Author Archives: Albert Klein

6 Reasons Why Your LinkedIn Profile Should Always be Up to Date

When reaching out to potential candidates for exciting job opportunities, I often find that a candidate’s LinkedIn profile is outdated. Here are a few reasons why you should always keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date:

  1. Professional Image: Your LinkedIn profile is the first impression you make on professional recruiters and potential employers. An up-to-date profile shows that you are engaged in your professional life and take your career seriously.
  2. Career Opportunities: I use LinkedIn to identify the best candidates for a concrete vacancy. A current profile increases your chances of being discovered for fantastic positions.
  3. Networking: LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool, and an up-to-date profile helps you connect with other experts in your field, join relevant groups and discussions, and showcase your expertise and achievements.
  4. Branding: Your LinkedIn profile is an extension of your personal brand. It establishes you as an expert in your area and increases your visibility within your professional network.
  5. Time Management: An updated LinkedIn profile saves time—for both you and the professional recruiter. This is because I would not contact you if you’ve just started at a new company.
  6. Industry Insights: LinkedIn provides valuable industry insights, news, and trends, and a current profile helps you stay up to date with the latest developments in your field.

Overall, it is important to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date to maintain a professional image, expand your network, and advance your career.

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏

3 reasons why to engage a Recruitment Consultant from the very beginning?

In today’s competitive talent market, time is crucial. Companies that first try to fill positions on their own often lose valuable weeks—and with them, the best candidates and the chance for a fast placement. Here are 3 very good reasons for this strategy:

  1. Conducting the search internally ties up resources and only reaches active job seekers.

 

  1. Recruitment consultants have exclusive networks, market expertise, and professional tools. They proactively approach hidden talent and ensure a precise match.

 

  1. Investing in professional consulting pays off: it saves time, minimizes hiring mistakes, and delivers sustainably qualified team members.

Conclusion: Spare yourself lengthy trial-and-error—by using a Recruitment Consultant like AKlein-Consult, you can fill your vacancies quickly and securely.

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏

Does your LinkedIn profile highlight your People Skills?

Your LinkedIn profile is your professional online presence and represents your career and capabilities. Thus, highlighting your people skills on your LinkedIn profile is crucial die to 3 reasons:

  1. Attracts Opportunities: Recruiters use LinkedIn to search for management candidates with mandatory people management skills. Demonstrating strong people skills makes you stand out for great roles.

 

  1. Leadership Type: Highlighting your people skills on your LinkedIn profile establishes your credibility and authority. However, you need to differentiate between your functional and disciplinary leadership experience.

 

  1. Team Size: Management roles come with various team sizes. Often expertise in leading larger teams is mandatory for a role. Thus, your LinkedIn profile should identify the size of your team responsibility

 

Overall, your LinkedIn profile serves as a digital resume and personal Branding tool. Highlighting your people leadership skills will enhance your professional reputation, attract opportunities, and advance your career.

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏.

 

Parental leave is a wonderful and important time. But your LinkedIn profile should show it too!

 

To fill vacant positions, I specifically approach suitable candidates on LinkedIn. But only if you fit the search profile and I believe that you’re open for a change now.

However, if I cannot see from your profile that you’re currently on parental leave, an information gap arises for me, leading to an unnecessary approach. If I had known about your parental leave status due to an up-to-date LinkedIn profile, I would not have contacted you for a currently vacant position.

Thus, transparent information about your parental leave status helps to avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary communication. This contributes to making the recruitment process more efficient and targeted.

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏.

🌟 Are you looking for the best talent in 2025? 🌟

Have you lately struggled to fill key open positions? That’s completely understandable. Much like the quest for the finest truffles, finding the ideal candidate in today’s competitive job market can be quite challenging.

I’m here to help you successfully fill your vacancies in the new year! 💼✨.

With my industry expertise and management experience from Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, combined with 20+ yrs. of active sourcing for FMCG and Life Science roles and in Asia, I am well-equipped to assist you.

By leveraging your detailed brief, I will personally reach out to and identify the best candidates who align with your company’s needs.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch for a no-obligation conversation. Let’s collaborate to attract the best talent for your team! I look forward connecting and supporting you in filling your open positions.

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏.

The Importance of Timely Feedback in Recruiting.

In recruiting, timely communication is the key to success. However, one of the biggest challenges is delayed feedback from Hiring Managers. Why is it important for hiring managers to provide quick feedback?

Headhunters are tasked with finding, evaluating, and presenting talent. With no timely feedback after presenting candidates or conducting interviews, the following occurs:

  • Delays in the hiring process = poor candidate experience. A swift hiring process is crucial to securing top talent. Candidates expect timely and transparent communication. Delays in feedback lead to frustration and disappointment. As a result, qualified candidates quickly lose interest. Such negative experiences damages the reputation of companies and headhunters and deters potential talent from interacting with the respective company or headhunter.

 

  • Lost talent. In a competitive job market, delays make the difference between hiring an outstanding talent and losing it to competition. Companies that act quickly and efficiently have a clear advantage.

 

  • Increased costs. A prolonged hiring process incurs additional costs. This includes not only direct costs like additional interviews, but also indirect costs due to unfilled positions that can impact productivity and team morale.

 

Thus, timely feedback from Hiring Managers to headhunters is crucial for a successful recruitment process. It helps to secure the best talent, to improve the candidate experience, and to reduce costs. Companies that take this seriously gain a competitive advantage and build a strong employer brand.

