Beyond the CV: Meet HR Design Consulting, Our New Executive Search Partner in Romania

HR Design Consulting at a glance

Interview with Bianca Vuță, Partner at HR Design Consulting

Bianca, can you tell us a little about yourself, your background and your life outside work?

I'm Bianca, and Andrei is my partner in business and in life. Each of us brings more than 20 years of corporate experience: Andrei's in technology and telecom across South-East Europe, mine in finance and then in people development, including L&D and many years as a trainer and business coach. I founded HR Design in 2021 and Andrei joined right away. We're the proud parents of two teenagers and two cats, who make sure we never take ourselves too seriously.

We are also two very different people, and at the beginning that wasn't always easy. I'm drawn to the emotional and psychological side of people and things, and to everything beautiful, aesthetic and comfortable; Andrei is pragmatic, with intellectual and sporty interests. Over time we realized this is exactly what makes us work, as a couple and as business partners: our differences complete each other instead of pushing us apart, and that has kept us together for the past ten years.

What we share, we enjoy to the fullest: traveling together, cooking and discovering special food, visiting new places, long walks through the city, or a gripping series in the evening. And it's the same in organizations: very different people can work beautifully together, as long as they learn to accept their differences constructively, not as a source of conflict.

What is your favorite thing about the recruitment and executive search industry?

The people. Behind every mandate, especially at CXO level, there is a decision that will shape an organization for years, so the responsibility is real. But so is the satisfaction when the match is right.

"Recently, a client came back to us with two new roles, and in the meeting we talked about the first three people we had placed with them. The technical director remembered two of them as our hires and was genuinely surprised when we mentioned the third: all three were still with the company well over a year later, almost two. Moments like that never get old."

How did you get started in this industry?

For both of us, the move into HR felt natural rather than abrupt. We had spent many years inside large organizations, so working with big companies felt like home. HR Design actually started as a people development firm, with HR processes, training and coaching, and recruitment came later, because our clients asked us to help them find the right people, not only grow them.

Coming from people development, we learned early on to understand people, not just their CVs. Entrepreneurial companies taught us a different pace and way of doing things, and we learned it while growing as entrepreneurs ourselves.

What are the biggest learnings from your career?

It may sound like a cliché, but it's true: never stop learning. Read, meet new people, stay curious and keep adapting, because business moves fast. For me, this also means regularly going through internationally certified programs about human nature, motivation and behavior, both for my own growth and for the people and companies we work with.

And the biggest lesson of all: working with people and leading them is one of the most complex things in the world, and one of the most rewarding. There is no template for a human being.

What led you to found HR Design Consulting, and what has recruitment taught you?

For me it was a natural step. For more than ten years before founding HR Design, I had already been working as a trainer and business coach, as a freelancer, alongside my job in finance. So starting my own company felt like an evolution rather than a leap. It's never easy, but we made it work.

My biggest learning in recruitment: don't let first impressions decide for you. A project that looks stuck can turn around very quickly, and one that looks easy can fall apart just as fast. So we stay calm, rely on experience and patience, and the puzzle pieces find their place.

What makes HR Design Consulting different for clients and candidates?

We've been on the other side of the table. We worked in large international companies and led teams, some of them international, so we understand not only the job, but also how a company really works from the inside.

"On top of that, every interview we run includes behavioral and motivational profiling: I'm a LAB Profile® Practitioner, with more than 1,000 LAB profiles done so far, and a Reiss Motivation Profile® Master. And before any search starts, we hold a “Step Zero” session with the client, to agree on what really matters for the role."

Skills get people hired; how they think, what drives them and how they work with others decide whether they stay and succeed. That's the match we look for.

Which roles do you typically recruit, and who are your clients?

White-collar roles, from specialists all the way up to CXO level. We're generalists, but with a natural focus on technology, IT and the medical sector.

Our clients are large and mid-sized companies in those three sectors, but not only. It wasn't a plan at first, it simply happened: over the last six years, most of our projects came from engineering, technology and medical organizations. Probably because our own corporate background speaks their language.