Meet Judith Beckschäfer, Recruiter for Pharma Technical Operations at Roche
University of Potsdam, near Berlin, Germany
I am currently working in Kaiseraugst, Switzerland, which is just a few minutes’ drive from Basel.
I live in Basel city centre; Kaiseraugst is about 16 kilometres (10 miles) from home. The commute is absolutely doable; the public transport system in Switzerland is outstanding and Roche also offers shuttle services between the different locations.
Kaiseraugst is a fantastic location to work at. It hosts Roche’s largest and most advanced packaging and logistics centre. Each year, this centre supplies customers in 130 countries with around 120 million packs of medicines. At Kaiseraugst, tablets, capsules, ampoules, vials and pre-filled syringes are packaged ready for shipping.
The site is not far from the Rhine shore and the border with Germany, and the nearby forest, a large recreation area, is less than 5 minutes’ walk away. Lots of my colleagues go running over lunchtime. I also enjoy the occasional little walk there to clear my head.
I was not actively looking for a new job, but a friend of mine who had joined Roche earlier that year told me what a fantastic place to work it is. I had heard of Roche before of course, and afterwards did some more research. I thought: These guys really seem to understand their market, and how to engage with their employees!
And they do! The fact that the company values are more than pretty pictures on conference room walls is as important to me as the product portfolio that changes the world for the better, bit by bit. Meeting the people who work here, seeing how passionate they are about what they do and how much the company cares about its workforce is not something to be taken for granted and it impressed me. And recruiters bear the big responsibility of attracting and hiring the right people – people that not only have the technical skill set, but also the right mindset to be part of Roche.
As a recruiter, you are basically an account manager for a certain area. You make sure you talk to your hiring managers and the HR Business Partners so you get a good understanding of what kind of vacancies to expect and how many. Then you sit down with the hiring managers and other interfaces, such as Employer Branding & Marketing and the talent scouts, and develop recruiting strategies so that you can work through the right channels to get the talent to apply.
My days are very varied, depending on the kind of jobs I am currently working on: I might be attending career fairs, for example. I write job ads and post them or I search LinkedIn for interesting profiles and take the opportunity to connect and catch up with people in my network. I also screen incoming résumés, discuss them with my hiring managers and exchange e-mails with candidates or meet them for an interview. I check references and last but not least, I benchmark offers and negotiate salaries.
After 10 years in recruiting, I am still not tired of my work at Roche. It’s hard to find this job boring, you get to connect with so many different people. Each person I meet has a different story to tell, has different career drivers and experiences. I am a curious and open-minded person, so talking to people and understanding what motivates them, sussing out what values they base their decisions on and then assessing if this matches our needs is something that just never gets old.
Doing this in a diverse, multi-cultural and fast-paced environment is even more exciting. At the end of the day, a recruiter’s success is obvious: The best person was hired and is making a difference.
Roche is a great place to work because... you get the right mix of guidance and freedom.
Trustworthy, smart and fun.
Make sure you get a good understanding of what we do and what we expect from our employees. Our careers blog and YouTube channel provide lots of information. Also, give some thought to your career plans and past experience: “Why Roche?” is a question that will certainly come up in an interview. We look for passionate people. Make sure you know how your passion relates to us and to the job that you apply for.
So the chance is yours! Visit our careers webpage www.careers.roche.ch and see if any of our vacancies suit you.