Starting a Recruitment Business: Lessons and Success Stories from Nicolas Greppo

Intro [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:19]:
I am so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. I have a special guest, the data recruiter, over in France. We're going to talk about how he moved his business from contingency to retained. We're also going to talk about how he moved. He's moved across the globe, what the market looks like over in the EU and over in France. But man, I am so excited for him to share the story of going from contingency, like many of us are, to being a true partner and doing retained search. So, Nicholas, welcome to the podcast.

Nicolas Greppo [00:00:47]:
Thank you so much, Benjamin. I'm excited to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:50]:
So before we get started and do a deep dive into how where you've moved all the different places, can you talk real quick about your company and what you're doing now? Sure.

Nicolas Greppo [00:01:01]:
So, as you said, the data recruiter. The recruiter data in French is a recruitment company based in Paris, France. We operate mostly in France and we have companies recruit the best data scientists, data engineers, data analysts. So all the position related to data and AI, basically.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:19]:
How did you end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Nicolas Greppo [00:01:22]:
Well, I think it started a long time ago. I was actually studying engineering, computer science, electronics, these kind of things. And I had to do an internship, a summer internship, very short. I did it in a software company and I was basically doing telemarketing for them. So b two B telemarketing. And I loved it. I loved the sales environment. And although it was not really recruiting as such, I knew I had a coding for sales, basically.

Nicolas Greppo [00:01:47]:
So that was summer of 2003, so that's a long time ago. And then after starting my career in engineering, I knew I wanted to do sales. And so my very first role in recruitment was what they call the business manager. So within the consulting company Antron, which is a part of Capgemini, so that was a sales role, but I also had to recruit the consultants who were delivering the services that I was selling. And so that's when I started recruitment as such in 2007 to recruit for my own team.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:15]:
Oh, wow. Okay, so you did that, recruited for your own team, kind of learned the ropes of recruiting, fell in love with sales, and then you moved over to the Middle east for a little bit. Talk about that.

Nicolas Greppo [00:02:25]:
So when I was in this company, Altran, I met several people who really changed my career. Mentors and one of them, he introduced me through the co founders of a search firm called Naos International. And so this is a company that was created in 2009, and in 2011 I was introduced to the co founder. So imagine it was one co founder in Paris, one co founder in Dubai, and one researcher in Dubai. That's it. That was how small and early stage the company was. And actually they offered me an amazing opportunity to take over from the co founder in Dubai. So he was coming back to France and I would become the main consultant and potentially the GM of this subsidiary in Dubai.

Nicolas Greppo [00:03:03]:
So that's how I got started there.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:05]:
I mean, you talk about learning fast, like, hey, here's an opportunity in a brand new country far away from like home, and you're going to take over everything. Good luck.

Nicolas Greppo [00:03:15]:
Yeah, I had a lot of supports, so I spent six months with him, shadowing him, getting introduced to clients, learning, because I had done recruitment, but it was not a surge business that I did before. I had a good skill set in sales, I would say. So that's why they hired me. I learned. And I'm really grateful for, you know, for this opportunity. I'm forever grateful for this opportunity to.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:35]:
Get, I mean, it's one of those things, like I always tell people, like least early in career, that its sometimes better to work at a startup, at a small company than sometimes these large bohemoth companies because you get to learn so many hats that will just accelerate and help the rest of your career. So you ran the operations over there, took over the operations, helped grow that. You spent a few years over there. What brought you back to Paris?

Nicolas Greppo [00:04:00]:
So a couple of things. One of the things I observed very quickly when I was in Dubai is when you spend a lot of time there, you kind of get an etiquette that you are the Middle east guy, you know, the market, it's a different way to work. I can talk about this as well. And so I've seen people who were struggling to come back to France, for instance, because they were seen as the guy from Dubai, you know, it's far away. So I said to myself, I'm not going to stay too long. Like I said to myself, it's going to be five years maximum. So that's what I said for myself. And then the other thing is, after a few years, I think like a lot of people who started their own business in recruitment, I said, okay, I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I can do that myself.

