Sjuul van der Heijden, 31, is our newest addition as Business Manager. A role he is very much looking forward to! "At ENTER I can really mean something to a seconded colleague. Being more of an advisor than placing someone somewhere and then having to let them go."
Sjuul himself once thought his own career would be that of a sports teacher. "I did the CIOS, but my body didn't like that as much as my mind did. I had many serious injuries during my studies. I tried all kinds of things, also because I love playing soccer ... but nothing helped. Then I came to a T-junction: am I going to continue studying or am I going to work?"
It became work. "I brought beds and cupboards around by truck and I also assembled that furniture in people's homes. Then I found out that it was the conversations with customers that I actually enjoyed the most." To advance, he went back to school. His MBO in Logistics Team Leader was easily obtained, but in that role at the company where he worked, he was mainly fire fighting and missed the customer contact.
Energy
Sjuul: "Then I started thinking about what really suited me and that's how I came up with a role as an account manager. I started doing that at a marketing company and in that role I also went out to clients to give presentations. I got a lot of energy from that, but then the pandemic threw a spanner in the works and I had to do the job a little differently than I wanted."
But Sjuul wouldn't be Sjuul if he didn't also see this as an opportunity for himself to develop further and take a good look at his next step. Sjuul: "That became recruitment. I could mean something to both a client and a candidate and I had contact with both. I focused on the IT market in the south of the Netherlands and had a very nice client portfolio. This was and is work that really suits me. But after a few years I wanted to move on. At my previous employer this was not possible, so I started discussions with other companies. ENTER was one of them."
Relationship
"The human aspect within ENTER and the long-term thinking behind secondment, especially within this company, really appealed to me," says Sjuul. "Hence why I say that I can really be a consultant here. You build a relationship here with both your client and the colleague you are seconding there."
In his spare time, he is also more than happy to take on the role of advisor. "When I couldn’t play soccer anymore, I became a trainer. I passed Uefa B and enjoy standing in front of the group I train now on a weekly basis."
