Careers in the Cloud - EP30: Rossella & Andrea: The Tech Job Market in Spain for 2024

[Music] guys thank you for just having me back here in Barcelona I'm super happy to be back I come like once twice a year and uh it's nice doing stuff like this how you guys doing awesome thank you so much for having us and me yeah very excited to be you don't have act like you know each other you just met like three minutes [Laughter] thank you for having us no no no come on it's going to be fun so we were we were just talking about this before the reason why we even do these podcasts I don't know what episode we're on at the moment but I think we're close to 30 at this point and the whole reason why we started to do this was because as an agency recruiter or maybe like as an internal recruiter as well we're going to talk about that right we talk to so many people all the time different walks of life different parts of their career doing this doing that and we put all this information together and it's in our minds and when we speak to someone we give good advice sometimes right we give the best advice we can I should say um but we don't really get to share that with the wider audience in the form of like a nice conversation you get a lot of reports out there which can be useful for what they are but sometimes it's nice to hear from people from a couple different walks of life um different from even my own we have a nice chat and I think it it helps a lot of people and that's kind of the feedback we've gotten so Rosella for you having been on or having been a tech recruiter yourself a few different companies right you've seen the way things work especially from an internal perspective so super interested to talk with you about that today Andrea you're like a famous person in in Barcelona we were just saying this before joking with George right that a lot of the a lot of the the events right that that have been put on for Salesforce you're a part of especially when it comes to women in Tech so we want to talk a lot about that but uh where I would like to start and i' would love to get I guess both of of your opinions is 2023 overall for not just recruitment for people wanting to get a job it's been a bit of a strange crazy strange yeah yeah exactly it's been it's been a bit of a crazy year how would each of you describe how you feel the tech job market has changed and if you want to specifically Zone in on Spain because that's where we're are today uh I would love to hear both of your opinions on that interesting question I feel that 2023 is actually the year in which we're back from covid so I felt that after 2020 then things were kind of still weird like before that that year before covid we were still as recruiters calling people on the phone meeting people face to face and then after we were still doing it after the pandemia say pandemia yeah yeah yeah so so I feel 2023 is actually the change feels like the year in which people do value again once again the face Toof face contact we're back from what from the the cave we were uh locked in in a certain way so I would say Co changed a lot of things and we're somehow valuing a lot uh face tof face contact and that's what I feel like from from the candidate that I talk to and yeah I don't know what do you feel Andrea about like what's your point of view I've been in a industry for 10 years now and I've been working with Salesforce for eight years now and I've seen a lot of changes okay 2023 was uh difficult for for for many people because we all know Salesforce lay off I think 10% of their employees were advis so there were a lot of people looking for new jobs and new opportunities but it I don't feel like it kind of affected the Spanish Market when it comes to recruitment or within my company where I seen changes we were we were still like recruiting a lot we were still uh looking for different profiles and it was even sometimes very difficult to find certain profiles so uh for me I always encourage people when they come to me like oh what should I do within the Salesforce industry or or or what what job type I should go for I always say try everything like you know like often people without technical background they start off with consulting or being an admin and um and that's good and then later on you can change and you can try uh to become a developer or QA or there are like different opportunities within the Salesforce World sure I think it's good too that we have a contrast because heavy heavy experience in Salesforce right in that in that area of tech whereas yourself like you touch a lot of other areas of technology and those the types of candidates you're talking to and it's funny from my side where I've I've had to sort of head hunt on both sides we get candidates who ask from outside areas for example of CRM and Salesforce like oh what's it like in there and then you get people who are in Salesforce especially over this past year like should I be doing something else or touching some other technology to kind of make myself more open so it's kind of good to hear bit a bit of both of your uh bit of both of your feedback the inperson I think is is uh a key thing that I've realized too where like when I started in my my role in recruitment like inperson meetings were everything they they would they would Target you on that where you had to hit a certain amount of inperson meetings every week because that's what differentiates you you now seemingly have been doing more interviews that way and yourself Andrea with the inperson events coming back how is that kind of when in the interviews and at the events what kind of candidate feedback are you getting about just their experience over the year now that you can speak to them face to face I love in iners events to be honest so I recently went to dreamforce and that was amazing um I do a lot of what we do uh with with my um with two other ladies a lot of women in Tech events and uh and I love to see people coming and participating it was different during Co we we did a lot of online events and it was fun people join in from