Vanessa Raath Live on Shally's Alley

It is July 8th at 1 PM US Eastern Time, and you are on Shally's Alley. Today I have a very special guest coming to me from literally the other side of the world. Well, maybe not the entire other side of the world, but pretty, pretty close to as far as you can get from, from where we are. Uh, Van Rath is currently in, uh, Joburg. Are you in Joburg?

Yeah, Johannesburg, South Africa.

And that's— and you're, you're from, you know, born and raised there?

Born and raised in Durban, South Africa, but yeah, in South Africa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lived overseas for 12 years, so I got quite a bit of international exposure, which I'm very grateful for. Never regret that time out of the country, but good to be home.

Yeah. And, uh, it's, it's like, it's 7 PM for you on a Friday night. Thank you so much.

It is indeed.

Sharing your, your time with us here. Um, I know you got a lot of things you could be doing at 7 PM on a Friday night.

But it is winter, so you caught me at a good time.

That's right. For folks that don't realize that it's the opposite season there. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's cold and it's dark and it's chilly outside. So yeah, I restricted myself to half a glass of wine with dinner and yeah, let's go with it now.

That's right. So you guys do Christmas in July?

You know what we actually do? The 24th of July is quite a big thing to do Christmas in July in here in South Africa because it's nice, because then it feels like Christmas. It's nice and chilly, you know.

Feels wintry.

Yeah, it feels wintry. You can actually have a cooked meal because on the actual Christmas Day, we're boiling hot. We spend most of the day in the swimming pool and we normally have a barbecue of sorts, right? Right.

Cooling off. That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So Vanessa and I met, I think, face to face for the first time at, uh, it was at the conference in Amsterdam.

I think it was probably SourceCon in Seattle. Because I haven't— okay, yeah, I think that was probably— that was the— yeah, I think that was probably the last time that I was stateside. I'm hoping to be back in October actually, as a little bit of a, you know, statement that I'm going to be there. Um, I am pretty much, yeah, trying to get out and get to conferences as much as possible. I was in London last week.

Nice to kind of get back to that, huh?

Yeah, and meet people in real life. It just makes such a difference.

Yeah, it does. So folks who might not know Vanessa, Van, she's been in the industry for roughly about 15 years.

Yep.

So mostly the majority of that, about 10 years of that in technology. She's been to multiple conferences and does a lot of speaking, has a training business, and does keynote presentations. So if you're interested in hiring a trainer or a keynote speaker for one of your events, you can look me up. That's That's right. You can connect with her. I'm gonna put your, your scroller here.

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Vanessa Rath with two A's.

Yeah, that's the German coming out, believe it or not.

Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit about global sourcing, or at least having a global point of view, a global perspective. This is a question that is asked of me a lot, and I don't want to be the only one that, you know, answers this question. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pose it to you. Um, do sourcers— does a sourcer need to know the local language in order to source in that region of the world? So for example, I'm sourcing, I live in the US, and I'm sourcing for roles in China. And do I— so do I need to speak Chinese to source in China? Or whatever.

So put it this way, my answer would be no, you wouldn't need to learn how to speak Chinese. But if you did, it would be to your advantage. But like, for example, myself, I mean, I source all over the world. I pretty much find in every single country that English is the business language. So for example, South Africa, we have 11 official languages. I mean, it's, it's, it's ridiculous. Um, it's, it really is the rainbow nation, the melting pot. but everyone speaks English because that is our business language.

That's the common, common language there. Yeah, that makes sense.

So you can get by, and I have got by in the past. So I did a big project in Nigeria and Ghana last year, and, um, one of the things that I learned to use really well was Google Translate. So you just have to pick up a couple of key terms. So in my outreach messages, I made sure that I got the right, um, greeting, the right salutation, a couple of key comments, you know, either have a good weekend in a native language, and that worked like a retreat. So I don't think you need— especially if the role requirements require someone to be able to speak English, you've got to try and ascertain, you know, the level of, um, communication in that language too.

