​It’s never easy deciding to turn your life upside down, but at the end of last year after several years working in the fashion industry, most recently in fashion retail management, I’d come to the decision enough was enough.

I wanted to dabble my hand in something new, and after taking advice from a few of my friends who have worked in recruitment they said they could picture me doing it too.

Walked into SODA for my interview, but by saying walk what really happened was it was a rainy December day and I instead walked into their reception and face planted the floor. Yes, you heard me right, full on head over heels, slap bang, spreadeagle in the entrance…. great start!

Pulled myself together, pretended like nothing had happened and met with various members of the Soda squad. I knew there and then that this knocked all the other agencies I’d met with out of the park. I loved the culture, the fact that Soda was a specialist digital agency, the list of diversified clients they relayed to me, their own offline community they had built through the Soda Social, the Women in DevOps group they had built, and the fact they had been named as one of LinkedIn’s “Most Socially Engaged Agencies”.

After an extended Christmas break, my first in about 7 years, I joined Soda on their first day back after new year. Retail management didn’t allow for you to properly celebrate Christmas what with the madness of Boxing Day sales that started long before Christmas.

Things were so different from what I was used to, and boy did I have a lot to learn. What was a girl who had worked in fashion for so many years now talking to software developers, about JavaScript, .Net, C#, React, and Angular, to name but a few technologies I now specialise in? Even learning to pronounce C# was a task in itself. Yes, if you are reading this and have no understanding of software development it is NOT said C-Hashtag, it is pronounced C-Sharp. (If I am now helping you with such roles, don’t worry, I promise I do know what I’m talking about now!)

I joined SODA’s contracts team and safe to say, I work amongst the craziest but best bunch of recruiters, who have taught me so much about the job. Each one of us specialists in our markets from Software Development, UX/UI, DevOps & Infrastructure, as well as Senior Appointments, if you work in the digital sector we are always raring to help whether you are a candidate or a client.

With all of this said, my last 8 months’ in recruitment have been pretty A-MAZING! The perks that come with working for Trust in Soda aren’t that bad either. From lunch clubs at Dinner by Heston to Ladies Day at Sandown Races, internal sports day at Regents Park (somehow managed not to make a fool of myself in the three-legged race) and a team visit to the Book of Mormon - it’s not always your average day in the office. The most memorable experience with SODA so far has to have been my charity skydive in aid of Enham Trust. A not-for-profit that strives to empower the lives of people with disabilities.

We work with charities that are close to our heart, and after wanting to do a skydive since watching “I’m a Celeb” when I was younger with my parents (no shame in admitting that), I decided to take the plunge and quite literally chuck myself out of a plane.

What a life changing experience it was and I couldn’t have done it without the support from my family, friends and of course SODA. Don’t ask me what happened in the first 30 seconds of me throwing myself out of the plane from 10,000ft at 130mph. I was quite literally a petrified, mouth trembling, sobering mess souring through the sky. However, as soon as I knew that parachute was up, it was smooth sailing, and I knew the money that I had raised was going to help make a difference to all of those in need and I had just experienced the most euphoric moment of my life.

It doesn’t end there as our next charitable mission is partnering with Meningitis Now. A team of us will be helping 14 – 25 year olds who have affected by Meningitis to rebuild their lives and support their career goals.

Safe to say that making this career plunge was the best decision I could have made. Long gone are the days of me dealing with nightmare customers shouting at me because, due to their own stupidity, they accidentally stuck their silk dress on a 90-degree wash, folding t-shirts perfectly the same width, because god forbid one inch out would mess up the whole atmosphere of the store; or having to explain to an angry customer that you too would like to go home before 10pm and not have to deal with their fashion woes.

Instead, I’m all about matching candidates in the digital sector with what I hope is their next dream job. I specialise in supporting Software Developers, find their next contract, whether its focusing on the Frontend JavaScript market or Fullstack.Net development. Even though I’m still learning and developing I work with some of the most inspiring candidates and clients who are all part of my SODA journey.

So with all of this said, if you fancy turning your life upside down and taking your next career plunge, why not get in touch with the SODA squad and find out what all the fuss is about. Or maybe you are a candidate in the digital sector and need advice on your next role. On the other hand, maybe you need assistance tapping into hard to reach candidates who are considered the top 5% of talent across, Technology, UX and Cloud SODA are always here to help.