How long have you been working with Tricycle-Europe?
Less than six months. Mark Bakker (team leader for lead generation) found me through LinkedIn. I got a message from him there, asking if I would like to come by for a coffee. After I had pushed my mistrust aside, I thought, This is great, this is an opportunity, and within two weeks I had an interview and a job.

What is your working background?
Since I was 12, I helped by father in his company, Biofriends NL B.V as general and telephone staff. I also worked for six months as a sales ambassador for Uitblinqers in Amsterdam. And I worked for nearly four years in a Golden Tulip Hotel in Ermelo, in both service and management.

What is the best thing about your job, and what are you looking forward to?
What makes me super enthusiastic is the degree of independence and flexibility on the work floor. It is the first time that have experienced this way of working, and I am already enormously enthusiastic about having my own input. I also think I would also like to become many times more professional on the phone, and Tricycle offers me the right work and learning experience for that. So far, the trainings and feedback moments have been a great experience. Tricycle namely always focuses on what is already working, and that gives you extra motivation to keep getting better.

What do you enjoy most about this job?
The variety of projects and all the different people that you talk to in one day. All the communication skills that I have to use on the phone, but also at the workplace itself. The interactions between colleagues are outstanding!

What is your passion for your work? 
Always being able to learn more and try out new methods in order to expand my vision and become more flexible. Due to my studies, I often look at the work floor form a psychological perspective, because a large part of industrial and organizational psychology applies to sales. That is interesting.

Why would you recommend this work to other students?
Because you get to take responsibility and quickly learn to stand on your own two feet that way. You learn to come across well over the phone and to reshape uncertainty into confidence. It is incredibly interesting to learn so much about business.

Do you have any concrete goals?
I do have a number of them. To name one, I would like to work after my studies as a sole proprietor and to become a life coach. Then I would like to work with young adults who need guidance and help because they get lost, as it were, in the consumer society, and to help them address issues like obesity and choice stress. And to help them connect the mental and physical.

What are you studying?
Applied Psychology at the HVA (Hoge school van Amsterdam). But I have a relaxed year right now because I am doing the second year over, and that is why I can work a bit more.

And that leaves you time to do fun things.
Yes, and for volunteer work. I work as a supervisor in a walk-in house for people with dementia, Het Odensehuis. On Monday evenings, I cook there for 15 to 20 people. Last year I did an internship there, and I became so attached to that place that I kept working there as a volunteer. And they need the help, since they get by on subsidies. Because I taught Dutch during my internship to a woman from Uganda, I used that opportunity to introduce her to Het Odensehuis. Now she enjoys volunteering there as well. With a bit of logical thinking, you can kill two birds with one stone.