Technical Project Administrator & Coordinator Superstar

THE ROLE

Yes, you read that right – we’re look­ing for a SUPERSTAR. If the title sounds uncon­ven­tion­al, it’s because CAPLINQ is too. We’re look­ing for that spe­cial some­one that has not one, but two unique skills – the amaz­ing atten­tion-to-detail of an admin­is­tra­tor with the keep-it-on-track men­tal­i­ty of a project coor­di­na­tor.

As a fast-grow­ing multi­na­tion­al, I’m not ashamed to admit we’re start­ing to come apart at the seams. Our prod­ucts and ser­vices have found a sweet-spot in the mar­ket, and now we’re strug­gling to main­tain the high lev­el of ser­vice, sup­port and response that have made us so suc­cess­ful.

Do you describe your­self as a proac­tive, super-orga­nized, enthu­si­as­tic, mul­ti­task­ing super­star that works best with dead­lines, sched­ules and projects? Then I encour­age you to read on. If on the oth­er hand, you’re already exhaust­ed read­ing this, I rec­om­mend you take a nap and check out anoth­er job post.

Though you will work close­ly with the sales depart­ment, there will be no sell­ing or cold-call­ing involved. Your leads and projects will all come to you and it will be your respon­si­bil­i­ty to ser­vice, sup­port and coor­di­nate a very diverse range of activ­i­ties and requests. On the oth­er hand, if you would like to devel­op sales skills as part of your career path, this is the same start­ing posi­tion of our future out­side sales engi­neers. We are look­ing for some­one who pos­sess­es excel­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion and orga­ni­za­tion­al skills and should be ready to con­tribute to a vari­ety of projects at any giv­en time.

So, what will you be doing?
The posi­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ty will grow along with you. As a small, but grow­ing com­pa­ny, the role will be excit­ing for you if you like work­ing in a small team and hav­ing a lot of free­dom to define your roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties. No two days will like­ly be the same.

Broad­ly speak­ing, your work will revolve around the fol­low­ing four activ­i­ties:

1. Inside Sales Admin­is­tra­tor (about 40% of your time)
Your leads will come in from cus­tomer ser­vice (who have pre-screened them), and sales who have new and ongo­ing projects with new and exist­ing cus­tomers. Your role is to ensure that all the infor­ma­tion is all in one place and up to date. Fur­ther­more, this list needs to be reviewed month­ly and updat­ed as new infor­ma­tion becomes avail­able.

Exam­ples of activ­i­ties:
• Update inquiries into our Cus­tomer Rela­tion­ship Man­age­ment (CRM) tools
• Review the list reg­u­lar­ly and send updates to cus­tomers
• Update and admin­is­ter the month­ly sales report we send to our sup­pli­ers
• Update price lists and prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty data

2. Project Coor­di­na­tor (about 30% of your time)
CAPLINQ is dri­ven by projects, some of which are sales-relat­ed and many that are not. These one-off projects will require the same admin­is­tra­tion and coor­di­na­tion as sales-relat­ed one. They may also require the same mar­ket research as iden­ti­fied above.

Exam­ples of projects:
• We have 8 cus­tomers in Poland now. Does it make sense to set up a ware­house there? Go!
• USA cus­tomer asks to con­sol­i­date 3 ship­ments into one ware­house? How much do we charge? Go!
• A new sup­pli­er needs us to store prod­ucts at -40°C. Should we do that in-house or exter­nal­ly? Go!
• A cus­tomer just got a box that was total­ly squished on deliv­ery, how could that have hap­pened? Go!

3. Mar­ket Researcher/Analyst (about 20% of your time)
Though you don’t need an ana­lyt­ics degree, we expect you to have a high lev­el of curios­i­ty about the work and prod­ucts you are sup­port­ing. Why are cus­tomers ask­ing for this product/service? What makes them different/similar to oth­er cus­tomers? What indus­tries are they in? What sim­i­lar cus­tomers might ben­e­fit from the same prod­ucts?

Exam­ples of activ­i­ties:
• Google com­pa­nies you sup­port to under­stand what prod­ucts they make and indus­tries they serve
• Google our products/services and see how they are the same or dif­fer­ent to oth­er com­pa­nies
• Google the projects you are work­ing on to see what oth­er com­pa­nies are doing sim­i­lar work
• Col­lect­ing this info into Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions for mar­ket­ing, sales, and even for your cus­tomers

4. Order Han­dling (about 10% of your time)
We han­dle about 20 orders/samples per week from our office. In the begin­ning, you will han­dle half of these to learn what our prod­uct look like, how they need to be packed and how they need to ship.

