Kruk S.A.

Although unemployment in Poland has been growing all the time, there is an industry that resists the unfavourable trend. As receivables management companies have more and more orders, they are constantly looking for new employees. Only in the second quarter of 2010, employment in Poland’s largest debt collection company went up by nearly 10% reaching close to 1000. Another 200 people are employed by the KRUK Group in Romania.

Employment increases may be observed in all leading debt collection companies in Poland. In accordance with the ranking compiled by the “Rzeczpospolita” daily (published 23 July 2010), employment at Poland’s eight largest receivables management companies went up by nearly 300 people, or close to 15% over the last year.

It is hard to believe that KRUK was established 12 years ago by two partners. Today, only in Poland the KRUK Group employs 975 people. Among them are not only people responsible for direct contacts with debtors but also a large group of lawyers, finance specialists, analysts and IT staff.

"In twelve years, from a small company we have grown into a very large organisation,” said Piotr Krupa, KRUK SA CEO. “To me, the most important thing however is the fact that despite constant dynamic growth we have managed to keep this special company climate in which we are really close to each other. Contrary to appearances and general opinion, becoming a corporation does not exclude preserving a friendly atmosphere and close ties within the team.”

When one looks at it through the prism of numbers, the increase in employment at KRUK is impressive. Over the past five years, headcount has nearly doubled. At the end of 2005, the company employed 548 people including 190 telephone collectors. At the end of last year, employment went up to 762 including nearly a half (353 people) working as telephone collectors. In the first six months of 2010, another 40 telephone collectors were hired and the number of people employed in Poland by the KRUK Group reached 975. Additionally, the staff of the company’s Romanian subsidiary KRUK International includes 200 people.   

"The group of employees that has been growing the fastest are telephone collectors and it is this job that we have the biggest number of openings for,” explains Iwona Słomska, member of the board responsible for Marketing, PR and Human Resources. “Working as a telephone collector is a great job to start a professional career from and also a good way to ensure its long-term development. It offers the possibility of learning many useful skills from the field of psychology, negotiation techniques, law or economics. We want our team to be stable and to treat working for KRUK as part of their long-term career plans. Individual career paths enable promotions to higher and higher levels in the organisation. Many of our current top-ranking managers started their adventure with KRUK from negotiations with debtors.”

In the times when it is hard to find a good job, working for a receivables management company seems to be an interesting idea for professional development. Especially that that working in the sector is not available exclusively to single area specialists (lawyers) but can be a way to pursue a career both for economists, IT specialists, psychologists and for persons who are just starting their professional lives and want to gain valuable experience and skills.