Okay. Yeah, so basically the short answer is you do not need to speak the local language or be fluent in the local language to source there, which is— yeah. That's definitely the answer that I commonly give because as you said, you can translate, you know, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a tip I would give when I do my training on international sourcing, a tip that I always give them is the translation. So, you know, even though Google's Translate algorithm has gotten significantly better and it does give you a choice between 2 or 3 possible variations of the word, I would always double-check with a native speaker on the keywords that you're using. Not talking about the outreach, you should have the outreach properly translated, but if you're going to do outreach, for example, in Germany, it's proper to have the German and the English and have it really well translated, but when you're going to do searches, have a local take a look at the keywords because Sometimes it translates to a word that means the same thing but isn't the same thing on a resume or a CV.

Yeah, absolutely, Shelley. And another good trick is download the app on your smartphone called Google Translate, because I use that a lot to, like, scan symbols and things that people maybe put on their profiles, put on their CVs, because what it does is it will translate directly when I put my phone's camera onto the symbol directly into the English.

What, what, like a universal language translator? Yes. Yeah.

And especially if you're going to be traveling a lot, um, you know, we don't always travel to the most normal places. You can also— I walk around the airport scanning signs, you know, scan signs.

Yeah, where am I going? Is this the train or the other bathroom? Yeah, exactly. That's right. Yeah. So for sourcing, you know, just have that keyword checked because even the translators They'll give you the correct translation, which might not be the one. A common example that I've seen is people trying to source in Spanish and not speaking Spanish, and they translate resume to resumen, which is accurate, but nobody uses that. And by the way, in different countries, in Mexico, they call it something else, hoja de vida, for example. Versus resume. And in other countries, they actually use curriculum, as in curriculum. So, you know, you also want to do that regionalization.

Yeah, and get that colloquialism in.

Exactly.

So it sounds more real, right?

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, otherwise you'll end up sourcing for the wrong stuff, you know. Um, so that's a, that's a big one. So that, you know, check the box. All right, you do not need to be polyglot to be able to source in that, in that country. Yeah, outreach being a completely different question. Um, now here's the other thing that I was going to ask you. How do you handle all of the, uh, rules and legalities? Because for example, in the United States we have California privacy rules and the rest of the country— in the, you know, in Europe there's GDPR, but GDPR is interpreted differently in Germany. GDPR, but it's differently interpreted in Germany. And it doesn't apply to some countries because they're not part of the agreement. And then, you know, you go to other parts of the world in Africa and Asia, it's all these different— so how do you, when you're sourcing, keep all that together? What do you do?

So, so this might not be the correct answer that everybody should be following. But to be honest with you, it's so difficult to keep up with all the different laws in different countries. South Africa is just um, introduced the POPI Act. I kind of do what I need to do, and if I get into trouble, I'll ask for forgiveness or plead ignorance. You know, I just found that it's, it's something that I'm aware of. GDPR, I've done my homework on it. I know how it works. I know how it works in Germany. You know, Germany is also, you know, very different, um, way that people operate and recruit. They're not big into building online brands and things like that. So I think it's also understanding the country and the country's nuances. At the time. So for me, it's something that I'm aware of. I'm very careful. I'm very respectful. And I'm also not one of those people who start my outreaches with, hey, this is where I saw your profile. I saw you on LinkedIn. And, you know, it's kind of like, I saw you were presenting at this conference, you know, and then sending the person the email. And I think if you actually tailor your message, you blow smoke in the right direction, people aren't even going to worry about where you found their email address. Especially if it's a friendly reach out. And I never really start talking about the opportunity in the first reach out. So it's, you know, I think it's all about the way that you're approaching people. Are you being a human being? Are you looking to, you know, grow your network as opposed to always just trying to recruit people?