 

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏.

 

Have you ever ghosted a recruiter?

 

Candidate ghosting in recruitment is the abrupt and unexplained cessation of communication between a candidate and a recruiter. This can occur at any stage of the hiring process: From initial contact to follow-ups before or after the interview. Ghosting can be no response to emails, neglecting scheduled calls, or simply disappearing without notice.

Here’s why you should NOT ghost a recruiter:

You’ll miss learning opportunities: Constructive feedback is invaluable for professional growth. When you ghost a recruiter, you miss the opportunity to receive insights into your strengths and weaknesses, you hinder learning and improvement for future interviews and career endeavors.

Your reduced job market visibility impacts on your overall career path: Ghosting can contribute to your invisibility in the job market. A recruiter recalls your reputation for ghosting and thus will not contact you again for future opportunities. This will limit your opportunities, making it challenging for you to secure positions aligned with your skills and aspirations.

In summary, candidate ghosting has profound consequences for you as a job seeker. Professional recruiters play a crucial role in mitigating these effects by fostering a culture of open communication, providing constructive feedback, and treating a candidate with respect. A commitment to transparency not only benefits you as a candidate in the short term but also contributes to a healthier and more ethical recruitment ecosystem in the long run.

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏.

Are your Job Interview Questions targeted to obtain Facts?

Do you still use hypothetical rather than fact-based interview questions?

Then let me briefly share with you why fact-based job interview questions are state-of-the art and when hypothetical questions might make sense?

Objective Evaluation of Real Examples: Fact-based interview questions focus on relevant past candidates’ examples rather than relying on speculative answers which candidates can make up. Thus, 3 points are crucial:

  1. What was the concrete objective of a project? (i.e. %-change vs py)
  2. What has the candidate done? (he himself)
  3. Which KPI results were achieved? (in comparison to the objective)

Predictive Validity: Past behavior is a very strong predictor of the future. When you ask fact-based questions about past successes, you get valuable insights into how candidates are likely to perform in similar situations in the future.

Structured Interviews: When you conduct multiple interviews by different interviewers, you secure comparability via a structured interview process with similar fact-based interview questions. You thus, reduce a potential bias in the hiring decision as all interviews consistent.

Two Examples when Hypothetical Interview Questions are Justified:

  1. Case Study Questions which are typical for the interviewed role, i.e. an annual employee appraisal, a change of priorities/timings, or an unplanned event. Thus, a case study provides insights on the candidates’ creative & innovative thinking and the ability to tackle issues that are relevant for the role.
  2. Future Orientation questions on the first 100 days on the job. This allows you to gauge candidates’ vision, goals, and aspirations within the context of the role and the organization.

In conclusion, fact-based questions that focus on candidates past experiences and achievements are key for a successful job interview while hypothetical questions such as in a case study or a plan for the first 100 days are a good addition.

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏.

 

What Life Science Marketeers can learn from FMCG?

 

Many Life Science Marketeers come with a background in Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry, Pharmaceuticals or in Medical Studies. They often start in Sales and get ‘promoted’ to a Marketing role. However, in their science studies, they did not obtain a Professional Marketing education.

Let me thus, clarify what Marketing IS and is NOT and share what Life Science Marketeers can learn from FMCG Marketeers:

  • Professional Marketing is neither a service function to Sales nor is it just advertising or communication.

 

  • It is a structured way of doing business that is based on Market Research to obtain a superior understanding of attitudes and behaviors of key stakeholders such as Physicians, Patients, Health Insurances, Regulatory Affairs Authorities, etc. To understand this pattern is mandatory because attitudes drive behavior.

 

  • Importantly, within FMCG attitudes and behaviors regarding unmet needs or own and competitive products/services are identified BEFORE a product/service is launched. This verifies the business potential of changed attitudes and behaviors with a new product/service concept.

 

FMCG Marketing principles are crucial to Life Science Marketing because the development of products/services requires significantly higher investments and longer lead times in comparison to FMCG.  Thus, it is vital to identify and verify the business potential BEFORE the product/service development starts.

With a new product/service on hand, clear and convincing distribution & communication strategies need to be developed towards B2B and Direct2Patient target groups, followed by a comprehensive and efficient media plan, utilizing multiple communication channels.

Just approach me via ak@aklein-consult.com in case you need Marketing consultancy for your Life Science business…

How To Eliminate Bias in Interview Panel Decision Meetings?

 

You’ve been in interview panel meetings with multiple interviewers from different hierarchy levels? Then you’ve probably noticed that it can be challenging to have an unbiased meeting. Specifically, when senior participants share their opinion upfront and more junior participants/subordinates do not dare to express the opposite opinion.

Let me thus share with you how paper clips will eliminate bias in the decision meeting:

  • It is vital that none of the participants share their view upfront. Instead, the meeting starts with the distribution of 3 paper clips for each participant.

 

  • All meeting participants put their paper clip ‘vote’ on the table AT THE SAME TIME, choosing between 3 clips (the perfect candidate), 2 clips (a pretty good candidate), 1 clip (big doubts) and 0 clips (no way).

 

  • When all participants have voted similarly, the discussion & decision is short. Having voted differently, participants share their rationale so that the panel can come to a joint decision.

 

Just try the paper clip method and you’ll be convinced by the results!

 

AKlein-Consult: Great Roles in FMCG 🛒, LifeScience 🧪and Asia 🌏.