How we work, step by step

There is no proprietary methodology here. Recruitment is a search problem with a persuasion problem attached, and the firms that do it well are specific about who they are looking for and honest about what will be hard. What follows includes the parts that are your work rather than ours.

First: which model, and whether you need us at all

We work in two ways. With permanent placement we find, screen and present candidates; you employ them directly and we are paid on placement. With outsourced teams we find the people and employ them ourselves; they work full-time for you under your direction, you pay a monthly rate per person and carry no employment relationship in Bulgaria.

Outsourced teams make sense when you have no legal entity here, when the need is project-length, or when you want to test Bulgaria before committing. Permanent placement makes sense for almost everything else and is usually cheaper over a horizon longer than TBC months. If you could fill the role yourself with a two-week advert, we will say so in the first call rather than sell you a search.

The intake conversation

One session, usually around ninety minutes, with whoever will actually make the hiring decision — not a form, not a forwarded job description. The point is to leave with a brief a candidate would recognise as their own job, and a shared view of what is realistic.

What we need from you in that session. Most delay in recruitment starts here:

• The real must-haves, separated from the wish list. If we cannot tell which is which, we screen against the wrong bar and you see the wrong people.
• A salary band you can actually approve. Not the band you would like to pay. If it needs sign-off from someone not in the room, tell us who and how long.
• The full interview process. How many stages, who sits in them, what each tests, and how fast you can schedule. A process you have not designed yet will take six weeks.
• An honest account of why the role is open. A departure, a growth plan, a difficult manager — candidates will ask, and we would rather answer accurately than guess.
• Who else is working on it. If two other agencies are on the same role, that changes how we approach candidates and whether we take it at all.

We come back within TBC working days with a written market read: what this profile is paid in Sofia now, roughly how many people plausibly match, and where the brief will have to bend. If the role cannot be filled as specified, that document says so and gives you the options — raise the band, drop a level, split the role, or wait longer.

Running the search

Most people worth hiring are employed and not applying anywhere, so the work is largely outbound: direct approach, referrals from people we have placed, and our own network in Sofia. Advertising works for volume and junior roles; we use it where it works, not to look busy. We agree a named-approach list and any off-limits companies before we start, and we do not name you to a candidate until they show real interest.

Screening, and what a shortlist contains

Every candidate we present has had a structured conversation with us against your brief. We verify what can be verified, assess language level live rather than from a CV claim, and press on what breaks placements later: notice period, other live processes, salary expectation, and why they would leave a job that is currently fine.

The shortlist is usually TBC candidates and sometimes fewer. Each comes with a written note on the fit, the salary expectation, the availability and — the part that matters — our reservations. A shortlist of ten is not thoroughness; it means we have not decided and have passed the work back to you.

Interviews and the offer

We coordinate scheduling, brief the candidate on who they are meeting and what each stage tests, and collect structured feedback from both sides. We ask for a decision within TBC working days of each stage. This is the most common way good hires are lost: a candidate who waits two weeks between rounds concludes they are not wanted and accepts elsewhere.

Before an offer is made we test it — we will tell you if we think it will be refused, and why. We handle the numbers so you are not negotiating against someone you are about to manage, prepare the candidate for the counter-offer their employer will almost certainly make, and stay in contact through the notice period, when second thoughts happen.

Onboarding and the guarantee

For permanent placements we check in with both sides over the first months, early enough to catch a mismatch while it is still fixable. Placements carry a TBC-month guarantee: if the person leaves or is dismissed in that period for reasons connected to the hire, we run the search again on the terms in your agreement. It does not cover redundancy, a role that changes after the hire, or a restructure — those are business decisions, not screening failures.

For outsourced teams the work does not stop at the start date. We handle employment contracts, payroll, contributions, leave and equipment; you get one named contact and one monthly invoice. We review salaries annually so the team does not quietly fall below market. If you later incorporate here and want to transfer people onto your own payroll, we support that under terms agreed at the start — a normal end to this model, not a breach of it.

What we ask of you

The short version: an accurate brief, a real budget, a decision-maker who answers in days rather than weeks, and feedback we can pass on. We will tell you when we think a role is unfillable as written, and we would rather lose the mandate there than bill you for a search neither of us believed in.