The Hiring Sprint that Built pplwise

Thomas Kohler:
I call this pplwise intelligence. It’s a lot of manual work in the background, but where we use tech is to gather data.

Diana Cherevko:
Are you considering to sell it as a secret sauce?

Thomas Kohler:
Renting recruiters focus, don’t do any distractions. That’s my thing. I want to be the best in that.

I want to be the most scientific and systematic recruiting company globally at some point. My goal is to go to 100 million in the next 15 years.

Diana Cherevko:
What are the most typical mistakes that companies do right after raising?

Thomas Kohler:
They don’t really understand the problem correctly. They are not in place, the right talents in the right positions. So I think finding the balance on what are the key positions for the next stages and what are the right calibrated decisions for the right hire.

–

Diana Cherevko:
All right. Welcome to another episode of Heart of Brand by Global Talent. Today’s guest is Thomas Kohler, founder and CEO of pplwise.

Thomas, excited about this one. Would you like to maybe introduce yourself in your own words?

Thomas Kohler:
So I’m Thomas, founder and CEO of pplwise, 30 years old, originally from Tirol, living in Munich, having a business of like 45 recruiters that we provide to companies. So a company can rent a recruiter that is specialised in certain areas like function, region, language, industry expertise. And yeah, that’s what we do.

Diana Cherevko:
And you’re mostly focussing in the DACH region or more?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes, mostly, yes. I would even go deeper and say mostly Germany with an international touch. So what does it mean?

We also expand with German customers to in the US, we also have three, four employees, but we also expand with US businesses across Europe, but let’s say mainly Germany, especially if they want to enter Germany, you need a German speaking, go-to-market account executive, whatever you want, or a country manager. You don’t have the expertise, you don’t know who to talk to. We are somehow positioned in that way.

And we are now double down on that. We just, for instance, for the go-to-market hiring in Germany, I just employed German native speakers that have go-to-market experience, for instance, for tech recruiters, they don’t need to speak German native, for instance, but they need a certain industry experience because now I think robotics and AI in robotics is a big trend. So a tech recruiter in the past for a B2B SaaS company is maybe not the right tech recruiter for a robotics company, for instance. So this type of expertise matters more than the language, for instance, right?

Diana Cherevko:
It makes sense. In regards to your positioning, I think you’re a very data-driven, tech-driven company from what I’ve gathered. This means you are highly relying on data and probably you have some sort of techie secret sauce behind the whole process.

Can you maybe share a bit on that?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes, I call this pplwise intelligence. I think it’s not there yet that I could say it’s really tech enabled yet. It’s a lot of manual work in the background, but where we use tech is to gather data, for instance, taking notes of every interview where we are allowed to and just gathering a lot of data from interviews.

And then I think per week we gather between 100 to 200 new data sets from interviews. And if this is focused, let’s say on AI engineers in Germany, for instance, and SDRs in Germany, and then the rest, what a tech company hires, but maybe not to a high volume, but still enough volume that you could draw benchmarks from. What do we do with this data?

If we work with a new stakeholder, with a new customer, we always look into a funnel and then always ask, okay, how many, for instance, for an SDR rolling Berlin on-site? Okay, then I would ask before somebody’s engaging us, okay, how many top of funnel candidates for applications sourcing do you need in order to make one high on average? How many talent acquisition screens do you need in order to make one higher?

How many you can then go down the funnel offers you need, whatever it is. And then you look at the process, you look at maybe also rejection reasons, withdrawal reasons, conversational. And then when you do this with all the companies you work with and all our recruiters have this mindset on gathering this data and thinking in that way, you suddenly have a tonne of data that is really useful, but of course not for every role and for every region, but let’s stay with Germany or with the AI software engineers, which is a bit hyped at the moment.

There we can accurately tell you what process is performing better, what role requirements are performing better, and then also consulting the company with insights, with real insights, what just we own and what we don’t pulled up through a TGPT query or something. We gather this data through our interviews and this is where we use the tech to get the data.

Diana Cherevko:
A real data gathering machine. I would say so. I’m giving you my official permission to steal that.

Thomas Kohler:
Everybody should do that because every company has a different focus. I think just as in, let’s say a company that just works on their roles doesn’t have access to also data from the market beside what they’re working on. But we work with companies that are early stage, like less than a hundred people, no product market fit yet.

