How do I find someone good...

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What’s the strangest vacation destination you’ve gone to?

This week I’m in Skopje, Macedonia down in the Balkan region of Eastern Europe.

It’s not exactly the top spot on most people’s vacation list.

It took close to 20 hours of traveling to get here and it’s several hours drive to more typical places to visit in Europe like the sandy beaches of Croatia.

We’re here this week because Macedonia has a secret: it’s one of the best places in the entire world to hire really solid, critically thinking talent for US companies.

Here’s why this (very expensive) trip will be the highest ROI thing I do all year.

The Context

I run a recruiting company that helps US companies hire great talent in eastern Europe.

(I’m hoping this doesn’t come as a great surprise to any of you)

Here’s the thing…

The best talent isn’t sitting around on LinkedIn or some other job board passively waiting for the algorithm gods to send them their next gig.

Not even close!

The best talent is

a) currently employed
b) very careful about where their next opportunity will be.

TL;DR: you don’t find the best and the brightest by tossing a job post up and praying the right person sees it.

Instead, some of our best applicants come from referrals.

They check in with old bosses, peers in their industry, and recruiters they trust to find them their next gig.

By investing in our on the ground team members and industry connections we’re now top of mind when talent asks “where should I look for my next job”

The result?

We’re able to place consistently great talent without endlessly spending on recruiting ads.

(Heaven knows LinkedIn makes enough money as it is)

We have on the ground recruiters in every country we recruit from, but we’ve found that people really appreciate meeting the founders in person… so off we go.

While it probably doesn’t make sense for you to fly a quarter of the way around the world to find your next hire, make sure you’re not neglecting the power of referrals…

Why Referrals Are King

Who would you rather hire

Candidate A: looks great on paper
Candidate B: looks great on paper and their former boss says they’d fire them again in an instant.

All things being equal, you’d be silly not to hire Candidate B.

Most agency owners do referrals the wrong way. It goes something like this?

1. Post job post
2. Send job post to network
3. Ask if anyone knows someone

But here’s the problem…

If you’ve been running your agency for really any significant amount of time most people in your network will be either

a) in your niche industry
b) other agency owners
c) family and friends from your home town and college.

Not exactly an evergreen referral pool.

Instead of hoping your network knows someone, you need to proactively build the kind of network that would know someone.

Think you’re going to need a media buyer in a few months?

Start networking with media buying managers.

Want to hire a salesperson?

Better introduce yourself to some good sales executives.

The point is, an evergreen referral pipeline doesn’t just happen.

You have to go out and make it happen.

But once it’s built, it will be your most successful recruiting channel by far.

How to (ethically) steal all of my referrals

Lots of agency owners can find virtual assistants to do admin tasks for them, but really struggle to find critical thinkers who can do jobs like project managers, operations directors, or media buyers to their team.

It’s a classic “who you know” problem.

Unless you spent your early 20s living in Eastern Europe (guilty) you probably just don’t have that many connections you can trust to refer you high quality people.

But that’s exactly where Go Carpathian shines. We’ve spent the last 5 years building our referral network in Eastern Europe.

If you’re interested in knowing more about what it would look like for us to recruit one or more of your open roles, click the link below to meet with one of my recruiting specialists.

It’s 100% free and no obligation.

Of course, if you’d like to discuss what it would look like for us to recruit A players in Eastern Europe for you, we’re happy to discuss that as well.

→ Click here to schedule your free consulting call with a recruiting specialist

Until next time,

Nathan

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Nathan
Co-Founder | Lean Leverage & Go Carpathian
Helping you hire the best & the brightest
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