Welcome to the Hired! Podcast, where we interview HR leaders and get their take on what's going on in the world of HR right now. In this episode we’re speaking with Krisztina Veres and  Eva Szekely from Veres Career Consulting.

On the podcast we discuss:

• What sets Veres Career Consulting apart.
• How they hire for open roles.
• Their tech stack.
• The biggest challenges from the past year.
• How candidates can stand out in today’s market.

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What is the overall philosophy of your business?

What makes us different, or what we are focusing on is really caring about the candidate experience. We want to represent our clients in a way ensures every single candidate is going to be well taken care of.  

When we interview candidates, we want to give them guidance to find jobs, even if we cannot help them. Also, our pricing model is different in that we are not a contingency based recruitment agency. Instead, we charge an hourly consulting rate and this pricing model really works. It works way better for startups and smaller and medium sized businesses but that doesn't mean that we are not working with large clients – we do – and they also appreciate our pricing model, because this way, their costs are significantly lower without compromising quality.

When you're hiring for new role, what is most important?

When we start working with a new client, we want to know everything about them, because we are going to be the storytellers and we want to sell their story to our candidates. Because of our focus on quality, we are not going to place candidates in positions where we don't see the real value for them, and vice versa. It's a very thorough process because we spend hours with each client. We also try to clone their top performers. We spend time with them getting to know them better.  

Eva asks a lot of questions, to candidates and clients about their preferences, what they would be looking for and what they would like to accomplish. What is different from that standpoint, compared to other recruitment agencies, is that we don't necessarily have a pool of candidates. We do, but because our approach is unique and we want to find the best person for the role, we might not be taking someone from the existing pool. We care about candidates; we keep the relationship with them going and if the time is right, we will present them, but we like to have a fresh approach every time.

An important thing that we usually say is we speak human. A really important factor for us is we that we watch human behavior, looking at their nonverbal communication. This is where people development comes in. We use that to make sure that we find the perfect fit for them and the company.  

If you're thinking about your tech stack, what is one tool that you could not live without?

My cell phone. The reason is because I use a lot of different software, when it comes to recruitment and sourcing and, and keeping in touch with people and I always asked my clients what your preferred method of contact would be, and I have it all in my phone.  I want to be able to communicate with my clients that in that preferred way using my phone.

Thinking outside the box for a minute, I'd say I can’t live without the self-coping mechanisms that I teach and that we use as well.  

What is the biggest challenge that your team has faced in the past year?

We grew a lot - we hired five more people, so the company has grown significantly. Keeping the team together in a remote space, is a challenge. Especially when we work in different time zones around the world.  

The other challenge is making sure people are staying happy and staying engaged.  

In this new global situation, a lot of emotional issues come to the surface as well, so we must add a bit more energy into the team cohesion, and work on these things.  

How do candidates stand out nowadays?  

I love this question because I had a conversation about this a couple of days ago with other professionals. Most of the time, people would think that resumes matter the most but no, sometimes the best candidates we've ever played don't look good on paper, they just stood out. To give you an example of how to stand out, send us messages that are unique, and take the time to tailor your application to the job posting.  

You must have that tiny bit of spark that comes naturally. Sometimes we say we're looking for superstars. Of course, we're looking for education and experience but everything that comes from inside, those are values that they can't teach.  

Background screening

Once a company has found a star candidate, they want to verify their education and experience. It’s nice to trust the candidate, but we need to verify this information. We like to say we are trusting the candidate, but also verifying the information. That's how you make more informed decisions. You're finding people that fit well within the organization and stay put.  

We have seen stories about people who were exceptional candidates that checked out on our level, but then when we started a background screening process, negative things came out, which saved a lot of time and money for our client.

What is one thing that that you wish you could spend less time doing day to day?

From a professional standpoint, we have a passion project that we have just started. It’s a very exciting pilot project with a dedicated group of professionals and this is where we want to spend more time. It is about helping candidates before an outplacement situation would happen and working with companies that are considering layoffs right now. We are working on creating a training program for these individuals to have them become the rock stars they would like to be, and we help them from a recruitment standpoint.

We believe in this, because sometimes candidates don't look good on paper, but they are exceptional in the position so sometimes it's just a little tweak that helps them to become a rock star. They have their potential; we just need to help them find it.

What is the best way for people to reach you?

Through our website. If you have a position that is difficult to fill, or you're a candidate who is currently experiencing downsizing or a candidate who just needs a change, we are happy to help. We are here for you.

The reason we started this company is that we wanted to have people who weren't good candidates for the average recruitment agency, and we wanted to have those companies who couldn't afford the average recruitment agency.

Veres Career Consulting is an independent global recruitment consulting firm dedicated to helping start-up companies find talent with a vision to change the perception of recruitment: it doesn’t have to be expensive to be efficient and it doesn’t have to be complicated to bring results.  

If you’re interested in learning more about ScreeningCanada or being a guest on a future episode of Hired! contact us.

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