the US from Canada from other countries as well and it was we had a lot of participants but when it comes to events in person I think it's just the knowledge sharing is more personal and then you of course networking after that you can meet other people from different companies you can have new opportunities new doors opening to you as well so I I really appreciate that and when it comes to meeting clients it's different as well so I really love to go to the client site and then you know speak to clients and and we haven't had that for the past three years so it's good in some sort of a way I love working remotely but um but yeah it's nice to be back to the office as well time to time right yeah totally agree I'm a person who loves to work from home I have to admit how however however I do feel that in person events cannot be replaced like the feeling the connecting with a person talking to that person having coffee with a person like when I go to the off every time I say I love working from home but when I go to the office I enjoy it so much I value so much talking to people face to face so I feel that for a candidate I believe that uh 2020 has proved us that we can have conversation and get the job done online but we need to make it more interesting for the people like we need to make the office interesting make the life at the office valuable so that's that's the part where I think all the companies should be working on if we want to Value the face Toof face contact then we make we need to make it worth it we need to create a safe space in which everyone feels comfortable to going to that event meeting that recruiter meeting that CEO so making it worth you know what I mean is it is it more though than just because even if think back to before like we'll go like I started recruitment in 2016 which isn't that far away to be fair but even back then I remember tech companies they' okay we're going to have a super nice office and free lunch and this and that and I know companies still do that and that hasn't like fully changed but is it more to Bringing people into an office than offering that and if so what's the deal how do they do it I don't know what when I'm having interviews these days I I tend to see that many people ask me hey and do you have an office and then actually we have an office in Barcelona with my company and opening an office in Madrid now just because many people who have joined recently our company they were like we want to go to the office we we need we miss this human touch actually sure um we have a lot of internship opportunities as well and if when you're an intern you actually want someone sitting next to you and helping you and showing you like you need to do this okay you have to click there and that's kind of like a good thing but on the other hand is well I think companies should keep the remote and have maybe a smaller face flexibility yeah I believe yeah that's the key absolutely you don't you can make the the nicest office for for the people if you don't get flexibility and today flexibility doesn't really mean going to the office or working from home it's everywhere flexibility is from uh schedule what time do you work what time do you start what time you you log off uh do you work on weekends do you not work on weekends like flexibility is everywhere like if an employer offers flexibility I think that's key so if you want the office the office is there the office is super nice but I'm not building this uh let's say golden cage for you sure right right that's actually good uh analogy golden cage I never heard this one before the the one thing that that I was thinking of now too Is We I I don't really do any personally don't do any perm recruitment right like me me um in North and South America like everything we do is is contract but I still do the best that I can and speak to candidates who are more on the perm side because you learn a lot about what's going on and one thing specifically for for permanent jobs will say that I've heard is that candidates get really discouraged about when if they're trying to get into tech for example they're trying to switch jobs there's like a thousand applicants like within 5 hours of a job being posted and it kind of makes me think after what you guys are saying about the in-person events why do you think uh networking is so important now to make sure you you maintain gainful employment as you go throughout your career so why are like going to an event when you need a job is very different than going to an event because you just want to enjoy and you have a great job but you never know what could come in the future you know what I'm trying to say so why do you think there's that importance now where people are starting to realize exactly that where maybe we should start just regularly going to events even before I I feel the need to network it might be a good idea just to start you know why do you think God that's a difficult question that is where are these thousands of applicants by the way where are know good one yeah apply really apply apply to job positions go to the event but also apply online why not it's the opposite you're saying there's a bit of a shortage of applicants yeah I think so it's very difficult to find talent and actually out of I don't know out of 10 interviews I find only one Talent um it doesn't matter how many certifications you have or or even years of experience I find them um I find it very difficult to find that right person with when I select people it's about personality not only about knowledge because knowledge can be taught personality and how your attitude is something that that different and what I'm missing from from the candidates these days is the attitude you know like not not the knowledge weird no I mean not weird it's very very strange and regarding the can't teach attitude or you maybe you can but it's super hard yeah it's a long time yeah right yeah and online well events what we do in with the woman in Tech we had just had one last week we had over 30 participants uh I think it was great yeah