Vol.21 – The Backbone of the Company: A Sales Support Growth Story
For this week’s Meet the Team article, we spoke to a key supporting member of Centre People Appointments; Akane Nishikawa. With 4.5 years’ experience at Centre People as a Sales Support, Akane gave us an insight behind the scenes of the company, and how she’s developed personally in her role.
Why did you join Centre People?
“I previously worked in the recruitment industry in Japan before I moved to the UK, in sales support and administration. I really enjoyed working there but I had the chance to come to the UK on a working holiday visa – I really wanted to work in the UK using my English, as I couldn’t use it in my previous role.”
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
“When I first came to the UK, I really liked travelling and doing marathons, and I even joined a 100 km bike marathon. But more recently I prefer my relaxing time, a very big change! I like walking around in the local parks and making matcha lattes at home. Our busy work means I like to relax more!”
What’s the most surprising thing about you?
“I think the most surprising thing to my colleagues might be that I hated Excel when I was a student – but now it’s one of my key skills and I use it all the time! My team members kept telling me I’m good at Excel, so I suddenly realised it wasn’t my weakness anymore.”
What is your favourite accomplishment from your time at CPA?
“I joined an important system implementation project, which was challenging for me because the engineers only spoke English, and the language was very technical, so I had to study very hard to understand the details. I wanted to learn more about this field, so I started studying an AI certification. Then I developed a Power Platform application using Power Apps and Power Automate for an internal process with my team members, which launched this year.”
What do you think is the most important responsibility of your position?
“For important responsibilities, there are two things; communication and speed. Always I’m communicating not only with my team members but also consultants and other employees – when we get a new vacancy, I can’t just wait around, I have to proactively communicate with everyone. The second one is speed, as our priorities change often, and we make decisions very quickly.”
What’s happening behind the scenes, that most candidates or clients don’t know about?
“I think from my side, the consultants speak to candidates and companies, and from what I see they are very happy to be communicating. They look like they really enjoy their job – companies don’t see how we closely consult the candidates, and the candidates don’t see the great relationships we have with the companies. We have many good reviews on Google, which are not only from candidates, but also companies too.”
What’s the skill you’ve developed most during your time here?
“I talked about my technical skills, but for soft skills I think multitasking, and I have a more proactive mindset. As everyone has targets, everyone works hard to achieve their goals. It made me more motivated as it’s always busy, which is challenging – but I really like this environment.”
What do you enjoy the most about working at CPA?
“I really love the other CPA members; that’s the reason why I enjoy the work! Everyone is very positive and so I never get any negative feelings, there’s always new things to dedicate hard work to.”
We’re lucky to have Akane on our team, the Sales Support function is the backbone of the company; we’re not sure what we’d do without them!
