Florian Funk Live on Shally's Alley

All right, all right, what's up people? It is Friday, July 7th. For those of you in America, happy birthday America, happy Independence Day. For those of you in the rest of the world, hopefully you had a nice break from Americans for a little while. Uh, otherwise, happy Fourth of July and welcome to Shally's Alley. We are live Today we have, we're broadcasting from Germany. No, I'm kidding. But we do have a special guest who is in Germany and from Germany, my friend Florian Funk. First of all, I just love people that have the same initial for both names, you know, Shelly Steckerl, Florian Funk. So right there, you won me over. No problem. So Florian lives in Darmstadt.

Yeah, kind of close to Frankfurt, but yeah, but Darmstadt.

Yeah, Darmstadt. Okay. And he is a sourcing recruiter, recruiter that sources. Florian and I actually met when he was just a child and had an exchange program.

Yeah, I was remembering it was either like an internship part or the exchange student. I don't know. Down the road.

Down the road. I think you were an exchange student and your exchange parents were Mel and her husband. My time then, I was at Coca-Cola Enterprises and Mel was my boss there. And you were staying as an exchange student there, got interested in what we did, and then became an intern and got an internship. With Coca-Cola as a recruiter, right? Or in TA, something like that. Really?

Yeah. I mean, you know, and now— yeah.

And I, and I taught him some— I taught Florian some recruiting and some sourcing, and he was like, oh, this is pretty cool. Then he went back to Germany and started a career doing it and has been doing it ever since and is now an independent consultant that works with companies that need to source for difficult positions in Germany, but really not just Germany, German-speaking countries and all of EU as well. So I brought Florian today because he's got an interesting perspective on recruiting from a, from a more international or global point of view where sometimes things don't quite— they're not quite the same as what we understand to be common practices. And for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, I'll give you a good example. And Florian, of course, can illustrate this a little bit better. But in Germany, you must give a much longer time notice. So positions sometimes may be filled because of somebody accepting an offer, but they won't start for many months. So, Florian, tell me a little bit about that. Is there like a limit, a maximum, a minimum for for notice? How, or what's the, what's the typical standard?

Well, it's, it kind of depends. Well, there's like, I mean, obviously we're talking about Germany and therefore we have like a lot of rules for pretty much every detail. You know, it is Germany as it is. And what we, um, well, we have, you know, for example, like limits with about the minimum amount of notice period. For example, I think in the, like, in the probation period, it's at least like 2 weeks. And after staying with the company for 6 months, the minimum notice period has to be 4 weeks.

And so if you've been with a company for more than 6 months, you have a minimum 4-week notice, which here in the US is, there's no minimum, zero, right?

Exactly. But it also, you know, it increases by the time you stay with the company. So it can really, you know, if you stay there for longer of time, increases anyways. But also, the law gives the companies the, well, the freedom to, you know, to create longer notice periods. For example, you know, it's just not— especially in the tech industry, where I focus quite a lot on, like a lot of companies, especially, you know, with senior developers, senior consultants, senior, I don't know, architects, etc., etc., they that they're kind of in an area where they have like notice periods around 3 to 4 to 6 months, maybe they accept for, yeah, it's month.

I mean, so you might hire somebody, make an offer and they accept and 6 months later they start. Yeah. Yeah. And is that common across Europe or is that specifically?

I believe, I mean, obvi— you know, I can't speak for, you know, really smaller parts, but Europe, but, but you know, talking about mainly it's a pretty German thing, I would say.

Say.

Other countries are more like, okay, you know, 4 weeks or 2 weeks and, you know, be done with that or just leave anyways. But on the other hand, you know, which makes it somehow kind of ridiculous, um, that's still like a common practice in all, okay, you know, we have, you have this notice period, but when you quit, there's often like, you know, arrangement, okay, you can leave like after 2 months, 2 weeks maybe, or stuff like that. You know, just somehow, you know, there is, you know, it's like a lot of common other contracts, but usually they're are maybe some rules or some possibilities to get like, um, let's say certain individual rulings or arrangement with your former employee exemptions and stuff like that.

Yeah, it's a lot more complicated. Yeah.

And you know, this brings— this makes it kind of, you know, um, well, kind of a difficulty in regards of, you know, planning on, you know, when you want to start to hire and when you want to have the position filled.

Oh right, you need to start hiring 6 months earlier or even more because, you know, okay.

Yeah.

And so, guys, for those of you that plan on doing any recruiting outside of the US, potentially in Europe, and particularly in Germany, you might want to start getting that headcount plan, um, or even, you know, posting the rec and start working on the rec much further ahead because it's going to take longer. You can't just hire somebody in 2 weeks. Now, um, oh yeah, and sorry, go ahead.

And which, you know, in combination, you know, with this German specialty, there's also, let's say, the kind of the habitus of the German candidates that they are far more, especially in comparison to the US, they are far more, let's say, looking for more information in order to, you know, to decide if I want to apply there or not. It's kind of, sometimes they're really, really super picky that they have like the feeling, oh, you know, I have to at least match like 90, 95% of the job description before I apply for it.