Exam­ples of activ­i­ties:
• Pack orders into box­es for pick­up and deliv­ery
• Pre­pare sam­ples for cus­tomers
• Coor­di­nate sam­ples and orders with sup­pli­ers and cus­tomer ser­vice

DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
What mind­set do you require?
Skills can be learned. Mind­sets, though they can be learned too, are more often a part of who you are. We val­ue the mind­set at least if not more than either expe­ri­ence or hard skills.
1. Curios­i­ty – We want a per­son who is curi­ous. Google is your best friend, and you might be secret­ly addict­ed to get­ting as much infor­ma­tion as you can. Some­times you Google too much 😉
2. Atten­tion to Detail – We want a per­son who cross­es their t’s and dots their i’s. Read the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed and do what is asked. Hint! Don’t for­get to read the last para­graph of this vacan­cy 😉
3. Orga­nized Coor­di­na­tor – Project coor­di­na­tion is at the core of the func­tion. We need some­one who can pull togeth­er all the miss­ing pieces and make sure we keep the project mov­ing for­ward
4. Data-dri­ven – Our cul­ture encour­ages and rewards deci­sions that are made with data as opposed to senior­i­ty, intu­ition or per­son­al expe­ri­ence.
5. Con­tin­u­ous Improve­ment – Peo­ple and process­es can always get bet­ter. We’re look­ing for some­one who ques­tions every process to see if there’s not room for improve­ment. Like­wise, if you want to improve your­self, we offer mon­ey to sup­port your con­tin­u­ous learn­ing jour­ney.
6. Courage – Boss­es make mis­takes and col­leagues aren’t always fair. That’s life. We’re look­ing for some­one who may be afraid to con­front these issues, but does it any­ways.

What skills do you NOT need?
Before we list the skills you do need, it is impor­tant that you know what we skills or expe­ri­ence we do NOT require:
1. Prod­uct knowl­edge: You do not need to know any­thing about any of the prod­ucts we sell, nor any of the ser­vices we pro­vide. All will be taught on the job.
2. Tech­ni­cal degree: Our prod­ucts are tech­ni­cal. Though a tech­ni­cal degree could be very use­ful, if you are curi­ous and inter­est­ed enough in our prod­ucts, you can still be very suc­cess­ful.
3. Lots of work expe­ri­ence: This is meant to be an entry-lev­el posi­tion where you will learn “knowl­edge” on the job. What we can’t teach – and val­ue enor­mous­ly is some­one that is orga­nized, ana­lyt­i­cal, curi­ous, ded­i­cat­ed and can keep our projects orga­nized and on track
4. Dutch: Our staff comes from all over the world and we speak most­ly Eng­lish in the office. To the out­side world most of our com­mu­ni­ca­tion is also Eng­lish.

What skills do you require?
We don’t even have any hard skills that are required. The ide­al can­di­date would be one who:
• Has a uni­ver­si­ty (HBO) edu­ca­tion and sim­i­lar prob­lem-solv­ing skills
• Asks ques­tions, then asks more ques­tions, then asks even more ques­tions
• Is very orga­nized, and likes to have a place for every­thing and every­thing in its place
• Is a strong plan­ner and orga­niz­er and thrives in get­ting things done
• Is very com­put­er lit­er­ate, and knows their way around Mirosoft Word, Excel and Pow­er­point
• Is a Google pow­er-user, for­ev­er ask­ing Google ques­tions for answers he/she doesn’t know
• Very good spo­ken and writ­ten Eng­lish (at least 7/10)
• Is opti­mistic, ener­getic and loves to smile
• Pays atten­tion to detail. The very last para­graph of this job vacan­cy has very impor­tant infor­ma­tion. Be sure you read it twice before apply­ing.

Skills not required, but that get bonus points (any of them count):
The job we have in mind may not require these skills, but they sure come in handy around here.
1. A Tech­ni­cal Degree: You do not need a tech­ni­cal degree, but our prod­ucts are by nature tech­ni­cal, so you will need to be able to grasp the con­cepts. If you want to learn, we’re able to teach.
2. Online writ­ing: Can you see your­self writ­ing blog arti­cles or FAQs about our prod­ucts or ser­vices? Do you have a knack to inspire peo­ple with what you write? We can use that!
3. Loves mar­ket research: There is always so much to learn in our indus­try. If you love to dig into the details and then can sum­ma­rize what you’ve learned in Pow­er­Point or sim­i­lar, we can use that too!

There is no need to send your CV unless it looks awe­some and you want to impress us with how it looks. Oth­er­wise, we will use your LinkedIn pro­file (bet­ter make sure it is com­plete!).

Instead, can­di­dates wish­ing to apply are request­ed to send an email to hr@caplinq.com that includes:
1. A link to your LinkedIn pro­file (not a CV)
2. A one-page, per­son­al cov­er let­ter

Let me repeat that last part in a dif­fer­ent way… We are look­ing for peo­ple who stand out from the crowd with a well-writ­ten, enthu­si­as­tic one-page let­ter telling us why this posi­tion speaks to you and what you could bring to the team.

If all you do is send a CV (we told you not to), and no cov­er let­ter your appli­ca­tion will be dis­card­ed with­out even being read.