Do you know whose network links carry approx. 30% of traffic from the entire Internet? Who has about 250,000 servers, supporting 30% of the 500 richest companies in the world? This is an American company named Akamai whose recruitment process was conducted for the position of Service Architect. Feel free to reed and geto to know the details of the whole process.
- A few words about Akamai
- The purpose of the recruitment, i.e. who was Akamai looking for?
- Service Architect or Service Ambassador? I.e. what a potential candidate must have been able to do?
- Service Architect in Krakow has more than one name… I.e. the employee’s duties and recruitment process
- The recruitment process, i.e. from the Nancy (USA) brief to the third stage of the candidate’s interview in Akamai
- The process was a success!
- A few words of recruiter’s thoughts at the end 🙂
A few words about Akamai
In order to fully understand the entire recruitment process for the Service Architect job, we must first get to know the Akamai structure better. The company was established in 1998 in Cambridge, USA, where the headquarters of the company is still located, collecting data and speeding up work on the Internet. With its expansion, 2 main branches were established in Europe: first one in Germany near Munich and then (in 2011) in Krakow. Today the Krakow branch of Akamai is the largest in Europe, employing nearly 800 people. Currently the company has many offices on the old continent (with European HQ in Switzerland) and collects annual revenue of USD 5 billion, while our client’s services are used by such brands as Facebook, Apple, BBC, HBO, Microsoft or Red Bull.
The purpose of the recruitment, i.e. who was Akamai looking for?
Our aim was to recruit a Service Architect to join the Akamai department called Global Services and Support. It was to be another member of a 15-person global team and at the same time a third person for such a position in the Krakow office. What does Service Architect do? In short, they are involved in building all of the Akamai products!
How do they fulfil their responsibilities? In cooperation with product teams and engineers, they act as a kind of ambassador for the individual product lines, ensuring that during the design and development phase of products/components, their subsequent support is taken into account by the GSS. In addition, they act as an intermediary in providing feedback from direct users (by working with teams that directly support customers – Service Architects themselves have no close contact with the user/customer) and support the management of the GSS in the product review.
It is also worth mentioning that as Service Architect, the potential candidate was expected to work on cloud solutions that enable companies to provide secure and efficient functions to the user on any device and anywhere in the world. Additionally, he would play the role of the so-called Virtual Team Facilitator/Coordinator for a group of GSS experts dedicated to a specific product (e.g. conducting meetings and setting their agenda, but without holding the experts accountable for their work).
Service Architect or Service Ambassador? I.e. what a potential candidate must have been able to do?
Our client highlighted that in fact, every large company needs a person fulfilling SA duties, although this position is not always present in the structures under this name. A very valuable clue turned out to be that in practice Service Architect is largely an Akamai service ambassador. It has to represent the interests of all entities involved in supporting a given product: from an external client, through developers and up to management.
That is why such qualities were so important in a potential candidate:
- Excellent communication skills;
- Very high technical knowledge and knowledge of IT services;
- Ability to look for different ways of solving problems, looking at the matter from different perspectives.
In addition, Akamai was expecting from the candidate:
- Proactivity: SA as an atom that connects different stakeholders from within and (indirectly) outside Akamai chooses the tools to study their needs and looks for ways to acquire the necessary knowledge;
- Patience and consistency: some of Akamai’s projects may take by nature very long time, even lasting a whole year;
- Divisive attention: during the course of a given project, there are other projects that are carried out simultaneously;
- Adaptation to unusual working hours (12 pm – 8 pm), which is connected with an international, decentralised team (cooperation with the manager and teams in the USA).
Service Architect in Krakow has more than one name… I.e. the employee’s duties and recruitment process
Recruitment of Service Architect was an inspiring challenge for us. It should have been taken into account that:
- In Krakow, apart from Akamai specialists, it is difficult to find candidates with such a position in their CV. That is why it was extremely important during this recruitment process to source in detail and to examine the market beforehand;
- Due to the need for constant contact with the company’s headquarters in the United States, the position required work in the afternoon and evening hours (12 pm – 8 pm);
- The position of Service Architect is an individual position within the company – in cooperation with other stakeholders, he makes decisions important for the development of the company’s products and services and therefore has to be proactive and have solid technological knowledge.