Before they talk to you? Before they talk. Okay, so this is like they're looking at the job description before they even consider applying and they're pickier or not pickier, but they're more rigid about having all the requirements for the job. So it's even more important that you don't put a bunch of nice-to-haves because that would eliminate people that you probably wouldn't want to eliminate since they're not hard requirements. That's interesting.

Yeah, it's also, it's something I get like the feeling that for, you know, for like typical, let's say, US candidates are like, okay, at least if I can just checkbox 10%, I will apply anyways. I don't know what they're saying.

Yeah, you're definitely more liberal.

It's more like 90, 95, and I'm still, give it like 10 more minutes to just think, and otherwise rather not before I do it.

Wow.

And this also, we actually got experience a lot of, especially over the last year, 2 years, maybe, let's say, that's like a lot of, let's say, nurturing needed before, you know, even the candidate is even open to have like a first, we have like a first chat anyway.

Relationship building and—

Oh yeah, maybe it's not the right time, but hey, let's stay in contact and blah, blah, blah. But it's not blah, blah, blah. We just had like enough, enough situation where a candidate came back after like, after like the first reach out, like 12 to 6 or between like 6 and 12 months, they got to, hey, you know, Florian, now it's time to have like a job open.

Wow.

It was like far more, you know, far more long-term hiring, a lot of, you know, relationship-based, a lot of, you know, a lot of, obviously, you know, the stuff you would probably usually do after you got the first contact happens here before the, you know, before you even got to see me.

So it just takes longer and there's more steps. So, um, you know, we've had some conversations over the years about a couple of things. One of them is the, the role of recruiters and sourcers, and the other one is, and the other one is privacy, particularly GDPR and things like that. But let's start with the role of the recruiter and sourcer. You know what, you learned that here first, then went back there and created your own business and everything. But you've, you've seen the evolution of what recruiting was 15 years ago and what recruiting is today. How is the role of the recruiter different in Germany and the EU than what we know here in the United States?

Well, I think the, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, if you remember, if, if, you know, if you remember our conversation was like, it's being kind of confused that in the US it's like, like a really hard cut between the recruiter and the sourcer specialization. Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of, you know, it's kind of in the, well, overall I think the, like the opinion, if you're talking in Germany, especially about the recruiter, you say somebody who does recruiting but also is involved in active sourcing. You know, talent, for us it's like more talent attraction, I would say. It's more like a more generalistic point of view. And yeah, it's, um, I think it's like, it would be—

Now, do you, do you think, so here in the US, that the role of a recruiting sourcer definitely exists? Not every company has a specialized sourcer that's dedicated or a sourcing team that's dedicated. It takes a certain type of company. Uh, they have to have either lots of really challenging one-of-a-kind requirements, or they have to be large enough. So it does exist here, um, in, in, in that there are recruiters that just do recruiting and no sourcing, and there are recruiters that do sourcing, and, you know, they're people that essentially do both jobs. Do you think that in Germany and in the EU, the role of the sourcer being part of recruiters, or recruiter sourcer, is, is that way because of the size of the market, in other words, the population. So there's really not necessarily such a large population that you would need to specialize. Is that the reason for it, or is there another reason?

I believe it's, you know, as I said a couple of minutes before, it's only once, you know, that the sourcing process in Germany is far more, you know, it's far more longer till the, you know, 'til the candidate turns into like an applicant.

So a sourcer would only be doing, I got it. So because it's so long a process that you really have to have someone that can do the whole thing. Otherwise you would have people that sort of drop halfway of 6 months. Okay, that makes sense.

That makes sense. Yeah, this would be one part. I think the other part might be that, as I said before, that the candidate isn't moving so quickly as in, okay, So you sent me, you know, the reach out, for example, via LinkedIn on, you know, Tuesday night, and, you know, I want to, you know, I applied like 12 hours ago. I said, you know, and like, you know, let's start with the first thing. In Germany, it's more like, okay, let's look into the job description, have like 10 messages between back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, you know, talking about the worst case. And, you know, this brings us to just, I would say, like a far end. And then for them, they came to the point when they are really, you know, want to understand, is this the right company, et cetera, et cetera. So the speed—

So recruiting is a lot more than, yeah, sourcing is only a small, a smaller portion because of the long tail. Okay, that makes sense.

And, and yeah, and it's slower, to be honest. I mean, you know, I see it with, with, with my clients in the US and, or working for departments who are in the US and therefore talk, you know, um, connecting with candidates from the USA. So have like an other expectation to speed in the, you know, German company operating in the United States is what you're saying, or a German company abroad has a different review.

Okay.

But also if, you know, we're talking with German, I think it gets like even more obvious for me, you know, if I, you know, work with clients in the US and they only know the US market, it's like, okay, why is it so slow here? Come on. Right.

Yeah. I think, you know, that's like, which, yeah. And that's the other thing that brings me to the GDPR question. But the reason I was asking about the size of the population, is because according to LinkedIn, which of course is the source of truth for everything, according to LinkedIn, there's 14 million people on LinkedIn in Germany. So 14 million people who reside in Germany on LinkedIn compared to 300 million in the United States.

