MEET THE TEAM
Josephine Chia
Managing Director
“Progress can mean different things in different stages of our lives, and I try to get into that frame of mind for our clients and candidates.”
Describe yourself in 3 words
Fair, clear and fun.
What was THE memorable moment in your career?
There have been a few but the pivotal one was when I was picked out of more than 40 candidates to join my first vendor firm; purely because the hiring manager then believed in me.
If Progression was a famous person, who would it be?
Progression would be Warren Buffet – he is extremely successful, yet very understated and similar to our corporate belief, his mantra to success is that he doesn’t invest in anything he doesn’t understand.
How is Progression different from the rest?
We spend a lot of time and effort knowing, in great detail, about our clients – be it their competition, the tech space, future plans and even the preferences of the hiring manager. We do our best to give candidates who not only can do the job well but also have the potential to be great colleagues. We have gone so far as to pull out people from the interview process because we discovered issues later on, and started the search from scratch again. It’s a long term view that motivates us to go through so much pains to get it right from the start.
Why do you call your agency Progression?
The name embodies our key belief that evolving is crucial for the agency and all our stakeholders. It is also what we genuinely want for our candidates and clients. For our candidates, progress at different stages of our lives can mean different things and we try to discover and align those desires.
For the clients, the path of progression can be very different – a start up may need more ‘rockstars’ while a medium-
sized organization often wants to groom reliable and stable contributors in its workforce.
What are the 3 crucial Values any good jobseeker should portray at any interview?
Be prepared and show some initiative by asking questions
Be respectful and on time for an interview
Be direct and honest
If you could have a magic power or ninja skill, what would it be?
As a head hunter, I would like to always know when a person is lying, so being able to read minds would be great!
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
The joy of getting the role for the best candidate. Watching them perform on the job and getting stellar feedback from clients. Seeing a start up team grow from scratch is also very rewarding and close to my heart.
What do you do for leisure?
I like to play the Cajon drum, practise Muay Thai and tinker with new gadgets. I cook, paint, garden and travel
with my kids. I also read avidly but I am especially partial to Harry Potter, Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman.
Josephine is currently the Managing Director of Progression Search Pte. Ltd. She set up Progression Recruitment LLP
in 2011 with co-founder Tricia Kim when they quit their sales careers in IT together. Since then she has helped numerous Technology firms, from established large firms to exciting start-ups in Asia, find great people across mid, senior and leadership positions. These include key placements for Sales, Pre-Sales, Marketing and Professional Services teams in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China. She started her 14 years of fulfilling sales career in IT distribution and several technology vendors in the enterprise software and digital marketing field.