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Adapting to New Surroundings with Stefania Tosini
Moving abroad for a job can be tough emotionally and practically. Leaving familiar surroundings and loved ones can lead to homesickness and isolation. Adapting to a new work environment, language, and way of life adds to the pressure. However, it can also be a broadening and enriching experience that expands your world in unexpected ways. Stefania Tosini, a press officer turned talent acquisition specialist is going to talk about what she wrestled with when making her decision to move from Italy to Germany during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. In episode 93 of the Career Relaunch® podcast, I also share some thoughts on the struggles I had when I moved from the US to the UK during the Mental Fuel® segment. Key Career Takeaways Leaving one’s family behind to pursue a career can be a difficult decision to make. It can bring up a variety of emotions, ranging from fear and anxiety about leaving a loving environment to excitement for new opportunities and experiences to come. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Everyone needs support from time to time. Expectations can be a tricky thing, especially when it comes to your career decisions. Don’t assume that everyone will react to your choices in the way you hope. Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel® segment, I talked about moving locations for your career. My challenge to you is to look forward instead of backward. To trust that you made the best decision you possibly could to serve what you felt was most important to you. Focus on doing everything you can to make the most of your current circumstances rather than dwelling TOO much on what you left behind. Start small and decide on one action you can take right now to more fully embrace your chosen path. About Stefania Tosini, Talent Acquisition Partner at Zalando Stefania Tosini is a polyglot with a background in international affairs and economics who recently made a big move of her own from Italy to Germany. With over 8 years of experience across multiple industries including roles in education as an English Teacher for the Japanese School of Milan, luxury fashion as a press officer for companies like Dolce & Gabbana, and now in online retail as a talent acquisition partner for Zalando, she finds her professional motivation in helping people find fulfillment and belonging in their careers. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Follow: Be sure to follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android to automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow the Career Relaunch® podcast on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph Liu on most major social media platforms. Connect with Joseph Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to Vista Social for Supporting Career Relaunch Vista Social is a versatile, time-saving tool to manage all your social media accounts in one place. You can easily create, schedule, optimize, and publish content directly to multiple social media profiles from one simple dashboard. I actually use it myself to manage all my online profiles. Try Vista Social out for free right now at careerrelaunch.net/vista. Interview Segment Music Credits Podington Bear – Floating Podington Bear – Program Reverie Podington Bear – Pulsars Podington Bear – Golden Hour REW – Hylidae Podington Bear – Holding Hands Podington Bear – Stuck Dream Podington Bear – Memory Wind Episode Interview Transcript Joseph: Hello, Stefania. Welcome to the Career Relaunch Podcast. It is great to have you on the show. Thanks for coming today. Stefania: [03:34] Hi. Thank you so much for the invite. Joseph: Why don’t we get started by getting a snapshot of what is keeping you busy right now in both your career and life? Can you give me a glimpse into what you’ve been focused on recently? Stefania: [03:01] First of all, Joseph, thank you for having me as your guest. In my personal life, I’d say that I’m focusing on my family and friends at the moment, especially after moving abroad to Germany. I really realized that family to me is the most important source of energy for myself. To give you some context, I’m from Italy and I think it’s absolutely true what people say about Italians. I match all the stereotypes here. I speak with my hands, and I love good food, and I’m a family person. Definitely, family is one of my main focus points. Joseph: What about your career? What have you been focused on at work recently? Stefania: [04:40] From a professional point of view, I switched careers and industries a couple of times already. Now, I’m focusing on growing my expertise, in recruiting. I’m working in talented acquisition. Therefore, it’s like really learning all the time and bringing your niche expertise to certain families and sectors. It’s really about growing and keeping on learning. Joseph: Now, you are currently at a company called Zalando. For those people who are not familiar with Zalando, can you just give a very quick snapshot of exactly what Zalando is and what you guys do? Stefania: [05:23] Zalando is awesome. It’s my employer and it’s an eCommerce platform, basically serving countries in Europe. We sell sportswear, beauty products, fashion products. To me, it’s a very highly advanced tech company. The sector is retail, fashion, and tech at the moment. I am a talent acquisition partner working in recruiting and I just love my job. I love my job because I’m working with people and for people. I do believe that the most important asset of a company is human capital. Joseph: Before we go back in time, Stefania, I also know you’re a bit of a polyglot. Can you remind me which languages you speak and how you ended up picking up those languages? Stefania: [06:17] Yes, I’m a polyglot. I love studying languages. I’m Italian. Of course, I’m a native speaker in Italian. I speak pretty well Spanish and Russian as well. I’m currently studying German and Japanese, too. Japanese has a longer story behind this. I think my passion for languages started when I was young. I wanted to connect with people faster. I remember that once I was traveling with my grandpas to the UK, and I was really, really young. I think I was 6 or 7 years old. I really wanted to connect with people. I wanted to express myself, and the only way to do so was getting confident with the language. That was the moment I realized I want to study languages. I just want to speak with other cultures, understand more from other cultures, connect with them. Perhaps it’s because I come from the country of human relationships, and this turn my interest in learning languages. Joseph: That’s amazing when I heard that. As you know, I’m originally from the United States. I come here to Europe and I suddenly realize that everybody speaks at least two languages, sometimes three. In your case, four or five. How did you pick up so many languages? Stefania: [07:57] Of course, the more you travel, the more you have the chance to get in contact with other cultures, other traditions. I became curious. Curiosity was the driving factor for myself. Overall, I was really passionate about literature. I loved Spanish literature, Russian literature. I was driven by that. I was resilient. I wanted to read books in the language they were written. To me, that was like a goal. How do I get to this goal? To me, it was just like, “Yeah, let’s go into grammar. Let’s study grammar. Let’s try to speak then with the locals.” Everything that’s related to culture, traditions, it was really moving something inside my soul. Joseph: That’s incredible. I would love to dive into this a little bit more because I know, just to switch gears here, if we go back in your history, you spent some time as an English teacher at a Japanese school in Milan. Before we talk about that, can you just tell me about your childhood? What did you want to be when you grew up? How did you think your work life and your adult life was going to look when you were a kid? Stefania: [09:17] My biggest dream was actually to become an actress. I totally had a different path. Totally unexpected compared to what I’m doing now. Overall, I think my skills were related to communication and connecting with people, and I was a happy child overall. Smiling and I wanted to also make a difference in people’s lives. Perhaps also sharing the knowledge that I had, and also trying to learn from others. That’s why perhaps I ended up becoming a teacher. As a teacher, you teach, of course, but you get a lot from others, like from your students, from the people you’re working with. I think that teachers make a difference, a really big difference in your life. I must say that I was really, really lucky to have such great examples of teachers in my life. They really inspired me. They really pushed me in becoming a better person, a better student. I’m also very conscious about the fact I could study. Now, education is a big topic and still in 2023, a lot of countries don’t have access to education. I was lucky enough to have this in my life. From the moment I understood I have access to education and I have access to great education, what can I grasp from this? How can I have an impact based on all the things that I’ve been in contact with, the people that have been in contact with? That, to me, was the moment that gave me confidence in moving forward
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