Yeah. I think there's another really interesting aspect. I think there are plenty, plenty of workforce in the US who didn't even land Athlean-X because I don't want to interact with others. And that brings us to JDPR.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Perfect segue. Yeah. Segue. Yeah. So one of the biggest challenges that I've faced in my career, and I'll back up a little bit to explain. When I first started sourcing for these larger projects for companies, I tracked my activity from a self-edification perspective. In other words, I wanted to know what worked, what didn't work, very scientific, very analytic. So I tracked all of my searches, and I had this table that I used to figure out which ones worked better, et cetera. And as a result, I just happened to— I don't claim to be any kind of privacy or tracking expert, but I accidentally stumbled upon being compliant in the US with applicant flow logs and privacy regulations because I was tracking these things for myself to learn. As things evolved and we had, you know, privacy evolving and everything, it turned out that a majority of what I was doing happened to also be GDPR compliant, except for when I got to this point where it just started to become very challenging. which is the whole concept of contacting people. So for example, emailing someone at work on their work address or calling someone at work are not really considered— I don't want to say appropriate, but they're not common practice and they're probably even frowned upon. And I believe for a time It was illegal in Germany to call a person at work to recruit them. And I think that's a long time ago. But so these are things that, you know, I'm used to finding people and reaching out to them. And all of a sudden, I'm tracking everything and I'm compliant and they can ask to be removed and all that, no problem. But now all of a sudden, I'm getting messages from people saying, you cannot do this. You can't email me at work. And so that's when I became concerned because Now it's a matter of, well, if I found somebody and I wanna reach out to them, I'm not allowed to. So how do you, tell me more about that. Is it, can we dig into that?

Yeah. Germany and GDPR. Yes.

Great.

And never-ending topic.

Yeah.

I think, I mean, you know, we are, I think one of the biggest different in regards of sourcing between, you know, between overseas and Germany is, you know, the, you know, that you have a lot of, let's say, candidates, et cetera, who are really eager in order to get like, okay, you, how do you get my contact details? Please just contact me in a certain way, et cetera, et cetera. And especially with, I wouldn't say it is completely illegal to contact them on your, you know, on their work email, et cetera, et cetera. But it's kind of really difficult because it seems, or it has like this bad smell to it, it's like kind of shady, it's like, how do you know? It's like a ninja kind of move. And especially there are certain, let's say, certain rules in regards, you know, it's okay for engaging, but then the rule, you know, the legislation has, okay, you have to really move out of the company communication into a, let's say, private channel, this kind of stuff. And, um, you know, as you know, sending the job description to company email addresses, is that allowed? It is allowed somehow, but you know, then forget about that particular candidate. See, for the chance that you will get an answer anyways is so slow, and then it would be like a positive answer No, don't do that. It's still, it's like more like, okay, hey, somebody's trying to rob me, but you know, is still leaving like a job description for me anyways. You won't do it. It's just like a really shady thing. At least it seems shady for the German candidate. And therefore this whole, you know, and this brings us, I mean, you are, you're a third, third, I mean, you know, if you're looking into LinkedIn and you see like a lot of, let's say, I would say, for example, like candidates who leave their email address out in the open to look at their profile with certain tools. If you probably look at like 20 candidates in the US, so it was the same role, you will get like 19 email addresses. In Germany, maybe one. It's just like more—

So there's fewer available, but even the ones that are there, you can't contact basically.

I mean, you could do that, but I wouldn't do that in regards of, you know, if you really want to have like a positive feedback from the candidate. It's just like, oh, how do you, you know, I didn't invite you to, you know, to reach out to me via email, but please use, you know, use like a more neutral contact channel as for example LinkedIn before I give you like the opt-in, hey Shelly, please send me an email via this thing. Yeah.

Okay. So basically what I'm hearing you is let's not be too afraid. It's just, it's a different culture, but there's a way to do it. It can be done. It's not like you're not going to get sent to some kind of jail or anything like that.

No, but you know, as you know, this GDPR thing brings us to the point where, you know, the numbers that, you know, you just talked about with the people on LinkedIn, a lot of people aren't there because, nah, I don't want to be there. You know, I don't want to share my data there. Et cetera, et cetera. And therefore a lot of people say, nah, I'm not so active on either on those channels or say they really put the gates up in order you can't contact them anyways.

It's more like, how many working age people in the workforce are in Germany?

Let's move on with another question.

I have no idea, but it's still, it's more like, I, I would say it's more like, I think it's somewhere between, uh, maybe 50, 50 or 60 million and LinkedIn only has 14 million. So yeah, that's your point.

Yeah. And, and it's more like, I think German recruitment is like a really multi-channel focused recruitment, you know, really.

Let's say LinkedIn, what else?

Yeah, we, we do actually like a lot of, um, let's say social media recruiting, I would say with like targeted ads, et cetera, to really get, so to get those people who aren't really looking more like, okay, if something interesting, I will click on it.

And, um, yeah, advertising, but a different kind of advertising.

It's like, you know, it's more like, like targeted ad kind of, kind of thing. A lot of, we do actually like a lot of with, you know, with good, um, let's say SEO and SEO with, with, with Google ads, et cetera. More like the kind of generic way, but also, you know, that people are just looking for the right stuff, you know, to just kind of reach a person when they are looking for something, you know, more like often in a lot of this, like, you know, topic or content creating. And, you know, the stuff is, it takes time.