If they hire AEs or SDRs, it’s often like, don’t expect that somebody from, let’s say Unicorn, let’s say Persunio is the right fit for you because if they went into the stage of product market fit and achieved their target, let’s say 80 to 200%, whatever it is, the number, it’s not representative that they would even deliver or perform a new company because you don’t have a product market fit. And then you probably need a different person that is more hands-on, maybe never achieved their targets in a sales role, but would be the better fit for you in your stage, for instance. So this is why I think every company should do this and gather this data.

And if you have the context information around the data, it’s really powerful.

Diana Cherevko:
May I ask you how you go about the compliance? I’m a huge fan of transcribing meetings and taking notes and then writing AI generated summaries, but how do you actually do that? Do you just request the permission, the opt-in from the candidate?

Thomas Kohler:
On the company side, we are ISO certified. We also need certain compliance processes. We, with every customer, have three signed documents, usually a legal document, a commercial agreement, and then a data, AFFV in Germany, Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag document.

Where everything is regulated, what data we are allowed to use and whatnot. So first that’s the company permission. And sometimes we use our system, sometimes we use the company systems.

If we use the company systems, we don’t have access, we don’t get the data. And it’s fine. But then we use our data that we have and try to benchmark it against their data and see how can we add value additionally.

And then we just make sure that they have the data and they can do something with it. The second aspect is each individual call with a candidate before every interview, before letting a note taken, asking if it’s okay. That’s the two-step process that we have there.

And of course, the third process, it’s also ISO 27001 regulated a bit, who has access rights. So I don’t give access, not every recruiter has access to all the conversations, but you can pull reports that are anonymised and there you can share access again.

Diana Cherevko:
So you have the fully covered.

Thomas Kohler:
Yes, we did a lot of thinking around that and it just takes time to build. But once it’s running and you keep it focused, I think you don’t need to do it for everything. But focused on that where we need it and we want to have repetitiveness, you need to think a bit bigger and more detail.

Diana Cherevko:
Thomas, whenever you walk into a customer, a new customer, what are the red flags that you’re secretly looking for first?

Thomas Kohler:
Yeah, number one thing, case study. So if they do a case study and they give a take-home test that takes, let’s say, I don’t know, five hours, eight hours to prepare. And then I look at the, again, back to the basics, at the funnel overall and ask them how many interviews in total you need in order to make one hire.

And then I also ask, okay, what’s the average time in stage? Does that differ? Yes, completely different.

If companies have complex case studies, it’s comfortable for the hiring team, but not comfortable for the candidate. So a lot of companies then do a comfortable hiring process for them, but not thinking about the target group. And of course, candidates that look for a job and maybe don’t have a lot of options, they will do the case.

Diana Cherevko:
But it’s not the right type of candidate you’re looking for.

Thomas Kohler:
Not always. Sometimes, yes, not always. But for the ones that you need to source and buy or convince out of the company, they don’t do that next to their full-time job.

Diana Cherevko:
They’re sitting pretty.

Thomas Kohler:
Exactly. And they’re also not actively looking. They’re maybe just curious because the opportunities aren’t great.

No, there it’s not working. And this is, I think, where we often see a red flag when the data shows it. Okay.

If the data, the funnel data doesn’t look problematic, I can also give you some benchmarks, for instance. If you hire SDRs or AEs, and you do a case study, a take-home test that they need to prepare, for instance, and the market is so competitive. People with take-home tests or case studies, something to prepare that takes long, take around 25 to 35 talent acquisition screens in order to make one hire.

A healthy average is 12 to 15 talent acquisition screens to make one hire. And something in between that is maybe okay, but not bad is 15 to 22. For this market, where we are at the moment, why are you making your job harder and life harder than it already is?

Try a live case. This is always what we try to propose. Say, hey, do something that can be done live.

You can also not have somebody then with AI prepare for it. Exactly. Top of mind.

I want the top of mind stuff. I also do it with every recruiter in the first screening call. If we interview, we always do a live case in the first interview, 15 minutes, blah, blah, 15 minutes live case.

Diana Cherevko:
Aside from the live cases, what else?

Thomas Kohler:
What else? I would always say also one classical thing is salary expectations. There we have some data.

