In Conversation With James O’Donnell, Head of Sales
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James
For those of us who don’t know who you are, and what you do: who are you, and what do you do?
Gaby
My name is Gaby, and I’m on the Kandidate lead sourcing team.
James
What does that mean?
Gaby
It means I lead the team of people who help our clients grow their teams – by building high quality pipelines.
James
And how long have you been with Kandidate?
Gaby
I started on the 27th of September 2021 –
James
How do you remember the date so well?
Gaby
Because the 27th is my birthday. So it’s about numbers.
James
Fair enough. And what made you join them? What was the big pull for you?
Gaby
So, back then, when I got to know Alex – when he approached me – I understood I could work and feel like an entrepreneur within a company, taking care of recruitment and really building something new from scratch; which is something I just love. The idea that you build something new that you have to think about. The goals you would like to reach, how to optimise processes, and all of that, so – yes.
James
Why was that so important to you?
Gaby
I think because, in a way, I love it when I get challenged in such a way. I have to invent something myself. That ultimately makes me feel energised and proud at the end of the day; and I think I like the idea that you have a goal. And I love it when you have a process in place, which enables you to – in a very time-efficient way – to reach that goal. Does that make sense?
James
Like different brains work in different ways, don’t they? And it’s evident from working with you that you’re very systems orientated and methodical, very intentional. And there’s also the entrepreneurial thing you’re talking about: creating something out of nothing. That’s exciting. Anyway… Can you tell me some more about sourcing and the kind of embedded sourcing model at Kandidate? How does that work and what are the results?
Gaby
So. With the embedded sourcing-partner model, we embed a sourcer – an imported partner from our team – in a client’s team, and this person will really help growing the team and, I believe, what’s interesting to see is that founders as well as talent acquisition teams – they’re becoming more aware of the – value – really, of sourcing. Where you proactively reach out to candidates and make them excited about working with you. Most people would usually be open to at least talking about different opportunities. We then embed a person in your team. That person is there to build a high-quality pipeline, and the high-quality part really refers to knowing where exactly to find the right people. So – if we’re talking about tech talents – rather than searching for these people on LinkedIn, you would go to a gaggle for data engineers, you would source on Stack Overflow, where you really reach the end of a talent pool and find people that work on amazing projects and have an incredible portfolio. That’s where you find the people we’re talking about. We’re talking about a high-quality pipeline in terms of how well the candidate obviously matches the skills and requirements of the job position.
James
And when you say ‘plug in’, are there different ways that you could plug straight into a founding team or into a talent acquisition team, as well as a sourcing layer?
Gaby
That depends on the type of client obviously. So when you look at a company that is still relatively small or may be a bit more early-stage, then the sourcing partner could actually be someone who only works together with, really, the founder or the CTO, for example. And then that person is the main, let’s say, hiring support at that stage – where, for example, the sourcing partner could then hire the TA team. However, if you look at companies like Miro or Trivago, two of our clients, there you’ll have our model more as an extra service layer. Because at these companies there is obviously already a TA function, and it will organise the process. So, at these companies the reason they would be excited about working with us is really on the capacity side: they usually even have sourcers. They will also have recruiters in the team. However, for a really high quality pipeline, you need to do a deep dive into a position and take the time to do competitor mapping. You need to have an idea about the candidate market, all the requirements – so that deep dive will really result in the high quality. And what you see is that a lot of recruiters would spend 30 minutes each day on sourcing, which would not result in that quality pipeline I just mentioned.
James
A recruiter gets pulled in so many different directions now, especially when they’re internal. It’s not just the recruiting or the sourcing; there are internal meetings and stakeholder meetings and going into the office a lot at the moment and actually having someone that you can rely on that’s gonna do your sourcing, so you’ve got guaranteed calls each week.
Gaby
It also requires a different skillset: one I think not every recruiter would be excellent at, or would actually get energised by. It’s actually a research kind of role. Some people love it. They love the digging deeper part. How to build that Boolean string and get really advanced. And some people I think would find it extremely boring.
James
I completely agree with you, Gaby. There are personality types that are kind of operational. Kind of engineering focused. And that’s what works in sourcing. You know, I’m Jazz Hands: a big personality, talking to people all day long. That kind of work. That doesn’t energise me as much as having someone there that could do that for me, so that I can just talk to people all day, simply. Then, frankly, it’s happy days. – Gaby, what are you and your team working on for the future? What new things can we be looking forward to in the sourcing squad?
Gaby
We are looking. We have a super interesting programme in place with Alla Pavlova. Sourcing is the kind of business area where you basically need to be updated on everything. Each and every single day so much happens that it’s important to keep updated on everything. We think that having sourcing ambassadors in our team makes them actually become really knowledgeable about a certain industry, so we have that as fillers in our team. That’s one thing, and what I already briefly touched upon – the model as the extra service layer at enterprise companies; or we’re talking about bigger businesses that have multiple divisions, locations – and now I’d say we are we are focused on the US, the UK and the rest of Europe, with the larger part of clients in the UK. Ultimately, we’ll definitely aim for hitting the US market as well. And we are massively growing the sourcing team, which is now, I think, around 50 and it will be around 70 by the end of the year.
James
And all of those have gone through the Kandidate Academy?
Gaby
Yes. For some people it’s a bit more of a refresher of their current knowledge and skills. For more junior people, it’s something they will learn from scratch. We have that training programme with Alla Pavlova. We always attend those events where you learn a lot from the most sourcing gurus in the world. Yeah, it’s really exciting.
James
So anybody that might be watching this thinking about joining Kandidate – what would you say to them?
Gaby
I would say that you are joining a team where we work with super interesting businesses that are actually there either to bring change or disrupt the markets – a place where you have the ability to connect talents to exactly the challenge that they’re looking for. I think that will really drive people. I would definitely say that, if you’re joining us, you’ll become part of such an amazing team. Amazing because of the way we communicate with each other. Our team is extremely supportive. And I always take that as a super big compliment. I’m the one who does the last-stage interview of the entire process with sourcers and, when they join, I would have another online coffee with them. And then they’d say, “Oh, you know what? I engaged in the interview process and with the three people that I then met, I thought: Well, if everyone is so extremely kind that really would be amazing”. Then when they attend the Academy they will have already met quite a few team members of Kandidate’s and they’ll tell me, “Wow. It really is like that!” And you can see their eyes sparkle because they feel extremely happy being part of their new company. So that makes my day. When you look at anybody inside Kandidate, it’s how they align with our values that is remarkable. And it’s that kindness which is one of the values of the business. It’s in everybody: like, it’s the authenticity and the professionalism. And you get that from everybody that you see – it doesn’t matter if they’re like a recruitment talent partner, if they’re a sourcer, if they’re in marketing or operations or HR. You know, everybody is very kind, which is very, very refreshing. It’s something I think I would even evaluate, although it’s not what I base my ultimate decision on, but when meeting a potential client, I would look for some of these values when engaging the partnership.
James
Awesome. Gaby, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed chatting with you. And looking forward to seeing what the future holds on the sourcing team. It’s been fantastic. Stay tuned.