Nicolas Greppo [00:04:38]:
And I was missing Paris as well. I was missing my family in France. And everything. So all these combined, I said, okay, it's time to come back and start my own business.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:46]:
You literally came back to the country and launched your own company.

Nicolas Greppo [00:04:51]:
Yes, yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:52]:
Walk me through that process. Was it scary? Was it hard? Was it like, you know, because, you know, being an entrepreneur is tough, but being an entrepreneur, I know you had family and everything, but you haven't been there for years, is even harder. You're starting from literally nothing.

Nicolas Greppo [00:05:08]:
Yeah, it's true. It's true. It was a bit of a crazy move because literally, I left Dubai. I had nothing. I mean, I had money in the bank because I entered good money there and I saved it, but that's it. I had nothing else. And so I came back at the end of 2015. I remember it was around the Christmas period.

Nicolas Greppo [00:05:24]:
I came back to live with my mom in my hometown in Lyon. So for a pill once, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. So most likely it was going to be a recruiting firm. But I also had other options in mind. I was looking also at going in another country at some point, like Brazil, for instance. So I had many, many options. I was networking a lot, and, you know, after a lot of coming back and forth, I mean, a lot of discussions, I said, masvoke, let's make it simple. I'm going to start a recruitment business in France, in Paris, where most of the economy is, and I'm going to do it in the domain where I can make a difference, really, which is data and AI.

Nicolas Greppo [00:05:57]:
And I knew there was a lot of demand and a lot of frustration from both hiring managers and candidates. So I said, okay, let's make it simple. I'm going to do that. And so do you want me to elaborate a little bit how I started this?

Benjamin Mena [00:06:07]:
Yeah, please do. Because, I mean, one of the questions I was going to ask next is starting a company in the United States. I literally just go to a website, click a few buttons, and now I have my own business. Is it that easy to start a company and launch a company in the France or the EU compared to here in America?

Nicolas Greppo [00:06:24]:
It's quite easy. You can outsource a lot of the admin stuff. Basically, that's what I did. You know, I have an expert accountant who did all the process of registering the company. These kind of things, the website. I have a very good friend of mine who helped me to develop it myself with the wix.com, and that's it. You know, I mean, it's pretty easy. It's pretty easy.

Nicolas Greppo [00:06:42]:
Maybe not as fast as the US, but it's not a big deal. Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:45]:
So, like, you launched your company, like, what did you do to get your first few clients?

Nicolas Greppo [00:06:51]:
Just before I started it, I heard about Tony Robbins coming to London, you know, unleash the power within seminar, and I had been following the guy for many years. I said, okay, let's do that. And that was transformational. And one thing I understood is I needed a coach after I did this seminar with the king of coach. Like, I need a coach to really help me start. And that's when I reached out to Roy Ripper and he has been instrumental in really getting me from zero to one. And so to answer your question, I really owe this to write because when I was in Dubai, I didn't do any NPC type. Of course, I was redoing a cold calling since the beginning, Dubai doing only retained search.

Nicolas Greppo [00:07:26]:
So that was really a different sales process where I had to meet decision makers, explain the process, the retained search process, and sell them, really, because I wanted them to pay upfront. So that was a real sales process. The MPC code is something really different, as you know. And Roy trained me on how to do them, but in a really specific way. I can elaborate a little bit, but I. Where I was really representing the top one, 5% of data scientists. So that was the niche I showed at the beginning. I was really super, super niche.

Nicolas Greppo [00:07:51]:
Only data scientist position, not even data analyst, data engine, only data scientists. I was really acting as their agents, but really representing them exclusively to companies of their choice. So that's how I really started the business, with a really very advanced MPC methodology.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:08]:
So if you didn't have that first coach, do you think you'd still have the kind of success that you have had?

