More than 20,000 job visits per month, more than 1,000 open jobs and more than 2,000 requests per month: the European start -up job platform wecanbeheroes.ioWho has only been launched recently, grows. Günter Tengel is one of the investors who joined the recent funding of 1.5 million euros from the company.
Tengel, managing partner of Amrop Jenewein And the president of AMROP EEC, has many years of experience in the field of executives and to find the right managers for the main positions.
In an interview with Maria Baumgartner, co-founder and CEO of Speedinvest Heroes, he talks about the enormous potential of wecanbeheroes.ioThe changing requirements for employers, the trend of “cocooning” and why he believes in a common European labor market in the startup sector.
Trendy subjects: Mr. Tengel, why did you participate in Speedinvest Heroes?
Günter Tengel: Speedinvest Heroes and I are in people’s business and we are both passionate about this. We have been involved in the search for executives with Amrop for over 40 years, working on the continuation of leading positions. Over the years, Speedinvest has invested a lot not only in the financing of startups but also in their future development. The link between technology and people is the right mixture for the future.
Maria Baumgartner: Günter is the perfect investor for us because he has a lot of experience in the job market and he supports us considerably in the implementation of our employment platform for European startups.
Trendy subjects: you have seen great potential in the EEC region for some time. What does the market look like there? Is Eastern Europe just a talent pool for the West?
Tengel: There was, of course, a time when there was a great influx of human capital from Eastern Europe to Western cities, for example from Romania and Poland in London. Now we are also witnessing the opposite trend, so it’s no longer a one -way movement. Talented people are no longer reliable on where the labor market is better – in Romania or London. However, I do not believe in a global labor market, but in a European market.
Trendy subjects: what prevents the development of a global labor market? After all, many startups work remotely through national borders.
Tengel: The American labor market is a completely separate labor market which is strongly shaped by American companies. Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley. Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg reduces part of the wages of those who work completely at a distance and also the part they save while living in another city.
It is a logic that will change the entire labor market. There will be a dichotomy: those working in the company due to advantages such as higher wages, and the others, which neglect certain advantages to have the freedom to work remotely. The European labor market, on the other hand, is extremely fragmented and must get closer. We see this as our task.
Trend subjects: what does it do wecanbeheroes.io Do not others do yet?
Baumgartner: Employment advertisements on the scale of Europe for the startup sector are the central subject. All other employment platforms bring candidates to a certain ecosystem. We do it the opposite: we ask the applicant where he comes from and showed them all the possible places in Europe where they could work. We want to get to know the local markets. Our scientists of data create rankings that users can use to select the cities that suit them best – for example, depending on infrastructure, quality of life, etc. Even if you are in Vienna, you will be shown where you could go to Europe.
Trendy subjects: Can something like that come from Vienna? And we, competitors?
Tengel: Our classic American competitors in the executive research sector – mainly four companies – are 60 to 70% of their sales in the United States. We come from Europe and we have been the counter for this for 40 years, we are doing 60 to 70% of our activities in Europe. We can do it because we are dealing very closely with the local markets. This is why it is logical to build a platform like this.
We would never have participated in an American or London platform, which would be from top to bottom. A functional European employment platform must come from the top at the top, from the regions themselves. If it succeeds, it can be a counter-model for American platforms.
Trendy subjects: What has your analog company in common with a digital platform, Mr. Tengel?
Tengel: Google receives 500,000 to 600,000 applications per year. The process is completely digital, but the final decision is made when people go out to eat. This is the most similar thing. The future will therefore concern the intelligent connection between digital and analog.
The old business research model for executives is dead. It is a notebook with contacts. But working with LinkedIn is not possible either. You can generate information there and get a new completely new access to the markets. But the technological platform is not enough alone. One of the essential things is that both worlds learn from each other. Technology and relationships are not opposed.
Trendy subjects: How have the expectations of candidates towards employers have changed?
Tengel: We are witnessing extreme counterattacks on the job market. More and more, companies hear employees: please do not send me abroad, I have already seen everything, I want to stay at home. It is the counter-movement of globalization. With a distance work, you just claim that you would work internationally, but in reality, you are sitting somewhere in the country and that you have a reality completely different from life. This coning is a trend and the other is the European labor market. There are the two currents and nobody knows what will prevail.
Baumgartner: And with young people, it is absolutely clear: a growing generation which attaches huge value to sustainability. The question is not to know what is on the home page and the type of carbon footprint it has, but if the company is really significant. Yes, it will be a huge subject.
Trend subjects: For young people, the question arises whether they prefer to enter the corporate world or rather in startup.
Baumgartner: The dominant belief at the moment is that the culture of work in a startup is better.
Tengel: Companies have certainly played in the past. Today, there are more and more people who no longer allow these working methods to be prescribed and who can afford to say no. Now there are former members of the board of directors of large companies who say they prefer to be in a startup and would never return to the company.
Baumgartner: However, I must criticize that the social mixture in startups is not really there yet. It is always rich children who are mainly there. From our point of view, it has enormous potential for candidates. There can be initiatives for more founding women, but the social mixture is still very low. We are still far from public housing in the world of start-ups.
Tengel: We will not be able to solve this problem with a job platform alone. The main reason is the education system. We have one of the best in the world, but with very little social mix.
Trend subjects: are there European competitors who wecanbeheroes.io Should stay at a distance?
Baumgartner: They do not exist. There are only regional employment platforms for local start-up markets, but no platform, where a Parisian scale could look for the best talents across Europe. In the end, we can become a European LinkedIn for startups.