How a New Job Has Proved a Constant Learning
Read Prashast’s story of how joining SHL gave him an opportunity for constant learning, from the new way of working to tackling a series of technical challenges.
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In some ways, starting my new job at SHL was a quite surreal experience. I joined the company in April last year just as India went into lockdown due to the coronavirus. I had left my last employer and wondered if the new position would go ahead. But SHL was fast to react and the whole company moved to working remotely very quickly, so I came on board as planned.
Many Exciting Opportunities
It has been a busy year and a half since I joined SHL as a lead software engineer. Now, I am an engineering manager here in Gurugram in northern India and I have faced lots of professional challenges and constant learning along the way.
One of my first projects was to build a way for recruiters to identify if a candidate was not honest with an assessment. So, we created a way for recruiters to monitor this process. In addition, we knew that candidate feedback in the hiring process has become a number one need for our customers. Many struggles to provide feedback to every candidate due to the time commitment it takes. We created a video feedback platform that gives automatic and personalized feedback to every candidate helping boost the brand of our customers and the confidence of their candidates. Finally, maintaining the existing platform is really important, but at the same time, it is exciting to solve problems and create new things that get launched.
The Application of Science
To be honest, before I saw the job advertisement at SHL, I had never heard of the company. But I did some research and read about its history and was really impressed. The science behind psychometric testing is really interesting and the level of detail in the insights it produces is amazing. It was clear SHL was one of the market leaders in employee assessments, talent acquisition, and talent management. And the technology presented a great learning opportunity for me.
The science behind psychometric testing is really interesting and the level of detail in the insights it produces is amazing. It was clear SHL was one of the market leaders in employee assessments, talent acquisition, and talent management.
Learning Curve
Initially, I was quite intimidated by the technical challenges I faced, but the fact that my work has been a constant learning experience has been great. I had never worked with an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud before and that is a significant part of my job. In fact, over the last 18 months I have been working on AWS cloud; GraphQL, the data query language; NestJS, a framework for creating microservices; and change data capture, which transfers data from one system to another. It has been a big increase in knowledge for me and all that learning really keeps me motivated and interested.
When I was promoted to engineering manager, it was a real boost to get a change of role relatively soon after joining the organization. There is still so much to learn and achieve that I think working in this position for a few years is necessary to take everything from it that I can.
Building Relationships
It has been a bit strange coming into a new company and working almost constantly from home because of the pandemic. I only met my manager in person for the first time when I had already been working for SHL for a year. It took that long for me to go into the office! I miss office life a bit and going for a coffee with work colleagues, but I have still made friends and get to talk to the people I work with about life outside of SHL.
At SHL, you will have a lot of opportunities for constant learning and meet great colleagues who have the same passion and thirst for knowledge as you. Check out our career page to find some exciting roles that may suit you!
