Ready for a career change? (II)

*Daniela Necefor graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics, Thermal Machines Department, but she steered to human resources. She is now a Managing Partner with Total Business Solution, a recruitment and consultancy company.

After graduation, in 1988, she was sent to Energoreparatii, the turbine reparations department, where she co-ordinated the teams of workers providing technical assistance. As ABB concluded a joint venture with Energoreparatii in 1992, some changes in the company reflected in Necefor’s career.

She was selected for the position of head of the Financial Reporting Department and, after two days of mature thinking, she decided to make this step, being fully aware that she could fail or dislike that activity or even be disliked by those who had appointed her.

She entered a period of tough training, when she had to assimilate four English books on western style accounting (US GAAP). Soon after that, she had to draw financial reports and send them to the Swiss head office.

She took over the position of Power Plant Production Controller in 1994, but, after a while, she realised that the technical field was not the only one developing in Romania and that she had to learn something else. She was contacted by head-hunters that helped her understand the evolution of the Romanian market.

In 1996, she made a change. She worked with CDC Foods as Management Accountant, with Coca-Cola Services as Financial Reporting and Planning Analyst and benefited from financial training in Vienna.

That was where she made the first contact with Antal International recruitment firm, which later offered her a financial position in the agency.

She accepted the proposal and, after receiving training on human resources in London, she was able to interview the candidates and ask them about their financial knowledge.

She learnt how to conduct an interview in other fields and realised she was enjoying her work tremendously. After a while, she became the firm’s general manager.

Unfortunately, Antal left Romania in 1999, but she was offered to work at the London-based head office. She rejected the proposal as she thought that after two-three years she would have lost contact with the Romanian market, where fast changes were occurring. This was how the idea to open her own company was born.

*Aurelian Sima used to be an engineer and worked in several fields (medical equipment, consumer goods distribution, mobile telephony and construction materials) until he became Country Manager with Motorola. After he graduated from the Fine Mechanics Faculty, majoring in Medical Equipment and Mechanical Measurement Systems, he joined the moulding department of Buzau-based Contactor Enterprise.

He then returned to Bucharest and joined ICSITE (The Institute of Scientific Research and Technological Engineering in Electronics), but the institute was heading for a fall and Sima resorted to Atlas Consel recruitment agency, which gave him the opportunity to work with a national distribution company-RomWest Euro, within the logistics department.

He had to leave that job for another distribution company-Cosmos Trading, where he got the position of Operations and Logistics Manager and began an MBA course with ASEBUSS in 1996. Soon after that, in February 1997, he resigned, but after three months of job searching, he entered Mobil Rom as a Logistics Specialist within the Sales Department.

His work gradually reached the point where operations become routine and he started the job hunt again. He entered Motorola as Operations Manager and in June he was promoted to Country Manager.