When we say, okay, when we hear expectations on the role and then the salary expectations, you can already see how realistic this will be or not. Second is also what’s the clarity of the role. If they’re really not clear and cannot prove why they want certain requirements, it’s often a bad sign that it takes way more time in the calibration phase.

So I always think about time to hire in three phases. Number one, time to fill. That’s from kickoff to the role is filled, the person’s in seat.

Then you have the time to source. That’s from kickoff to the candidate that ultimately ended up being hired enters the funnel, right? That can be with unclear requirements, six weeks, 12 weeks, sometimes a year for companies that really are not open to thinking creative ways and are not able to obstruct a role into certain different variations like hypothesis.

Usually this takes zero to three weeks where everything is okay. Then the time in stage, that’s often for the most of the people time to hire, but it’s not, it’s time in stage from the candidate enters the funnel to offer accepted or offer. That should be not longer than one to three weeks to be honest.

And then the period from signed to start date, which is also another period where I think you just need to be engaged. You need to do the things that don’t scale, call the candidate. How are you?

Still willing to join? Looking forward? Any questions?

These are the next steps, not more. It’s fine.

Diana Cherevko:
This sounds like a very well-defined framework and it sounds like you’ve done it a thousand times over and over again, probably in the past in your career. When did you arrive at this point when you decided just to put it all together in one framework? And I can imagine that probably it was not formed, you know, Rome was not built in one day.

Probably also took you time to refine this one, but was there a moment in your life when you were like, okay, I really love doing what I’m doing, but I also, I don’t just want to work in this industry, but I want to build something in this industry. When did that happen?

Thomas Kohler:
At the age of 25, I got a phone call that changed my life. It was five years, 20 year old Thomas starting a job, studying on the side finance in the evening. I was really worried about it, but I did it because of just being afraid that you don’t get anything in your career if you don’t have this, right?

Because everybody has it. Five years later, I was working at a startup, like as a recruiter, then the talent lead and head of talent for five people. I was responsible at a company from five to 150.

And over five years, no crazy hyperscaling, like Enpal for instance, just came to a serious, a founder really, um, were fighting politics intrigues. We were out a few people, me included from one day to another. Um, I was then self-employed, I already prepared it.

Um, and then I started recruiting as a freelancer and then I had my first client tier mobility back then when they scaled up before their serious D and I was doing a great job in recruitment. Um, because back then Berlin was more a lifestyle thing. People worked maybe not so much, but we’re here for the party.

I remember even at the talent acquisition team back then, a lot of people were in office on Monday and on Thursday, because on Sunday in Berghain was a great party. And on Wednesday in KitKat, there was a great party, right? I understand I’ve been to parties and, um, but I would never really, um, put it over my career.

And I think a lot of people back then did, but they also really low-balled on salary. So this is what you get, right? Um, that was the situation.

And then serious D came 600 million and suddenly they need to scale really rapidly. And the founder called me, Thomas, you’re really one of the only ones that is structured at trust. And that can now help me hire 150 engineers in two, three months, because we need to put the payment from an external provider internally.

And therefore we need to build a certain engineering team that should unlock 50 million in revenue.

Diana Cherevko:
150 engineers?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes.

Diana Cherevko:
In two months?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes. And then I also told him, okay, let’s see. I’ve never done it.

And it was also a bit critical because, um, I was an external, they already had a bit of tension with me because I just did my job and worked a lot. I also got charged by the hour. So great.

They wanted to become the team lead and everything. So a lot of complicated stuff, but just because of me being so data-driven, it really skyrocketed my career from 10, 12,000 euros in monthly earnings as a sole recruiter, which was for me very good at the moment to 25, 30. Um, because bigger complexity, new deal.

And so I was like crazy. It did really change my life back then because, um, I always wanted to make money, but I never really had a big income for a job and so on. And also not came from much, but also it wasn’t bad.

Right. So it was just average and maybe on the lower end. Um, and suddenly this opportunity came and you worked on yourself and you just now need to deliver on it.

And then I, I did. And I, I, I then understood how bad companies are with data, how bad they are with influencing key stakeholders. They always want to say, as they always are complaining, oh, we are not heard, blah, blah, blah.

You don’t need to be heard. You just need to always do your job. Great.

