Written by: Emi Bucu
Grit- The Driving Force
I consider myself quite lucky to be one of the rare few to have the “engine that could” mentality. This has played a pivotal role in shaping who I am and has been the source of my grit and determination for as long as I can remember. My family immigrated to Michigan from Eastern Europe when I was three years old. From the moment I could actually recollect a memory, the unrelenting message was clear; they sacrificed everything they knew, hopped on a plane with two babies under the age of three (with no money in their pockets and without the ability to speak English), so we could have better lives than the ones they had. Being the oldest child, I took this very seriously. Little did they know that rolling-the-dice would also become second nature for me, but more on that a little later. My course/duty/responsibility was very clear; I had to make their sacrifices worth it and bring their goals over the finish line.
First and foremost, I had to focus all of my energy on excelling in academics so I could become the first person in my family to go to college. Getting my acceptance letter to Michigan State University was the first of many dominoes that needed to fall in place. Then, reality sank in. How do people pay for this? My parents had no idea how they could help me with navigating the white-water rapids of student loans! Many, many disenrolled and manually re-enrolled classes later, I figured out it was always going to be my burden to bear and had to figure it out as I went. When I wasn’t sitting in a giant auditorium classroom, I was working to pay for what I could. Fast forward to 2007- whew, I made it (or so I thought)! Life decided it still had a few more curve balls to throw at me, the first one being the economic landscape of 2008.
I just graduated from a big 10 university with a bachelor’s degree – of course I was going to be a hot commodity! Oh boy, let me tell you, I could not have been more wrong. After eight exhaustive months of job hunting, the best I could land was the role as a receptionist at an event market firm for $10/hour. This was fine, everything was fine, it was definitely part of a bigger picture I haven’t seen yet. I kept reminding myself that I am going to get my foot in the door at the ground level, show them what I can do, and work my way up the ladder. This was actually what started to unfold, but I still felt that there was more that I could do to increase my odds for success.
Three years later, in 2011, I made the decision to pursue my MBA. Unbeknownst to me, this was also about to change the course of the rest of my professional life. Two days after I updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect that I enrolled in the graduate program, I received a call from Valeo’s Director of R&D (the group that produces the technology that allows you to push a button to parallel park your car) asking if I would be interested in their co-op opening. That sounded 70% scary, 30% awesome. Of course I accepted! I had no idea that I just strapped myself into the biggest rollercoaster I have ever ridden, and that it would be10 more years before I jumped off and wanted to ride an even bigger one.
There was some growth potential at Valeo, but I knew I wanted to get back to my roots and get in at the ground level with an organization that was going to be a long-term fit and allow me to flourish. ARaymond was dynamic, evolving, and presented me with endless possibilities for my career path. Translation: they just completed a major merger and acquisition of two very different companies, had a mass exodus of employees, and planned to dramatically change the landscape in the next five years. Here, rolling-the-dice really starts to come into play. The next eight years would turn out to be some of the most fulfilling of my life. I never had to toot my own horn. I showed up (ok, I know I am a little hard to ignore), delivered beyond expectations, and trusted that upper management would notice.
Araymond reinforced that I could continue to trust that the universe would put strong mentors in my life that would give me their trust and confidence to execute “impossible” goals (albeit with my own unique flair). Regardless of what new job title they created for me, the overarching theme was to integrate myself within a broken team, earn their respect and trust, and help them fix themselves. Yippee ki-yay! The only way to achieve any of this, with a snowball’s chance of success, was to wholeheartedly understand the inner workings of every department, what was working, what wasn’t, and how to gain buy-in on change. This was no small task. In these roles, I learned more about people, processes, systems, and business in general than I ever had in my life (or so I thought, again). No matter what mission I was on, my driver was always to make the lives of my teammates a little better than they were before me.
After eight years, the realization sunk in; I absolutely loved what I was doing, until I didn’t. The automotive industry was vicious and tumultuous, and cuts had to be made. Imagine my shock when I walked into the office one day, just to be told my position was eliminated. In hindsight, I already knew my journey was at an end, but I was not ever going to pull the plug myself. Naturally, I started dissecting where I went wrong, where I could have done better, but no! It was time to snap myself out of it before there was no turning back. I was proud, I did achieve what most would consider impossible, and I just needed to keep myself open to what the next step had in store for me.
The Next Step
My best friend is to blame/accredit with what happened next. She had quite an impressive career in recruiting and always spoke very highly of a former coworker of hers, Ryan Clark. He was a Director at Robert Half while she was there, went off the beaten path and started his own firm, and she even followed him on this new venture for a while. She encouraged me to reach out – it couldn’t hurt to see if he had anything on his job board that would align with my background. I connected with him, with every intention of finding another role in automotive, but holy smokes, that conversation ended with a job offer to join his start-up as his third employee.
Excuse me, what? Recruiting? Start-up? Was that a job interview? Recruiting never once crossed my mind as a potential career path. All I really knew at that point was a giant corporate landscape in the automotive industry. I could practically hear the dice clanging against themselves- time to strap into a new, bigger, scarier, rollercoaster. It is a little difficult to explain what led me to actually take the leap, because it was more of a feeling than logic. While Ryan was explaining why he started his own firm, how he saw it operating, the people he wanted to bring on, I started to get that feeling – a tingle down my spine. What was very loud and clear is that everything boiled down to integrity as the baseline, always doing what is best for both the client and the candidate at all times, and going above and beyond is the way we will stand out from the bigger and better-known agencies out there. Ryan was, without a doubt, someone I wanted to take this leap for.
My approach is often described as unconventional, but that is because I am the candidate, the client/hiring manager, and have been in your shoes at some point. I have either been at the same crossroads career-wise, had the same questions or need for guidance, or simply put, I never thought about what could be a make-or-break from a hiring manager’s perspective. My end goal every single time is to leave someone feeling like I made a positive impact on them, even if it is as simple as providing a confidence boost for their future job hunt.
