Working at Facebook for over eight years has given Archana, Head of Recruiting in Asia Pacific and Site Leader at Facebook Hyderabad, India, a unique experience. She has witnessed Facebook grow from strength to strength in the world's fastest-growing region and has experienced how the company invests in the people who work there to help them grow in their careers and do their best work ever. In this interview, Archana shares about her career journey—how she's grown professionally, the company culture and values, the people that Facebook wants to hire, and most importantly, why the team is only 1% done.

At Facebook, what stood out for me was how I can design my career path to build a career I love. I joined Facebook in 2010 as a recruiting manager in Hyderabad, India-the year Facebook opened its first office in the country. We were only 20 employees and one team, and I was recruiting diverse talent across India to join a young and rapidly growing organization. Fast forward to today, Facebook India has grown to five offices-Hyderabad, Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Bangalore-and expanded from a single online operations team to sales, marketing, partnerships, and policy and many more teams that impact different areas of businesses. As Facebook grew in Asia Pacific, I found opportunities to expand my scope into different markets. I started with Australia, New Zealand, then Southeast Asia, and also recruiting for roles across a range of functions from engineering to sales to business.

It has been an amazing experience to build Facebook's recruiting team and function from ground up in Asia Pacific. Our recruiting teams are an integral part of what makes Facebook a unique and special place to work as they propel Facebook's growth by hiring the world's best talent. Recruiters at Facebook are consulting partners with hiring managers. They influence decisions with leadership, provide thoughtful recommendations, and work with cross-functional teams. Today, on top of my core role in recruitment, I'm also the site leader for Hyderabad, India, where I focus on developing the overall site plan that will help drive the office culture and build a strong community across the different organizations.

Growth opportunities at Facebook are created when you are willing to put your hand up to try something new—when you are able to identify problems and then solve them. We are a culture of builders. And if you keep thinking about how to solve the next problem, that’s where your next career opportunity is.

We are guided by our core values—move fast, be bold, focus on impact, build social value, and be open. The two I resonate most deeply with are 'move fast and be bold.' You can make a big impact quickly because of how fast things move. It gives you countless opportunities to do different things and no mountain is too big to climb... which brings to my other favorite value which is 'be bold.' Building great things mean taking risks in a world that's changing so quickly. To me, being bold is challenging the status quo, asking the right questions, and always thinking about how can you do something better.

What differentiates Facebook as an employer is how our people can bring their authentic selves to work. My manager and colleagues care about me as a person, and that matters a lot. They care about my life, my health, my family and my passions and that helps me to bring my whole self to work. My manager encourages me to make full use of my leave and stay offline to make most of the time off. I love our little internal systems feature that enables 'beach mode' when you are on leave and tells your colleagues not to disturb you. I was away for 6.5 months when Meenakshi, my daughter, was born, and I could focus on my family 100% and not have to think about work.

At Facebook, we have a very unique way of thinking about benefits. We take a holistic approach to support all the things that matter the most to you. Medical and health insurance is really important to me, and the coverage that we have here at Facebook India not only encompasses your spouse and children but also your parents or in-laws. The fact that you can have your entire family's health taken care of by Facebook is simply amazing. What's more, Facebook tailors our benefits packages differently in every country so that it is relevant and specific to you, wherever you live.

This is a very busy but exciting time because Facebook India is growing in almost every business area, every market, and in all our family of apps, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.

I asked one of our leaders what keeps her up at night, as we have so much to do ahead of us. I was expecting her to say things such as meeting our hiring goals, or if we are doing everything right for the business. Instead, her response was, “I really want people to come to work to do what they do the best, and enjoy what they are doing despite all the work we have to get done.” That for me was inspirational, because it shows I get to work with leaders who are equally focused on getting the business goals right and yet thinking about people constantly.

To support this amount of growth at Facebook, we are looking for awesome, talented people to join us and make huge impact in our teams in India. We have many different types of opportunities within our Facebook family—from sales and marketing roles to partnerships, public policy, and operations. All of these people come together to form one great team with one purpose in mind: to bring the world closer together. We say our work is 1% done at Facebook, and you can start your amazing journey here as part of the Facebook family.

When we hire for Facebook, we think about several broad qualities that we want in our ideal candidates. These include excitement about Facebook's mission, a passion for solving problems, and a 'builder' mentality. During interviews, we look out for great examples of how candidates have demonstrated prioritization in their work experience. At Facebook, there is so much to do that at times it can be difficult to choose what is the most important. One of the work ethics that we live by is ruthless prioritization, where we are always thinking about how we can prioritize the projects with the highest impact. Finally, as part of a global company, people who work at Facebook are virtually connecting and collaborating with teams from around the world every day. We need people who can work in a truly global environment.

Diversity is also at the top of our mind. Hiring people with different backgrounds and experiences helps us build better products, make better decisions, and better serve our clients. We’re committed to building a workforce that’s as diverse as the communities we serve, and we strive to provide the best possible care and resources to help all of our employees thrive.