So in other words, you know, to translate, I'm your universal translator. Essentially what you're saying is plead for forgiveness, which is really not inaccurate. I mean, you know, you're not pleading, it's accurate. You may be aware of laws, but you're not going to be a, you know, a privacy attorney in every country that you operate in. So operate given what you know are common standards that would be expected and respected worldwide, which is, you know, just operate with decency and treat people with dignity. And then if you step over a line, then you can, you know, okay, great. Thank you for educating me. And not exactly into an argument with the person and say, oh, well, that doesn't apply to me because— so that's usually what I'll do is I'll be like, oh, hey, I would never want to do that intentionally. I'm so sorry. Yeah, you know, exactly.

Ask for forgiveness of it.

Exactly. So it comes down to we are in the business. This is a business communication. Okay. And I think a lot of times folks get their feelings kind of mixed into it because of words like spam and GDPR and other privacy rules out there are there to protect consumers from abuses in privacy that are done for commercial profit. Right? And honestly, when you're a corporate, if you are a corporate recruiter representing a corporate entity, this is really not a commercial enterprise in the same interpretation as somebody trying to sell you a car, or somebody trying to sell you services. We're really not selling, right? It's a business communication. So, it would be no different than other business communications, which gives us a little bit of wiggle room, right? I mean, I'm not saying we have free, you know, free rein. But when I'm reaching out to somebody and asking them if they might potentially be interested in an opportunity, it's a genuine business communication. You know, it's not a marketing thing, right? So sometimes people get that confused, especially because I hear a lot of leaders, you know, at the pulpit banging their hands, Recruiting is like marketing, recruiting is like sales. Uh-uh, recruiting is like recruiting. It's not like marketing, it's not like sales. We're not something else that got turned into— Recruiting has been around long before sales and marketing. Recruiting is the oldest profession in the universe. Okay? So, it's not like marketing, it's not like sales. And honestly, it's business to business. It's B2B. It's not B2C. That's the difference.

And I think it's about your wording and your outreach. I mean, that's a big thing about what I train on is that It's all well and good to be able to find that, you know, that rocket scientist and all those unicorns or whatever it is that you're looking for and finding their contact details. But if you're sending a crappy outreach, that's when they start getting upset and saying, oh, you know, here I am, I've got a templated message written over here. There's no personalization. How do I know that this was for me? And then candidates start throwing things around like, how did you get my details? Do you not know about GDPR? But if you're actually emailing them, you're being a human being, you're being personable, you've actually got a better career offer for them than what they're actually doing with— or maybe not financially—

a chance to consider, right? So they reply, yeah, I'm not interested.

Yeah, exactly. So, so for me, it's about, I don't know, just, just going the extra mile and not being lazy in your reach out, because I've seen that the— a lot of the negative responses are coming from people who are lazy in their reach out.

Right, the responses are going back to someone who was kind of haphazard in their outreach.

Yeah. But just another thing, going back to your laws in different countries, I mean, there's so many organizations at the moment that actually take that third-party role. So I mean, I do a lot of sourcing through Africa. I'm very lucky. I seem to have developed a bit of a persona as the go-to sourcer in Africa. And Africa's got wonderful talent. We really and truly do. I mean, I think it's the next big thing in the tech space because everywhere else in the world is battling to find tech talent, but Africa is quite an untapped market. And there are, you know, organizations and companies that are set up that handle all of those legalities, you know. So they'll handle all the company, the country tax, the personal tax, you know, is the person paying for medical if they need to or not. And I think that that's going to take a lot of pressure off a lot of companies because they're going to pay—

they're called— if you're— is that what you're referring to?

Yeah, well, it's like a third part. Yeah, I'm not too sure what the official name is. I can give you the name.

It's a professional employer organization— professional employment organization.

PEO.

They're the employer of record that handles all the, you know, taxes, legalities, etc. And then they essentially— like, the person is like contracted to you through that PEO. So that—

so, and then what it does, exactly, that makes life easier for everyone, doesn't it?

That's right. Because as a small business, you couldn't set up offices in, you know, every— if you want to have— if you want to recruit people in, you know, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Singapore. Now you have to support 3 offices and 3 attorneys, and, you know, but the PEO can handle that for you.

