Interview with our alumnus Jörg Hipper

Jörg Hipper is Team Lead Web & Content Marketing at Personio.

Where am I & what do I do?
Since January 2017, I have been working at Personio in Munich. We are a software startup founded in 2015 with a team of 125 employees from 23 nations. Personio develops and sells the comprehensive software of the same name for HR management and applicant tracking for small and medium-sized companies.

In my role, I am responsible for ensuring that Personio is perceived by HR professionals as a source of knowledge, that our content consistently reaches more people, and that we win customers through it. Together with my team, I continuously develop new texts, graphics, and videos to make life easier for HR professionals and to show that Personio understands what matters in the HR sector.

Since I started at Personio, the number of employees has more than tripled, and there is no end to the growth in sight. It feels as though I am working at a new company every few months, and each stage requires new processes and ideas. This affects my work because, for example, I am also responsible for the website and have to ensure that it grows along with the company and its increasing demands.
 

How did I get here?
After my studies at Alanus University, I spent three years with my practical partner Weleda in international marketing, helping to develop new websites for the subsidiaries in various countries and developing and rolling out online marketing strategies. The international focus was great, and I was always able to keep learning new things in my field. Over time, however, it became increasingly clear to me that I was missing hands-on operational work.

At the time, I was also running a small fashion label called Bam Larsson on the side and was considering doing that full time or founding something new. However, I then made a very conscious decision to move to the youngest startup possible, where a hands-on mentality is required.

Looking back, I am very happy about this step and can only advise anyone who wants to make a difference in a startup to choose the company and the timing carefully. If the team is right and you have a good product-market fit in a dynamic market, it does not matter what you do. The main thing is that you can make a contribution. Everything else will follow.

Starting your own company is highly appealing, but the probability of failure is very high, and even in the case of success, it is much more exhausting than one can imagine. Just ask our founders…

To what extent did my time at Alanus University shape me?
Even though, much to my girlfriend’s dismay, I know nothing about art, the artistic units in the bachelor’s degree program Business Administration – Rethinking Economics at Alanus shaped me the most.

That was where I realized that I am more creative than I had thought. And with every completed art project, it became easier for me to view a piece of work objectively, critique it, and listen to criticism of it without feeling personally attacked. This “stripping away of the ego” helps me every day at work because it allows me to focus much better on the matter itself.

What first comes to mind when I think of Alanus University and my business administration studies, however, is not the art or the teaching, but the time spent with my fellow students. Whether on Campus I, Campus II, or in some shared apartment that you might not be able to find again the next day: I never before or since met so many exciting people in one place who believe in the good in people and want to make the world a better place.