Spontaneous Planning

As mentioned in my introduction story, I have had quite a dynamic life geographically during the past ten years. Now it is time to slowly start unravelling my itinerary. My first big move in life, both privately and professionally, was to an amazing city called Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. To this day I find it quite unbelievable that this happened more than 10 years ago. If someone was to tell me 11 years ago I would end up in Canada, it would have given me a good laugh. I had no connection to Canada in my life whatsoever and had barely ever thought about this country, other than when watching some movies and documentaries, and listening to a few stories from enthusiasts. So, how does one end up on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the “exotic” country of Canada? There are millions of stories I have heard of people who moved there; you can say mine was a mix of a high level plan, good choices, determination and just random luck. Or as the website title says, it was all about spontaneous planning. Here’s how it all panned out.

Since high school I started developing an interest in travelling, learning new languages, engaging with people of different cultures. It was like a drug, with each new exposure I became more and more hooked on it. The idea of studying or working abroad started developing quite early, towards the end of high school. Of course, initially the world did not span further than Europe since all my travels and friends were within these borders. Nevertheless, the international plan started slowly taking up a permanent residency in my mind. At the end of high school, when a decision had to be taken regarding which University studies to pursue, I had two options on the table: Electrical Engineering and Social Studies – specifically Foreign Languages. Learning foreign languages was my big passion, and literature in general, this is something I always knew I loved. When it came to Engineering, I was never quite interested in these type of subjects early in my education. I had straight A-s in elementary school but for some reason maths did not resonate as something that would be of much interest to me, I was good at it but that was pretty much it. In fact, I made a much higher impact with my English language knowledge at the time, winning the Zagreb City Championship in my last year of elementary school. After elementary school, influenced by my big brother who went to the same school, I got in one of the most prestigious mathematics gymnasiums in Croatia, the Fifth Gymnasium. My brother was very much a maths type of person, perhaps that was also an influential factor in what came next. It is in high school I started really liking mathematics, physics and informatics and, what’s more important, I realised I was really good at these subjects. For this new discovery in my potential I must thank my high school mathematics teacher, she was one of those teachers who’s passion for mathematics and teaching was so surreally high that it was contagious. She was a super demanding teacher, but also a teacher who brought out the knowledge and skillset in me that I never knew existed, and that pretty much set up my life path for success. The Fifth Gymnasium and my maths teacher definitely had a big role to play in my professional life, this is one of those good choices made. Now, back to my choice of University, I was good at both languages and maths and I liked both of them. So I started thinking, what would be a better choice in the long run. The best choice would be to be able to use both of these skills, so how to achieve that? If I choose to study Social Science and languages, then my professional life would be directed solely towards foreign languages and my math skills would be pretty much useless and forgotten in the long run. However, if I were to study Electrical Engineering, I would make full use of my math skills and I could always study languages as a hobby, which would enable me to use both skills in the long run. Not to mention that the job prospects with an Engineering degree surpass any Language degree in any part of the world, addressing my international career idea. And then there was my big brother again, who was already studying Electrical Engineering and was telling me it’s the best career to pursue. So, Electrical Engineering it was! I chose to major in Telecommunications and Informatics because that was the new hot career on the market, and also because it was the most interesting major for me. The Engineering school was no walk in the park though. Just to give an idea, a few months ago I was clearing out my closet in Croatia after 1000 years and I found all my old scripts from the University studies. After going through it I found myself in shock for a full day as to the amount of data and problem solving I had to endure during those years. However, I managed to get through it in minimum time (5 years) and with pretty good grades. The exception was my final thesis, which turned out to be a bit tricky and not to the satisfaction of my mentor. I did my thesis on the topic of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), a brand new architecture in telecommunications core network, which later on became a standard for all your advanced telecom services today. The thesis was not a big success, although I did pass. It was partially due to my lower focus since I did the thesis during summer, and also the misalignment in expectations between me and my mentor. Either way, at that time I was furious at myself for choosing such a topic and mentor. However, it turned out to be one of those key differentiating points later on. So don’t forget this point because IMS will play a big part in my story.