So here we're very dependent on LinkedIn and, and, you know, job boards in general before LinkedIn and even during LinkedIn, there's still many other job boards. Yeah, what you're saying in the EU and in particularly in German, uh, job seeker in Germany, job seekers are, um, more responding to advertising and there's more of a diversified kind of advertising.

For example, what doesn't work anymore, especially tech industries, like stuff with Stepstone and Monster, forget about that. You know, it's good for employer branding, but not to reach out, but not to reach— it's more like, you know, social ads you see on, you know, Instagram with Reels, etc. More, more of this kind of stuff. And so like a lot of, you know, a lot of like small, small tools, small kind of, uh, you know, action you have to take. And, um, also against like a really—

yeah.

And this, you know, as, as bring that kind of— this is why we have less people who are just only focused on sourcing, because I think like the job description for recruiter is kind of different over here due to the, you know, different kind of tools, different kind of stuff you have to do. Like a lot of work with marketing in regards of, you know, what kind— what would be like the best way to, you know, let's create a new content, create some, you know, go to workshop, a lot of like working with the, let's say, outside of the recruitment department, a lot of like, you know, engaging with the head of department or, you know, for developer search, you know, work with the developers.

It's a lot more collaborative and strategic.

Yes. And to be honest, a lot of which works really great with the right companies, a lot of, you know, with with suggestions from, you know, from people you know, hey, talk to him. A lot of referrals. That was the word I'm looking for.

A lot of referrals. Another component of privacy that is beyond the sourcing or after the sourcing is also the kinds of things that you can talk to candidates about. Here in the United States, for diversity reasons and lots of different regulatory bodies about medical and financial privacy, there are some things that we can't ask. But in Europe, there are different things that you can't ask. Like what's something that you are allowed to ask in Germany that would be surprising to us here? And what's something that you are not allowed to ask in Germany that would be surprising to us here?

Well, I don't know. I'm not so sure what changes in the US or not, but one stuff, for example, you know, would never ask, you know, if you're pregnant or not, or if you have to plan to, you know, especially, you know, with the, uh, that's definitely the same here.

Yeah, pregnancy status. Anyways, but what about salary? Can you ask about their salary?

Well, absolutely.

Yeah, see, here in the United States, uh, there are many states that have passed laws that say that you cannot ask someone their current salary.

Oh, really?

Yeah, and that's more and more states are picking that up. What about race and ethnicity? Can you ask that?

I mean, I wouldn't do that because I don't freaking care. But yeah, but is it a law? No, there isn't a law, but for once I think—

Or age maybe?

I mean, the problem why it's kind of difficult to ask those questions is I'm allowed, but you know, for example, if I have like a bad candidate and we reject him and I ask him, oh, okay, you are, I don't know, what are your race and what's your age? You can somehow be sure if he's like kind of, you know, lawyering up, I get like, you know, I get like, ah, you know, you just discriminate because he was like race and age. I was like, yeah, but, and that's why I don't ask anymore.

So that brings me, that's an interesting point.

But also I would say, you know, I don't I mean, I want to have the right person to it. So I wouldn't, even if I wouldn't be allowed, it doesn't, from my recruitment perspective, I don't care.

[Speaker] So this is a topic of conversation on the show now at least 4 or 5 times where we've had conversations around regulations and what needs to be done by law and what should be done. And that's, to me, always been kind of a sticking point. I think that when we create these kinds of policies internally, we should look to have a policy that is international and all-encompassing. So, things like, okay, if you shouldn't ask about age, it doesn't matter whether it's legal or not. That's the policy. We don't ask, right? So, creating standards that are, I think, more, you know, stick to what's the requirements of the job and talk about the talent's skills and their abilities and potential, rather than having all these laws that say you have to or don't have to ask this or not that, because laws are going to be different in every country. And in some countries they may not have a law, it still doesn't make it okay to do so, right? So yeah, exactly. That's why I was— yeah, yeah. What about something that— what, what about something that you do ask in Germany? Uh, like for example, uh, education, like a university. Is that something that— here we ask a lot about, do you have a degree? And Yeah. Um, you know, so that's, that's okay too.

That's completely okay. I mean, you know, it's not like to, yeah, it's, I mean, you know, I'm, um, I think what's, what's the main difference is with, you know, if, if we, if I look in the, in Germany outside of investment banking, it's not really like a big important thing on, you know, what university. I mean, I know it's completely different, you know, in, in the US and I know it's different in the UK, but in Germany we don't have so many industries who are working with with target universities, et cetera, et cetera. Especially in the IT and development departments, more like, we don't care, doesn't really matter. We see it more or less, I would say, like, you know, for example, development on a high level, it's more like a craftsmanship. So it doesn't really matter on how you got it, on how you learned it. So it's that, I can't even say, especially with my tech roles, when I, the best hiring, the talent people, I didn't even look at their university degrees or get—

I have— it's, yeah, you know, it's—

I, I know, you know, from working with you, for example, you know, with, uh, with clients in the UK or in the US, sometimes in France as well, or like a lot of, okay, what kind of degree is there? What, what kind of, you know, educational background is there? It's far more emphasis on that. And in Germany was like, maybe due to also, you know, our kind of, let's say challenge that we have for quite some time, we had a lot of like a big gap between available workforce and open jobs, especially in tech within the higher education sector. So you couldn't even bother because, and on the other hand, you know, what I kind of like is that they changed from, you know, he has to know everything. It's more like hire the right attitude and train the people. So it doesn't really, it wouldn't really matter, you know, on the too much focus on the educational background. More like getting the right people into the company.

