Bloom: Bo Van de Poel
And then Bo entered the room. One lump of energy! Very focused on her job as HR Teamlead at Arxus, but she finds having fun with colleagues at least as important. Bo Van de Poel learned early on to put things in perspective. This is to a large extent the result of her unforeseen life story. 🐶
Sticking to it
Hi Bo. Tell us how you got into the tech world?
"Quite a coincidence actually. I have absolutely no IT background! I studied Psychology and Criminology. During my search for a first job, I ended up at a Cronos company that helped young people find their way. They placed juniors as consultants with other companies within The Cronos Group. Through them, I worked on projects in three different places as an HR consultant. This way I could discover which part of HR I liked or didn't like. I then started as a recruiter and ended up in that role at Arxus. After nine months, I became a permanent employee and two and a half years later I am still there. So I stuck around a bit. And now I have a much broader HR role.
What attracted you to Arxus?
"The cultural fit! Arxus is a really cool gang. A lot of humour and fun, but also a lot of hard work. That fits in perfectly with who I am. You get a lot of opportunities to develop here and great importance is attached to personal input. Arxus is growing rapidly and we seem to always take on the same type of person. The desire to grow along with us is perhaps the common denominator.
"Arxus is a really cool gang. A lot of humour and fun, but also a lot of hard work. That fits in perfectly with who I am."
"Go ahead!"
You are now an HR Teamlead. That went fast, didn't it?
"Arxus really gives opportunities to people who say they want something new. After a while, I had grown tired of pure recruitment. HR was not yet strongly developed at Arxus. I then went on to study soft HR, such as organising training courses for colleagues and following up people who were having a hard time because of corona, for example. And when someone extra was hired as a recruiter, I could fully concentrate on these other matters and I also became the Teamlead of HR. There are two of us now, but the intention is that there will soon be a third and a fourth person."
So the fact that you are still young does not count?
"That's a bit silly, actually. I get a lot of freedom and responsibility here! In a very short time, Arxus has doubled in terms of personnel. In my role as recruiter, 50 new employees have joined us in two years. Such strong growth entails a lot of work. Things like employer branding, retention, employee happiness - until recently, less attention was paid to these areas. That is the role I am trying to take on now and when I come up with ideas, I am told: "Go ahead! Well, and then I take a course if necessary, recently about Employer Marketing, and start a whole process from scratch."
Is it never a problem that you don't have an IT background?
"I even got an Azure Fundamentals certificate. Heavy stuff!"
"I don't feel that way. Or at least not any more. In the beginning it was very difficult, especially because Arxus deals with very specific matters. But as a recruiter I picked up a lot from conversations with candidates and I always heard colleagues talking animatedly about their jobs. In time, I found that really interesting and I developed an enormous appreciation for what they do here. In the end, I even obtained an Azure Fundamentals certificate . Heavy stuff! That proves that you don't have to be an IT-er to participate in the IT-landscape."
It is not always easy
As a child, Bo wanted to do something with animals, but she had to put that dream on hold. "I started riding very young and competed at a reasonable level. I dreamed aloud of the Olympic Games. That was really the plan. But then at seventeen I got glandular fever and Lyme disease at the same time. I was really beyond tired and that lasted seven years. I had to put my dream on hold, my social life was completely cut off, it was hard. Yet I went to university. I still don't understand how I did it.
How did you finally get through that difficult period?
"My parents have been very supportive. They were always there to help me and they still do a lot for me. And I have a good buddy who is a few years older. He is pretty much the only one who always listened to my story and took me as I was. His humour and our good talks got me through that period.
I still have side effects of my illness today. It would be best for me to lead a very structured life, always with the same rhythm and plenty of sleep. But sitting still is not for me."
"My parents have always been very supportive of me."
Entrepreneurial spirit
"After I had to sell my horse, I was looking for a new passion. That is my dogs now. I have three of them and in my spare time I study to become a dog behaviourist. That fascinates me enormously.
In addition, I started a business project on Amazon together with my dad. We sell English-language books for which we come up with the ideas and work out the outline, and which we have written by a ghostwriter in the US. This may sound strange, but it is quite normal in the publishing world. After a few less successful attempts, we chose a subject that is close to my heart: dogs and behavioural therapy. That turned out to be a smart move. There is a market for it, especially in the US. Our book 'The Positive Puppy Training Blueprint' is selling really well! We now sell it on various platforms such as Amazon, Bol, ... under our pseudonym.
At Arxus, you need that enterprising character to be successful, don't you?
"Absolutely! Arxus, and by extension Cronos, is an environment in which you have to be very proactive and independent. You have to seize the opportunities yourself; they are not handed to you on a plateau. As a junior, I did not find that easy. But I did it anyway. I went through the entire process and now stand where I am as HR Teamlead. I gained a lot of confidence and apparently handled it well. It's probably partly down to my character, but I'm still proud of it."
"Cronos is an environment in which you have to be very proactive and independent. As a junior, I didn't find that easy. But I did it anyway."
Challenges and ambitions
What do you experience as a challenge?
"The biggest challenge today is that there are only two of us in HR. That is far too little for all the work that my colleague Mats and I have to and want to do. Arxus now has 115 employees. That is huge! And new people are being recruited all the time. For HR, we are urgently looking for one or two additional recruiter colleagues. Only then will I be able to focus more on employer branding, for example. I want to develop that from scratch. We are regularly active on social media, but employer branding is so much more than that. Think about retention, training, employee happiness. For me that is a very nice challenge."
How do you cope with such a busy schedule?
"Good planning! Both in the short and long term. And setting priorities: What is the most important thing now, which quick wins can I already do, ... I try to have done a bit of each project every day so that I keep up to date in all areas."
What do you want to achieve in the future?
"I would like to write many more books and earn extra money with them. That's how we started our Amazon adventure, but in the meantime it's really just fun. Especially because I now write dog books, which is my passion. I would love to work as a dog behaviourist in my spare time one day.
At work, I honestly never thought I would be an HR Teamlead by now. That was not my ambition per se. I just wanted to do my job, in a team with great colleagues. But the opportunity was there and I thought it was something for me. Now, I mainly want to expand the HR team with people who are perfectly attuned to each other, and to achieve even more success together. Even if we are already doing very well today, Mats and I. The number and quality of the people we recruit at Arxus is extraordinary! When our team grows, I want it to be a well-oiled machine, just like it is now. A close-knit team that achieves great results, and that is what I hope to achieve in the long term.
A life lesson
"Being yourself is more than enough."
We are at the end of our conversation. Bo spontaneously starts talking about the culture at Arxus again. "That is a really strong point. I like my job very much, I get a lot of freedom and trust, but above all I like working at Arxus because of the people. It is always fun at the office and I think that is so important! For me, life is about friendship, family and passion. Being so ill makes me realise that even more. With my parents and my dogs around, I am a happy person, then I don't care much about the rest. I have learned very hard to put things into perspective. Life is not about competition and winning, or about being 'someone' in the world. As soon as you find a job or an environment where you enjoy yourself and can use your talents, then you're fine and you can just be yourself. That is more than enough."