During my University studies I stuck to my original plan when it came to languages, and after English and Spanish (both of which I spoke fluently by that time), I studied Italian and French as well. Also, I started doing part time translation jobs as a student, which paid pretty well (much better than my other student jobs, such as packaging goods in factory storages and Holiday gift wrapping in a drug store). I will never forget when I started learning French and my Dad said: “when will you ever use this language”? Little did any of us know…another point I will never forget is that in my French classes there was a guy who could not stop talking about Montreal, I think he went there once to visit some relatives and said it was the best city in the world. None of us in the classroom had any clue about Montreal so we just kindly disregarded his enthusiasm. Only a few years later will I remember it…

After University it was time for my first real job hunt. I had the misfortune of finishing University right in the middle of the big economic crisis of 2009, so it took an unusually long time for me to find a job with an Electrical Engineering degree, a little less than 6 months. For comparison, my older brother got a job two days after he graduated from the same University. Anyway, it took a while, but in the end I managed to get a job at Ericsson Nikola Tesla, the biggest Information and Communications Technology multinational company in Croatia, and by far the biggest employer for electrical engineers in Croatia even today. Surprise, surprise, guess who else worked in that company? My older brother Zvonimir (it’s about time you know his name, a very Croatian name indeed)! We got hired into different departments, however you cannot help to think I was just following him around. In all honesty, it was the easy already tested path. Rest assured, this was the last copy/paste of career moves, we would very soon take on very different paths.

The reason why I chose Ericsson was because it was a big international company, which equals to an international career. This definitely sounded like a good first career step. My brother was a great example for that: after joining Ericsson, he spent over a year in Sweden. Yep, this sounded like a place for me.

So, I started working in Ericsson, in a very new department, on a cool new technology in the medical industry. It was one of those trial and error type of projects big companies do, which are always a lot of fun and a big learning experience, but rarely very profitable. Since we were a small team of six, this first job opportunity gave me a very solid experience in developing brand new solutions from scratch, starting with building product requirements, developing end-to-end backend and frontend solution, and ultimately showcasing the solution to customers. It was quite an experience. Also, there was a lot of team dynamics; with six junior employees, love and hate were a natural part of our engagement. I have made some lifelong friends in my first team, and also had an opportunity to confront colleagues in conflicting situations for the first time in my professional life. Human interaction or soft skills was something I learned to be a very important factor of one’s professional and personal life early on. So overall, my first engineering job was a lot of fun, and the whole experience of working for a large company like Ericsson was great. We even had a company volleyball team! However, there was something missing in this job: there was not much opportunity to grow further career wise, and also this product was very local so there was no opportunity to travel. After one year I started to feel bored. Patience is not one of my traits, so as soon as I started feeling bored I started thinking about potential next moves. One option I explored was the Ericsson internal job site. Usually in any big company you have internal job sites where you can subscribe to receive job postings that match your preferences and skillsets. That way companies offer opportunities for their employees to change roles and location, and also it helps them retain employees. I figured, it cannot hurt to do that, so I subscribed for software developer jobs worldwide…and this was that key action that started the roller-coaster ride.

After my first year in Ericsson I received an interesting internal job posting in my e-mailbox. In fact there were two postings for the same role in two locations: Stockholm and Montreal. The job posting was for a junior multi-lingual software developer in IMS technology, with limited work experience (maximum 1.5 years), and with a desire to work in multiple locations around the world and develop leadership skills. In short, it felt like the job posting was written for me. For me the preferred location was Stockholm at that time, since it was in Europe and I already had my brother and many other colleagues go there. However, Montreal caught my eye as well because: a) people spoke English and French there, b) I remembered my french-class colleague and his obsession with Montreal. I figured, I might as well apply for the role in both locations. So I did. The application was quite weird, with some math problem solving questions in it, not something you would expect from an internal job posting. I did not think much of it at the time, but in the end it turned out not to be an ordinary job posting.