Yeah, exactly. So I mean, I think that that's really a great way of making like global talent far more accessible. So I think it's definitely something that, that can be done, you know, with these, these PEOs setting up and, you know, giving us the option in order to do so. Because not everyone wants to move around the world, you know. A lot of people are very happy or can't move around the world, you know, passport restrictions. Some countries are more difficult to get into, you know. Some people are wanting to move to certain countries at the moment. There's a lot of people not wanting to move to certain countries because of what's happening, you know. It's unsettling.

Plus the cost.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So another question that I had for you, if, uh, if you don't mind.

Sure.

And, and this, this is a little tricky, so it's okay if you want to punt on this one. I, I totally get it. In your experience, in all your international travels and all your international sourcing in different countries and teaching sourcing and all that, is there any one country or region that you find is the most difficult to source in because people are, let's just say, less online or less visible or whatever? And I'm not saying necessarily for privacy reasons, for whatever reason, whatever the reason may be. Region in the world where sourcing is really hard compared to other regions in the world, or is it just kind of depends on the industry, depends on the role?

Absolutely. I mean, I think there's so many variables to that question, but I mean, I think you've also got to know where to look. Like, for example, if you're looking in the US, one of my go-to platforms is Twitter because it's so popular. Um, but if I'm looking in New Zealand, like, Twitter's not really that popular, not that widely used, but they use something else.

So it's not hard.

So you've got to Exactly. So, you know, you've, you've got to have, but you've got to know what that something else is.

Know where to go, right?

Exactly. Like US, very popular LinkedIn users, you know, 56, 57% of your population. South Africa, we've got 16% of our population on LinkedIn, and that's why South African recruiters are very good sources of talent because they can't just rely on a platform like LinkedIn, you know. So, so for me, the probably the most difficult country that I've ever had to go and source in is probably actually China. China and Russia, because I don't find that these people have very much, um, much interest in developing online brands, online profiles. Um, you've got to look in different places, and you've almost got to network your way around those countries. Um, those have been my two most challenging ones, where everywhere else is not really about the country, it's about what is the preferred platform in that country.

So for example, As a geography, Russia and Germany have just universally far fewer, far less online content that you can source from.

Yeah, and also you've got the language barrier, well, you know, which is a problem. Very little English spoken in those regions. Um, so yeah, for me it's, it's, it is a bit of a sweeping statement, but that has been some of the most difficult.

That's what I was asking. It's exactly my same, the same experience.

Is it? I was about to ask you, what have you found? What do you—

yeah, it's the same experience. So if I, if I had to answer the question a little bit differently, finding-wise, finding-wise, definitely China and Russia.

Yeah.

Um, because of the dispersion of information into so many different places, not like a single concentration of information in any one area that, that is relevant to— at least that I found. That's, that's one part of the, uh, and then the other part is, of course, there's a certain aversion to being online. It's, you know, and it's not a privacy thing. It's, um, it's just maybe it's just, yeah, there's the human nature in those— not sharing. They don't— they're not— it's not culture where they're sharing online as much as, you know, in other countries. But I would say from a different point of view, which is outreach, Japan Okay, okay, interesting. Easy to find. I mean, almost everybody is online. I don't know, I don't want to say everyone's online in Japan, but like, it's a very technologically— yeah, so, and there's so much going on. But the challenge isn't finding them. The challenge there is engaging them because culturally, it is considered— and this may be shifting nowadays— but it is considered dishonorable to be approached by a recruiter directly from the company. It is more honorable to be approached by a third party. So like agency recruiters, it's not necessarily an agency as much as it's like, um, like an— it's, it's almost like the— I, I respect you more if I'm negotiating for both parties. Versus I'm from this party trying to, you know, negotiate with you. Like, it's like this perception of whether or not— it may or may not be neutral. You may or may not be neutral, but the perception that you're sort of representing both parties elevates the status of the candidate. It gives them more face. So when you reach out, what I found is that you have to position it that way. Otherwise, they are a lot less likely to respond.

Wow, interesting.

Like, a lot less likely.

