motivated that decision?
I’ve always greatly enjoyed the experience of working with and supporting young people and helping them in the early stages of their career. I find it’s the most rewarding part of my job as a Recruiter and what drives me to do better, to be constantly improving the candidate experience.
My motivations to work with junior talent started from a younger age when I was involved with Scouting Ireland and coaching football. The skills I learned at this time are particularly relevant to what I’m doing now in terms of teaching, educating and leading early in career talent, just with more of a focus on their professional growth and development in the early stages of their career.
What also motivates me is learning from my own past experiences as a young professional. Around the time when I was graduating from college, I was completely lost when it came to finding my first job and I felt I would have really benefited from someone who could guide me through that process, so it’s nice to be able to pay that back now to others.
2) As a technical recruiter, how important is it to find the right balance between a candidate’s technical skills and their growth potential?
This is probably one of the most important aspects of my job as an Early In Career Recruiter in terms finding the right candidate profile when it comes to existing technical skills and future potential.
Often candidates who are applying to intern or graduate level roles are coming with similar experience and skills levels based on what they’ve learned in college or university, so the main decision-making factor when identifying the particularly suitable applicants often comes down to their soft skills and how they demonstrate a real passion or motivation for the role and company they are applying for.
To show this determination to go the extra mile can often be something as simple as doing your homework and research on the job opportunity and company. For me as a Recruiter, the more information you as a candidate can give to me on how your relevant skills match the role requirements and how much knowledge you can give about the company is really beneficial and will help you to stand out from the others.
3) When you guide someone through their first professional experience, what are the three key things you believe they should learn in their first few months?
- Be a sponge. It’s so important in your first few days, weeks and months in the role to learn as much as possible. Have a curious mindset and don’t be afraid to ask questions when you’re unsure of anything. This can be a daunting experience, especially if it’s your first professional role, but no one is going to expect you to know everything from the beginning, they will expect you to need guidance and support.
- Get involved. Be proactive, volunteer for everything and anything and put your hand up for all opportunities. This is a great way to get to know more about the company and to get your name out there as a real team player. Outside of your work you can also get involved in other volunteer activities like charitable work, social committees and Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s).
- You’ve got this. You were selected for the role based on your strong skills and team fit for the role and company. It’s likely you also were chosen over a lot of other candidates as intern and graduate roles always attract high volumes of applicants. Be confident, trust the process and start bringing culture add to the job with your own personal passions, interests and goals.
4) What’s the piece of advice you find yourself giving most often to young people entering a complex tech environment like ServiceNow?
Joining a software company like ServiceNow for a young professional, even a more senior professional, can be intimidating at the beginning as we develop a lot of our own native products and technologies internally, so there is so much to take in when you start.
However, the best advice I would give to young people when starting in ServiceNow, or any software company, is that the internal technologies are often largely based on existing software you have already worked with. In ServiceNow, for example, most of our native products and platforms are built using the Java and JavaScript programming languages, with slight changes to make them fit our own requirements.
So dedicate time and effort at the beginning of your role to learn as much as possible about the ServiceNow platform and our internal products and you’ll find the familiarity with the technology side will come quite quickly based on your knowledge of existing external software.
5) When you speak with young candidates, how do you help them turn their expectations into concrete and realistic career goals?
What I enjoy most about working with Gen Z, the latest generation to enter the work force, is that they are confident and ask good questions to get a better understanding about the role and the company they are applying for. Gen Z are not afraid to push back and (as well as salary) also place an importance on work/life balance.
This was certainly not the case when I was graduating from college and looking for my first role, I was just happy to be offered any opportunity and would have taken anything available. That’s not always the right mindset, I would encourage young people when applying for jobs to also be interviewing the company as a potential employer as it’s just as important for them to be a right fit for you.
But at the same time I would try and set realistic expectations. These demands are of course important and don’t settle for less, but remember to be humble and realise this is likely the first role in your career. There is plenty of time to earn your fortune, but in the early stages it is crucial to gain as much experience as possible in order to better determine where you want to go moving forward in your career.
Interview curated by the Joinrs' team
