December 2020

The past year was all about the development of a solid team of enterprise architects. How do you do that in times of Corona? None of us had a tailor-made manual for that. Our recruiters Linsey, Tom and Sandra give insight into their approach.

Culture eats skills for breakfast

To get straight to the point: the ideal candidate does not exist. In fact, he / she / x doesn't always need to have heard of enterprise architecture to become the next enterprise architect. Of course, it helps if you have been working on strategic transformations within executive committees for several years. And you must be able to think along with management teams in the long term and advise them in the development of the strategic framework and the target operating model. And if we are really being honest, we do see that Enterprise IT Architects usually already have experience in the field of EA.

"It goes without saying that there must be a certain expertise, given the impactful role that you’ll play within the organization. But the right attitude is so much more decisive," Linsey emphasizes. "For example, we look carefully at what type of corporate culture someone has already worked in. We are always very curious about why people have made certain choices in their career. They really need to have a fit with the DNA of Myreas and connect the culture of Colruyt Group."

Qualitative needle in a haystack

 After the initial screening, we organize a completely non-binding and informative call with our executive manager Dimitri De Ruelle. Free tip: everyone calls him Dimi, so don’t feel embarrassed to follow that example 😃

In the past year Dimi spoke to no less than 300 candidates, of which we eventually invited a third for a longer interview with our management team. During the process we continue a dialogue to look for a suitable job as an enterprise architect together with the candidate. Initially, we make a distinction between business and IT, but within those 2 domains we also have an enormously varied playing field, ranging from IT Security to Finance and HR.

The next step is optional, but we would definitely recommend it to everyone. The goal of that step is that candidates understand well what the job entails by spending a day with our EAs, including attending EA boards and steering committees. Transparency? ✔️

We continue with a practical test in which we get a more concrete picture of someone's hard skills, followed by an extensive personality test. "We have developed a bulletproof flow in which quality prevails. By involving so many people in this process, we are also sure at the end of the journey that both the candidate and us will feel good about it", says Sandra.

The pitfall of the Olympic minimum

"Over the past year, we have actively approached hundreds of candidates", Tom continues. "We also notice that the name Myreas is becoming a household name in the world of enterprise architecture. Which is good. But we will always keep setting the bar high for new hires." There's no such thing as an Olympic minimum at Myreas. At the end of 2020, the counter will be around 20 new hires. We are still actively looking for new colleagues, so if you are interested in one of the positions below, please feel free to contact us.