After graduating in 2022, Sara embarked on a year of travel that included a solo Camino in southern Italy and a backpacking adventure across Southeast Asia. These experiences not only broadened her horizons but also fueled her passion for people and exploration.
Now settled in London after nearly a year, Sara thrives as a newly-joined People and Talent Coordinator at JustPark, where her unique blend of creativity, organisational skills, and love of meeting new people makes her an invaluable asset to the team. Whether she’s interviewing candidates, onboarding new joiners, or organising internal events, Sara’s enthusiasm and knack for social skills comes through in everything she does.
Learn more about Sara and her life on the People team at JustPark:
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m Sara, originally from Hungary but I moved to the UK for university, 5 years ago now. I studied Business at the University of Bath, graduating in 2022. After uni, I had a gap year and I went to travel for a bit. When I returned I felt like a big city like London was calling to me and I moved over here to do a People and Talent Internship at an EdTech company. After the internship finished, I joined JustPark full-time as a People and Talent Coordinator.
Outside of work I love being in nature and going on walks and hikes. Last May I did a solo Camino in the South of Italy in Puglia where I walked 174 kilometres in a week, walking over 7 hours everyday. One of the most challenging things I’ve done for sure! I walked the Cammino Materano, which is not a very well-known Camino, to help other people considering doing the same Camino (or any other Caminos), especially for people doing it solo, I wrote a blogpost to document my highs and lows (there were plenty). I also like going on solo adventures in general. A year ago I did a solo backpacking trip to South East Asia for 4 months and I volunteered at an ethical hands-off elephant sanctuary in Thailand. In my everyday life in London I love exploring new places in the city and broadening my horizon.
What does a day in the life of a coordinator in the People team look like? Walk us through your 9-5.
I would say no two days are the same in my role, which I really love! We always have a team meeting in the morning where we discuss focus areas for the day and then I prioritise my workload around that. Generally my day-to-day role would consist of interviewing candidates for our live roles and helping the team with scheduling interviews with our candidates. My usual week would also consist of onboarding our new joiners, helping them settle into a new role and trying to make their transition as stress-free and easy as possible. I also work on any social events or internal celebrations or awareness months at JustPark and help the team with any ad-hoc People requests around our benefits or office management.
What would you say your biggest accomplishment was this year, both personally and professionally?
I attended a silent meditation retreat earlier this year in January, which was definitely the biggest accomplishment for me this year on a personal level. From a professional perspective, I am quite new in my role at JustPark, having started over 2 months ago. So settling into my role during this period, building relationships with people and seeing my impact on our talent acquisition process have been the biggest accomplishments so far.
How did you choose your current field of work?
In my degree I was exposed to different areas of business like Marketing, Finance and Accounting but always felt like the People route will be the one for me post-university. I love meeting new people from different cultures and backgrounds and find that helping people even if in small ways gives me a lot of happiness.
I am usually the planner in my friendship groups so working in the People Team, organising events and celebrations comes quite naturally to me. I really enjoy doing admin tasks too like filling out spreadsheets or doing data entry on platforms (I know, I’m strange) which is quite common in a People role.
For me a People role is the perfect balance of creativity like social events and admin that I really enjoy and I am also quite extroverted so talking to different types of people gives me a lot of energy.
What (or who) inspires you?
This might sound very silly, but I get a lot of inspiration from public figures, mostly actors. I admire actors like Florence Pugh and Tom Holland who despite their fame and success are very down-to-earth and have great relationship building skills. Growing up I used to watch a lot of interviews with actors and admire and learn from them as to how to build rapport in a genuine way.
How do you get motivated for difficult tasks?
I think the key is to break a difficult task down to small achievable steps and set a timeline with deadlines for the steps to be completed.
It’s also so important to ask for questions when you’re stuck instead of blocking yourself because you’re too scared of asking for help.
I think this is a very important lesson I’ve learnt as someone who’s quite junior in their career. I get a lot of my satisfaction from feeling productive too so that always helps to stay motivated to complete a difficult task.
What are you hoping to achieve before the end of the year?
Such a good question! Haven’t really thought that far ahead to be honest but I’d hope to feel even more settled in London by the end of the year. I moved here a year ago by myself and building my life here has been really exciting and also difficult at times. I’m excited to see what the rest of the year will bring for me in this vibrant metropolis! I’m looking forward to working on new exciting projects at JustPark too with our amazing team.
How do you define a successful day?
I keep myself organised by leaving little tasks in my Google calendar and I mark them as completed as the day progresses. On days I get to complete everything I set out to do for tasks at the beginning of the day is always a successful day but it is important to stay flexible in my role (and in any role at a startup) as priorities change quickly.
Interested in joining the JustPark team? Explore open roles and learn more about our company culture on our Careers page.
