Linda: Hi Rebekka, thank you so much for joining our monthly employee story. Let’s start with an introduction of yourself. Who are you as a person and how did you join Homelike?
Rebekka: My name is Rebekka, I’m 29 years old and I’m a very open-minded person. Not only at work but also in my personal life, I would say that I have a lot of passion. Spending time with my friends is super important to me.
I’ve been working at Homelike now for almost 1,5 years. Back in 2018, a friend of mine who also works at Homelike told me a lot about the company, how amazing it is, how nice the office is, and so on. So I did apply for the first time for a job at Homelike but back then it didn’t work out. But I wasn’t afraid to apply again one year later and luckily was accepted then :).
Linda: Good to hear you tried it again and happy to have you here! Could you tell us about your career and role at Homelike? What’s your current position at Homelike?
Rebekka: Well, I started as regional Inbound Sales Manager in the Booking Management team for the Berlin area. Then after one year, I wanted to develop myself and successfully applied internally for the Key Account Manager position in our DACH market where I manage our key accounts in the South of Germany and Switzerland. I just started 2 weeks ago so I am still in the onboarding process, but it’s very exciting so far.
Linda: How was the internal application process and what was your experience in this regard?
Rebekka: Actually, we have this internal job board at Homelike where open positions are posted and when I saw the vacancy, I was directly interested. Then I reached out to HR and they invited me to the regular internal recruiting process which contained a case study that I could prepare beforehand and had to present in a follow-up interview. After a short amount of time, I then got the offer and was super excited!
Linda: Congratulations again Rebekka. What so far has been the biggest change for you in this new position? As far as you can say that after those first 2 weeks.
Rebekka: I would say that the biggest change is that I’m currently learning a lot and really expand my knowledge when it comes to analytics and KPIs. I also feel more responsibility with this career step. For example, I now look into my regional numbers like the approval or decline rate of our apartments and try to analyse how we can improve those which in the end really makes a difference for the performance of my region.
Linda: More in general, how would you describe Homelike’s company culture?
Rebekka: I would describe it as very open-minded. Everyone is very welcoming, working with a lot of passion and motivation. Besides, I really appreciate the international environment as well as the familiarity. You can have fun here and also work hard at the same time! This is a nice balance.
Linda: What would you say is your biggest achievement at Homelike? Anything you’re very proud of?
Rebekka: Well, my personal biggest accomplishment has been the personal development resulting in this new position. My biggest “business” achievement was definitely my largest booking ever which I celebrated very loudly on our 9th floor with my co-working friend. The value of this booking was in the higher number of 5 digits and it was really nice to get the credits and appreciation for this internally in “slack” and in person.
Linda: Wow, you can definitely be proud of this! We are already at the end of our short interview and I have one more question for you 😉 . Imagine I would give you 1000€ in cash and a week off, what would you do?
Rebekka: Haha, I know what I would do 😀 – definitely invest the money and time to pimp my apartment. I think I would clean up everything and sort out the stuff I don’t need anymore and then buy some new furniture. Since my apartment is really small, a small amount would already make a huge difference. I think Corona also taught us how important it is to feel good in our homes.