Deliver value. And once you are needed, you already ideally have proven yourself. And I did that without knowing that I did that.

And in the path afterwards, backwards, I reflected and said, okay, it’s great. I was 25 earning 25 K a year, a month, a month just by myself out of the sudden because of this. And I said, okay, I’m after something.

I don’t see any other recruiting companies because I suddenly was in charge of also vendors that are doing a great job that are working like this. I want to build this. And now we have 40 employees, four years in roughly 5 million revenue.

Last year we closed with 3.8 and really profitable. So everything really grows fast because of focus and on, on region first German speaking sales hires were, where we really excelled and grew fast and have an unique positioning because nobody has German speaking sales recruiters, especially in Berlin, but also not in the rest of Germany often. And now we do also way more in tech and other functions.

And through one entry point, like this positioning, we branched into several functions, but this changed my life. And over time I just iterated on this framework and just listened, asked, see what customers want and so on. And it was actually what I just explained before benchmarking data insights solutions, telling them what doesn’t work.

Like you said, the red flags, but then not just saying this is not working, but also saying what works.

Diana Cherevko:
How did this, the tool stack look like? How did you actually do that? Was it Excel sheets?

Were there just Excel sheets that you built yourself? Have they evolved a lot since 2020?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes.

Diana Cherevko:
And are they, are they still Excel sheets?

Thomas Kohler:
And a mix of tools. So we also have some, even a talent partner from us building something on GitHub with the new AI stuff that is transferring already the data into a tool from spreadsheets. So some parts of our company are working on our own tool set.

The basis is also an Excel sheet, but the Excel sheet is building an interface and the interface is putting it into a spreadsheet database, for instance. So still acts as a foundation or spreadsheets, but evolving into different interfaces and activities. And yeah, it’s evolving, but Excel is working.

It’s great.

Diana Cherevko:
Are you considering to sell it as a secret sauce?

Thomas Kohler:
No.

Diana Cherevko:
You could sell it in so many…

Thomas Kohler:
I make the most money with our service business. Renting recruiters focus, don’t do any distractions. That’s my thing.

I want to be the best in that. I want to be the most scientific and systematic recruiting company globally at some point. My goal is to go to 100 million in the next 15 years.

If I would launch a software product or something, it would be a distraction. But if it helps us with our internal operations to just get better for the same price for the customer, just with different results, that’s what I want to build.

Diana Cherevko:
Your experience at Tier, since you’ve seen them scale, probably going through hyper growth, so it sounds. What are the most typical mistakes that companies do right after raising and entering this scaling stage? Can you name, let’s say, top three?

Thomas Kohler:
Top three. I think number one, not having the right people in the right position. What does that mean?

Sometimes you need to make an exceptional hire. That could be after, let’s say, a Series A or Series B or Series C. For instance, in sales, founder-led beginning, suddenly you need a head of sales, but actually what you need is a CRO.

Or some say we need a head of sales. They don’t really understand the problem correctly and then make a wrong assumption for a solution that does not fit.

Diana Cherevko:
About hiring.

Thomas Kohler:
About hiring. A key position, for instance. That’s number one, that they are not in place, the right talents in the right positions.

Sometimes you need to move from founder-led to a professional sales org, but not to sailing a sales org at massive scale. Some confuse that they go too far or too corporate or whatever, but some don’t also give the right experience, the right room, because the founder is too narrow owning it. Finding the balance on what are the key positions for the next stages and what are the right decisions for the right hire.

And you need just a bunch of people, a handful of people in every company that really have a pull effect, that really driving everything. The rest can be, let’s say, average or slightly more than average in terms of work is not everything, right? Just do your job.

It’s fine. It’s often fine for 90% of the employees, but maybe 5 to 10% you need that are really pulling and sometimes it’s just really a handful, even in big companies. I think that’s mistake number one, that they think that they need to have unrealistic expectations because they’re raised now and now they’re the gods.

No, they aren’t. It’s just another company in the market that got some money. And then limiting themselves too much by too unrealistic expectations.

For instance, a company, I know a few, where we also just turned them down, they think that they need people five, six days in the office. They don’t really have a sexy product, but market opportunity is limiting themselves really hard. When I look at the funnel and 700 candidates for one hire.

Why? It’s also a strategy. Don’t get me wrong.

