SPEAKER_02 0:06

I catch one. Is the coffee good? Yes, it's very good. How are you? I'm good. Um I think the last time we talked a bit that uh both of us were stressed. Yeah. I'm feeling much better this week. Yeah. Yeah. Me too.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Um actually. Yeah? Well that's nice. Yeah. But there is something that's been on my mind. It might be uh I'm saying my age, but it's our age. I'm getting heavily retargeted by an app on social media. Okay. Um that keeps saying that you cannot ask how are you, how was your weekend, how is like and it's 10 different company targeting me. So it's uh that's the biggest stress in my life right now. And I guess that's a privileged way to see it from the the last week where we were at. Uh so I'm feeling way better when I'm at uh in a in a position where I can think about problems like these, or not problems, but I'm like, what what are you supposed to say? You're you're really good at this. Uh so you're not allowed to s to ask simple questions, like how was your weekend? And why? In conversation starters. Because apparently there's a better way where you see more, I don't know what. So you could become better at conversation. Okay, so if you don't So you don't ask those questions to become better at the conversation? Yeah, but I apparently you need to buy the app to know what you then But it's ten companies doing it at the same time. Okay. It's a side trade, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Oh that no, that's that's fine. Uh I I usually just compliment people. Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Like, you look amazing today, I guess well. That's nice. Yeah, you're welcome. What people usually say is uh thanks, so do you. And that annoys me. Yeah, because you cannot uh just say. Then they're only saying it because I'm saying it. Right? Right? Yes. So pe so uh people need from my perspective, people need to be better at saying just thank you. And just leave it at that. Right? If you then ten minutes later come walk by me and say, you know what, I noticed that you look amazing too, then then it's different. Yeah. But you can't stop from from my perspective, stop saying thanks, sing to you. Yeah. I hate it. Yeah. I'll stop. I have stopped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I um and I'm pointing it out to people when they do it. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's good. Yeah. Uh anyway, anyway, I'm I'm less stressed because we had analytics and appetizers last week. Yeah. Um we were doing um uh Chris was doing uh uh Mix Modeler, hands-on lab. Yeah. Uh and that went uh fantastic. Uh from the perspective that the lab went fantastic. The event itself uh started out by uh the projectors in the cinema that we booked didn't support Mac. Of course. And nobody had a Windows machine. No. So you just put up your your Mac screen and then the entire cinema had to look kind of. We I turned my Mac around and we had 70 people trying to see what was on the screen. No, so the um the cinema had a Windows machine themselves. Yeah. And then thank you for Microsoft for having everything put in the cloud so you could take the presentation, open it in the browser. Shout out. Shout out to uh Microsoft, and we expect uh sponsorship in the next episode. Um and then two hours into the event, yeah, um UC was doing a presentation. Uh it was uh Dora who's uh really skilled and was doing a fantastic job. And I think she was like ten hours into a presentation. Ten hours? No, that's a long time it was a fantastic ten hours. Ten minutes into a presentation, and then the fire alarm went off. Yeah, and uh the whole mall had to be evacuated. Perfect. Um and then you're like, I don't know if people are leaving, because you never know whether you're gonna be standing there for like three hours, no, five minutes. So I think we were standing there for 15 maximum 20 minutes. But everyone stayed. Everyone stayed. Due to your complimenting everyone, uh due to me walking around saying you look fantastic, you're doing a great job. Okay. No, but the uh event center, the cinema was really good at you know bringing out coffee and croissants and things like that. So um, so everything worked out well in in the end. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, but uh when it happened, everybody was like, you know, with the max not working and the evacuation, we're like, maybe it's just a sign that we shouldn't be doing the event today.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Yeah. Or maybe it's a sign that you need to push through like you did. And push through like we did and show the effort of yeah. Absolutely. So um, but it's Adobe having these events, and they've been so kind to invite us in to do the hands-on laps. And uh they are gonna continue in um other countries throughout uh May. So we uh we attended the the Copenhagen one, a Stockholm one, and I'm I'm not totally up to speed on the different cities, but we're gonna be going to uh Zurich to Germany, uh can't remember where in Germany, and then Amsterdam, I believe. That's amazing. That's amazing. So really looking forward to those.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So a lot of uh intelligent people talking about tech and how they they can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah, so it's it's uh mainly focused on analytics and then Mixmodelar, which uh Adobe is having a big push on. Okay, right. So um yeah, really exciting.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

