Boarded online

Miles Taylor, 23, started his internship at SPIRIT/21 at the end of March, at a time when almost the entire company was in the home office due to corona restrictions. In his testimonial, he describes how the IT medium-sized company recruits new employees online and integrates them virtually into its organisation.

For me, my virtual entry into SPIRIT/21 went almost smoothly. In February, the interview took place via webcam. I sat in my previous employer’s office in Vancouver, Canada, and was connected to Böblingen via the Microsoft app Teams. It felt almost like a normal job interview, and I can only confirm that virtual interviews are just as nervous as anyone else. My interlocutors on the other end of the line were very sympathetic and helpful, which in just a few minutes had a positive effect on my stress level.

Ready to go from day one - in the home office

My first day at work was 23 March. Due to the restrictions caused by the novel coronavirus, almost all of the SPIRIT/21 employees were already in their home office. So I started right from home. A few days earlier, I had met with the head of the training department at SPIRIT/21 in Böblingen, Germany, with the required distance of at least 1.5 metres, and received my starter package, including a notebook, keys and smartphone, as well as my own laptop. A small technical problem led to the fact that I had to go back to Böblingen to log into my laptop on site. continue) directly with my virtual onboarding.

A colleague from the HR department showed me where I can find important information about the company on the intranet, explaining topics ranging from marketing and sales to planned events and how to apply for holidays. When my online onboarding was officially finished, I started reading my emails and calendar entries to adjust to my new role. I even had a message in my mailbox from one of my colleagues who, although I didn’t know her personally, kindly offered to help me get started immediately.

Meet new colleagues online

I got to know my team the next day in a video conference meeting, which I found very helpful. For me, it’s much more comfortable to get to know people in person, not only through their voice, but also visually. All the members of the marketing team were totally open and involved me in their topics from the very beginning. It was a big leap in the water for me. In this situation, it helped me a lot to be encouraged to ask as many questions as possible. So I was able to familiarize myself relatively quickly with the current content, the most frequently used programs, and my area of responsibility. I just asked again – online, of course.