just um networking um and and helping others what we do usually um it's I can talk about this but with Salesforce we have an initiative uh called switch Tech and it's something that um I I've been doing with my team MH and for eight weeks we we had 80 or 90 people applied already we started the program and out of that hopefully half of them will graduate and then we try to help them not in Tech not in Tech these people in Salesforce so they will be Consultants gotcha but before that like their current experience before they have no Tech most of them know most of them know yeah exactly that's why it's called yeah so yeah it's interesting because many people want get into a tech world yeah and that's the first step is the most difficult and then finding the job your first job is the most difficult I don't know if yeah you notice that as well but once you have your first one then recruiters will keep finding you keep stealing you yeah and you said it Network like networking is the key as well um for somebody that wants to jump into a tech uh into a tech word um I would say go to the event apply but also be on be there be present in networking connect with recruiters um stay updated go with the market study study the market you need to study the market you need to study what's in Trend what type of technology is in Trend what are developers stud they are continuously studying what is the new technology like a couple of days ago I was I was hearing Astro Astro okay then study Astro like they know of course uh they know so stay updated I would say be present on the market you also end up speaking sometimes to people who are trying to get into tech oh yeah definitely what kind of advice do you do you give them like I know you just gave some like some pretty good points there but is there anything specific where like besides like you said staying updated or networking like anything with the resume or LinkedIn that you say maybe you should try this or try that my recommendation is don't be the guy or girl behind the scene behind the screen coding get out there meet people um uh connect with other people like you that want to build something together um like make a noise somehow and you said it soft skills ambition I think ambition beats uh technical skills soft skills be technical skills anything can be learned uh we could be developers in a few years who knows maybe not probably who knows but you do not learn how to that's the SKS that's kind of I guess answered my original question where why is it like so important for networking especially now so maybe like in Spain right where it's still really hard to get a direct applicant in some other markets maybe right it's it's not necessarily the case but when there's so much noise going on about like a lot of people maybe want to switch or there's not a lot of opportunities out there so it's like it's tough for people to like really show what you just said it's hard to show your attitude and ambition and all the stuff you're doing on the side to show your work ethic over a resume or or LinkedIn not impossible but it's kind of hard when you go to a networking session you meet someone face to face they kind of it's it's not like you just go to one and your life changes it's like the consistency of always seeing someone there you know what I mean and then it starts to build and build people get to know you a little bit better and then as soon as something opens up you think of that person that you've met like 300 times over the past year because they're at all these events and you're the person that they call first we we talk about that a lot with contract recruitment where it's uh we don't post a lot of those jobs because the point is the people that we want to continue to work with are the people that we know well so these are people we've met people we've been referred to people who've done good work for us already so maybe there's someone out there who's technically like better yeah at this specific work but I know that this person is good already so I'm calling them they're the first person and sometimes only person right that will call and they get first dibs on that op for that exact reason because you know them you've met them and you have that like of yeah trust behind right often you go there and then you I've been doing a lot of mentoring and I can give you a very good example actually so I met this girl a couple of months ago in in the event of Montreal actually oh nice uh and where we where we did a joint event with the admin group and then she she never she didn't know about Salesforce she knew someone who told her about Salesforce that you know like come to the event you know me people um and um she's now working in my company so I met with her for a couple of months and then she got got her first certification got her internship and now she's working and she enjoys it and all it takes is really just go to one of the events and then meet people and some people are more shy I I understand that as well but I think um it's super important know like when when you out there and then and like you said advertise yourself you know like put out that you open to work put out that you know like you're willing to learn new things post your certification your your badges everything I always say that that that's how people find you and that's how you get your your job yeah right and also maybe as a as a candidate or as somebody that wants to get to a certain type of company have a coffee with somebody that works there why not so that's why people get rewarded for bringing somebody they know in the company uh we trust you program C of those yeah that comes from networking have a coffee with that person get closer to that person maybe you end up finding out that you don't even dream about that company anymore you know what I mean like get get closer to the company you aspire to work for understand whether you like you would really like working there and then do anything to be known for you like be yourself most of the time people want to go like an extra mile uh to you know