So uh for the listeners who uh are interested in Adobe and CGA and Mixmodela, yeah, uh stay alert for the uh official uh in my and actually we are discussing talking about Adobe doing uh podcasting from uh the Adobe Summit. From a summit, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah, in the next month, that's about a month time. A month from now, yeah, yeah, I believe. Yeah. That's very exciting too. Yeah, that's stressing me a bit then again. Anyway, let's let's get let's get into uh today's what are you talking about today? It's uh it's my turn to bring a topic. I've been very much looking forward to it. Yeah. Um and I'd I'd like to talk about recruitment, I guess is the overall topic. So I'll give you some background. Uh some time ago we had a client hiring one of our consultants, which is uh always frustrating when that happens. Um the initial feelings you go through is like, uh, why would you have to hire one of our consultants? Yeah, of course. Um but then uh as as that frustration kind of like tones down, there's there's also the perspective of I I guess the most frustration is actually not that they hire our consultants, because I'd much rather be in a position where clients would like to hire our people so that we have skilled people, like like a sign of us having skilled people rather than clients are like definitely not gonna be hiring. Not just right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh because we can't really afford that. So so I'd much rather be in a position where clients are um recruiting our people. Yeah. So but but the frustration is that we have to go through the hiring process. Yeah, yeah, right. Of course. Um and and I really see it as um as our job, and and I I really truly believe in in doing this, that I really want to we we can't hold people forever. I'm fully aware of that. And I really want a crease to be a stepping stone into people's career. Right? Um that's super interesting.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, and but do you all do you only want to be a stepping stone or do you also want to be a stepping stone? Because I think that's a different shader. There's a lot of companies saying, hey, we take young young employees in and we train them and we do all these things, but we expect that they will go on to the next thing. Yeah, but they can be a combination of this also. Uh so I think it's a also uh the hiring position that a company takes, like who do we want to be? What kind of employees do we want to have? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Um I I mean, so I don't think we can build a company purely with uh junior people and be a setting zone, right? No, no, no, no. Um but for the time that we have people, I really want to ensure that a crease is giving them the I'm not sure what the word is, but filling the backpack with experience that can make them successful outside of a crease. Yeah, right? That makes sense. Um what's that? Seven, six, six, seven years ago six, seven uh years ago. Well well placed uh proof that I have a teenage son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I was at e-capacity and they had a reputation that people who were at e-capacity like became the head of marketing or director of, you know, so the capacity at e-capacity so people who had been at e-capacity had the skill set skill set uh to go and have those roles outside of and and I think that's really what uh I want to ensure as well. I want to ensure that a crease has a reputation that people build a career if they join increase, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

But I think it's a it's a two-sided coin, this because I I fully agree. Um and sometimes as employers, I think we can tend to be a bit spoiled, like in terms of the ownership that we have of our employees, because we want the best employees, yeah, and we want them to stay with us, and we want to make sure that they don't go anywhere else. Um, and I think I see this as a as I said, a two-sided coin. I think I fully agree with you that we need to develop as much as possible. So essentially, everyone in the company should be able to transition into a head-off or a director position from the work that they do. If that's what they want to do. If that's what they want to do, or stay in their job, but develop their skills no matter what they do. Yeah, so I I always have the saying say, hey, we want to develop our employees as much as we possibly can, but we want to create the environment that makes them want to stay. Yeah. Because that's outside of our control. We cannot control that, but we can control the environment that we create in our company. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

And I completely agree on that. So um because I I want to ensure that uh companies want to recruit the people that we have, right? Yeah, and then we won't be able to offer the same thing as other companies, right? Obviously, as a as a consulting firm and versus uh you know a financial uh company or something like that, they have some other benefits that we won't be able to uh uh provide as well, right? Yeah, so our finest task is making sure that we have a workplace where people want to be, right? Um we may not have the same benefits, but we're trying to have you know great benefits. Uh it may not be that uh you know it's it's a head of marketing role or a salary that that's according to that, but then hopefully there's development, personal development, challenges and whatever else uh in the workplace that can ensure that people want to stay.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Absolutely. And essentially, I think like that's interesting, but as employers, we also need to take a stand on what we want to do and what we don't want to do. Yeah, and we need to say that these are the types of employees that we want because essentially people are there for two reasons, historically as I see it. We're there to make money, yeah, and we're there to develop. Now there is a third aspect that has been coming up since uh since uh the pandemic and all these things, where it's also flexibility suddenly became a thing in these. So I think it's like a three-legged chair that has these things that we need to develop, but we also need or maintain, but we also need to, as employers, take a stance on it. What is it that we want? Yeah, we want if we want to create the culture, then people cannot necessarily work from home. A lot of you might disagree with me because of course you can create a culture around that. Yeah, but that's typical of a lot of companies. Um if you cannot have the highest pay, then we need to make sure that people can develop, but then we cannot necessarily keep them there for forever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Um yeah, come I completely agree. So I thought that it could be interesting looking at you know where should companies build talent from, or how should they be you know building a team or what should the split of team be, right? Yeah, and um yeah um I I don't think it's gonna be the last time that people recruit someone someone from us. Um but but I also understand that it's difficult to find the talent. Yeah. Right, especially within the Adobe ecosystem, right? Because comparing to Google Analytics or whatever, you know, it's a free tool and uh um everyone can have experience from it. Yeah. Right? I agree. Um but what are the biggest challenges in this week? So I think the biggest challenge is to actually find local talent that has the experience, right? Yeah. And why is this difficult? That's a great question. I think it's it's simply because it's the same people touring from company to company, uh building up the the or who has the experience and then just moving around. So it's about having constant dialogue with a lot of people and they are uh Yeah, so I so I guess I mean uh Adobe has opened up saying so that they're giving like a college account for uh for a sandbox to CGA and to Adobe Analytics so that uh college people can actually get experience from it because that's been one of the the downsides with Adobe technology, right? Um personally I'm I'm doing lectures at uh CPH CPH uh business school, and I've also been doing them in MENMU at IHM to uh spread the word about uh Adobe, right, and give them some insights into what it is, right? Um because at a crease we really want to be giving back to the or you know we'll give back to the community to invest in the development. Investment. Invest in the development, right? Um to ensure that companies have a bigger pool to pick from. And I guess uh some of the decisions that uh a company needs to make is do we hire a junior and then train them? Who do we have to train them? Or do we hire a senior person with a much higher salary and then uh you know have that person coming? Yeah. And uh I guess that's also the aspect whether you know to use a recruiter or to run the recruitment yourself. Um hire the talent, train the skill. I can uh uh inform that it's not cheap to use a recruitment company dedicated for Adobe talent. Um I I'm guessing the average would be like uh uh 25% fee of the year.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Yeah, yeah, of course. But to get the right employee, I guess that's fine. But I think that the real interesting question is do you know? You talk a lot about the skill set and all these things, but but but is the real obstruction here that we don't really know what employees we want on our team?