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The recruitment process, i.e. from the Nancy (USA) brief to the third stage of the candidate’s interview in Akamai
We started working on this recruitment from a brief with a client. It was an interview with Nancy, the team manager that Service Architect was about to join. After the most important arrangements (described above), we started the recruitment process. It consisted of 4 main stages:
STAGE 1: Detailed sourcing
As we have already mentioned, Service Architect in Krakow has more than one name. It is definitely an exceptional role, which occurs under many names. That is why we could not search the market based on the position itself. So first, we had to thoroughly search the network for the responsibilities of potential candidates. We focused strongly on LinkedIn, which, combined with meticulous sourcing, gave us great results in the form of…
STAGE 2: Screening calls
After selecting a suitable group of candidates, matching the requirements, the rates and benefits proposed by the client, we have carried out screening calls with the candidates. The thorough conduct of the interviews resulted in a shortening of the client’s recruitment process, which in the context of soft skills and matching to the organisation was based on our reports. During this stage we also collected feedback from the candidates in the context of the Akamai offer and after consultation with the client we answered all applicants’ questions and concerns.
STAGE 3: Submission of candidates to Akamai and work between Humeo and the candidates
Eventually, after carefully selected CVs and fruitful interviews, we sent 4 candidates to the client, from which he chose 3 and invited them to the interviews. This, however, did not end our work between a recruiter and a candidate. We kept in touch with them and collected feedback on their interviews with Akamai, which was positively received by the applicants.
Candidate
One of the three people invited to the final interviews in Akamai
I have very good memories about the collaboration. I had a feeling that I was talking to a recruiter who is fluent in IT terminology (which is not often the case with this type of recruitment). The communication has always been on a very high level. Despite changing conditions and deadlines due to the beginning of the pandemic and lockdown, I was kept informed and received explanations of the situation. It was also very helpful that Mrs Weronica was able to focus on the success of the recruitment process as well as to provide support and kind words before each stage. I recommend such a Recruiter to everyone – cooperation and the best approach so far!
STAGE 4: Client recruitment processes
The Akamai recruitment process was, of course, a key stage. It consisted of 3 parts:
- a technical discussion;
- an interview to check communication skills and how the candidate is doing in the business environment;
- a final interview for which the candidates prepared presentations on a topic specified by our client.
At this stage, we were extremely pleased to see that all of the three candidates accepted for the first interview were also invited to the final interview. A detailed market survey and a careful selection of CV’s have been effective. Then, during all the above mentioned stages of the recruitment process we were in constant contact with both the applicants and our client – Akamai, who took care of a well thought-out process inside his company. In summary, it turned out that the adopted strategy of detailed sourcing and long interviews with the candidates was effective.
The process was a success!
The recruitment of Service Architect was therefore finally successful and in April our client presented a job offer to one of the candidates. He accepted the offer and has been working in Akamai since early June.
To sum up: the recruitment process started with a detailed web briefing with the Akamai headquarters (USA). Then, 7 days after starting work on this project, we sent our client a CV of 4 people, of whom he chose 3 and invited for the first interview. Each of them went through all the stages of the interview at Akamai – until the final one, and finally our client decided to hire one of them.
Kamil Partyka
SENIOR LEAD RECRUITER @ AKAMAI
Weronika has managed the unusual challenge of the Service Architect role very well and her desire to understand the essence of the position and the expectations of the business has paid off with a well-selected shortlist of candidates. Moreover, she was in constant contact with the candidates, keeping them informed about the progress and constantly monitoring their level of engagement, which was particularly important given the pandemic-driven, slightly protracted process.
A few words of recruiter’s thoughts at the end 🙂
Service Architect is a man who, from a prospective specialist who appears as an enigmatic figure in the world of technology, has become an Akamai employee satisfied with the place where he found himself with Humeo’s help. I, in turn, have gained knowledge of what SA does on a daily basis and what his role in the organisation is. Therefore I feel that the whole recruitment process was an adventure both for me (especially in terms of sourcing and preceding market research) and for the candidates with whom I was in constant contact (here I mean the diversity of conversations with Akamai). I am glad that we managed to work out a flow of cooperation between me and Akamai and me and the candidates. Thus, being a link between its stakeholders in this process was definitely a very positive recruitment experience. Check out more IT recruitment case studies.
