Jean Galea

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Recruiting Successfully

Last updated: June 18, 2020Leave a Comment

I recently made it to DCxBerlin and took some notes on a good talk by Mads Singers on recruitment.

Needs

Focus on the needs of each person you’re interviewing. What is the role, skill set and type of personality you’re looking for? If you hire people for a role they like doing, it’ll be a success.

Essentials

Be very clear on the essential qualities and tasks that you can’t live without. Don’t make the mistake of falling in love with a prospect and consequentially waiving away the essential qualities that you were looking for as not that important after all.

Description

Take a look at the Empire Flippers job descriptions as they are some of the best around. When recruiting your job is to sell your company. Be realistic but talk about your company, who are you, what’s your culture like. Make it very clear that it’s a tough job. You don’t want to be selling a “relaxed, work from home job”. Better to make it sound tougher than it really is than the other way round.

What to look for

Where to look

The best people are already employed. Networking is absolutely key. The bigger your network is the more likely it is that you already know the person you want to employ. Knowing someone means you already have a good idea what you’re getting.

When contacting people on Linkedin they tend to hire one of those people’s contacts rather than the person they originally contacted. If you’re approaching someone from a competitor, you don’t need to be afraid of being seen as a poacher. You can ask: “hey we have a cool job opening, would you happen to know anyone in this field who would be a good fit for this?”

What to look for

Focus on personality and culture before skillset. You can always train the skills but the mentality is much more difficult to train and is the sum of the person’s genetics and life experiences which is very very had to change. A good rule of thumb is 10% skills, 90% personality. Unless you’re looking for highly specific roles like a programmer; there you want skills.

Focus on full-time as it costs less to train and they are much more likely to be looking for other jobs and eventually leave.

How to ask

Use job posting sites and sites like LinkedIn. If you want to hire from competitors you could ask those people whether they know anyone who would be interested in the job.

The Last Steps

Sorting candidates

Make sure you have a good pile of candidates so you can have a full choice for filtering and choosing. Check for trust and honesty. Job hopping is a no-no. People who have lived in several countries are favored.

Interviews

Ask everyone the same questions. Ask stuff that helps understand who they are. Ask about their weaknesses. Try to understand if they’re telling you the truth or bullshitting. What you’re looking for is whether this person can be honest or not. Another good question is: “Do you prefer working by yourself or in a team? Many candidates stumble on that one.

Hire the right one

People hire the best person if they’re not good enough. This is one of the biggest mistakes in recruitment. Don’t hesitate to avoid hiring any of the candidates if none of them make you excited to work with them.

Let people know that they were not suitable for this job but leave the door open for them to apply for future jobs, if that’s what you want.
“We don’t think you are a good fit for this company” means don’t apply again.

“We don’t think you are a good fit for this role” means we might have another job that is indeed suitable.

Bonus trick:

Call previous companies they worked for, especially those ones they didn’t list any references for. The ones referenced are usually going to provide a glowing review, so they are not very helpful.

More notes

These extra notes are based on my experience and chats with other entrepreneurs about recruitment.

  • Add a recruitment page on your website.
  • Post in targeted FB groups, for example, if you need a web developer go to web developer FB groups and post there. Communities are very powerful for this stuff.
  • Tell your own team – maybe they know other people like them, you can even incentivize them with a bonus.
  • Connect with people on Linkedin.

Eastern European countries are good for programming tasks. Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine, Montenegro great for design and development. It’s also very important to hire from the same culture if possible. This facilitates communication and expectations.

With incentives I prefer not having specific targets to unlock specific bonuses. It’s best to set business targets and KPIs, but then the decision for bonuses (which can be given in July and December) rests with the management team. You can also reward people who go above and beyond what was asked for them. Bonuses can be 0.5 to 1.5x the monthly salary.

Another interesting idea is to tie part of the salary every month to the company’s performance. For example, if employees are earning €1,500, part of that, say €300, would be tied to whether the company hits its monthly targets.

Filed under: Business

Can You Withdraw Money from 2Checkout to TransferWise Borderless?

Published: October 10, 20193 Comments

Many online businesses use 2Checkout to collect payments for their products, as an alternative to PayPal or other payment gateways.

If you’re one of the many online businesses that sells in USD but has its local bank accounts in another currency (such as Euro) you will be losing money every time you transfer due to exchange fees from your bank.