Nicolas Greppo [00:08:18]:
I don't think so. I guess I would have done business after a while, but maybe not fast enough because I had cash, but I didn't have an unlimited amount of cash, so I needed to go, you know, pretty quickly. So definitely, I mean, the Roy really changed the game for me.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:33]:
Okay, so Roy really helped you set up, have the success grow as a recruiter and then you were mostly doing contingent recruiting then, right?

Nicolas Greppo [00:08:42]:
Yeah, by nature, you know, when you do MPC. Yeah. Has to be contingent. I mean, the first call is necessary contingent. And then the first few contracts that I signed were contingent. But the thing is, having been in a retained world for four years, I only did that in Dubai. That was very, very frustrating for me. And as a matter of fact, although it was contingent, I was applying the same methodology, maybe a little lighter than when I was doing weekends out, meaning I redid directly approach.

Nicolas Greppo [00:09:10]:
I did a very exhaustive, very comprehensive market mapping, a very advanced briefing session with the clients upfront. All the things that are really, I think, unique to retain such, I was doing them already. And so after around one year, it was not that difficult for me to have conversation with clients, say, okay, look, do you like the service that I deliver? Yes. Okay. For me to be able to continue to deliver this service, these are the conditions I need to put in place. And so I lost a few ones, but most of the clients I had started to work with I just converted from contingent to retain after twelve, maybe maximum 18 months.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:46]:
Okay, so for the listeners, you were talking a little bit about some of the differences between the contingent and the retained, like the market mapping and all, all those things. Can you run through that list one more time and kind of explain each of those things, of why retained is like so much more involved than contingency recruiting?

Nicolas Greppo [00:10:04]:
I can tell you about this. I just want to say that I'm very humble. I don't want to sound like the arrogant retent recruiter because I know there are really, really good recruiters who do contingent. And so I think it's just a mindset. And also, I would say, a methodology, but for me, you know, with themselves really works and I wouldn't see myself working differently. So the idea is, for me, the first thing that's really, really crucial when you do retain such well before you even start working is, as I said, the sales, because you really need to explain to clients why they need to pay upfront. Why would they pay upfront? And it's because you're going to put in place a certain methodology. And so that methodology is to start with an in depth briefing session to really understand basically what the role is in detail, to be able to sell the opportunity in a very competitive market, how you're going to assess candidates to make sure that they only meets very quantified candidates.

Nicolas Greppo [00:10:59]:
So what are the competencies to be assessed and how you're going to assess them, and then all the parameters, the geography, the target companies, the off limits. So there's many questions that you need to ask. And a good briefing session takes a minimum of 1 hour and enables me to write what I call. I mean, I've learned this term from another coach called David Patterson, which I think, you know, given your t shirt, which is the job invitation. And so this is really important in my methodology. I think in any written search methodology is to write really compelling documents, which is not a list of the must haves and what you often find in the job ad. It's really, you know, presenting the group, presenting the team, presenting the responsibilities. Why should they come to work for this company? What's in it for them, really? And specifically for my niche.

Nicolas Greppo [00:11:45]:
I know the questions that they're going to ask about the technical stack, about, so a lot of things that are really specific to my niche that really make this different. And at the end of the day, so it's like probably minimum ten pages document that is going to be very central in the search. And so imagine all of this preparing the briefing session, asking all the questions, writing down the document, all these takes, you already spent hours before you even start the search. And so, you know, that's one reason why it makes sense that you need to be paid partly upfront. So then the idea is to really, based on those criteria, be able to cast a net over 80, 90% of the talent pool, because there are always going to be people who are not on LinkedIn who don't take your call. But the idea is to say, okay, I'm close to 100% of the potential candidates, as opposed to contacting candidates who are open to work on LinkedIn and putting an ad where this is statistically going to be 30% at any given time, 30% of the market. So you give access to a much broader number of potential candidates where a lot of the best are. And then the other thing that is very important in retain such is to approach them and assess them.

