You receive most when you expect least
Agnieszka Grzesiak
Onpartu Cohort: 2016
Mentor: Anna Gburczyk-Shraga
Education: Masters in IT & Management
Before Onpartu...
In her native Poland, Agnieszka was a bank IT Support Officer before moving to the UK in 2007. At first she stayed at home with her youngest child, but once she decided to go back to work, she couldn’t find any. With time it became so difficult, that Agnieszka no longer saw the point in looking any more. She decided to change her career and started to work as a massage therapist.
Coming across Onpartu was an accident for Agnieszka, and at first she thought that the programme was not for her. She also was not considering a comeback in the IT sector at the time. When asked now what a good job means to her, she admits that it’s not only about good compensation, but that it also cannot be something repetitive. It is no surprise therefore that Agnieszka applied to Onpartu to improve her situation, and the programme also ended up changing her attitude towards job searching. Simply realising that the women in the group had the same problem and feeling - even those who she thought were particularly well educated - made the task less daunting.
Agnieszka describes her Onpartu mentor as a “great Polish woman and very energetic”, who was “pushing her a lot” and was very reliable, accessible and responsive. The interview sessions helped her get used to their intensity, and she moved away from the Polish style CV, which has proved beneficial.
Since Onpartu...
New-found bravery
Thanks to an initial introduction made by a fellow Onpartner, Agnieszka has gone from one voluntary position straight to a second one in a finance department – with confidence she says she didn’t have before Onpartu. Agnieszka’s own daughter has noticed a change in her mother’s mentality.
Dreams
Agnieszka has reached Level 2 in accountancy studies and would like to open her own business in the future. Meanwhile she has started to put her newly gained interviewing expertise to use and supported the Onpartu programme during recruitment.
