Manuela Constantinescu

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” - W. Churchill
I have here the summary of my Linkedin profile.
In his book, The Alliance, Linkedin's founder Reid Hoffman uses a military analogy - tours of duty - for the individual work experiences that contribute to one's overall professional profile. I believe it is an apt analogy for my multifaceted, diverse professional experiences. Spanning three political regimes and picked from opportunities available to only a few, my tours of duty ran - be it by choice or be it by fate - along paths of significant resistance and uncertainty, and implied extremes of risk or reward. They required hard work, creativity, and sacrifice. Above all, my experiences made me come to the conclusion that years of experience - as a primary requirement of competence - is overrated. A blend of knowledge, skills, abilities, motivation and serendipity may account for unbelievable quantum leaps on one's journey. My profile is not a resume. The story telling format points at unique circumstances harder to bring up in a resume. If the recruiting industry considers adopting the "Golden Buzzer" from "America Has Talent", candidates weeded out by mandatory years of experience get a chance to prove themselves. Talent is sought by the HR industry; however, years of experience is too often hired - a guillotine filter or a paradox? No, it is just a confirmation of Gauss's Bell Curve and the surrender to the choices belonging to the first positive and negative standard deviations.