Let's talk a little bit. Let's switch over to strategy worldwide, right? So one of the things that you do and have been working with is advising companies on overall strategy, global strategy. To open the horizons for people that might not be familiar with hiring outside of the United States, and now I'm just saying everywhere, not just specifically Germany or EU, What would you say is a key or a very important strategy that they would need to pay attention to that they're probably overlooking when they're looking to start recruiting outside of the US? So they've been recruiting in the US and now they got a job where they have to recruit globally. What strategy do you think is frequently overlooked that needs to be looked at?

I think there's like one, I think kind of, it sounds easy, but I think it often got kind of forgotten that if you do remote hiring, don't forget about the regional part. So it's all about, you know, it's a complete, it's completely okay to say, okay, no, we posted on LinkedIn, et cetera. And you know, all the overall global sources, but don't forget about the regional aspect. No, for example, you know, different kinds of countries have different kinds of, um, you know, expectations on what to add in a job ad. What's, you know, what's like, you know, every kind of country has like, you know, their, the candidates are looking for different kinds of information. And I think that's like often forget is, oh, they just do remote hiring and, you know, and we go everywhere. But yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, some, some, some tech candidate from India is looking for complete, has like an other, let's say, um, thing what he's looking for then, for example, like the candidate from, I don't know, from Poland or from Denmark, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, and the, but also, you know, wants to see other thing, maybe, you know, more countries who are more for Finland, for example, more looking for like, you know, something stable and something, you know, what's the, let's say, what's the EVP behind it. And on the other hand, you know, we have candidates that, okay, what would be like my next career step where I can really, you know, move up to the next level, this kind of stuff.

Interesting.

And therefore, you know, hiring global, but never forget about the local aspects, not also, you know, on the candidate side, but also, you know, to check for laws. For example, in Austria, for— for what, uh, you know, like for, uh, for local law requirements.

Yeah, okay, check for local laws. That's right, regulatory.

Austria, for example, has like a law which makes it mandatory that you put the salary range into the job ad.

So Germany— so we think about the European Union and GDPR and all these things as a region, but you're telling me that Within EU, Austria and Germany have different employment laws that are not in— like in Germany you don't have to post the salary. Okay, interesting.

No, it's completely— and this makes it, I think so. Yeah. And that's like one of the biggest strategy parts in Workia. But please, if you are saying, okay, we are big Canadian company or US company or whatsoever moving into a new country, or into a new area, still work with the local offices and get their input. And, you know, obviously now they have to work with the people in the end of the day, and you want, you know, you want to fit the market.

Tell me, what is, in your opinion, what is the most interesting aspect about recruiting and sourcing? So together, all of it, the whole thing. What is— what, what, when you were an intern and you thought, I want to do this, for a profession, what captured your attention and interest about it? Hopefully that is still capturing it.

Well, I think it kind of, well, in the beginning it was like something else. I was, oh, you know, great career and you know, finally I can do something really interesting stuff. But I think what I really like is, you know, the finding the right person in the right, at the right time, in the right spot and bring it together with, you know, like the matching thing. Looking under a lot of different sources, different kind of thing, and you're just, okay, Shelly, here, that's the person you're looking for.

Here it is.

Also in combination also with having the strategic part behind it, how are the KPIs? What I like and then You know, on the other hand, it's recruitment or sourcing is just so easy and kind of great to, you know, to use data in order to measure it and see your success. Yeah. And you know, this would like two parts I think probably could go on over the next 30 minutes on why I like recruitment. That's just like, yeah, but I'm looking for that one, you know, after me. Shelly, to be honest, after meeting you and, you know, getting into it, it just turned into a passion. So it's like, yeah, yeah.

And that's the passion is the matchmaking. Got it.

Yeah, a lot of it. I mean, you know, you know, I could go on for a couple of hours probably on why I love recruitment.

But what about the, the other question I want to ask you is, what is, what has been the most unexpected benefit of being in this industry?

The unexpected benefit?

Well, not obviously compensation, but what has been the most you're like, wow, I didn't, I never realized I was gonna be able to get this from this profession, this job?

Actually knowledge about industries, companies, economy, those kind of stuff. Like a lot of, you know, I learned, so, you know, with all those interviews or research, I stumbled over industries or companies our technology, I never would even thought that this exists, especially working with the, you know, working with in the tech recruitment area. Obviously, no, I can't, you know, set up any AVS architecture, but still, you know, learn, let's say, kind of the basics, the wordings, etc. A lot of SaaS companies growing, SaaS industries falling apart, and yeah, this kind of stuff, like, you know, like so second, you know, so those informations, like a lot of information, a lot of input. And as well, I never thought of it would be like so big, um, in regards of your knowledge about cultural differences, different, you know, this kind of knowledge, right?