impress other people be yourself I think it's it's really you have open days at your company like where people can come and ask questions and that's a good one we actually don't but we have just moved to a new office so yeah that that is actually nice now we were thinking about something like that it always helps I think as well going to universities explain you know what Salesforce is or any other have you been doing that going to universities we do that with with my company um and and how have you found not only Salesforce it's more I think they do it more for different Technologies J in general Consulting yeah for sure and you found like it's we found Talent yeah yeah we found interns and they they they are now employed and yeah I think it's great yeah huge oh I I mean I know You' started to go to more events this past year like just in in in us talking Andrea have you always been like an event person or is this something yes okay so it's like in your blood okay good and and for yourself were you always someone who really loves I love it yeah you love it right what advice would you give to someone like you you mentioned maybe someone's a bit shy for example and they need a bit of practice is that really all it takes just sort of push yourself and show up sit at the back for the first few maybe and then work your way absolutely to the front raise your hand at some point you know I think this is actually our job to make that person feel comfortable as well so rather than telling the candidates like it should be also us to make people feel comfortable us as in in terms of yeah recruiters or like senior manag yeah telling ambassadors yeah yeah it's kind of true yeah it's difficult finding even speakers to our events I always find it very difficult because people are shy and they have such a great knowledge and once they are there oh my God you see them shining through and it's like amazing incredible what people are capable of that they don't know actually because they never tried it so yeah I'm not too privy to to how this is in Spain with um barriers to entry specifically for women in the tech industry in other markets I've seen it's it's it actually is like harder for for a woman to get into Tech than it would be say for a man I've seen this in other markets do you see barriers that women face here in Spain and what kind of advice do you give them to sort of overcome those barriers M well I've been doing women in tech for four years now and yeah I see more women joining our events yeah I see them more I see them a lot of them turning into great developers great QA um but still the number is is yeah there are more men at the end of the day when it comes to my company actually today ask ask HR could you tell me like what is the percentage right now in my company because when I started eight years ago they were probably like five women and now we're like 40% 40 60 this is incredible yeah and the and many of them are developers uh in different um sectors so yeah it's better I think so yeah and when it comes to management positions I don't know I think we're still lacking of of female managers I don't know what is your op opinion let's see in my experience I do feel that as you said women in Tech are more I receive more applications from women uh what I actually think is that today we speak about diversity when we speak about diversity I don't like to divide into women and men I like to see background what the person I study where the person uh grew up um how did they arrive into Tech like I know let's say I was working in marketing and suddenly I'm a developer that means I have a story to tell uh so I think rather than women I I see women there we are there um I would I would not say we're half and half I I do see women in in leadership as well um but I think diversity these days I would speak about even background rather than women or men in Tech how how is that in Spain if we look at say diversity of where candidates might come from do you see like a a good pool of different backgrounds or or perhaps definitely right now that we are doing the switch to Tech program all these people there was 90 people who applied and 80 of them doing the course actually they come from Yeah a different background yeah any any particular background you see really succeeding or even if it's not like a depends because switching from one to the other it's when when you are when you are marketer then you could go to marketing cloud or marketing become a marketing developer sure when when you're consult I don't know whatever consultant you are you can become you know like again a developer or technical consultant um but no I can't tell you like specifically like there's nothing really stood out that's probably a good thing yeah there's veterinarian turning into a tech person I don't have an example like that but okay good there you go no what I mean is it's good that uh it doesn't necessarily mean that you know one background is like really crushing it in comparison to others which in fact should mean that no matter where you come from if you do want to get into into technology uh there's a way there's a way yeah we're lacking people in technology study any course yeah that would bring it would bring you to to that path I know I've had candidates that a candidate used to be a nurse and over a year she she were a Java developer uh she was a Java de developer and then another one was into marketing a year later yeah speaking about Junior roles you see that a lot really and age as well I think what we have what I've seen is like people um like about 40 or 50 or even like 60 I saw that yeah changing careers and quite interesting and very brave really bra and finding some success as well to be honest yeah definitely um I have a lady who I hired this year she's about 50 and she's incredible like really good yeah I think that they don't don't give them enough credit sure ches as as well but I always think like I'm going to be 50 or 60 and then you know if I ever want to change my career then you know like I hope someone will give me that chance