Inside the Outbrain Team: Head of Account Management, Evelina Jarbin

EvelinaJarbin_OutbrainSpotlight

Welcome to a new series, Inside the Outbrain Team, where we’ll be featuring a different Outbrain employee each month to give you an inside look at our team. We’re product managers, accountants, algorithm engineers, account managers, content marketers, and more—but we’re also real people (who are really fun to work with).

Meet some of the people who make Outbrain happen, and get a sneak peek into what it is exactly that we do all day.

Next up is Evelina Jarbin, Head of Account Management for Amplify in our London office who has been with Outbrain for 3.5 years!

In her own words:

What are you working on this month?

Rolling out our great new targeting features!

I’m particularly excited about our Custom Audiences feature, which includes site retargeting and DMP retargeting.

We’ve seen great results from clients during initial tests and think this can really help us take content recommendations to the next level – mind you, remarketing is nothing new in the industry but I believe we are the first ones doing it for content recommendations!

What’s the best thing about working at Outbrain?

The people and the pace – there’s always something to do or something new to get involved with, and I am fortunate to be surrounded by fun, passionate and clever people.

What’s not to like?

What’s the most interesting article/book/blog etc that you’ve read recently?

A great article from Harvard Business Review (this sounds like I read HBR regularly, which I don’t), about the fact that we’re often not very self-aware, and especially not at work. It’s a piece summarizing research done on the topic.

Make sure you’re not letting your low self-awareness hold you back and read this article.

What’s the most unusual job you’ve ever had?

I once had a summer job as a truck driver in a Lidl warehouse — a long time ago.

I didn’t have a truck license and no one bothered to train me, so I ended up crashing into a pallet of flour due to go out to the shops in the morning…

What advice would you give someone applying to work at Outbrain?

Know why you are applying and why you are choosing Outbrain.

I think it’s too common that candidates take a quantitative approach and just submit applications to as many employers as possible.

I believe in quality and really reading up on a company, and really thinking through why you want to join it. That will always shine through in an interview!

Tell us about your background. How did you end up here?

I did MarComs for a government organization and came across Outbrain when I tried to figure out how to increase the audience reach for our blog.

Turned out they were also looking for a Swedish Account Manager at that point, and I was so impressed with the solution I decided to give it a go and applied. The rest is history.

What have you learned so far that you’d want to tell a new employee?

Enter with an open mind and be ready for changes, twists and turns as you go along, and you’ll do very well.

Sometimes, startups have a bit of a rosy reputation of being all about free food, ping pong tables, and beer fridges, but it’s hard work and quite different to a large organization where everyone has their clearly specified tasks – my title is Head of Account Management but I dabble in a bit of everything and enjoy it because of that.

If you like everything to be black and white/always straightforward, this is not for you 😉

Whose job within Outbrain would you want to take for the day?

Kirsten who works in reception, I’d love to get to choose meeting snacks and lunch menus!

What’s your pre-client meeting pump up song?

I honestly don’t have one. I’m Swedish, we’re not big on the “pumping up” and prefer to stay down to earth in all situations.

Tell us a joke.

Anyone on the team would be able to tell you that I am a terrible jokester. We recently did a vote about who is the funniest person. I wasn’t even in the top 8, and we are a team of 8.

What’s in your snack drawer?

I don’t have one, but I am very good at raiding the office snack cupboard when there are cookies around.

Hidden talent? Quirky interest? Tell us something we don’t know!

I have my own sourdough culture – he’s called Bert and gives me great breads.

Fun facts about you that you think we should know?

I think this is as fun as it gets!

Thanks, Evelina!

Want to join our team?

Check out the Outbrain careers page and our open positions here!

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