So I did a project recently in Japan, and I actually did a bit of research around the platforms and what's really popular there. And I was surprised, um, to see that they were the second biggest users of Twitter behind the US. And then that blew my mind. I never would have put Japan in second place there, but they're in second place by quite a long way, I believe.

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's— they're culturally more available online and easier to find, but then culturally less available to responding. And then the other thing that I found is in France, if your message— in France and in French-speaking Canada, if your message is not in French, they won't respond.

Okay, I couldn't believe that.

Even though— and that where they might, but I mean, just generally speaking, even though the language requirement for the job is English and it's an international job and it's an international company, so it's like you have to You cannot do this job if you are not fluent in English, period. Still, the message needs to be in French. Now what they usually like is that it's in French, then English.

Okay, okay. That's French first, but, but then— yeah, wow, that's quite interesting. But I, I can believe it from the French Canadian side, from a couple of people that I've met in that part of the world.

Yeah, it's just like, if it's in French, great. And even if you have a— even if it's a bad attempt at French French better than English.

Better than nothing at all.

Yeah. And the other thing that I found in Russia is, this is really strange, and I haven't validated this in a couple of years, but the subject line needs to be in English even though the message is in Russian.

Wow. Okay.

And this was practice and trial and error that we discovered it because we tried Russian character Cyrillic language subject lines and they didn't work, and I finally broke down and had to ask somebody that replied to one of my emails, like, "Hey, I'm curious, my subject line was in English, but the body of the message was in Russian. Usually we don't get a lot of responses when the subject line is in Russian. Can you tell me why?" And this person said, "Simple, all of the Russian emails with Russian subject lines are spam." Okay.

And that was the reason I didn't try to buy crypto.

Yeah, exactly. There's— I was like, oh my God, I never thought— obviously it's a sweeping, you know, it's not all of them, but like they just associate Cyrillic subject lines, uh, in, in a business, in your inbox at work, to be spam.

Sure.

So they don't even bother opening it. Yeah, I was like, wow, that is weird.

So I had a similar situation sourcing in Africa here when I was sourcing across Ghana and Nigeria, and, uh, Twi is a popular language that is spoken there is, you know, a local language. But Nigerian Twi is different to Ghanaian Twi. So I was sending messages to people in Nigeria with the wrong version of Twi until someone corrected me, kindly corrected me.

And I could kind of understand it.

Yeah, so, so they could understand it, but it was apparently a very different dialect. So it was— one was Pidgin Twi, and then there's a different version. And yeah, so that was also good to know because I didn't realize that there were two different versions. I mean, it's called exactly the same language, But you also can be quite insulting if you're using the wrong version of tweet to the wrong national. So yeah, that was quite an interesting experiment too. Yeah, interesting times.

So, um, do you have any, do you have any like sourcing tools or technology or automation that is particularly helpful in international work? And the reason, let me preface, the reason that I'm asking that is because from the perspective of someone that is used to recruiting in their own language, be that the US or wherever, and they're recruiting and sourcing in their own language, there's often a lack of awareness of the differences in technology when you cross borders. So for example, I get asked a lot, Shelly, what's your favorite ATS, or what's your favorite CRM, or whatever. And I always have to ask about the international component because there are some ATSs and CRMs that will not work in other countries for reasons like, for example, the language in that country is right to left. Think about it.

Yep.

So if your application, your tool, your technology doesn't support right to left language, it's not going to work there. That's one thing. Another one is currency.

Yeah.

Right? So dates, if your technology is used to using the month-day-year, that's only— I don't know, what is it in South Africa? Is it month-day-year or is it—

No, so we're different. So we go day-month-year.

Day-month— Right, and that's more common. So little things like that, right? So is there any technology that you find that is very adept at handling multinational issues like currency, language, direction of language, characters, right? If it doesn't support the character set like Cyrillic, then your messages look like squares and circles, you know? Yeah.

No, exactly.

So anyway, I'll let you answer the question.