A better alternative would be to set up a TransferWise Borderless account then link it up to 2Checkout as your bank account, using the USD account details provided by TransferWise in your Borderless account. Note that 2Checkout only allows one active bank account at a time, so if you already have a bank account set up, you will need to remove that bank account and add the TransferWise one.

Filed under: Business

How to Buy App Store Software for Your Team

Published: August 04, 2019Leave a Comment

startselect

If your team is using Apple software and you want them to use some particular paid software, you are going to face an important decision.

Should they download the software using their personal Apple ID or the company one?

In practice, it is much easier for everyone if the employees use their own Apple ID. The question is, then, how will they pay for the apps?

One option is for them to pay using their own funds and then claim reimbursement to the company.

An even cleaner way to do it is for the company to buy a gift code for the employee using the exact amount of credit needed to buy the app. This is delivered instantly, and the employee can then buy the app on his own Apple ID using the credit applied.

My favorite site for buying these credits is StartSelect.

Filed under: Business

How to Change Ownership of a PayPal Account

Last updated: April 05, 20201 Comment

Here’s how to change the ownership of a PayPal account, which typically needs to be done when your company gets acquired, among other cases.

  1. Add new email -> Confirm it -> Make it primary.
  2. Delete old email (so it can be reused on another PP account)
  3. Change Business Name
  4. Change Business Contact

Each requires verification steps of some kind, but in that order you can essentially migrate it to new ownership.

  1. How to Time PayPal Withdrawals to Get the Best Currency Exchange Rate
  2. 🧐 Are You Losing out from PayPal’s Exchange Rates?
  3. 🤔 Which PayPal Account is Best for You?
  4. 💸 Changing Your PayPal Withdrawal Currency
  5. Accepting Credit Card Payments via Braintree in Europe
  6. Braintree vs PayPal Fees, Which One is Cheaper?
  7. 💸 Understanding PayPal Cross Border Fees
  8. PayPal Now Allows Withdrawing Money to Bank Accounts in Malta
  9. 💳 Withdrawing Money From PayPal for Non-US Accounts
  10. Which PayPal E-Commerce Checkout Service Should You Use?
  11. 🤔 Should You Open Separate PayPal Accounts for Each of Your E-Commerce Stores?
  12. 🆚 PayPal VS TransferWise Borderless
  13. 💳 Linking Virtual Bank Accounts and Cards to PayPal (Revolut, TransferWise etc)
  14. How to Check the Instant Payment Notification (IPN) History in PayPal
  15. Should You Withdraw From PayPal to Credit Card or Bank Account?
  16. PayPal Stiffs Sellers With Changes in Refund Policy
  17. How to Change Ownership of a PayPal Account

Filed under: Business

The Best Networking and Personal Development Groups for Entrepreneurs

Last updated: July 02, 2019Leave a Comment

Entrepreneurship can be an exciting but lonely experience. You start off with nothing and most likely with your peers thinking you’re chasing an impossible dream, or worse, doing nothing of worth. If you manage to prove your worth and build a successful business, you’ll also lose touch with those same peers because your concerns are quite different from theirs, and they most likely start to regard you as the lucky guy.

They say it’s lonely at the top, and that certainly applies to successful entrepreneurs. You don’t need to achieve great wealth or success to start to feel that. Even the mere fact of owning a business and being fully responsible for your and your family’s financial future (not to mention that of the employees who depend on your company)

Entrepreneurs’ Organization

EO is the only global network exclusively for entrepreneurs. EO helps leading entrepreneurs learn and grow through peer-to-peer learning, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and connections to experts.

Entrance to the EO requires you to have a business that generates more than a million dollars in revenue per year, and costs around $6000 to join. It’s aimed at entrepreneurs who are experienced and successful and certainly not at those just starting off on their journey,

Although it might seem a bit elitist, I think the requirements and high fees make sense. The success of the organization depends on its members sharing many of the same concerns and dilemmas, as well as providing useful contacts and advice to each other. It’s safe to say that a beginner entrepreneur will not have the same concerns and capacity to help others that a seasoned entrepreneur at the helm of a $1m and multiple-employee business will.

There are several events throughout the year, and you get subsidized rates to first-class hotels and tours as part of your membership. You’ll find entrepreneurs of all ages and industries in the EO, which means you will also widen your field of knowledge and be able to learn from other sectors that you were previously unfamiliar with or even unaware of.

[Read more…]

Filed under: Business

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Jean Galea

Investor. Dad. Global Citizen. Padel Player.

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