“What’s going wrong with my hires in Luxembourg, and why do the strong people I interview keep letting us down?”

This is the question I was asked recently. The client had a big network, an interesting business, and the right kind of budget for the role. They’d interviewed 15 high quality people through their own network, but for one reason or another, this hadn’t led to a hire. 

This is not unusual. In London you would never just interview 15 people through your own network and expect to hire one of them.

So why are we doing this in Luxembourg? 

I’ve recruited across 6 different countries in the last 20 years, and let me tell you this, they all have their challenges. Their challenges are just different. 

In Luxembourg we are faced with the fact that it is a small population, that is indeed a challenge. However, in London you will spend just as much time looking for an accountant. Why? Because there the financial sector is not just funds but is a smorgasbord of literally every type of finance and banking, so there will be a lot more sifting required, many candidates will have more varied CVs, and so you will need to decide whether having 10+ years in your area is something you really need. Then, you will face the exact same challenge to select the right fit for your company. By ratio, there are not more qualified profiles in London than in Luxembourg, but there is more of everything. And managing here, will be different to the way you manage and work in London, how couldn’t it be? 

In Germany you will come up against a very different employment law environment, where a key factor in your qualification process will not be fit or profile, but rather availability. Why? Because most remotely skilled professionals are tied into agreements where they can only give notice effective the end of the next quarter… so that can delay hiring by as much as 6 months. Try growing quickly there. 

Having 15 strong profiles almost never leads to a hire in any location. The difference being, with a quality recruiter, is that they would be screening at least that number of high quality profiles every single week, and filtering out more than half of these, for factors like fit, profile, commitment-level, and indeed, availability.

Luxembourg has plenty of talent

If something is going wrong for you in Luxembourg, it’s not the market.

It is far more likely to be the process, i.e., the depth of candidate profiling you’re doing, the range of people you’re meeting, or the limited number of candidates that you’ve actually screened.

Luxembourg is a high quality, diverse and candidate-rich market. Here you have the added bonus that almost everyone in finance is connected to funds in some way.  Here you will find candidates dealing with cross border tax every day, across scores of countries. Accountants that can handle multiple location consolidations and reporting. And lawyers who can advise on legal requirements in a number of locations. Try finding this kind of talent in any other location in Europe.

Rana Hein-Hartmann is managing director of the recruitment firm .