“The e-business stream is flexible, always looking at new ways of working; I always know more at the end of the day than when I woke up that morning.”

I was approached by a headhunter to join Kramp; I wasn’t actually looking for a new job. At first, the recruiter didn’t tell me who the company was, just that there was a very interesting job in an international B2B e-commerce company setting up a new e-business team. I was told about offices all over Europe, that the company was the leader in its market, and that I would be the first content marketeer, helping to shape a new webshop as part of a young, forward-thinking team. Of course, I was intrigued. They sold it very well!

I had never heard of Kramp before, and if you had told me five years ago I would be working for an agricultural specialist in Varsseveld, I would not have believed you! I live in Arnhem, I grew up in Utrecht and did my degree in communications there, and my first job was in Amsterdam, so a job in the east of the country felt almost like a different world. But Varsseveld is an easy 30-minute drive from Arnhem, with no traffic.

And the first time I visited Kramp, I fell in love with the company. I spoke to the receptionist and just that welcome felt right. Even my job interview didn't feel like a job interview, it just felt like a nice chat. We discussed conversion, content, e-commerce… they shared their thoughts and were interested to hear my views, as well as my experience.

I didn’t really know what to expect on my first day. We were working in a development scrum, which started with a group stand-up, with people talking about what they were doing. It was really cool. Most people were a similar age, with similar amounts of experience. Over the rest of the day I met with lots of other people, other team members, and everyone was open, friendly, happy to offer more help… That first, positive feeling was a good indicator of the working environment. We have lots of different teams, but we all know we need each other to give customers the best experience, so there’s a real effort to communicate. Each team has its own way of working, of course. Our team is in the digital innovations stream, working in two-week sprints. I am now in charge of my own work and planning my own sprints, overseen by my manager.

There’s a lot of freedom here in the way we plan our work. Of course, there is a strategy to guide us, and we have input even from the board for some subjects, but we really get to take the initiative. When I first started, we didn’t have a tone of voice and we didn’t have a content management system. I demonstrated how we would benefit from these things, and once the IT department told me of the preferred technical type of CMS, was allowed to scope, shortlist and propose the best solution. Since then, I’ve trained colleagues and, together with my online marketeer colleague Leonie (online marketeer), introduced the Kramp Knowledge Center.

And you don't just work for one country. Kramp is an international company with different cultures. A nice side effect of working at Kramp is that you learn a lot from other colleagues from other countries.

Not only do you learn from other colleagues. I’ve had lots of training, attended conferences, and I will soon be getting some more in-depth training in a topic that really interests me: conversion. You get a real chance to grow, here. And who knows, maybe my function will also change soon!