Nicolas Greppo [00:12:52]:
So roughly. So at the end of the process, I want my client to just meet three to five candidates, but he really just has to make a choice between those three very highly targeted candidates because they've gone through, I give you an example, a technical test. So I have a proprietary technical test in data science, in data engineering, they've gone through behavioral assessments depending on the position. So that takes a lot of time. The interviews last 30 to 60 minutes. Sometimes I have to write some reports about the interviews. Again, that takes a lot of time. So I cannot afford to do that without a payment upfront.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:27]:
For listeners that are thinking about going and doing more retained work, if they're just doing contingency recruiting right now, what advice would you give them on starting to make that switch into retained?

Nicolas Greppo [00:13:39]:
I think you need to train specifically on retained search. I'm going to name another coach, thanks to you, Benjamin. And I'm very, very grateful for this because she's amazing. Louise Archer. I'm training with her since three or four weeks now and she is amazing. I mean if you want to switch from contingent to weekend, you have to call her. There are certainly other coaches who can do that but I can definitely tell you she is the real thing, especially when it comes to retention search. So that's one piece of advice is to find a coach.

Nicolas Greppo [00:14:07]:
And yeah, that's what I would tell the contingent recruiter.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:11]:
It's one of the things that's interesting about the retained search is like you're a little less off the revenue roller coaster revenue is more predictable than the contingency. Like what is it? I think its like 17% or 16% is the most recent number. But on the sales side it requires a good sales skill set and youve enjoyed sales, youve liked sales. How did you personally keep on developing your sales skill sets?

Nicolas Greppo [00:14:40]:
Its really a passion. I was studying engineering and I knew I wanted to go in sales. I know its a bit crazy, but that was really something I was passionate about. I was trained a lot, I've read a lot of books and I would tell you one thing that was really transformational was between my first consulting company and my experience in Dubai, I was working for Oracle. Oracle, which is one of the big software sales machines in the world. And when you start at Oracle you spend one week in a classroom with other sales reps for the full day with a sendler. I mean my date was a Sandler trainer. So what's Sandler? It's a sales methodology created by David Sandler.

Nicolas Greppo [00:15:16]:
Now it's a system that's used in many, many companies, including the big names like Oracle, Google, Etcetera. And they have certified trainers all over the world. And so in that case it was Paul Lanegan who's based there in Ireland. It really changed the way I approach sales and since then this has been with the core of my sales methodology. I've always read books, listened to podcasts and even did a certification actually with Sandler a few years ago. The idea is really gives you a process, a very structured methodology to stay in control of the cells. And the underlying theory is a domain of psychological transactional analysis, which is very, very powerful. That helps you really understand much better the relationships you have with prospects, with clients, with candidates as well.

Nicolas Greppo [00:16:01]:
So to answer your question, it's a continuous training, as often I'm still training and it will never end.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:06]:
And it's one of those things like let me take this back a step. It's the story that I spent many years telling myself is I sucked in sales. It's a story that I have had to reframe. But you are right, it really is a continuous learning and it's a continuous thing. But it sounds like you got a really good foundational structure that you found that worked for you, that you've continued through your entire career, which is absolutely phenomenal. Want to jump over to the quickfire questions? But before we go that way, is there anything else that you want to share about retain search or recruiting, data science and AI in France?

Nicolas Greppo [00:16:38]:
What can I say? Maybe I can talk a bit about this market. You know, the french markets. I think it's a bit easier to sell weekend search in France than other countries, including the gulf countries where I worked before. Not that everybody is going to open the door and say, okay, let's pretend, no problem, you don't have to sell me anything. No, you still need to convince people that it's still a market where it's more accepted, I would say, than, for instance, the UAE. So Dubai and other countries in the Gulf countries where I really had to educate clients on why they should work with them rather than contingent. So that's one particular thing of the french market for recruiters, is it's more easy, I think, to work with them. The second thing is, it's not impossible to work here if you don't speak French, but it will make things much easier if you do.

