My name is Sieuwke van Slooten. After handing in my thesis at the beginning of September 2007, I only had 3 weeks left before I was thrown into the world of working people. Besides the odd part-time job that I had during my student time, I was a complete working rookie. Through a recruitment agency, I came in contact with Ormit who at that time were looking for people for the Rabobank International IT & Operations Traineeship. During my interview at Ormit, they did have some worries as I had just finished the MA in International Business and Marketing Management and thus did not have much experience in terms of IT. However, adjusting to many different situations is a skill that I further developed at TiasNimbas and this enabled me to convince them that I was the right person for the job.
Working at Rabobank International through Ormit for a year, I now know for sure that many of the skills, both in terms of knowledge as well as interpersonal ones, that I developed at TiasNimbas have come in useful – most of them without consciously applying them – skills that I acquired and further developed both during classes as well as during the many social and other activities that I organised and participated in.
Especially working with many different cultures towards a common goal is a very useful skill, as I am currently working in New York and will move to Sao Paulo soon to work there. This means that adjusting to new situations/people/cities easily is important.
Also in my role as a Business Analyst/Project Manager (depending on the assignment) many different skills are required no matter what country you are working in. Furthermore, I noticed that through TiasNimbas, I also had gained a good knowledge of who I am and what I can achieve.
There will be a lot of learning moments throughout my working life, but TiasNimbas has given me a good foundation from which I can only grow (and already am growing) further to become the professional and person that I want to be.
TiasNimbas Business School is connected to the business world in several ways.