3 reasons why you need to attend RecBuzz Berlin 2023

Create, manage, and work with Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces.

Each week, Steven Rothberg, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of College Recruiter, and Peter M. Zollman, Founder of the AIM Group, along with guests from the world’s leading job sites, analyze news about general, niche, and aggregator job board and recruitment marketplace sites.

Today’s episode features Katja Riefler, the Managing Director of AIM Group. Katja joins our hosts to discuss who should attend RecBuzz Berlin 2023 and why. RecBuzz is the world’s premier recruitment marketplace conference. It offers a unique opportunity for leading recruitment marketplace experts and consultants to collaborate and share industry insights.

Register for the RecBuzz Conference here, and use code PODCAST15 to get 15% off your purchase!

Subscribe here to follow the Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast and stay up to date with new episodes.

TRANSCRIPT

Steven (00:09):

Welcome to the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast. I’m Stephen Rothberg, the founder of College Recruiter, job search site at College Recruiter. We believe that every student in recent grad deserves a great career.

Peter (00:23):

And I’m Peter Zollman, founding Principal of the AIM Group, the leading global business intelligence service for marketplaces and classified advertising companies. We consult with recruitment marketplaces, companies, and publish AIM group, recruitment intelligence, and a free weekly digest. We also host the annual Global Rebus Conference.

Steven (00:44):

This is the podcast for you to learn more about how to create, manage, and work with general niche and aggregator job boards and recruitment marketplaces.

(00:56):

Hey, Peter,

(00:57):

Happy to be with you today, and we’ve got a exceptional guest today. Somebody who, like most of our other guests, is gonna make us look like kindergarten children. But this one in particular

Peter (01:10):

Sounds fair to me. Happy New Year, sir, and happy New Year to you, Kacha. It’s always good to start a new year fresh and have good holidays and good cheer. We hope for healthy, happy, a peaceful and prosperous 2023. It’s hard to believe it’s 2023 already.

Steven (01:32):

It it, it promises if it’s anything like the last few years to be an interesting year. That’s, that is for sure. And just to build a little bit off of off of your teaser our guest today is Kaia Riffer, and she is she’s very special a because she works with Peter and, and therefore she must be a, a very, very, very patient person. And b because she’s also had to work with me a little bit as a, an attendee and speaker at a couple of conferences. And therefore she also has to be a very, very patient person. But she’s the conference organizer and the E M E A managing director for the AIM Group, which is the same organization that Peter works with. Kaci is responsible for putting on RecBuzz, which is their annual conferences conference for recruitment marketplaces and job boards.

(02:32):

And I’m pretty excited because the next rec bus is going to be in a city and in a country that I’ve never been to. It’s gonna be in Berlin on April 20th and 21st. Kacha herself has been with AIM Group for 20 years, which is amazing because she’s only 23 years of age. And love to hear more about her background. But but I think that she started an internet organization for German newspapers and ran a consulting business in, in 1998, beginning in 80, 19 98. So Kaia, what, what did we miss? What what about you should the listeners know that we didn’t talk about?

Katja (03:17):

Thanks, Steven, and thanks Peter for the warm welcome, and I’m excited being here and having the ability to talk a little bit about Wabu, but now you are asking me about my life and my career. Good God. It’s everything I have done in the past. I have and what I have achieved in the past is just by chance, you know, I was asked whether I would like to do this or that, and then I had to decide, yes, I want, or I don’t want to do this. And in my former, former, former former life, I was a journalist. And as this journalist, I wrote a book about the future of newspapers and the future of newspapers at that time. That was back in 1995, was that there’s something like the internet. And I started to investigate and I discovered the internet.

(04:20):

And then the publishers, after I have published this, said, okay, there’s something in it. Perhaps we should do something about it. There is this [inaudible] that wrote this book, perhaps she knows how to build a company. And this was something I wasn’t really aware of. I haven’t done this before. But then I said, why not? Let’s try, I just need someone who could be the ceo. And I, I organize everything and I find the, the attendees, or no, not attendees, the the shareholders, and we will build this company. So we built a company of German publishers who wanted to explore the internet after some years. They went a bit crazy because before the big bubble they planned to go to the stock market with streaming video, you know, there was no bandwidth, there was nothing. And the only really interesting thing they did they disregarded as being not so interesting.

