How Wolt’s Talent Acquisition team found love in lockdown

Wolt Talent Acquisition (Operations) Team, February 2021

One year ago, our cosy Talent Acquisition Operations (TA Ops) team of six gathered in Helsinki where hugs were embraced, team offsites were in action and roadmaps were built for the year ahead. But not long after, we, just like the rest of the world, were forced to adapt our everyday lives.

With a year filled with remote interviews and remote on-boarding of team members, a constant question has been “How has Covid affected hiring at Wolt?”

And so, Paris from our Talent Acquisition team shares a few insights on what it has been like during these strange times.

How did the pandemic affect hiring at Wolt and what does the ‘new normal’ look like for Wolt’s TA Ops team?
In the world of Talent Acquisition where human connection is the core of our everyday job, the new normal of ‘working from home’ certainly forced us to become creative with our hiring processes and ways of working. Not only did we adapt our hiring processes to ensure Covid-safety, but we also re-learnt how to collaborate and engage with our hiring teams that were spread across 20+ markets who were also tackling many local obstacles of their own.

To be honest, Zoom interviews were nothing new for us in the TA Ops team. We are based across multiple countries and therefore Zoom was already our best friend pre-Corona times 😁 However on the other hand, remote hiring was a fairly new concept for our wider hiring teams. That meant, for the first few months of the pandemic, we applied extra focus on supporting our hiring teams and driving best practices.

What this looked like in practice:
1️⃣ Buddying up with our local teams to accelerate customer support hiring by conducting frequent group interviews and hiring large volumes in our support teams
2️⃣ Working closely with our General Managers across all markets to continuously revise over headcount plans to ensure that our Restaurant and Operations teams were well equipped with employees to support the growing demand for our delivery services
3️⃣ Adding 15 new colleagues to TA Ops over the past year to enable us to keep up with supporting our hiring teams

Today’s new norm means:
🤝 Being all hands on deck when it comes to continuously supporting our local teams with hiring processes
🤓 Implementing new tools and resources in order to create efficient hiring processes
🌏 Ensuring hiring best practices are shared across all markets and teams
💙 Weekly socials on Zoom and virtual lunch dates with our colleagues

How would you describe working with accelerated hiring plans during a global pandemic?
First of all, we are all super humbled and grateful to be able to still do what we love during a global pandemic. Covid has affected the whole world in one way or another, and it hasn’t been easy for anyone. It is no secret that delivery companies continue to play a key role in ensuring that local businesses are able to operate as close to normal as possible. With Wolt being best known for our food delivery platform, this naturally meant that Wolt’s Talent team accelerated hiring plans in order to prioritise supporting our teams who were supporting our partners in every market.

We are grateful that we’ve been able to raise two funding rounds in the past year, in order to accelerate growth plans and continue to support our local partners while we prepare for the road ahead.

As a result, we’ve doubled in headcount over the past year and we’ve been lucky enough to be able to welcome 1000+ new colleagues to our team.

Covid definitely brought its challenges, but it also brought us our new colleagues. And despite the tough challenges, we love what we do, we love making cities a better place and we love to see our teams grow. So, that’s how Wolt’s Talent team found love in lockdown.💙

So if you’re ready to join us in making cities a better place, check out our Careers Page! 👈🏻