We’re continuing our celebration with another phenomenal woman with many talents. Her name is Milana Tarlac and she is a Talent Acquisition Officer working in our Banja Luka office.
We grabbed some time to have a chat with her about her education, career path, HTEC, hiring process and much more.
Watch the video to meet our lovely guest.
We bring you the highlights.
J: Can you tell us about your early career and a little bit about your educational background?
M: “I graduated from the Faculty of Economics …and at the moment I’m finishing my master’s studies at the Faculty of Media Studies and Communications. Before the college I was working as a journalist and a TV presenter, which was actually my main passion and it’s a really interesting experience…”.
M: “After finishing college, I started working in a software company, and now I’m working in HTEC… My first job was related to being a business consultant for payroll administration and human resources, and a few years later, I decided to fully dedicate my profession to HR fields. I’ve had the chance to work in different fields as a talent acquisition, research and marketing talent and employee experience….I always try to learn new things and to gain experience in different fields because the industry in general is fast-growing and different kinds of trends are constantly changing. So if you want to work in this industry, you need to keep up learning and keep up with the existing trends and the upcoming ones on the market.”
J: Your life sounds very fun. And you also mentioned that you are writing a blog, right?
M: “It’s about HR And the whole blog is related to HR topics in general. It does depend maybe on the period of my life or it could be related to some kind of education. So I sometimes dedicate my time to writing some kind of blog about the things I’m learning, about the things I’ve been working on at my job. And the blog is totally related to HR. I’ve been writing this for a few years now, but it’s not like I do not write every month.”
J: OK, interesting. If anyone listening to this would like to hear more about the strategies and the inspiration in the HR and talent acquisition, you could visit milanatralac.blogspot.com. OK, so let’s get back to HTEC. What is your job at HTEC and what does your day to day routine look like?
M: “…My official position in HTEC is called Talent Acquisition and Employee Experience Specialist, which means that I am doing talent acquisition, and employee experience of people in HTEC. What does it mean? Talent acquisition means that we are responsible for attracting and recruiting new employees who might join HTEC and since our needs are constantly growing, I’m trying to find the best talents and to hire them. The best part about that is that you actually meet so many people and get to know different communities — HTEC has offices in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, Subotica, Banja Luka, Skopje and will probably open few more offices so I have a chance to meet people from all these cities and see what they want their careers to look like and what they’re expecting from HTEC. On the other hand, I always have a responsibility to present HTEC to them… So my day is made of communication, communication and communication constantly and I actually like it because it’s dynamic and it brings a lot of positive energy. Sometimes it could be exhausting, but that’s probably the reason why I like running — I have time to be on my own and not communicate with anybody.”
J: I’m sure that some of our listeners would be interested to hear about the HTEC hiring process. Can you tell us more about it?
M: “OK, our hiring process has two different tests — the first one and actually the first contact with HTEC is an interview where we try to get to know each other. I try to get to know the candidates in order to help them get as much information as possible about the company. The next step after the HR interview is a technical task, which is actually focused on the candidate’s technical knowledge. And, after that, if everything goes well, the next step is a technical interview, which is totally focused on discussions and sharing experiences. And if the candidate meets all these requirements during the process, the next step is to talk about the possible project and financial benefits that the candidates would have if he/she accepts the offer.”
J: And are there any particular personal traits that we are looking for in the candidates, like what would be an ideal candidate profile for HTEC in terms of personality?
M: “OK, well, it’s hard to say what ideal is, and I’m not sure if there is even an ideal candidate in the world. But for sure you need to know your business. When it comes to technical skills, you need to speak English, that’s must in HTEC Group. We have offices in different cities and all our clients are from U.S. and European market. And when it comes to some personality criteria or things that people would like our colleagues to have, we truly appreciate openness and honesty, eagerness to learn and help others, because one of our values is keep learning, keep going. And we would like everybody in the company to feel that value and to learn and to grow during their period of working in HTEC. Actually everyone is different. And that’s the thing that makes this job interesting.”
J: Yeah. Like an extended family. Right. So you work in our office in Banja Luka and recently you also wrote a blog for our website about the office but for those who don’t have the time to read this blog post, can you tell us just a little bit about your office there and your colleagues and the atmosphere?
M: “Yeah, OK, Banja Luka office opened one and a half year ago. At the moment we have 55 people and are still growing. We are a really great team, I could say that we are we have open and supportive culture and you definitely feel like you’re at home when you’re at work. And I must say that maybe one of the things that people like the most about the company and about the Banja Luka office is that every Friday we have happy hour. And, really, we often stay after hours to spend some time together in order to meet each other and build that culture and trust, even though we are not working on the same project…”
J: You’ve reached this point in your career where you seem very self-confident in your position. But how did you get there and how did you learn to voice your opinion?
M: That’s a hard question. To be honest, I’ve been working in different organizations and cultures…that motivated me to become flexible and to be able to have my skills to easily adjust to different situations. I think that’s really important. If you want to feel confidence, speak freely about the things…, about your expectations, you need to feel confident. And I must say that confidence comes with knowledge and expertise. But you also need to widen your experiences, to widen your perspective and to be flexible in order to be sure that you feel safe to share your opinion. Also, I would like to say that it’s important to be honest with yourself and to admit that actually there are things you should learn. You save time, learn something, educate yourself and that will allow you to be more confident, to be open, to gain knowledge, to share your experiences with people…Also, after doing this job for years, I would like to share one thing,- if you want to have good connections with people, including colleagues and candidates, I think it’s important to be authentic. And these are the things that actually build your self-confidence as well.”
J: Thanks for taking the time to be our guest today. I wish you all the luck with your future life and career.
M: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this talk today with you and hope to see you soon.
Grow by Growing Others
We are always open to exceptional talent and will make space for the right kind of person to join our HTEC team and grow together with us.
Browse through our open positions and come and join us.
In the meantime, broaden your knowledge with HTEC Group.