Meet the Team: A Chat with Arianna

It’s time to meet another member of the Horizontal Integration team. This week, we headed to our Denver, Colorado office to chat with Arianna Winkle. Arianna is a Senior Recruiter, an avid runner and dog-lover who has been with Horizontal Integration for 4 and a half years. Without further ado, let’s find out more about Arianna!What attracted you to recruiting / how did you become a recruiter?I basically fell into recruiting, as a lot of recruiters do. My first job out of university was in digital marketing and content writing, and I did that for two years before moving abroad to do volunteer work as well as freelance consulting in Costa Rica. When I moved back to the U.S., I was looking for a fresh start and a friend encouraged me to give recruiting a try. Recruiting attracted me because I loved the idea of having a job where I could connect with people and help others. I was also drawn to the ability to work across both tech and creative spaces, as I’ve always had an interest in both.What do you love most about your job? I absolutely love the sourcing and research aspect of recruiting, and that I am always learning something new. At HI, we get to work with a variety of clients across the tech and creative space. This requires me to be aware of emerging technologies, business methodologies, and industry trends on a consistent basis, so the fact that I am always learning is something I love.What do you find most rewarding about your job? The most rewarding part of my job is what I refer to as the “matchmaking” piece: successfully connecting a job seeker to a job they are excited about. It never gets old and I always have a sense of accomplishment when it happens. At times, recruiting can be frustrating. It can be difficult to find the “right” candidate for a client or check all the boxes on a prospective opportunity for a job seeker. The silver lining is when the puzzle pieces align and everyone is happy. There’s nothing quite like someone telling you how grateful they are that you connected them to an opportunity that improves their quality of life, excites them, or helps them grow in their career. Likewise, when a client is raving about how happy they are we finally found them the perfect fit for a job opening they were struggling to fill, it feels awesome!What is your typical work day like? My typical work day is filled with reading and writing e-mails, phone calls, and heavily sourcing on job boards and the web. It also involves collaboration with account managers to understand client needs and job requisitions and asking questions. My typical day also generally involves a lot of scheduling and coordinating interviews and staying organized. For me, it is a good balance of independent work and also collaborating with others.What is something that would surprise people about your day to day? My day to day is often very fast paced and requires a lot of multitasking. For me, that requires lot of heads down work to keep up with so many moving pieces and to stay as focused and organized as possible. Listening to music generally helps me get in the zone and find that focus.What skillsets do you focus your recruiting on? What is your expertise? I focus on a little bit of everything! In Colorado, HI has a verity of clients in the tech and creative space. I work on functional positions (think Business Analysts, Project Managers, Scrum Masters) as well as IT (Front End Developers, Back End Developers, Full Stack Developers, Data Scientists) and Creative (UX/UI Designers, Graphic Designers, Content Writers). I would say my expertise is in the IT and Creative space as I have a background in both prior to recruiting.What can a candidate expect from working with you? I strive to keep candidates as informed as possible when working together. Sometimes I have more information than others, but I do my best to keep candidates up to date on relevant opportunities that could be a fit for them, communicate feedback as it is provided, and offer valuable insight into the job market on what they can expectat in terms of compensation and company culture.What can a candidate expect from working with HI? HI is extremely focused on customer service and providing a good candidate experience. I believe this is what sets HI apart from other agencies. We do our best to foster long term relationships and we do everything we can to ensure a positive experience for candidates. Our leadership team puts a ton of value on simply being good people – that, I think, makes HI really special.What advice would you give job seekers? The biggest piece of advice I would give job seekers would be to stay open. There are tons of opportunities out there and sometimes a job description “on paper” may seem futile or boring, or perhaps it is so lengthy it can be overwhelming and a bit misleading. However, by staying open to a conversation with a hiring manager or team, more times than not candidates are surprised at how suddenly interesting and exciting a job becomes after that initial conversation and learning more specifics. Always remember that you learn much more about a job by interacting with a potential manager or team directly than by simply reading a generic job description. By being open, you allow doors to open that would not have otherwise.Outside of work, what would we find you doing? I’m an avid runner so you will often find me trail running in Colorado or running around WashPark. I have a rescue dog, Zoey, who is my best bud and always by my side. I enjoy volunteering with animal organizations and I am often visiting family in Minnesota or D.C. To recharge, my husband and I frequently travel to Costa Rica (where we met), where we both can get back to our “pura vida” roots.How would you describe yourself in 3 words? Curious, meticulous, and perceptive.If you are in the market for a new role or curious to see what types of jobs are out there,  connect with Arianna here!