Nicolas Greppo [00:17:21]:
So it's important to bear in mind, and also the fact that the label law here is pretty different. I would say it's very protective of employees. And things go a bit slower when, when it comes to recruitment, the typical notice period is three months. The typical recruitment process, even if you go fast, it will take at least two months and sometimes more. So between the moment where you start a new mission and the moment where the candidate joins the clients, it can be easily six months or more. So you need to be patient. You need to have in mind also that France has a lot of holidays as well. In any work contract, we're talking about 6789 weeks sometimes in certain sectors of activity.

Nicolas Greppo [00:18:00]:
So there are periods where around the Christmas period, around in July and August, where really the economy is slowing down and you have to take it into account when you're working, especially in recruitment. And if anybody is listening to the podcast wants to explore the french market as a recruiter, I'm happy to give more details. If you have any questions. I'm happy to answer.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:17]:
So, real quick, you said that it's three months. Notice is the standard in France. Holy crap. At least like it. Many of the listeners have heard I travel to France a lot. I enjoy France. I feel like every time we're in France, it's a national holiday. But I did not know about the three months.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:37]:
Like, wow, that's wild compared to the United States, where notices on average two weeks or they can get rid of you tomorrow.

Nicolas Greppo [00:18:45]:
Sometimes it's shortened, but in any work contract, it will be written three months on the dispute.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:50]:
All right, so jumping over to the quickfire questions, what advice would you give to a brand new recruiter that's just getting started in the industry?

Nicolas Greppo [00:18:59]:
I'm going to contradict a little bit what we said before about, you know, startups environment, which are really good because you can wear many hats and everything. I would say try to start in a big firm like Michael Page, Robert Walters or others because these are, I think, very good schools to learn your craft. You know, that was my experience working for Ultron, which is a very big group oracle as well. That was foundational for me at the beginning of my career. So I would recommend that. And also I would say very quickly, try to identify who are the best people, the top dealers, the people who inspire you, and make sure that they become your mentor and that you, at the very least, you shadow them and you learn from them. But try to get mentors early on in your career because they will open so many doors for you and that can make the difference in the rest of your career.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:43]:
Awesome. Same question. But for recruiters that have been around the block, what advice would you give to them to see and continue to still have success?

Nicolas Greppo [00:19:51]:
I would say never get happy of where you are. You know a lot of things, but you don't know what you don't know. I don't care how many years of experience you have. There are still things that you can learn. So always train, have a coach, be humble, be ready to learn, and don't busy AI revolution because it started now and it's not going to stop in time soon.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:10]:
We're planning an AI recruiting week event with the elite Recruiter podcast coming up. And for the listeners, keep an eye out for that. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact during your own personal career?

Nicolas Greppo [00:20:21]:
There have been many books. I'm going to recommend this book, how to run your own life by Jude Meninger, which is basically a book about transactional analysis that explains it in a very simple way. And it's not really a book for psychologists. It's a dialogue between a human and emotion that gives you a basic understanding of transactional analysis and how you can use that in your daily life.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:43]:
Basically the roller coasters, the ups and downs and the accountability to yourself. How do you maintain the motivation and the commitment? As a solo entrepreneur recruiter?

Nicolas Greppo [00:20:56]:
I always know that there is no plan b for me. I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I'm not going back. So that's number one. Number two, my wife, sorry, I didn't say that at being, but I'm a solopreneur, but I also work with my wife. I think you do too. We're a small family business, so, you know, it's very important for me and my family that I keep the good level of results. And also I see my profession as a passion and I do a parallel with the sport of where I know I need to eat the right foods and I need to drink or not drink certain things and I need to do some physical exercise, have some good sleep. I'm really envisioning this a bit like an athlete, a professional athlete, except I'm a professional recruiter, basically.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:37]:
I absolutely love that. So what has been one of your favorite recruiting success stories or recruiting stories?