After a few weeks I got a rejection response from the Stockholm posting. I figured, if the Swedes were not interested, the Canadians will be even less interested, considering the geographical location. So I forgot all about this and moved on with my life. Then one evening I received a call from a very strange long number. I was in my pyjamas having dinner with my family. After a few seconds of contemplation, I realised it could be a call from Canada. So I went into my bedroom and answered the call. It was indeed a person from Human Resources from Ericsson Canada. He was a super nice guy who explained to me that, after the first round of scanning through over 400 applications, my application was selected as part of the top 20 candidates for the role. He also explained to me that the role is actually part of an internal leadership program, with only 16 candidates from around the globe, who will be selected to go through an extensive leadership and job-rotation course for a duration of 1.5 years, and I was the potential candidate to be based in Montreal. I was in a state of half-shock, but kept my cool and continued the casual chat. For me this really felt like a casual talk about the job, I was not really aware that this was the first interview round. He asked me a few questions about myself and my career, aspirations, etc., but that was about it. The interview itself lasted only 20 minutes or so. He then told me that, if I am selected to move to the second round of interviews, I would have a Skype video conference call with my future manager, a technical expert from the team and another HR person. And that was the end of the first round. When I came back to the living room, my family was still in a state of shock. What the hell was that all about?

From that point on things went pretty fast. I got invited to my second interview within a week. That was quite an interesting one. Bear in mind, today it is normal to have video conference interviews, however, 10 years ago it was quite an unusual thing to do. Especially when you are doing your first video conference interview for a high-profile job on the other side of the ocean, having only worked for one year prior to that. This interview was a lot more challenging than the first one, with a lot more detailed technical questions, as well as questions targeting my soft skills, and answering all those questions while looking at three new faces over a Skype connection. However, again I kept my cool and went through the interview with a positive spirit. And so that one was done with as well. I had a good feeling after the interview.

A few days passed and I got called into the third interview, this time only with my future manager. We had a more open discussion about the position, my past experiences, how I handle teamwork, conflicts, etc. He was quite impressed by the answers and also mentioned that I was the only candidate that actually had any experience with IMS and spoke five languages. So his decision was clear, I got the job. However, there was one more interview to go through, which was an on-site assessment by a third party consultancy team in Stockholm. I learned that, after the approval of the hiring manager, all candidates of the program had to be approved by Ericsson Headquarters in Sweden, since they were the sponsors of the program. As you can see, the interview process was far from a standard one.

After the interview day in Stockholm was set, it was time to talk to my current manager. By this time my confidence in getting the job was high and I wanted to be fair with my current team and give visibility on the plan. My close friends from the team already knew the progress (and were cheering on the side the entire time), however my manager did not have that visibility. His first reaction was one of shock, however moving forward he was a big support for my transfer, since he himself spent a large part of his career abroad. My family was also following the whole progress closely and, once I got to the last assessment stage in Sweden, everyone was already convinced I will get the job. My Mom was starting to get very worried…

The trip to Stockholm was quite interesting. My brother was there for work at the time so I stayed with him. Having someone of my own there made the whole experience less stressful, since I did not think about the assessment that much before the big day; instead I did sightseeing and went out with my brother and his colleagues. I already visited my brother in Stockholm before so I was quite familiar with the city and enjoyed being there once more. I did not know what to expect from the assessment since I have never gone through anything similar before. For this reason I could not really prepare for it at all, I just went there being myself and hoped for the best. When I arrived at the assessment centre on the big day, I learned that I was not the only one being assessed that day. It turned out all the candidates who made it to the final round for the same position across the geographical locations in Europe, Middle East, and Africa were having the assessment on that day. The same kind of assessment was done on more or less the same day in San Jose, California and somewhere in China for candidates from the Americas and Asia & Pacific. Since I was the only candidate for the position in Montreal who was physically located in Europe, I did not meet my rival candidates from Canada at the assessment day, which put me in a less stressful position. I met a lot of very nice girls and guys that day, all very keen and ambitious to get the job. Only then I really understood what a great opportunity was in front of me. The assessment itself was one of the most interesting interviews I have ever gone through. It was a whole day event that consisted of several team exercises, where they would put us in random groups of candidates and we needed to work together to achieve a common goal, such as negotiate better terms, prepare and present a random topic, resolve conflicts (e.g., we had to let go of an employee and deal with his reaction). The assessors were acting as customers or employees, and at the same time they were carefully observing our individual behaviour. These exercises were all about assessing our leadership skills. The last exercise was a capability test, one of those where you need to finish off a sequence of seemingly random numbers or images. Once done with all the exercises, we went in, one at a time, for a final interview with the main assessor, who gave us the summary of their assessment of our skills. My one-on-one talk with the assessor was a final confirmation that I was on my way to Montreal. The rating I got was off the rooftop and the assessor gave me an unofficial answer that I will be approved for the position. I came out of that assessment centre feeling the world is mine for the taking! 🙂 I immediately called my family and my Mom of course started to cry right after our talk. They all kind of anticipated that I would get the job, especially after I made it to the final assessment (in fact, Zvonimir even said at one point there is no way there is any candidate in Canada that will come close to his sister). However, my Mom was still secretly hoping that I do not get selected, just because she was so afraid of me moving so far away. Yup, it was quite an emotional day for all, followed by many more emotional months.