But I think at some point you also need to be realistic and understand for how long is this feasible. It was feasible and got you maybe there because people were hustling crazy. But if you need to scale, you don’t need it anymore.

But there are some exceptional use cases where this is working well and these are then the outstanding companies. Maybe for them it’s even right. But it’s then not right for us to work with them.

I’d also even don’t have to work with everybody. And I don’t have to be right for everyone or we. But I think also that not every company has this opportunity, but they behave like they would.

Like back then when Oliver Samba was still cool, all the founders wanted to be Oliver Samba, but they just were not Oliver Samba. So I also did not have the skills like fundraising and massive scale and aggressiveness like he had, but they thought they were behaved like that. It’s really a mistake often.

Diana Cherevko:
So you just literally named all the red flags that I asked for in the very beginning. What are you always on the lookout for in a customer’s profile?

Thomas Kohler:
And the third thing is also, I would say, of course, things need to happen fast and over planning is really wrong because every plan is just a plan and no plan survives first contact with the enemy. But having a sense of, okay, if I need to ramp now fast, talent acquisition has a ramp up time. I already should maybe have an option or a prebuilt system that I could ramp fast when shit hits the fence, for instance.

And some people just don’t think a bit, do urgent decisions and then you need to clean that up after maybe a year or two where you see, oh, we made a bit of wrong decisions. But sometimes that’s also what you just need to agree on or commit to or plan in as well.

Diana Cherevko:
You have a very ambitious goal yourself for this year, you mentioned. Do you apply the same frameworks on your own case, preparing to scale? How do you plan to do that?

Thomas Kohler:
Yeah. So this year we have two goals. One is a contribution margin goal, like a profitability goal.

It’s just like keeping the same EBIT as last year. It was around 900k. I just want to be at 900k again, but with maybe more revenue.

And second is a certain number of NPS. Gather the data now, because we never really did it properly. And then either already be above 50 and then put it above 50 and keep it above 50.

And next year then going maybe to 70, because 70 is excellent, 50 is good, 30 is okay. Everything below is not okay. That’s two goals and everything is organised around getting there.

Diana Cherevko:
How do you approach hiring for your own company? I thought about it earlier. I thought, wow, you have to be on the lookout for something particular.

The people that you’re hiring, the recruiters that you’re hiring, that are then going to be embedded into the customer’s environment. How do you find those people?

Thomas Kohler:
Very good question and very important skill set for us. We derive it from capacity planning. So great customers, great recruiters.

What does this mean? There is an attribution framework for it. It’s a bit detailed, but let’s say we want to have just great companies that value and understand our service, that you can plug on and off a recruiter that is specialised and can do the job.

So first you need to get this company, because if it’s not that company, it’s not the right company for a great recruiter. But that needs to be true as an assumption. Let’s say that it’s a relevant company to work with.

Second, what are also the attributes we need to focus on? We always hire based on features, but the good thing is we just need to hire recruiters. It’s a very simple value chain.

It’s no complexity to build a product. It’s just hiring recruiters and we are always hiring. Now we just hired a person I’m one and a half years in contact with.

Two, three months ago, we also hired people that were our customers and then affected by layoff. I always have a year everywhere. I also have a LinkedIn project where I have certain target hires I want to make.

If they turn open to work, I’m the first one reaching out, but already have a pre-existing relationship and already talk sometimes about, okay, under what circumstances, offering, scope, stage of company, would you be the right fit and what might be my idea of a role? This is really working well for certain special cases, but other than that, we always just advertise based on capacity needs. When we need more tech recruiters or some go-to-market recruiters in Germany or the US, we just go out, do certain activities, look at the funnel and do interviews, convert them, hire them, put them on client, onboard them, train them, make sure that there’s enough feedback.

That’s it. Very simple stuff, but just doing the simple thing right and really doing it.

Diana Cherevko:
Do you have to okay the candidates yourself as the final round?

Thomas Kohler:
Yes, and also the customer. Every customer meets the recruiter before making a decision for us. If they don’t want, I demand it because I don’t want to have surprises afterwards.

Diana Cherevko:
What matters to you personally when hiring?

Thomas Kohler:
Three things. One is, are they framework-based, data-driven or systematic? Can be any of them, but to some extent, this has to be true.

