The beginning - Women Hiring Circle

Everything starts with an idea. And today I want to share with you the story of how I created the Women Hiring Circle.

But 1st let me introduce myself and share my story.

I'm Wendy Garcés, a woman living in Amsterdam with a degree in Marketing and Business Management. I have worked in different areas from Digital Marketing, Public Relations, Community Engagement Officer and Event Facilitator. Since 2020, I start working in D&I that's one of the reasons I founded the Women Hiring Circle.

At the beginning of my professional career I worked in Human Resources and lately I reconnected with this area. Because I see a gap between skill expat women and the Dutch labor market. After more that 5 years in The Netherlands, I have learned what works best and I want to share this knowledge and experience with other women (local or expat) to see them succeed in their careers.

I moved to The Netherlands in November 2015, previously I lived and worked in London from 2011- 2015.

As an "expat", I understand the challenges of moving to a new country, from finding a new home, to look into different ways to be integrated into a new society. Of course its followed by learning a new language, overall understanding of a new culture, and start seeking a job.

As a woman with multiple working experience I have found that in the Netherlands these skills are convenient when working for a startup. I founded Wandy Marketing Agency, since then I have worked with startups and non profit organisations and successfully increase their visibility on social media, negotiated partnerships on their behalf and run PR for events.

It was May 2020, when I decided to create the Women Hiring Circle for multiple reasons:

• I wanted to create a safe space for women seeking a job opportunity - build a community where women can support each other.

• Secondly I want to highlight the importance of D&I in the work place from the gender perspective.

• Last but not least I wanted to create a recruitment alternative to re-connect women and organisations.

In less than a month I created the 1st group of women seeking a job in The Netherlands, designed a brand, logo, website, social media channel, create a marketing campaign and launched the Women Hiring Circle.

My 1st goal: support at least one woman to land a job. And I succeeded! The community is growing, I'm implementing new recruitment solutions, negotiating new partnerships and hosting on-line events.

The Women Hiring Circle is a female community for women with working experience in different fields.

It offers different services for women:

• 1:1 career coaching sessions

• Membership with multiple benefits to learn, growth your network and connect with other women with working experience in different fields.

For organisations:

• It offers recruitment services like the very 1st Inclusive Job Board.

Today at the Women Hiring Circle I'm working as a career coach, and D&I advocate. You will find me hosting Welcome Sessions, Group Sessions for our members, or events with our partners.

If we can to increase female participation we need to pay attention and include more women in different fields, businesses and leading positions. Join our community today!

#womenhiringcircle #diversityandinclusion #femalenetwork #careerdevelopment