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Here at Adzuna, we’re proud to have 37 women from 16 countries across the world as part of our team. For Women’s History Month, we invited two of our incredible female colleagues to share their personal stories and what this special occasion means to them.
Meet Brita and Chinda!
Based in our Minneapolis office, Brita Voss is an account executive managing our enterprise and agency clients. She became part of the Adzuna team after we acquired Getwork last summer.
Chindavone Khounsathone is a country manager, based in London. Since November 2021, she has been overseeing all our activities in France, including sales, strategy planning, online marketing, and partnerships.
Let’s hear their stories!
Q: This year’s International Women’s Day theme was Embrace Equity. What does this mean to you?
Brita: It’s great to set a day apart to recognise and honour the women before me that have paved the way for the opportunities women have today.
Chinda: While not everyone was given the same education and opportunities, I am confident that we can improve the conditions for many people in the future if we all try. A good way to start is to reflect and think about the actions you as an individual can take. For example, be a mentor, share your professional network or talk to children about career options.
Growing up, I didn’t feel like I was exposed to enough job types and industries. I wasn’t aware of the diverse opportunities I could venture into. That’s why I am doing my best to help my nephews and my friends’ kids realise their potential because for me knowledge is power.
Q: What have your experiences been like as a woman in sales? Have you faced any barriers in your career due to being a woman?
Brita: I have been in sales for 19 years and have observed how women are seen and heard. Although many barriers have been broken, we still have a long way to go in terms of compensation, opportunities for growth, and representation in leadership roles.
Oftentimes I see that women are being overlooked in typically male-dominated roles. I would like to see more even female representation in all industries, and the stigma of gender-stereotyped jobs to be broken down, such as instinctively associating women with cultural, personal care and nurturing roles.
Chinda: Looking back to when I started working in sales and account management, I do recall some instances where I felt powerless and doubtful of myself.
Building a trustful relationship with new clients isn’t always easy. I have dealt with clients who only wanted to speak to my manager (who happens to be a man), even though I was sitting right there. I can’t say with certainty that this was because I am a woman, however, I did feel the need to speak up just to be heard.
I have been fortunate enough to have amazing managers (women and men) throughout my career who have supported and encouraged me. In these particular examples, they would always refer the clients back to me and make sure not to take over the conversations unless necessary. These moments have taught me to be more assertive and not to always accept the status quo.
Q: What does working in Adzuna’s international sales team feel like?
Chinda: Working in the international team at Adzuna makes me feel like family, just that in this family, members are coming from all around the world. Whenever I’m in the office, I can literally hear more than three languages spoken in five minutes, and sometimes even by the same individual. (Chinda herself is quadrilingual!) As I’ve worked in the travel industry previously, the diversity we have in our team really feels familiar to me. I love the rich culture that each and every one of us shares. It is fascinating to learn about everyone’s different experiences and backgrounds. I especially enjoy our conversations about each country’s culinary specialties, and we usually get to try them together inside and outside of the office.
Working in a culturally diverse environment could come with challenges as everyone has different styles of working and communication and we need to take all of them into account. Luckily, we are all very open-minded here and can easily adapt to each other’s style.
Some afterthought
We appreciate Brita and Chinda sharing how they navigated the business world as women and their experience working in sales. Even though they’re “oceans apart”, both of them concurrently called for better representation of women across all industries.
As a tech scale-up, no one knows better than us that the tech industry is notorious for poor female representation. In the US, tech firms with more than 10,000 employees reported women’s representation at 26%. At Adzuna we are working hard to improve our own numbers, but they are not where we want them yet.
If you managed to read this far and you happen to be in tech, let’s work hard together to keep improving gender diversity! We’d also love to hear about other company’s journeys towards equity for women – let us know what steps you’re taking.