That is, I would agree 100%. For me, it's been, uh, thank you for asking, by the way. No, I'm just kidding. For me, it's been really surprising over, and I've been doing this for more than 25 years, I still go to business meetings where I am learning about business. I'm learning about not just the business of HR, business of tech, but I mean like business, like how businesses work, how companies make money, and about how companies operate, right? What are the different roles? Like, for example, you might not remember this, but when we were at Coca-Cola, I worked with this department that was essentially part of risk. Now, I understood from going to business school, I understood what risk was supposed to be. But what I did not know is that there are, there's a role, there are departments at companies that are protecting the organization from a different kind of risk that is the risk of getting cheated, the risk of people committing fraud. And it's almost like being a detective. It's not policing, but it's not security. It's not locking the money in the safe. It's this other— it's the risk of people committing fraud and stuff like that. And I was like, "Wow, this is a job." This was a long time ago. And so I've found throughout the years these departments, these groups, these people that do jobs that are just fascinating and very captivating. So I think for me, that's been the biggest benefit, unexpected and unadvertised benefit of being in this industry is access to the C-suite, access to conversations with CEOs and CFOs and how they think and how they make decisions that, man, if I could take what I know now and go back 25 years, I would start my own business and do things completely different. Maybe I still have time, but it's a really good education in running a company, running a business that you wouldn't believe. I recommend it. I would say if there was one job that business school graduates should look to do as an internship in order to get business experience, it would be recruiting. Because it gives them the most access to all of the jobs. You can start in recruiting and then look at all the different things that you might be interested in, you know, with a business degree. So I would highly recommend it as an internship for lots of people that are interested in following corporate careers, management careers.

Yeah, but I think, you know, to be honest, you know, when I started with recruiting, like, I couldn't oversee that the role as such changed so far. You know, when I look, you know, at the what was like the requirements to be a recruiter from, you know, currently like 13 years ago till now, you know, it completely turned into really like tech-driven role. I couldn't expect that to do that. I mean, it's more like, you know, using AI, using maybe some, you know, robotic process automation, etc. So I think, and this was from my personal perspective, but also because, you know, just like the tech industry, it's like somehow of a unexpected benefit, you know, that I would perform, that I would move far more into, you know, technology role, which, you know, I mean, you know, HR or especially recruitment like 15 years ago wasn't really tech-driven, to be honest.

That's true. So you've learned a lot about tech just doing the job.

Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, I mean, obviously it's like a completely common topic right now with, you know, with AI or ChatGPT, But it brings me to a point where, okay, you know, I have to, you know, think more on a technical way in regards of, you know, algorithms, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, it just got far more technical besides, you know, just, you know, clicking the right checkboxes on LinkedIn.

Okay. So, what else do you think is missing in global recruiting strategy that, you know, I asked you if someone was going to start getting into global, what strategy would you advise that is most often overlooked? Let's take that another step further and look at just generally in people who are already doing international recruiting and not just the rookies. But when you, when you go out there and you advise clients and you work with companies, what's the most common thing that you find is just missing? Like they just don't do it. That they should be doing?

The connecting between the countries. It's like, you know—

Tell me more about that.

Well, I just experienced like a couple of times either with clients or, you know, talking with, you know, just, you know, other people from the industry, regional, or like, you know, regional head, you know, just overall. I can't pin, obviously I don't want to pin it down to one company, but you know— Yeah, yeah, no, it's more like, uh, Yeah, you heard like a lot of stuff. Oh, the HR, you know, our headquarters doing something, nobody asked us. And, you know, and they spend like plenty of money for, you know, for, you know, for certain recruitment agencies either who aren't, you know, who are out of UK, but we are looking for something in Germany, you know, they are far more specialized because say, so it's like a lot of, but also we had, 'Why is headquarters looking for us? We have like the right candidate, but nobody asked us.' And I think therefore like a lot of, you know, efficiency missing in regards of, you know, that the headquarter who is looking for, who is, you know, expanding internationally in the country isn't really connecting also the other way around as well with the people in the region. And this brings like a lot of, for once, it's, you know, it's like completely efficiency killer. But also it brings like a really, let's say, not a good environment in order to give like the right candidate in time, but also, you know, to accept what happens more like, okay, it's more like, oh no, they're just throwing something at us. We have to use it, but nobody asked us.

Yeah, here you go.

They're looking for somebody, they don't even know.

