Šimon Hlinovsky

I graduated from Charles University in Prague in 2015 having studied political sciences. I knew finding a job after graduation would be a challenge as I had very little work experience. I would attend interviews but afterwards would always receive an email from a recruiter explaining that they chose another applicant.

I have Asperger’s syndrome, so I was invited by NAUTIS (National Institute for Autism) to join the Autism@work project. I found this challenging as part of the onboarding was to build a robot and I felt I was not good at technical skills. But I passed this and went on to produce a video presentation about myself and visited teams within SAP Services and got to know the managers and the daily tasks involved in working with these teams.

During this onboarding I thought my interest was in the Data Management Team, but I was invited to job interview with the Recruiting Operations Team, and I was successful. The onboarding from the Autism@work onto the team was quite long, and this has been made shorter since. But at the time I was just really happy that I had finally got a regular job. Working in an environment with open space was something new for me, but I became acclimatized very fast.

In my role I take care of our global career inbox, so I reply to many emails from candidates all over the world. I enjoy this job. I have supportive and kind colleagues. I have enough time for my voluntary activities, because I had been member of Czech Red Cross since 2003. I teach children, how to provide first aid, and I organize events for children and youth. I also enjoy the SAP Christmas parties, and I have participated in many documentary videos and conferences about the Autism@work project. I have also written some articles for magazines about autism and this project, such as one for recruiters giving advice on how to hire applicants with autism. I hope that by contributing in this way, I can help other people find jobs that make them as happy as I am working here at SAP.