Nicolas Greppo [00:21:43]:
I have true stories. Very quickly, they both took place when I was in Dubai. The first one was a civil engineering company. So they were looking for really, really niche skill sets that they couldn't find in the Middle east region. Can't even remember the name of that skill set, it's so niche. But I had to go to Europe to headhunt in Europe to find it. And long story short, they recruit through me, a greek engineer based in the Netherlands, to come and work in Dubai for a french company. How cool is that? I love that.

Nicolas Greppo [00:22:15]:
And the other one that was, I think, quite a bit extraordinary was when I was in Dubai, one of my clients was looking to recruit a sales manager for Iraq and specifically for the Baghdad region. And back then it was pretty dangerous to go there and they wanted specifically somebody based in Baghdad who knew the economy, etcetera. So I did all the interviews remotely. My client did all his interviews remotely. They hired somebody and after a few weeks or only two months, they met him in a trade show. I can't remember in which country. And something went wrong, you know, when they met face to face. Unfortunately, after a few days, they had to let him go.

Nicolas Greppo [00:22:50]:
I don't know exactly what happened. And the lesson that I've learned here is I always tell my clients, it's good that you can do some video conferences for interviews. It's great. But please, please, before you sign any work contract, meet people physically, you know, in your office to do something, but you cannot just sign your contracts with.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:05]:
How technology has changed and all that stuff with you on that. This isn't a normal quick fire question, but I have a passion for french wine. Many of the listeners probably know this. Is there like a favorite wine region or favorite wine that you love?

Nicolas Greppo [00:23:21]:
I'm really not an expert. I'm not a typical french guy, I guess, because I almost never drink wine. I don't eat cheese. I mostly don't complain. So I'm not a typical French, but, sorry, I don't want to do french bashing, but, you know, it suits our reputation. Right. But anyway, so I would recommend the Burgundy region. I think you like the Bordeaux, which is also very, very good wine region.

Nicolas Greppo [00:23:45]:
But Burgundy is really good, both for red and white. And I would tell you a tip, actually, is from somebody really doesn't know anything about wine, is when I go to a party, for instance, I invited, I want to buy a good bottle. What I do is I go in the store and I make sure that it's more than 50 euro. I know when you buy a wine in France, more than 50 euro. I mean, it's a good wine. And the other thing I would say is when you're in France and you're not sure where to buy wine, any city will have a Nicholas store. Nothing to do with me. It's a franchise that has many stores in France, and they're really, really good.

Nicolas Greppo [00:24:18]:
They will have an expert here to tell you which one is the best straw. So go to any color store, ask for Burgundy wine, and more than €50. You cannot make a mistake.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:27]:
I love the Nicholas stores. They're literally in every single city that we are ever at. Well, going back to your own personal story, you started in engineering, wanted to go into sales, worked for Oracle, got some amazing training there, worked at a startup, started your own company. What do you think has been a personal driver of your own personal success?

Nicolas Greppo [00:24:47]:
I've always been competitive. I always wanted to be the best, as good as I can in whatever I do. And I think I was lucky to have mentors, really, people who trusted me and who opened ways for me, and the fact that I was willing to learn all the time. And still, as of now, I'm 40 plus. I see myself as a little more student, and I think the key is working very hard, obviously, and always wanting to grow.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:09]:
You mentioned something earlier about looking at yourself as almost like a professional athlete. And I think there's some stories I'm working on later on this year that are going to lean towards that. But, you know, as a professional athlete, you focus on what your intake is, what you do with your body, like exercise, like there's so many facets to make sure that you're performing up to your peak level. Why did you decide to do that as a professional?

Nicolas Greppo [00:25:33]:
Good question. I think, again, Daniel Robinson was a Eureka moment for me regarding nutrition. There's a whole part of it about this. And when I started to change the food I eat, I saw the difference in terms of my level of energy, and I was turning 30. So, you know, when 30 years old, you start to sometimes have less energy or whatever. And I said, okay, this is a game changer and I'm going to push on that, you know, so I'm going to research what to eat, to have the right intakes in terms of vitamins, protein, etcetera, the good number of hours of sleeping as well, which I was lacking at some point. I always listened to Gary V. Saying, all you need is 6 hours.