You wanna know something funny? So The biggest complaint, I'm laughing, it's sad but true, but funny. The biggest complaint that I have seen when I'm as a consultant, I advise companies for many, many years and worked strategically within TA to help build international and scale recruiting. And the biggest consultant question that I got as a consultant or concern that got as a consultant with companies that were not based in the US, Number 1 was exactly that. They just told us to do it, but they never asked. And to the point that like they may even be asking for something that could be potentially illegal or against policy or something that just simply does not work because it works there. And this is any international company trying to do business in the US. Very frequently when I talk to the TA leaders that are the the one, the person that got hired to go into the, you know, to bring the business into the US. They're like, they, they just have this way of doing things that just doesn't fit. And they didn't even ask us, they just told us. So what you just said is so true. It's the same way either way you go, whether it's, you know, going from one, from, from here to there and from there to here, it's the same thing. Gotta ask questions and listen to the people that are locally before you start making these big decisions or trying to enforce policies that don't necessarily align with, you know, and I'm not just talking about the law, I'm talking about culture, I'm talking about even the candidate pool, the market, um, you know, things like the, the, the process, the interviewing process. I've been done completely uncomfortable for, for, you know, talent in the US and vice versa.

Yeah. Um, and also, you know, in regards of, you know, yeah, no, minor stuff, it could be also sought out quite easily in regards of Hey, you know, just because in a certain, I don't know, a certain salary range is working in, I don't know, in Italy doesn't mean that it would work in Germany. You can't say, oh yeah, no, it's a salary range for Europe. Won't work. Won't work.

We were talking about that the other day. Compensation. We were talking about compensation and the question came up, if you, in order to be fair globally, shouldn't you pay the same amount in every country? So in other words, let's say that the job in the United States is software engineer level 1 and it pays $100,000. Our guest said you should still pay $100,000 in Algeria and you should still pay $100,000 in India and you should still pay $100,000 in Germany. and I was like, "Wait, hold on a minute. I'm not really sure I agree with that." So $100,000 translated into local currency in some countries could be like a very large amount of money, and in other countries, not very much at all. So I don't think that that's— there's got to be a different way. I don't know if you took economy, but economics in school, When I was studying in Australia, I went there on an international economics program, and that's where I spent most of my academic time learning about international trade and GDP, gross domestic profit, and all that stuff. One of the things that I learned there was an instrument called purchasing power parity, or PPP. Which you're familiar with that?

Yeah.

Yeah. So it potentially could be a way to equate the earning potential or the earning power of compensation, but then you would still have to translate it to local currency because you can't just adjust it for dollars and pay people in dollars. There's tax considerations. There's, you know, all that other stuff. So how would you solve that? Is purchasing power parity perhaps a possible way to look at that? I would, um, especially this came up because of pay transparency, right? That the person was like, well, we have to post our jobs, it's the right thing to do. And I was like, yeah, but if you— I mean, our salary is what I meant. We have to post our salary in our jobs, it's the right thing to do. And I said, yeah, I get it, but if you post your salary and you're a California-based company and somebody applies from a very low cost of living state, that, that amount of money is not the same, you know, economically. Yeah, sorry to cut you off, but what were you gonna say?

No, it's okay. I mean It's kind of hard to say. It kind of depends on the perspective. I believe that would be like, you know, to see it like more on a level where you say, okay, you know, I have like countries, I have like the job openings, I want to fill it because if we fill the job roles, you know, we are productive there. And this would bring me to a point where I say, okay, you know, let's hire globally. But, or let's have like the global strategic, but still, or remotely, whatever, however you want to call it, but do it on a local level. And therefore, you know, adjust the, if in my perspective, obviously it's not globally fair, but on a regional level, you know, adjust the salary ranges in a fair way to the local market because you want to hire people on a local way. So obviously it's completely right to think, you know, if it's transparent and fair, If I compare somebody from, I don't know, from a low-cost country with the colleagues from a more expensive country. But on the other way, I want to hire people in the market, and for me, out of a sourcing recruitment perspective, my job is to create an environment where I can fill the jobs. That's my job. Obviously, I understand that overall, like a CHRO, etc., has like a different perspective on it. But for my recruitment sourcing part, it's like, hey, you know, I have to work with the local parts, but also, you know, and this brings us to another point, which is important as well. Adapt your benefits to the local market. Who cares if you have like a Friday half a day off or kind of situation? It would be great for, I don't know, for some country, but in Germany, who cares? You know, we will leave anyways.

Okay, or, you know, the benefit is not a benefit is what you're saying.

It's not really a benefit.

Yeah, that country is not a benefit.

Okay, yeah, but it would be— no, it would be, you know, like amount of, uh, you know, vacation days or sick days. We don't have that here anyway, so don't put it, you know, it's this kind of stuff. Okay, yeah, whereas, you know, you know, adjust it to local market because you want to feel the, uh, you know, you— because you want to feel the job open. My perspective, but it's like more— I think it's like a really— I know it's like really, let's say result-driven perspective in regards of, you know, fill the job because it's part of the role. And I understand from a strategic global point there are different perspectives in regards of, you know, is this fair for every country, etc., etc. Yeah, it's more like, let's say, my recruitment sourcing perspective, right?

Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, I kind of like the whole basket of goods approach of PPP because in some countries actually already adjust their GDP their most optimistic product using PPP calculations. But it's a pretty straightforward way of like getting a gut estimate of what the— especially if you're not a compensation expert and you don't have— yeah, you just want to try to like figure out what is— what does a dollar get you there, right? So maybe, maybe— yeah, is the—

sorry, yeah, maybe you can just use like the Big Mac Index.

Big Mac?

