While many people view imposter syndrome as a negative experience, today’s guest Sanja Mitar will not accept a job unless she experiences it.  After studying child and youth care, she found herself in a job at Shopify where her ability to network and her willingness to be coached led her into HR. She is now the director of talent acquisition at smile.io. We discuss what doing a retrospective on 2021 looks like for her, what metrics she uses to measure her success, the interviews she conducts in the process, and the types of questions she asks. To find out more about the benefits of imposter syndrome, the need for transparency, and Sanja’s advice to anyone wanting to improve in their role, tune in today!

 

Key Points From This Episode:

• How Sanja Mitar is currently catching up on work after unplugging for a vacation.
• Sanja and Rob’s tips for unplugging.  
• Sanja’s background in child and youth care and how she got into recruitment. 
• The ability to network, being coachable, and other qualities that helped Sanja get on the talent team despite her lack of experience. 
• How she overcame impostor syndrome when she first joined the recruitment team.
• Why Sanja doesn’t take a job unless she feels imposter syndrome.
• Insight into Sanja’s role at Smile.io.
• What doing a retrospective on 2021 looks like for Sanja and what metrics she uses to measure her success.
• The interviews she’s conducting as part of her retro on 2021 and the types of questions she asks. 
• Why Sanja believes the responsibility is split 50/50 between the talent representative and the hiring manager in the hiring process. 
• Sanja’s advice on how to improve in your role.

 

Tweetables:

“I don’t take a role unless I feel that impostor syndrome. Because it if I don’t get that, that just means that I’m too comfortable and I’m probably not going to be challenged enough.” — Sanja Mitar [0:13:46]

 

“I think for anybody listening that might be feeling impostor syndrome, resourcefulness and resiliency, I think are the two main drivers of success. None of those two things require heavy skill-based learning or understanding.” — Sanja Mitar [0:16:06]

 

“Get really, really great mentors. Those are so valuable, it’ll pay off in spades if you’ve got great people around you.” — Sanja Mitar [0:26:21]

 

“You don’t know what you don’t know. The only way to find out is to learn. So put in the work, be resourceful. Just seek out that information, and ask questions, build connections, and it will happen.” — Sanja Mitar [0:26:32]

 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

 

Sanja Mitar

smile.io 

Man On Cusp Of Having Fun Suddenly Remembers Every Single One Of His Responsibilities

Talk Talent to Me 

Hired