I went to my first Hilti interview out of sheer curiosity, nothing more! I was working at Michelin, and pretty happy there, to be honest, but was impressed by Hilti’s values and people and the way they spoke about the company. The more I got to know Hilti, the more I noticed how genuine the people were. They really took time to answer my many questions. I was especially keen on the fact that Hilti was still a family business, and that they managed everything from R&D to AMS with direct customer relationships. I got the feeling that, even though it was a big company, everyone could be an entrepreneur. Ten years on, I can look back and say I was right.
 
On my market reach project in Switzerland, for example, we were working like a start-up, taking risks, trying new things, making mistakes, trying again, changing our processes, switching our mindsets, all of it. Hilti is all about change management because it’s continuously innovating.
 
What I love about Hilti is that, even if you don’t qualify for a role on your CV or in what you’ve done before, they’ll trust you to do it anyway – and help you along the way.
 
My first role in sales is where I learned what it means to develop people. What a fantastic experience. Not always easy, but so interesting and rewarding.
After sales, I wanted to understand how the ‘engine room’ worked and was given the opportunity to discover the world of services. It’s also where I got to practice my languages and work with different cultures.

It gave me an urge to ‘open the window’ and see how other market organizations worked. I eventually got the chance to go abroad to Switzerland.

Two brilliant years later, I brought my Zurich experience back to sales management in Paris and shared my new knowledge. As ever, I arrived not knowing anyone in the MO, but immediately felt at home – the Hilti home – with colleagues who welcomed me like they knew me already.
 

I first joined Hilti as a territory sales representative in Germany. The job was a combination of making sales on construction sites and talking strategy with business leaders in the office. It was an outstanding time for me but, after five years of great experience, I decided to move on and try my hand with another company.

I very quickly realized that I was emotionally attached to Hilti and wanted to come back - even if it meant taking a step back in my career.

Thankfully, I was given the opportunity to return as a key account sales consultant. And, just 14 months later, was promoted to area sales manager.

What I learned in my ten months away from Hilti is that I enjoy having responsibility for people in my team. It’s something I’m passionate about and something I’d missed while working for another firm. So being able to combine team leadership with a customer-focused sales role is perfect for me.

Hilti is not only good about offering a wide range of career opportunities, but the process behind this is honest and transparent.

My greatest success so far at Hilti has been developing the relationship with a reluctant customer, who’s now a very loyal customer! When I first met him, he had no desire at all to work with Hilti. But, through sheer perseverance on my part, he’s now one of our biggest customers in the region!
 

I joined Hilti straight from completing my PhD in materials science at the EPFL in Lausanne. I saw them as a company that could help grow my career across different countries and competencies, and I can now say they delivered on that!
 
While my first assignment was in keeping with my university experience, I then made a huge transition into something completely new - marketing. This was quickly followed by an international assignment and team leader role. I was off to Singapore.
 
Being part of Singapore’s management team, shaping an entire organization, is something I still look back on as my proudest achievement at Hilti.
 
In the 19 years I’ve been with the company, I’ve always found them receptive to my professional development aspirations as well as my personal and family needs. I’ve always been assigned to roles where I could bring out my best and truly succeed.

I like emphasizing that I started working for Hilti as an external employee on April 1st, and that this was anything but an April fool's joke, but the best decision in my business career to date. In my first year at Hilti, I learned as much as I had learned in all my previous years and after only one and a half years in product management, I was able to take my first career step into the role of Senior Expert. Another year later, I was given a new field of responsibility with "New Business", where I worked on expanding our product portfolio and new business areas.
 
At Hilti I always have the feeling that I can be who I am and move forward at my own pace. The tasks are challenging and exciting and when you face them, you can really make a difference and take on responsibility. This is how I got into my current role, where I am a team leader responsible for technical marketing and services related to our products in the German market organization.
 

In my 16 years at Hilti, I’ve had the opportunity to change my role every two or three years, so the challenges keep coming. I started as a graduate research engineer and progressed onto project management, still in research. I then joined a business unit, managing time-to-money development projects.

A few years later, I moved into marketing as a global product manager for cordless power tools, where one of my strategy projects was so successful that I became segment manager responsible for building up a team. At the same time, Hilti supported me to do an MBA.

After that, I progressed my career to the UK to head up marketing for electric tools and accessories in northern Europe. Then I came back to Liechtenstein to lead marketing for our business unit in measuring tools. A few years on, I now manage a team of product managers, back in my specialist area of cordless power tools.