Plaqad — My First Day at Work
First days at a new workplace are arguably part of the most exciting times in life as an employee. You see an opportunity to create history with a team that you’re eager to join. You look forward to meeting your new colleagues and creating a bond with them as time goes on. You’re also not that naive to think it’s going to be a smooth ride all through the way (be strapped up 💪🏽). You set yourself up to create a first impression on the team to ease the bonding process.
Meeting with the CEO, Gbenga Sogbaike
My first day at Plaqad had me going through the descriptions (and more) in my first paragraph. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I couldn’t meet the plaqad team on my first workday. I met with just the CEO (Gbenga Sogbaike) but that didn’t take away the excitement and enthusiasm. We had an informal meeting where we had discussions about the company and its visions. It was pretty easy to feel relaxed from the start of this meeting, and this had a lot to do with my previous discussions with some staff of the company during the recruitment process. I felt pretty relaxed discussing with the CEO, unlike in some other cases where I might find myself nervous. From the conversation, I see a transparent set up at Plaqad. From my point of view, being a part of the journey Plaqad would be an honor. Some key takeaways:
- The leadership style at Plaqad, which isn’t based on micromanaging people but leaving them to develop ideas and share with the team sounds good. It’s an easy way of bringing the best out of people.
- You should be able to pen down your knowledge and experiences. It might be a source of knowledge for people after you. This highlights the importance of written communication.
- The people are the company. Treat them fairly, and you have a strong structure with passionate people.
- He repeated a question which he asked during the interview process that I didn’t answer. “How many cars are in Lagos? How do you get the data to arrive at your answer?”. I did overthink it, talking about how you can draw an inference from the number of cars in your area (🤦🏽♂️). The simple answered was there in front of me. “You can easily get an estimate from the LASG office responsible for vehicle registration,” he said. Then I sat there for a few seconds, thinking about how I made a simple question look pretty hard. Sometimes we look too hard for an answer that could be a glance away.
- There’s a lot of work to be done. Can’t wait to get started.
The Recruitment Process.
The recruitment process was fairly stress-free. After the application, You get some technical assessments to complete, after which an interview would be set up. One remarkable part of the assessments is having to write an article. It was the most challenging part, mostly because I am not used to writing articles. I felt good accomplishing that part. During the interview stage, you get to explain some of the things you did in your technical assessment.
One takeaway for me is the encouraging atmosphere I always found myself in when communicating with Tolu Ajayi (Plaqad’s TMM) and the staff. Interviews and recruitment processes can be nerve-racking for an aspiring employee, but the team made sure it didn’t go that way.
Plaqad prides itself on its innovative approach to solving challenges in the media and marketing sector; to encourage creatives, content developers, brands, and establishments, and help them get the best deals out of their creativity and efforts. Most of these have been achieved to an extent, although more needs to be done. According to the CEO, we have a lot of tech-driven ideas and proposals that we need to execute to make the platform seamless and more intuitive for our customers. I have worked with start-ups for most of my career so far, but Plaqad stands out, mostly because we have carved a niche and still have a whole lot to offer. Being a part of that Engineering team responsible for bringing these ideas to life is an exciting prospect. I look forward to working with the team in several capacities.
