1782 – Expanding your IT team with Tatiana Melnichuk of LUCKY HUNTER

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0:58with us right now tatiana melnichuk tatiana you are the founder of lucky hunter you are found on the web at lucky hunter.co.uk tatiana thanks so much for joining us hello nice to see you yes absolutely well give us a quick overview of the work that you do with lucky hunter So I'm the CEO of the International IT Recruitment Agency, like a hunter. We've been working on the global market for more than six years. We have two main offices in London and Dubai, and we're looking for IT specialists all over the world, exclude China, because I'm still in progress, just learning Chinese language, maybe a little bit later.

1:42So we will be working there. Sure. Okay. So where do you fit in then? And so you're in the recruitment, the IT recruitment side. So are potential employers saying, hey, we have positions to fill, please find us talent? So we are on the client side. So we are working with the companies and we have a lot of customers from America as well. And yeah, so our clients, it's like a huge large IT companies and the promising startups. and we are working just based on their request. So if we have any vacancy, so we can offer this vacancy to the candidate, but we are not looking for a job for a candidate.

2:27We are looking for a staff for a company. Do you feel the difference between these two roles? Yeah, explain that more. So usually just sometimes agency, they're focusing on the candidates. So like they work with the candidates. Candidates just can send them their CVs and after that they are trying to find some job for the candidates. But this is not our way. We have different customers just from all over the world and they can tell us that we're looking for a Java developer, just for example. And I'm looking for this. I want to try this developer in the US. It doesn't matter. Just it's remote vacancy, but the candidate should be in the US.

3:09And after that, we just start searching the candidates. So just because we have a special request from our clients, so we work with the companies and not with the candidates. Yeah. So if you're not working with the recruiter, what is life typically like for a potential employer who's trying to fill IT roles? So what should a candidate do? No, no. So just, you know, again, personally, as a business leader, like I'm not staffing those positions. So I wouldn't know what to do necessarily. If people aren't, let's say, if employers are not working with a recruiter, what are they typically doing? And what are the problems with that?

3:54So I guess basically what I'm saying is in a very soft self type of way, why is it valuable? Asked another way. Why is it valuable to work with a recruiter like what you do? so we are just not another one recruitment agency so that's why maybe we are focusing just to work with the company so and i know that another recruitment agency they're just happy to work with the candidate but i can't find their just monetization system in that way so we are a business and we need to understand how we can get money so that's why we're focusing on the company so we work with them why just customers just work with us because for the three reasons So the first, because if it's a huge, big company, they're looking for stuff all the time and they need more and more developers.

4:43And we can add our efforts and we can give more candidates from our side because we have a capacity on the other side. So the medium startups and the medium companies, because they don't have our in-house recruiters. So they're on their best A, B, surround. It's like a medium startups and it's cheaper to work with us and pay us only once than just monthly salary for recruiters because they sometimes they have only five vacancies per year and it's easy and we have a replacement guarantee. We have a we will get send an invoice only when the candidates start to work. We'll work without prepayments and it's quite interesting to work with us and small startups when they are on the zero stage.

5:33So they need to find a chief technology officer and just usually founder. They don't have a lot of time and we can find this person. Or sometimes companies they're developing in some regions and they don't have an experience. Like for sometimes American company, they want to open office in London, just for example. And they need to find local recruiters here just who will try to find this local staff here. Yeah. So the difference breaks. If I'm an employer and I know that I want to be able to staff some positions and what are some things that I could do to make your job a lot easier? Or, you know, because again, I want to have a great place to work.

6:18I want to be attractive for potential employees. So what things might I want to have in place or do or say? First, just to make a perfect CV. It's a really big problem for the candidates because they can't do this. So because they're just a CV format, that's usually really different from candidate to another candidate, and they can't just describe their experience in the CV. So and this is the first what you can do is just to prepare your CV. No, and I'm so sorry. I'm speaking about from the employer perspective. Yes, potential employees, yes, have a great CV. And I'm so sorry. From the employer perspective, if I want to, let's say that I retain your services, but I want to be a good partner or a great client for you.

7:10Okay. Yeah, what makes a really great client for you? a really great client for us it's a client who knows what he wants to find what kind of candidate but it's a it's a normal process when we are just working with the client and sometimes we are just starting to find a just full stack developer and then the middle of the way just our customer can understand that no we need two different roles because it's just difficult to find is two in one person. So we work with IT companies in a legal zone all over the world. And that is all what we're looking for from our customers. And where would you put the kind of supply demand right now, Tatiana, when it comes to IT staffing?

7:57Is there a lot more demand? Is there a lot more supply? We're recording this at the very, very end of 2023. Where are we at right now? I see that now we have much more customers than it was one year ago, because I see that the market is growing rapidly, just step by step. And one year ago, our customers, they were scary. No one couldn't understand what's going on right now. And now I see how everything feels that it's time to develop, it's time to grow, and we have a lot of new clients and a lot of new weaknesses in our company. And I see that the next year, this will be quite prospective. I have heard a lot of foreign casting about the next big crisis, but I feel in IT, I see that in IT, everything is going to be all right.