Nicolas Greppo [00:26:08]:
I don't think so. I think you need 8 hours, not six. I mean, all those kind of things. I could see the difference in my productivity. And so I said, okay, let's not leave this chance. Let's make it systematic.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:19]:
Love that. And then last question. But one of my favorites, like, you've had a lot of lessons learned with your business. If you had the chance to go back to the very beginning in 2016, when you started your own business and sit down with yourself and have a cup of coffee or espresso, what would you tell yourself?

Nicolas Greppo [00:26:37]:
I would tell myself, well, first there's going to be up and downs no matter what. And anti during the dark moments. And to be able to pass this, make sure that you always have six months of cash flow in the bank account, on the company bank account, a Runway of six months minimum. And be careful about how you spend the money of the company. Make sure that you don't go for all the shiny tools. You don't need to pay a lot of things at the beginning. Try to start leave, and be careful about the financial management.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:06]:
Absolutely love that. Well, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on, for the listeners, if they want to follow you, how did they do that?

Nicolas Greppo [00:27:14]:
Thank you very much. It was amazing. I think the best way is with LinkedIn. And if you would like to listen to a bit of French, you can go on my YouTube channel as well. So both you can find with my name, Nicholas without h n I c o l I S. Greco Grepo.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:30]:
And real quick, you've actually won business because of your YouTube channel. Can you talk about that real quick?

Nicolas Greppo [00:27:35]:
Yeah, sure. So this YouTube channel, it started with one video, which is in French. The three mistakes that data scientists do in an interview. And that was a hit. I didn't advertise it anywhere. And I have, I think, more than 13,000 views. So it's not millions of views, but in this niche, it's a lot. And given that it's in French, so it's only for french speakers, then I said, okay, I'm going to do that actually for any tips that I give.

Nicolas Greppo [00:27:59]:
So instead of repeating the same tips every time I prepare working date, I'm going to do videos about how to answer the question, tell me about yourself without doing a 20 minutes monologue. How to present one experience using storytelling. So short videos, three minutes with this kind of hopefully useful tips. And I started to get some traction. To give you a real life example, one day I had a great, great candidate who contacted me and he said explicitly that it was because he had seen my videos and he said they were relevant. Can I help him? You know, and so this is typically somebody I would not have in my radar, I would say, because it was more in the research academic world. Long story short, a few months later, it ended up in one of the best placements we did with a very large company here in Paris. And this is one example of somebody who told me he came to the channel.

Nicolas Greppo [00:28:47]:
But I know I'm contacted quite often thanks to this. And this is also a very strong point that I do when I speak with clients to say, look at my presence on social media, the reputation that I built in this niche, and this.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:59]:
Is a proof that's phenomenal. And we'll make sure to have that in his bio, too, if you want to definitely check that out. Well, before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Nicolas Greppo [00:29:07]:
Well, I think it's clear that I'm passionate and I love the profession, and I would just encourage anybody who is hesitating to take that path. It's an amazing career path. You learn a lot personally. You meet a lot of people. It's fantastic personally. It can be very rewarding financially. Just make sure that you're ready for the roller coaster. Not the roller coaster, but for some adversity, basically.

Nicolas Greppo [00:29:27]:
And that you have the thick skin because it's not easy, it's not rocket science, but it's not easy.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:33]:
Thank you so much. You know, exciting for the listeners to learn. Retain search is such a different business model compared to many of the contingency recruiters. So I love that you shared the story of the coaches, how you got started, moving back to France, launching your own company, and building out a niche that's become a powerful business that both you and your wife have had success with. So thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for much for sharing and for the listeners. Guys, keep crushing it and make sure that you make 2024 your best year yet. Thank you.

Nicolas Greppo [00:30:02]:
Thank you.

Intro [00:30:04]:
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