(05:31):

And this thing was a common classified database that was some of the things I wanted them to do, and they never did. And, or they tried, but it failed, and it was never, never what I expected that it would be. And so when they had this crazy idea with going to the stock market and becoming rich quick, I decided to become a consultant. And so I started my own small consulting business back in 1998 as you, as you said. And I consulted newspapers. And this was about the time when I started to travel the world and go to every conference I could find that might have might discuss something interesting. And that’s when I met Peter at a time and we started talking about classified about publishing, about the internet. And that was the beginning of my work with Peter and

Peter (06:41):

And now she’s my boss. Isn’t that amazing? <Laugh>?

Katja (06:47):

Yeah.

Peter (06:47):

Yeah. She and Jonathan are either always telling me what to do or usually telling me where to go. And I mean, that <laugh> in the colloquial sense. Kata, Rebus this’ll be the fifth or sixth I think. We’ve been in Amsterdam, we’ve been in Barcelona, we’ve been in Berlin. What makes different from most recruitment conferences,

Katja (07:20):

Actually, I think Rec Bus is pretty unique. And I think it is the only conference that focuses just on marketplaces for jobs and other intermediaries between candidates and employers. So it is a really a business conference. And it is very strategic. So we have a high level of sea level attendees, and they love, just love to discuss what is of interest to them. So they love to discuss the big trends, the global trends. Where is everything going? How is this impacting the business? They love to take talk. They love to talk money because everybody’s interested in buying and selling businesses. And of course, everyone’s interested in very good practices.

Peter (08:15):

The, the audience is also pretty international. How many co countries were represented last year? How many, you know, we u we usually get 30 to 40 countries, people from, from Asia, from Europe. You tell me. I mean, I know the answers, but I might as well ask you because you’re the expert.

Katja (08:36):

<Laugh>, actually, we, we usually have people from 35 or more countries, and we have people from all parts of the world. So I always am very keen to have people from, from Asia, from Africa, from Latin America. Of course the majority is from Europe. But we like this diversity because those international businesses can share more and the learnings are better.

Steven (09:11):

I love how the conversation is very quickly getting to the international aspect of it, because as, as somebody who, who spoke at rec bus in Barcelona I think it was 2019. And then I also was fortunate to speak at the Reba in Amsterdam in, in September, 2022. What I’ve found as an attendee, as a speaker that really sets the conferences apart is that international aspect that, you know, when you go, when you have a coffee, if there are five of you standing there, you’re probably from four different countries. And there are other conferences where there are lots of people from job boards and recruitment marketplaces, but nothing where it is just so very diverse. And it the learning opportunities, what happens in Malaysia versus in Ukraine versus in Nigeria versus in Austria, are, are just phenomenal. So Kaia that in terms of the kinds of, of people, not so much the, the organizations or the geographic locations, but like the typical job title of, of an attendee what, what are you finding is, are, are the most common for, for the people who are actually attending?

Katja (10:39):

Actually, that’s super difficult to say because it’s all the strategy people. It is a high level of really the C level management that is coming to these conferences. And there are business development people of course as well. An important part of, of web is the networking that you already mentioned, because people want to talk to each other and they want to find out what good ideas they can copy or, or steal, and they also want to find partners. So it is a very good event to learn about new technology, about new ways to do things, and also to find ideas on how to improve your own business and revenue.

Steven (11:35):

We’ll

Steven (11:36):

Be back right after this break. Welcome back to the inside job boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast.

Peter (11:53):

We had Roman Prokofiev of Jubal at the Rec Buzz Conference in Amsterdam. He spoke about how to run your business from a bomb shelter, and then we had him on the podcast just a few weeks ago. Fabulous episode. You may wanna listen to it if you haven’t because they’re facing great difficulties operating in Ukraine. Understand we’re gonna have this year Roman Prokofiev and Dro Green who c e o of aggregation for Jubal, and what topic are they gonna talk about, and then talk about the broader topics of the conference, because with economic turmoil and job losses and at the same time, tight labor markets talk about what your programming for the conference, Kaia and, and the topic that Roman and Dito will talk about.