SPEAKER_02 16:02

I think that's a that's a great point because I think where it should be starting is mapping out how what team do I need, and which of them should be the most senior, and who could be juniors, who's gonna be learning from the seniors. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

I mean if we just agreed that the culture that we fit people into is the most important, right? Then people must be the majority of this equation, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Yeah. So um, so so I guess uh as I said, company needs to make a plan for how should the team be looking. Um what's the split between the senior and the junior? Yeah. Uh and then you might go through a recruitment firm for getting the senior people so you know exactly that they have the experience that you need. Yeah. And then pick some fantastic talent uh from universities or relevant educations, and then skill them up by by benefiting from the senior uh senior resources. And I think or use uh use a partner uh to help skill skill them up, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I know that we are in a different position because we are in a different software space, so we're definitely in a different position. But I feel like for me, knowing exactly what the team I want to have and and knowing the people in that way, yeah, within 15 minutes of the first conversation, I often know who they are, and it's not that easy. It sounds like I'm like solved this problem because I haven't. No. But like really focusing and honing in on that really makes sense, and then of course, knowing how much of is senior, how much is junior, yeah, being in consultancy, you need to have the seniors because that agencies have been been mocked for a few years and not mocked, but but teased with like, yeah, so you hire you you land the project with the seniors and then you put in the juniors to solve it, right? Yeah, and and and we cannot live live by that in in no.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Um and I'm just going through my notes, and one thing I wanted to mention as well, just coming back to what we talked about in in regards to people people leaving. I guess even though I hate going through the recruitment process, as I said, we want to build a company where people want to be. And I think there's also value of someone leaving and then coming back at a later time. Yeah, yeah, definitely. But is that something you experience? We haven't had that yet, uh, but it's it's definitely something that we uh is is taking into consideration when we talk about what type of company that we want to be building.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

So they will go develop like a football club, supplets uh player to the club so they get more. Exactly, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:37

And I can see for myself, you know, I had a short uh detour as a as a CMO for a short period of time. But just doing that on the client side in a Google stack gave me way more experience than I would be able to get as a working as a consultant, right? Yeah, that's it. Um so so just having people go out and experience the real world and then potentially coming back is is um is something that shouldn't be under evaluated. No, no, no. Um so despite the frustrations of having someone recruit our consultants, um I'm glad that they are recruiting our consultants or or that they actually see we have to. Yeah. And then we just want to make sure that we actually had a company where potentially the people that leave would like to come back and then they come back with way more experience than they had when they were working for us, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Um it's I'm very curious to like I know talking to marketing leaders out there and that that recruiting is always a challenge and all these things. Um I'm very curious, like the the the main problem because this like when you mentioned this to me, I we we all recognize this, or we both recognize this. Um so to like if people if this is the problem and if like because it it's very expensive, as you say, to lose an employee that you just trained. But then again, like the wrong employee will will be very expensive to have on the team. Yeah, it will cost from a different perspective, right? And it's like a difference if you're in small scale or or big scale, yeah, whether you do these things. The companies I've been most attached to and where I've done the best development has come from culture. So when I feel I belong, when I like, and now I'm not necessarily talking about what we solve, but when you are among peers that you can learn from and where you develop, and when you get kind of the road to develop, yeah, and the culture where this works out, then you stay for the longest because you're kind of on a mission together. Yeah, and I feel that this mission statement becomes so important, and I feel that a lot of companies have not really taken this into it because it becomes a lot about the mission is that we want to save the world. No, the mission is that we want to create a company where people want to go and develop and do all these things, and then on top of that, we want to make sure that the world becomes a better place, hopefully. Yeah, but but it's not a mission statement of most in SaaS or in consultancy, no, that this is the way. So I feel like the culture part is such an interesting part of this.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah. And it's actually one of the uh aspects that we focus the most on when we hire people, right? Um the the mindset and how they fit into the company, right? Yeah, both from the perspective of we want to be working together with people that we actually like working together with, right? Um it's it makes it way easier, right? Yeah, um, having someone on the team who actually really wants to achieve something, or just having the mindset of learning, right? Yeah, yeah. Um because just as companies are having difficulties hiring people with the Adobe skill set, we're having the same challenges when when we hire new consultants, right? So we really build up a very solid framework for.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