So, so for me, it was actually super interesting. So my first sourcing conference in person was actually one in Hungary. Okay, so in Budapest, and I went over there and listened to all the speakers, went to all the breakouts, kind of was like a big sponge, and I just took all this information back home and thought, okay, just jotting down notes, notes, notes, and tried them all out here. And some of the things worked, some of the things didn't. I then went to a sourcing conference in the US, and a lot of the things that were mentioned there, over half, were very US-centric. They only worked in the US. So for me, I think that that's a great question that you're asking people who are putting together these softwares and these tech stacks and all of those things. And because that is a really, really important question. For example, in the US, People, that website, people.com, doesn't work in South Africa, doesn't seem to work anywhere else in the world. So it's all well and great to, you know, have it and use it when you're in the US, but from a sourcing perspective Those are things that you need to work. So I'm not the world's biggest fundi on ATSs and CRMs, to be honest. It's, it's, it's not my forte.

It's okay. But what I mean, whatever you would consider a tool, I mean, a tool.

So from me, yeah, the tools that I like to use, um, there's definitely certain tools that work better in different geographies. So I'm, I'm the best fan of Amazing Hiring, um, HireEasy, SeekOut, and they all work differently depending on the geography. But I don't think that there's any sourcing software that's really cracked everything from all of the tools and all of the different languages, all of the different ways of putting currencies, all the different ways of putting, you know, dates that would work absolutely everywhere.

Because yeah, that's a big ask.

I have to use— it's a huge ask. I have to use a combination of all three of those in order, depending on where I'm sourcing, and will determine where I get the best results.

Um, so another thing, culturally, you said you have 11 in South Africa alone. You have 11, uh, official languages, right?

Yes.

Um, and are there also— I don't want to get into the politics or anything— are there also different religions? Yeah, that many, that variety.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's also different cultural things that we need to be aware of, right? So, you know, for example, um, 11 different languages but are often linked to 11 different cultural groups. And different cultural groups, some of them have animosity maybe towards another cultural group because of historical reasons. You know, you need to greet someone from one, um, cultural group differently to another person. So as well as the fact that, you know, Johannesburg is the most popular and booming city in Africa, and we have a lot of people from foreign neighboring countries here too who also bring a new dimension to the workforce. So, there's a lot that you've got to—

Yeah, cultural sensitivity is a big thing. Exactly.

Yeah, a lot of things we need to take into account, you know.

Where I was going with this is, you know, I studied international business. That's my formal education, international business. Nonverbal communication. I've always been a big fan of semiotics, and it's like my hobby on the side. But even to someone that has spent basically their entire professional life constantly being curious about cultures and understanding and learning, and I know I don't know nearly enough about cultures, but I'm always very hungry to learn. And, you know, I'm 50 years old. I've been doing this for a long time. I've been in recruiting for 25 years. And I still get surprised. About a year and a half— no, sorry, about 2 years ago, I was having a— I was consulting with an organization that had operations in the Middle East and— Middle East and Africa. And I wasn't aware of this. I was aware that there are different days of the week that start the week. In some countries, Sunday is the beginning of the week. In other countries, Monday is the beginning of the week. And I was aware that there are some religious and cultural beliefs where Friday is the day of rest or Saturday is the day of rest. Well, in this country, I was talking to the VP of HR. They don't have any day of rest because they operate in an environment where because of the cultures that they serve, their staff, there are no single days where it's off for everybody. So they have people who work on Fridays but believe Saturday is the day off. People who work on Saturdays as if it was a Friday and believe Sunday is a day off. And they have people who work on Saturday and Sunday because to them Monday is the day off. And I was like, wow! I knew about Saturday and Sunday being different. right? Um, you know, Friday, Friday night, the Shabbat, and, you know, different traditions. Yeah. But I was like, wow, so you're telling me basically that you essentially have to have coverage 7 days a week because the population expects you to be available 7 days a week. People expect to be able to take vacation or days off or not work. So it blew my mind that there, that there is a place in the world or places in the world where, um, yep, that even the work week is not standard.