8:49I don't know what will be just in another field, but in IT, I see that it will be like not fast, but slow growing process. I'm curious what you're seeing, by the way, of remote versus in-office versus hybrid. For positions offered, what do you think is the general breakdown right now? it's a big conflict between candidates and companies because companies they want open their offices again and just to involve the candidates in their offices but the candidate they don't want do so i have a friend he relocated to amsterdam in really famous it companies but he needs to go to the office five times per week and he understood that it was too much for him and he just dislocated.

9:39I see that candidates, they are not happy to go to the office. And I see that in the end, it will be just compromised, like a hybrid two days from office or just one day from office. But I don't see that it will be full-time job from office in ATIFO. All right. Tatiana, what does it look like when someone says, listen, we've got some positions to fill over the next six months, we know. Like, how did they decide to work with you versus, say, another recruiting space? Should they stop their own kind of outreach? I guess, what do the first few weeks typically look like? So we have a standards in our company within four days after the job opening discussion.

10:26We need to send the first CV of the candidates who are ready just to protest through the customer process. so we have only four days and within four days when we send the first cv so we see how our customers just react on the cv so about our customers feedback and after that we're going step by step through the customers process sometimes our customers can understand that now we need to change the role we need to focus in on the different skills now we have another a mass skill because recruiting, this is a life process. So we work with the people, with the humans. So that's why everything is flexible and we don't have a standard process in a company.

11:10And when we work with the customers, so we have a different process and a different way how to build our relationships. Yeah. Yeah. So Lucky Hunter has been around for quite a while and you You have a huge roster of clients that you've served. So congratulations, six years, lucky hunter. And I'm just looking at your list of clients that you've worked with. SEMrush, Malwarebytes, I've noticed, Bionic. I've seen some logos I definitely recognize, but you've created quite a deep roster of clients that you work with. So congratulations on that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, yeah. What would you say just from an agency standpoint has differentiated you versus other recruiters in the space?

11:56Sorry, could you repeat the question? Yeah. What makes you different? In other words, why have you thrived so well over the past six years where maybe others might be struggling? So recruitment business, this is the most difficult business I think in the world because I've been working in IT recruitment for more than 50 years. And all the time, I think that this is a magic. So I don't know how it works. because we are near the two fires between the candidates and between the customers and we need to find the perfect candidate for our customers and this candidate should choose our customers because usually our candidates have three or four another job offers from the different companies so because we are looking for a senior or c-level roles just usually and there this is a high demand specialist and yeah this is a really difficult and hard business just work so what i opened my business so we've been working on the global market for more than six years and six years ago i was alone and i thought that i want to have a small company with two or maybe three recruiters and that is all what i want and now we're 35 yeah yeah so i don't know i can't control this we're just developing all the time, all what we did, we do our work perfect.

13:21And this is the main lead generation tools to make our work just really good. Yeah. Your website is luckyhunter.co.uk. For someone who's been listening to our conversation, what would you recommend they do? I mean, you have a pretty beefy website. There's a lot here in terms of cases, testimonials, you know, clients, you know, certainly if you want to learn a bit about the team, but what would you recommend folks do? I recommend focusing on the cases, I think. So this is about successful cases. I just wanted to congratulate you too, because it seems like you're a very, very female-led and run company.

14:04Yeah, yeah. In my company, we have a female team, only girls. Well, congratulations on that success, you know, kind of again in the tech space. That's exciting to see. And I'm so sorry, Tatiana, I distracted you. What would you recommend folks next step be? Like in terms of like if they're interested in having a conversation. Just send us a request on our website and we will contact with you and send all information about us. So usually just our customers send their small request. after that my manager usually will contact with the potential clients and we need to discuss the request because we are working without prepayment we just will send an in-way voice only when the candidates start work for us it's really important to understand that we can fulfill this vacancy so that everything is correct so what the candidates want and what the customer wants what our customers offer to the future candidates.

15:07Because sometimes customers are looking for senior developers, just like a unicorn, and can offer just a medium or just salary range. So that's why we need to understand what is the recruiting process to discuss that we are on the same page, that we understand each other. Because recruiting, this is where we are working on the principle of partnership with our clients and important to understand each other and yeah and only after that if we agree to work with the customer and the customer just just of course agreed to work with that we just signed the contract and within four days so we will send the first candidates but we are talking about within four days we will send the first cv candidates if we are talking about senior middle roles if we are working on c-level position of course we need a little bit more time because this is not so easy.

16:00The candidates are too busy to talk with us. So if we're looking for a C-level manager, VP of product, VP of just engineering. So this is a little bit of a long process. And are most of your clients based in the UK or what geography do you serve? The biggest part of our client, they're based in the US. Oh, okay, sure. We love to work with the guys from USA because I think that we have the same mindset. They're fast. They prefer to work just and they want to see the profits right now. So and we are really fast and we love to work with the customer from USA. So yeah, of course, I'm living in London right now.

16:41So and we have just a local client. But we have an office in Dubai and we have just local client there. Dubai is quite prospective region. They are developing really fast and they want to digitalize everything in their country. and they're looking for a lot of developers. So, and yeah, we're located just a lot of teams to that region. That's great. Tatiana Melnichuk, again, you're the founder of Lucky Hunter. Your website is luckyhunter.co.uk. Tatiana, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

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