yeah and and yeah so far so good yeah she aming we see it a lot too where um and I love to see this where you you'll have someone who full out retires but they'll uh they'll start their own small business and they start just Consulting a little bit on the side at their own Leisure where it's it works perfectly for where their life is at that point but they're still getting work they're still doing well they still have a network work it's there's a there's I agree I think it's completely overlooked um never stop learning yeah no no for sure right if someone has the like what you guys both just said with the work ethic right with the ambition with the attitude doesn't matter what uh what age you are especially for for technology right that's quite cool 100% yeah nice good I have one question for you Andrea talk to me about this MVP nomination of God I don't know what to say actually I just received an email so I've been nominated and I think I've been nominated last year as well but this year um a lot of people came to me and they were like oh thank you for doing this thank you for doing that oh my God yeah so I don't know if I'm gonna become a Salesforce MVP it it means I've been nominated I will go through the whole process and then hopefully succeed I don't know but I would love that I would like to publicly speak in one of the dreamforce events or one of these big events that's my dream kind of kind of goal for 2024 right and and it's dream oay that's coming up right yes in Spain are you will you be speaking at that one no but I will be there you'll be there for sure okay nice good any any events that you're going to Rella in the night or before the end of the year no I I don't have anything planned but we're exploring um we were an event last week super nice event we were actually thinking about organizing one why not we have this new office that is amazing uh so we're proud of it and we want to show it to to the people out there so so yeah um nothing concrete but a lot of ideas a lot of um a lot of plans for the future I I do think we have in terms of not only the company work for but in terms of the tech word I think there is a bright future ahead it's an exciting moment right plenty of events in Barcelona yeah and for next year maybe to just ended off when you look at the job market in Spain going into 2024 around the world everyone thinks a lot of things about what's coming next year not just for Tech but for the for economies in general yeah what do you guys think is is uh it's going to be like here in Spain difficult that was the toughest one actually out of all the questions crystal ball yeah I'm afraid a bit of AI you know like uh I know that they said when I was in dream Force AI will you know like um we have more more jobs and it will provide more jobs for the people I don't know I'm not sure I'm for me it's a bit scary actually and I feel like it will be a big cut but um yeah I don't know this very that's interesting AI um and I was I was listening actually to a podcast that said um they were looking at the the jobs that might disappear because of AI which ones um recruiter is like 19 so it's not one of the the first ones which I thought maybe recruiters are going to slowly disappear how do you how do you value soft skills like you're G to have you're going to have somebody like a computer doing CV screening how do you have this how do you have this like you know feeling how how do you connect with the person I don't think you connect with a person and I don't know about the future and but but with through a computer through artificial intelligence I think that's tough what's important is that we we we learn how to use it we we bring AI on our side right to connect with people to reach out to people to to uh promote the company we work for to promote initiatives I think that's interesting like how they use hi and take Ai and take advantage of it rather than like have you been playing around with it at all this past year uh T DPT anything anything that's been working yeah yeah yeah why not yeah yeah anything that's like been wow like this is this is really helpful for my job rejection letter how to write a rejection letter um I really like to be to get closer to candidate and try to personalize it um like if I need to write a post on LinkedIn then double check and then it always like I feel that after a while you can tell when a post has been written from from AI I me you need to tange it otherwise be like for sure you know who's talking yeah like sometimes I read post I'm like no this is not you weird right yeah scary that's scary I think what's scary is that we we trust more artificial intelligence rather than ourselves like anytime that I need to write a post I I try to check and then I'm like no this is not me I need to be I need to be me otherwise how do I project myself probably we have to learn no it's something that we will have to learn as well a new skill right yeah it is hard we have um we have a software Kate is actually going to kill me for saying this I don't care but it's you can like type in a bit about your your tone and your personality and it'll kick out like a LinkedIn post that you can share so far for two weeks it hasn't given me it hasn't given me the one where I was like this is me but I think it's something like you said you still got to play with it right you'll you'll start to understand like depending on how good the technology is and what you have to give it to give it back what you want but that's like a work in progress that could create some other jobs but you're right about it like getting rid of some jobs too I had to I had to give some vendors uh some bad news recently because yeah like it it is technology is changing stuff where it makes things a lot quicker so it's only time will tell what's going to happen but yeah definitely a big year for AI and I think that leaves uh a pretty open book for what the job Market looks like in in uh in a lot of countries not just but we'll see totally yeah

2024-03-13 18:50

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