I mean, but I think that they were working to change that. I heard something, I read something towards the beginning of the year that Dubai, one of the big places that used to start on a Sunday, so they would have Friday off for religious reasons, were trying to change things. So because it's— there's so many headquarters there, so many global headquarters, that they were more in line with having a Monday to Friday week as opposed to a Sunday to Thursday week, but I don't know whether it was ever passed or whether it's happened or certain companies are doing it, or I don't know what the end result was.

Yeah, so imagine from a sourcing point of view, if you are, um, you know, reaching out to people on a Friday, which to you is a regular workday, and to them it's the hands-off holy day where they're not supposed to be working. Big faux pas, right? Now you're like reaching, hey, wait a minute, you know, so It'd be like contacting somebody on a Sunday or whatever.

I actually had a very interesting chat about that just recently. I've just picked up a new client who wants training in Saudi Arabia. So he emailed me on a Sunday morning, and I generally try and catch up with, you know, any admin on a Sunday morning. So when he emailed me on Sunday— exactly. So when he emailed me on Sunday morning and I responded straight away with, oh yeah, brilliant. Okay, cool. You've got the training approved. Let's jump on a call and put some dates in our diaries. He said to me, why are you working on a Sunday? And I said, because I'm catching up on admin. And he said, oh, because today is our Monday. So I said to him, great, but please, I don't want to be delivering any training on, um, on my Sunday and your Monday. Um, and I said, I'm sure you're going to be coming to train on the Friday. And so we had a bit of a laugh about it. So we said, no, no, no, we'll work with whatever works for us. We'll figure out where our weeks overlap. So it was a super interesting conversation because he didn't expect me to answer him on a Sunday. So he was actually— then we actually jumped on the video call and he said to me, he said, actually Sundays are great days for them because they're a global sourcing team and, um, they get a lot of emails out on a Sunday which people can pick up first thing in the office on Monday. So they've almost got the jump on the week before.

But they're contacting people for whom Monday is the start of the week.

So yeah, so interesting times.

Wow. Well, um, lots of talk about, about globalization and global sourcing and global cultures and everything.

So, so on that note, Shelley, let me tell you what happens to me on a, on a daily basis these days is that companies all over the world will contact myself to say, do I know any tech talent through Africa. Like, literally, it's happening daily because I think that they are struggling to find tech talent in the territories where I'm getting contacted from.

Candidates?

Yeah, candidates.

Yeah.

And that's companies in the US, companies in Europe. It's not just because they can find a cheaper workforce anymore, it's because I think that they realize that, you know, they're not finding them in their home countries, and let's go and see where we can find these people. Which for me is super interesting that Africa is kind of becoming a, a target, which is brilliant. It's been a long time coming and it's, it's good to see.

Well, that's good news. That's, uh, yeah, it's, it's still on my bucket list. So, um, so come on, man, if you, um, yeah, I was gonna say, you know, you, you're asking me to, uh, introduce you to conferences all over the world, return the favor, bring me to Bring me to Joburg. It's definitely one of the places I haven't been to, and I've traveled quite a bit. It's on my list.

You need to actually talk to Phil. So I'm seeing Phil next month in Sydney. I'm going over to speak at Sourcing Summit in Sydney, Australia. And we were at one stage thinking about doing a, you know, Sourcing Summit in Johannesburg. And I think it would be brilliant. I think we must just reignite those conversations now that COVID seems to be a bit of a, you know, a non-entity at the moment, and we can travel again, and long may it last.

Yeah. Hey, I'd love to come out there.

Love to be brilliant.

Yeah. Well, do you have any, uh, any parting words for our audience today? We're wrapping up. We're a little bit over that. I went over by a few minutes. Hope you don't mind, but it was a good chat.

So thank you for that. No, no, no parting thoughts. Just get in touch with me. It'd be great to hear from you. Hit me up on my website, find me on LinkedIn. And yeah, thanks for having me as a guest, Shelley. I wish you all the best. And yeah, Good luck for the second half of the year.

That's right, second half of the year. Yeah, 2022 is halfway done.

Yeah, we're sliding down.

Well, thanks for coming out, man. We'll talk to you later. Bye everybody. Cheers, man.

Bye-bye.