Katja (12:56):

<Laugh>. Yeah. We are always, as, as I already mentioned, we are always talking about the, the global twins and what is really impacting the business. I think most job ports have had one of their best years. So, so far now, everybody is looking or is, is very anxious about coming with sessions. So we will discuss how, how this is going to work out, but we will have a lot of future looking topics that is, for example, how to deal with the Gen Gen said that is now coming into the, the workspace. We have a lot of people due to the pandemic who now are looking for different setups for the working, for their work life. And so we job boards and portals need to adapt to this. So we will have a lot of hands on discussions.

(13:59):

And regarding Roman and Miro that’s just a follow up. We plan an interview because the situation is still pretty, pretty tight. And they plan to talk about how to not, how to run a world business out of a bomb shelter, but now to talk about how to run a world business without electricity. And it looks very black humor, but if you have attended, then you know, it’ll will still be a very informative and interesting discussion. But it’ll just be one aspect because now we are really focusing on the, on the big topics that the job board landscape is interested in.

Steven (14:51):

That sounds interesting, and I’m, I’m definitely really looking forward to, to, to hearing that. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve, I’ve never been to Germany, let alone Berlin. I know it, it is a city that is, is fortunate to have a a number of conferences hosted there. For those of us who have never been to Berlin, but who have been to cities like Amsterdam, London et cetera, what’s, what’s it like in Berlin? Like, what, what should visitors in the middle of April going to a conference? E

Katja (15:31):

Actually, Berlin is a very special city, and it is a shame that you have not been there before because it is not worth one visit, but at least 10. It’s not only the German capital, it is the German capital of startups. So it is very vibrant, it’s very international, and there are many, many interesting companies there. Besides the job businesses or some, some job businesses are there, like mobile jobs or job lift, that’s a smaller one, but nevertheless interesting. And hey, jobs and others, not the really market leading ones for StepStone, which we also hope to attract to the Berlin conference. It’s headquartered in Dusseldorf. That’s not so far, you know, Germany is a small country, so you can perhaps visit several cities if you are joining us for, for Rutgers in April. And this is springtime, so we might expect very, very nice weather, what you can see in and do in, in Berlin. Besides it’s, it’s the political capital. It is a design capital. It is a lot of interesting spaces you can see. And yeah, we hope to prepare good program.

Peter (17:03):

It was a remarkable experience to spend time in Berlin because to see the, the wall, to see the Brandenburg Gate, to see the history and the Holocaust memorial, and it’s just a, a remarkable, remarkable city. And to see how vibrant it is now just a few years after reunification is amazing. For people who want to come, we have a discount code. And for sticking out the podcast from beginning to end Kati, you want to give out the discount code and how people can find the conference and how people can find you.

Katja (17:47):

Actually, you just have to go to the website RecBuzz conference.com and hit the registration button. And if you add the code Podcast 15, it’s really special for everybody who listens to this podcast. Then you get 15% off.

Steven (18:09):

So you go to RecBuzz conference.com, hit the registration button, and in the code field it’s podcast, P O D C A S T, and then the number one, and then the number five. Is that is that right, Kacha?

Katja (18:27):

Yes, that’s exactly,

Steven (18:29):

Yeah. For, for people who want to reach out to you, Kaia, how would you like them to do that?

Katja (18:35):

Actually, it’s easiest to just write me an email and that’s just kaia r ingroup.com, so really

Peter (18:43):

Easy. That’s K A T J A r@ingroup.com.

Steven (18:49):

Kacha, thank you for joining us today. This was great.

Katja (18:52):

Thank you Both.

Peter (18:55):

Inside job boards and recruitment marketplaces is a co-production of Evergreen Podcasts College Recruiter and the AIM Group.

Steven (19:04):

Please subscribe for free on your favorite app. Review it. Five stars are always nice and recommended to a couple of people you know who wanna learn more about job boards and recruitment marketplaces.

Peter (19:15):

Special thanks to our producer and engineer, Ian Douglas. I’m your host, Peter Zalman of the AIM Group, the leading global consultancy in the field of marketplaces and classified advertising. Find out more about our reports on recruitment marketplaces, job boards and classifieds, including our new recruitment marketplaces annual at aim group.com/reports.

Steven (19:41):

I’m your host, Stephen Rothberg of job search site college recruiter. Each year we help more than 12 million candidates find great new jobs. Our customers are primarily Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies, and other employers who hire at scale and advertise their jobs with us. You can reach me at steven@collegerecruiter.com.