A blended solution for European-wide tech recruitment
The Rohlik group is a European technology business in the e-grocery industry. To meet intense and unexpected new demand, the business had an urgent need to bolster its in-house recruitment team. Recruiter On Demand consultants was the preferred solution as “the next best thing to in-house fully employed recruiters” due to the niche and technical nature of the career opportunities on offer.
Challenges
- Unexpected business demand driving an urgent need for talent
- Fierce competition for in-demand tech talent
- A need to engage passive candidates with a niche technical opportunity
Results
- Quick onboarding of Talent Acquisition consultants to fulfil urgent recruitment needs
- Close client and hiring manager relationships
- A responsive and flexible team to deliver business needs
Introducing our client, The Rohlik Group.
The Rohlik Group is a European-wide business, leading the way in e-grocery technology. The business recently attained unicorn status thanks to immense growth, fuelled by some intense periods of recruitment.
We asked The Rohlik Group’s Head of Recruitment, Petr Novotny to share his experiences working with the Recruiter On Demand team over the past year. Petr and his team have a Europe-wide remit and as such, we supported his team across a range of markets and role types.
The fastest recruitment solution to deliver against unexpected new demand.
The Rohlik Group has expanded rapidly into new European countries and employs in-house recruiters in its key markets. The Rohlik Group’s preferred model is to recruit through fully employed in-house recruiters, which is a view shared by many of our clients. As Petr explains:
“Anybody who is engaging with candidates on the market, who are mostly passive candidates, needs to be able to sell the company. Recruiters need to be really embedded within the business and understand the culture in order to sell the business. Especially with tech roles, as you need to be very familiar with the tech stack, the technologies and so on. You’re simply not able to do all of that if you’re not talking to the hiring managers on a regular basis – you need to really become part of the company.”
However, due to intense business growth, Petr was looking for a solution that was faster and more flexible than growing his own in-house team. On the other hand, he didn’t want to lose out on the crucial benefits of the in-house model. So the Recruiter On Demand flexible, fully embedded approach was the perfect solution.
A flexible and bespoke team set up to support the client’s changing needs.
As The Rohlik Group has rolled out quickly across new countries, ROD consultants adapted to different markets and candidate pools. Expectations were discussed at the outset, clarifying that an ability to get to know the business thoroughly and quickly would be our key to success.
“We didn’t really care where the recruiters were based, or whether they had experience within each of the countries. We just needed a great recruitment service. We needed a team who would quickly learn about our business and also about the differences between the markets. We were all learning together.” (Petr Novotny, Head of Recruitment, The Rohlik Group).
As we got to know the specific needs of the business, we assembled a ‘blended’ ROD team, with a combination of different recruiter types and skillsets. The client chose to work with a Talent Consultant who could manage the full recruitment cycle, but to support this offering with a sourcer and also somebody dedicated to reaching out via Linked In. This can be a popular approach, especially in competitive markets for passive talent as was the case with this client.
“We viewed ROD’s recruiters as part of our own team.”
Moving into new markets is a learning experience for all businesses. Our team worked closely with Rohlik’s hiring managers to get a full picture of the role, the culture and the context of the opportunities. Petr believes that this was the key to success:
“For our ROD project manager, we organised a full induction. We then introduced the other ROD recruiters to the business. They were all regularly in touch and communicating with us. There weren’t any barriers between the recruiters and the business, so they really became part of the team. They were invited to team calls and updates and we viewed them as if they were part of our recruitment team. To candidates, it also would have been as though they were just a part of our team.”
Unicorn business growth levels were delivered in 2021 and 2022.
The business hired over 70 new candidates in the second half of 2022, ably supported by their ROD team. Like many clients, The Rohlik Group tackled these roles through a hybrid of solutions including their own in-house recruiters, some recruitment agency activity and a scalable and bespoke ROD team.
As the business pauses its recruitment to reflect on structure, current activity levels and strategic planning for 2023 and beyond, we’re delighted to reflect on their results so far. As Petr notes, we are here when they need us to support their next, exciting stage of business growth
“We are ready to work with them again as soon as we have the need. We hired a lot of people earlier in the year and we are now pausing to take stock. Once we have a recruitment spike again, we are ready to pick back up with James and the ROD team.” (Petr Novotny, Head of Recruitment, The Rohlik Group).