Workramp, a growing education tech startup, was one of Therefore’s first partner companies. Bridgette joined the Therefore Community as a Business Development Representative, interested in networking and helping grow her team. We spoke to her after dozens of meetings with Therefore job seekers to reflect on her experience and how it helped her grow with a promotion to Manager. Here’s what she had to say!
How did you first found out about Therefore and what interested you?
My colleague on the People and Culture team surfaced it with our sales team and said that they needed a BDR to participate in these introductory meetings, and she explained what I would get out of it. I was new to SaaS starting last August and it's just always good to network, but I haven’t really had other avenues to do that in this new field. You know as well as I that in tech your network is literally everything. I've met such incredible people on Therefore and I know that it puts me in a better position, going forward in my career.
When you started, did you have any experience interviewing, hiring, or helping your team grow?
So before Therefore, no. It started becoming part of my job to do that after I had started doing these info interviews, but beforehand I had no interviewing experience whatsoever. I feel like Therefore helped prepare me for more interviewing candidates and now I’m a hiring manager! I think that Therefore shifted my perspective in a way: traditionally when you think of hiring, you think of a resume and interview questions and this very formal process. And what Therefore kind of allowed me to do was really shift that frame of mind.
Tell me more about that.
Well, I've since hired people on my team that I never, still to this day, looked at their resumes. I hired them purely off of the conversation, and my “vibe check” on things like how receptive are they to feedback? How willing are they to learn? Those details became much more important to me than what they had written down on a paper.
And I can definitely give Therefore credit for that because of the people that they sent me in those info interviews who had no tech experience and made me realize that when I started, I had no tech experience. And the only reason I got hired was because I wanted to learn and wanted to do something different and was willing to adapt. And Therefore made me realize that there's a lot of other people like that. And they deserve the same chance to succeed and just need to be given the opportunity.
How do you think Workramp has shown the company’s commitment to diversity?
I think that Workramp really values the kind of culture that I was talking about earlier where you don't have to have tech experience, necessarily, to get in. So Therefore puts us in a position to foster that and lead with those human conversations instead of the flashy names of companies someone has worked at.
Over the past six months DEI is something that has been flagged as a priority. The company has put people in leadership positions where they can actually affect change. Like my previous manager moved into a people and culture/DEI role, which is hugely important because having someone in that role means organization-wide there are new initiatives in terms of unconscious bias training, or ensuring recruiting processes are fair and not just from referrals.
I think bringing myself and another woman colleague into sales leadership was also huge. Those kinds of changes are happening across the org, but particularly in the sales team where the lack of diversity was brought to the attention of leadership and we said somebody needs to change and they did change it. So now the power has kind of been put in our hands to make sure we can actually make an impact in that way.
Would you recommend joining Therefore to people you know?
I constantly recommend Therefore to everyone I know as a way of a great way to build your network. I truly have had such a lovely experience. I've met such incredible people on Therefore and I truly really enjoy interacting with the product and with the people.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