Did you ever heard about the Big Mac?

What is the cost of a Big Mac?

Yeah, I mean, you can pretty much, you know, if you aren't really like into salary, you could just, okay, you know, let's just make like, like, like a quota from that and, you know, just, you know, um, just, um, adapt the salary according to the, you know, different kind of Big Mac index levels. But yeah, but I see.

So basically here's the, here's the basic, uh, calculator for purchasing power parity. You have the exchange rate, so the dollar to the pound, for example, yeah, um, equal to the, the division of the cost of the good in one currency over the cost of the good in the other currency. So you could use a Big Mac, or you could use, um, a pound of butter, or you, you know, something that is very common that is used in different countries. So if it costs, um, $1 to get a pound of butter in country 1 How much does it cost in country 2 and multiply that by the, by the exchange rate. And so that gives you a decimal number that will allow you to convert the earnings. So if $100,000 here means, you know, whatever, that's $120,000 or, or $50,000 in the local currency.

Yeah.

So you can get an idea. But if you use purchasing power parity and go back to the conversation we were having about just using the same amount. $100,000 for a software engineer in California is barely entry level, right? Because the cost of living— and $100,000 in, um, Nassau, Bahamas is going to be, you know, or, or Negril, Jamaica, or something, is going to be quite a lot. Many, many more hamburgers, many more Big Macs.

Yeah. Or just compare California to, to the German market. Giving like an entry-level developer $100K, it's like, okay guys, nice. What's the catch? Way too, way, way, way too high. Yeah. And what's the other way around? If we adjust all these pay grades to that formula and then you are looking for in a certain region for like a really neat niche job, What will you do? Do you adjust like just the salary range for like one road, for the whole country? I mean, you know, and then you have to be fair on the local level.

Capital city versus regional. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. But also with, you know, developers versus, I don't know, some road marketing, for example, at least from over here. What will you do? What would you do?

Okay, last question, 'cause I know we're running outta time. Last question about this and then we can close out. What is the single most difficult role you have ever worked on and why was it difficult?

Oh yeah, that really, really down the road, it was like an SAP freelance consultant with like a really niche module. I think it was like ISU or some, you know, energy in the industry stuff. In like, he has to, he has to work remote, no, non-remote, in somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Poland. And he has to be there local.

Okay.

Yeah. And really like, you know, and I mean, you know, there were some entities chasing there and they needed somebody to do that. And, um, yeah. And he has to travel, he has to do certain travel to Russia and definitely has to be, he has to be fluent with, um, both languages, Russian and Poland. And we were recruiting them for as an agent, working with an agency from—

fluency, live locally, relocate. Okay, and SAP.

Okay, SAP NCISU, um, like a really niche industry module for SAP, um, and which what makes it, um, kind of difficult, the Polish culture tends to be like really, let's say, security-driven. Like, really, I want to understand why is that, and they're kind of skeptical. And then there's like this agency from Germany calling, hey, we need you right now, you have to start in 14 days, and, you know, you're, um, you're, um, please go now. It's like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, it was like a lot of learning for me in the beginning in regards of, you know, working with different kind of culture. It was like a mess.

Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, but, you know, it That's like fun of the group part. It still, you know, it brings you so many stories, different kind of input. And it's, yeah, you have like a lot of stuff to do like bar talks for like over hours and hours and hours, stuff like that. It's so small, funny stories, I guess.

All right, thanks, man. All right, so I always close with one question, but I've been adding a second question in closing. So as we close, thank you so much for taking the time to come out here in what's probably an afternoon, evening for you on a Friday.

More evening.

More evening for you on a Friday. So first one, who should be my next guest?

Oh, that's a good one. Well, I think somebody from, I don't have a name, but maybe some, let's say, tech recruitment startup thing who are really like a great idea on what to do with ChatGPT. Really would be really interesting to see.

Okay, but I need a name.

I have no idea. No?

Okay. So somebody that knows ChatGPT and is in technology. Okay. All right. Cool. I'll look for that. And then the final question, which is a traditional question here at Shelly's Alley. What do you want to leave our audience with to think deeply about over the weekend? So something, it's a question, a comment, a statement. That you want them to really kind of process deeply and think about. That's your last assignment for today.

Yeah, kind of easy to say, or, you know, that's, you know, I think I kind of mentioned a couple of times, with all the new technology we have and like a lot of remote possibilities we don't have, you know, we can do like a lot of work borderless, but still please stay connected, work on a regional level and still work borderless. I think this would be like for the, for the sourcing, for, you know, more like, you know, yeah, work borderless and still, but still be connected.

Borderless, but think about this locally, but borderless. Okay.

Yes. And I think this would like bring so much more power to the, to our industry.

Awesome, man. Thanks a lot. So as they say in German, tschüss. Is that—

yeah, tschüss. Shelly, you learned so much, man. The next podcast we will do it in German, okay? Like half a year.

I give you like half a year.

Perfect. And it's time for beer. Oh, Shelly, perfect. Okay, now it's— I heard everything what I need today.

All right, man, my friend, good to see you. Have a good weekend. And everybody, thank you for joining. See you next Friday. Be kind. Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.