Number two, collaborative-orientated. That means, do people see the leverage in teamwork or do they see it annoying? Not a good sign, but the leverage in terms of longing for feedback, longing to make things better by having natural curiosity in terms of collaboration, listening well.

That’s also the second trait. And third is, I would say, freedom and ownership combined. That for me is just proactivity, self-ownership, whatever you want to call it.

Doing the right things without being told what to do. It’s a bit of an intuition and experience, but we usually just go for senior people. There should be the right expertise and intuition from the right environment.

I don’t need somebody that blaming every time. I need people that just, okay, constraints understood. I find a solution and I come up with a solution.

That’s what I want. These are the three traits I’m looking for.

Diana Cherevko:
To admit your own mistakes and see ways out of it is precious, really. Usually people get defensive when they get critiqued.

Thomas Kohler:
Yes, and I always make mistakes by myself and need to look at it as well.

Diana Cherevko:
You pay the price and move forward. Cool. Thomas, in comparison to 2025, what do you think you want to do differently this year?

Thomas Kohler:
Once a year, I do a two to three month sabbatical. It’s not a full sabbatical, but I just work one day a week, for instance, on purpose because A, I want to enjoy life and B, I want to see how the company is doing without me and then you learn a lot and the company learns a lot and get a lot of resilience. Everything is working without me already, but some special projects or some go to market areas, it’s mainly my thing, but the core part of the business, it’s just running because of this mindset.

I just put people in charge and let them do, let them fail, let them test, iterate, learn by themselves and then they move ahead and I have a nice life. What I want to do different this year is letting the organisation even do more because sometimes I’m still involved without me realising, for instance, the whole finance process. I know exactly every month what’s the contribution margin, one, two, three, four EBIT.

I want that my team knows that, trains their minds in that way, be very top of mind and sharp also with hiring decisions to what salary levels can

we offer and what price, also developing the service further, because I always saw myself in developing stuff further, but I don’t want to do that as well. I want the organisation to let it do it. This is the next step for me personally, where I will need to let go.

So probably during the summertime, a lot of golf with my friends, tennis, paddle, whatever it is, activities, and then make sure that the organisation is doing the right thing. But first setting the frame for it. And I’m still in the discovery process of that, which takes some time.

Diana Cherevko:
Yeah, I really loved the point you mentioned about having more trust in your own team. I think that’s very courageous of you. I am personally a control freak, so it is really hard for me to learn how to let go and delegate certain things.

But I think it also takes a certain amount of humility to admit that, that the thing can run without me. And it is amazing that you managed to build it this way.

Thomas Kohler:
And one thing I want to add there, have hobbies you really are passionate about, because some entrepreneurs I see, they are good at what they’re doing, their companies are doing well, and then they’re stuck with it. So having something outside of your work or your purpose when you build something, I think that’s really important. Latest, when you achieved your goal, you will need it.

What are yours? The passions. The passions, the hobbies.

Competition. I love competition. This is why recruiting is great for me.

I want to win. I want to win in golf. I want to win flipping a coin.

I want to win the McLean. Not in an annoying way, but even if I lose, I enjoy it because the next time I will optimise this and this. It’s great.

So with my friends, playing tennis, playing paddle, playing golf, everything that is active, skiing now as well.

Diana Cherevko:
How can you win in skiing?

Thomas Kohler:
You don’t need to, but it’s just nice in the nature. But I would say we also sometimes make a race. No, that’s really for me.

I love it. Really. I love competing.

That’s what I need and what makes me happy. I discovered this through a psychologist before starting my company because I wanted to understand how am I wired before making myself self-employed. And then I discovered this and I accepted it and said, OK, I maybe take it out of my business life because this can be really annoying and frustrating to balance it out in my private life.

Diana Cherevko:
So important to reflect on oneself. I’m also all in for working with a therapist, even if you’re not actively struggling with anything. It’s so cool to learn about yourself.

Thomas Kohler:
And there is stuff deep in everybody that is maybe uncovered. It’s also interesting. It doesn’t have to be a negative connotated process.

Diana Cherevko:
Totally. All right, Thomas, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Thomas Kohler:
Thank you as well for the spontaneity. It’s the best. Always right. Spontaneous.

Diana Cherevko:
True. That was Heart of Brand by Global Talent. Thank you for listening and till next time.