Oliver Gronwald

Hi Oli, thanks for taking the time! You joined the company in May 2020 as the first dedicated Recruiter at Checkmk after 8 Years working in IT Recruiting agencies.

Can you please introduce yourself briefly?

Hi, my name is Oliver and I'm responsible for recruiting for our tech teams. That means Software Development, Support & Consulting, Product Management and IT. Before I joined Checkmk I was working as an IT Recruiting Consultant for Staffing agencies for 8 years. There I supported Software Development Teams in finding the right new team members and Software Developers with their search for a new challenge.

Why did you decide to work at Checkmk? What appealed to you about our company and our mission?

When I applied at Checkmk, I had absolutely no idea what Checkmk was. I heard of it from a colleague who was working with Mathias (Founder). At that time the idea was to change into an internal role and help a company grow. For me, it was also interesting to see how the candidates I managed to hire grow with time and to see their development. At the end it wasn't the product, it was the people and the task. I spoke with Thomas (Rauscher), Elias and Jan and everyone gave me a fantastic feeling. It was an open and honest process, whether it was the first interview or the contract discussion.

What do you think makes Checkmk or your team in particular special?

There are so many things that make us special. I never had such an open and transparent communication and information flow. If you want, you can get information for almost all topics, even notes from the management meetings. Another great topic is the “community” that we have internally: cross team lunch, boulder and sports group, after work drink in our beautiful backyard or the pub around the corner! Within the team we can rely on each other, with a high trust as well as a very high confidentiality. You can talk with everyone about everything and it will be kept between you!

What I also really liked at Checkmk: you have a lot of greenfield areas where you can get your hands dirty and take over with a full responsibility. I was hired for recruiting, but with time I took over other parts and took over i.e. the contract management, the career page, a bit "employer branding", was part of the project team for the new HR Solution with Personio, setting up the working reference and a lot of more things I never dreamed of working in and with!

What does a typical work day look like for you?

Uh, the only typical things are the daily with my Colleague Max, the weekly Check-In and Check-Out with the People & Culture Team as well as a weekly Recruiting Jour Fixe with Julia, our Manager. And every other week I'll have a 1:1 with Julia for personal feedback and development. And the sport breaks on Monday and Wednesday, where I use our flexible work times and clock out between 10.45 and 13.30. Depending on the recruiting plan I have weekly session with the hiring manager to discuss the current status. Other than that every day is different, depending on interviews and other topics.

In your everyday work, you get to know new people on a daily basis. How do you manage to build up a relationship with all these different applicants?

I always try to treat applicants the way I want to be treated. For me that means that I try to give feedback within a short period of time as well as open feedback. The further a candidate gets with us, the more detailed the feedback will be. Because it is not only us who invest time. The applicants also invest a lot of time and at least they deserve feedback which they can use and get something out of. The goal is to give the candidate the feeling that they are already part of the team and can experience the Checkmk vibe.

How does the cooperation with our different departments work when recruiting for a new position?

We always integrate the team in the recruitment process. This will be discussed with the hiring manager. Together with the team we set up the process and discuss how many interviews/discussions/sessions we will have. We also discuss potential challenges and evaluations to make sure they are ready before we start and don't waste time. As soon as everything is settled, we start with the recruiting process. Besides applications this means also active search for Max and me. Included are also update sessions with the team as well as the hiring manager to make sure that everyone is aware of the current situation and can prepare for potential interviews and actions.