A week after the final assessment I got a call from the HR in Ericsson Canada, the same nice guy, who told me with a lot of joy in his voice that I formally got the job. He also mentioned that he already knew I was going to be selected after talking to me for only 20 minutes in the first interview. That was an additional motivational boost for me, really reconfirming this is a once in a lifetime opportunity I just had to take.

The moral of this story is: if you have an idea of what you want, you need to search through different paths to get to it and, once you see an opportunity, you just need to go for it with confidence in yourself and a positive attitude, no matter what the odds are of getting it. I will not forget a comment one of my colleagues from Ericsson Nikola Tesla made when I announced I got the job. She was from another department and was not aware of the whole history of the process. After she heard the story she said: “I don’t know why you say that it was luck this job posting came to your Outlook. Nothing was lucky here, because you subscribed to receive this job posting, which is something not many people would think of. Only with that action you already stand out.” I never thought about it till then, but she was right. It was not just luck, but a set of good decisions taken with a specific goal in mind that ultimately led to this amazing opportunity.

Then the aftershock came. After that final HR call, the process for the big move was kicked-off, and I found myself thinking: WAIT…NOW I ACTUALLY HAVE TO MOVE TO CANADA!!! Excitement was slowly starting to be replaced by panic…The following few months were all about contract signing, immigration lawyers, sorting out logistics with the relocation agency (facilitated by my Ericsson Canada HR and my new manager), as well as sorting out the inter-company transfer conditions with my current employer Ericsson Nikola Tesla (facilitated by my current manager, arranging me to transfer to Ericsson Canada without breaking the company employment contract, a very important step for seniority recognition). Then there was my personal life going through a rollercoaster ride as well, with many goodbye coffees/lunches/parties with my friends and colleagues, summer vacation on the Croatian coast, many hugs and tears, touching as well as funny farewell presents and, of course, a lot of packing. It was a very emotional period in my life, having lived in Zagreb my whole life and having many friends and a loving family there, it was not such an easy thing to say goodbye and move so far away on my own, knowing I do not know anyone or anything where I am going. I also felt very sad leaving Ericsson Nikola Tesla, though I was there only for 1.5 years it was still very difficult to say goodbye to my great team. But I never doubted my decision; after all, this is what I wanted for many years, I cannot be a sissy now and say I do not want to go. Everyone I knew was so proud of me and supported my decision, I just knew everything was going to be ok. And if it did not work out, I knew I could always come back to my dearest Zagreb.

Very soon came July 31, 2010. With three big suitcases packed (or was it five? I can’t remember), a backpack with my wallet, passport and work visa, as well as some food my Mom prepared for the trip, I went to the Zagreb Airport (back then called Pleso) with my Mom, Dad and two brothers. I checked in my luggage, we went for one last coffee together at the airport, then hugged and kissed for a long time at the security gate, tears all over the place, and then I scanned my boarding pass and went through the gate…Canada, here I come!