onboarding them and that's a skill set that we can apply to anyone right the the knowledge from from Adobe and we have a lot of senior people where they can you know spar with and and get the experience and and uh the knowledge from them uh but what we can cannot give them is the mindset or the right culture right or or obviously we are part of the culture but making sure that they actually fit into the culture right yeah I think that's that's probably part of the mindset as well and what type of person you are right totally back to my point about being spoiled I think like if our employees choose to go in a different place and we cannot give them what they are looking for we should celebrate them and we should kind of send them off that also opens up with with what you're saying that possibility of coming back I think too many companies are too bad at this because it becomes a grudge or it becomes you shouldn't or yeah like where it's like hey do you think it's the size of the company is causing that no no I think the size doesn't matter I don't in this no I I love that that just tricked me on that I think I I think this happens in all companies I think this is a human aspect of how we treat each other and how we interact with each other um if we want to come back or not it's it it can never be it's the same with relationships right it can never be like a pressure point it needs to be something that we want to do that then the the great things happen that we all want to make happen. And when do you I've been in a company at once where we were told like you need to be here nine exactly 9 to 430 or 530 or how much it ever was in Europe here. But the the impact of that was that at the second when it turned you could go home the office was emptied. Yeah and I've had that as a like guideline for me in my entire uh leadership career that I don't want to do that. I want to create the flexibility I want to create the culture where we want to put in the effort when it's needed but when it's not needed and we have to go on a Friday enjoy the sun or out with our kids or to the dentist or whatever and let's then do that. Like that's perfect. So if we can make that kind of professional agreement I think it's it's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

So are you not concerned about having if if you hire you not you know fresh out of university or college whatever that you become the standard and I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes people don't know how good they have it because they haven't experienced anything else. Yeah you you're having that experience that working from nine to five and then the office wasn't it which is driving you know how you want to be building your company and culture right yeah um but I but I guess if if that's the first experience you have I agree I think it's up to the colleagues.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I don't think this is an issue at all. No I think it's like if you come out fresh out of college and you get put into a work environment and let's just be honest it's not perfect anywhere. No there are things to improve everywhere. But if you surround yourself with people that are talented that you can learn from then the majority that's the culture I want to create here at the CUDEx. So the majority will stay here. If you go to a different company it might be that people come there to collect their paycheck and then it's definitely a completely different dynamic. And this is why referring back to I think it's important that we know what we want what the culture we're trying to create because that won't keep the employees and when we're not able to keep the employees anymore yeah it's a pity but we cannot do anything about it. Like we as long as we do our best to create that team then it's not up to us it's up to the employees if they want to stay here or not at the end of the day. And then we are of course underlaid a lot of rules and budgets and all these things that we have to make everything fit into but like for me I love being inspired. Like I uh I've started hiding in in the office hiding? Yeah okay I've been I I'm really good at it.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yeah because I heard our CEO when they say uh that good employees were hard to find that's uh I think that's a that's a great way to uh to end this episode right so what are the takeaways so if you don't feel like you are uh you know if if you feel you could be a better employee go hide because uh good people are hard to find. Yeah I live by that rule that's uh I mean that's a tip I need to go tell my boys at home I think it's great I think it's great but what what um what should we take away from this conversation because I think it's really we can really interesting do you do you have like the do these things or consider these things no so I so I think uh for me it's about um uh that it's you know despite it being frustrated it's not a bad thing that people want to hire your people right it it it sends a uh a strong signal it's a quality stand that that exactly a quality stand right um thank you for bringing in an interesting topic yeah you're welcome Caspar and uh thank you for the people who listen to this and and and keep coming back really appreciate that. We appreciate you bye guys