Charline de Vogeleer: 0:00

It happens that some a person can apply and, within a week, they can be hired and start the Monday after. Employees are encouraged to be as proactive and optimize as possible, make mistakes if needed, but learn from them. So I think to recruit a lot of people, but it's also a challenge to keep these people in the company. So that's why we really try to focus on the retention of the different profiles and different person that we have in our company. It's okay to fail, but it's not okay not to evolve, and it's something really important for us.

Olivier Colson: 0:29

How Odooers, and welcome back to Planet Odoo. Have you heard that there has been a massive wave of turnover in companies recently as the tendency for employees to quit their job overnight is growing? We wanted to discuss the role and importance of a good recruitment process to keep your company on the right track. So in today's episode, we will explore the complex and often underestimated recruitment process with our beloved HR. Shelley In the booklet, she will share with us her expertise on the subject and the tools she uses daily to detect rare gems. As Kevin Donaldson once stated, hiring the wrong people is the fastest way to undermine a sustainable business. We will see how people, in general, are not the company's strength. Only the right ones are. Ready? Let's start.

Charline de Vogeleer: 1:13

Hello, Charline.

Olivier Colson: 1:14

Hello, Olivier. How's it going?

Charline de Vogeleer: 1:15

Really great. I'm delighted to be in the Odoo studio for the first time.

Olivier Colson: 1:19

What are we going to talk about for this first time?

Charline de Vogeleer: 1:21

Recruitment.

Olivier Colson: 1:22

That's your job, right?

Charline de Vogeleer: 1:23

Yes. Okay. How old are you? And was it your first job? No, I'm 27, and actually, it's my second job. So now I'm a recruiter at Odoo. And before I was also a recruiter, but in an agency. So for the recruitment agency, you are more of a headhunter, a salesperson.

Olivier Colson: 1:42

How different? What was different in that job compared to what you do now?

Charline de Vogeleer: 1:46

I think the big difference is as a recruiter for an agency, you try to match people for the right companies and the right job, but you don't follow them. You don't hire your colleague. And here, as a more HR job, you try to recruit your colleagues for the future.

Olivier Colson: 2:03

So you have to keep them up there.

Charline de Vogeleer: 2:05

We have to keep them. And that's the biggest challenge.

Olivier Colson: 2:08

Okay. So indeed, that's quite a challenge because you hired like 400 people in 2021. So that's huge. How?

Charline de Vogeleer: 2:16

Okay, how. This is a big journey. I think the biggest thing is the creativity. So the creativity, you have to find these people. You have to think about how the candidates are. Where are they? You have to find them on the right platforms, for example, for developers, even though as a recruiter, I'm not a geek, but you have to find them. For example, I know they're on Twitch and get up and stuff, and you have to find this person in this kind of platform.

Olivier Colson: 2:45

So would you say that there is a specific approach for each job position that Odoo wants to recruit someone for? And so you are talking about Twitch and this kind of platforms for developers. For more business-oriented person as well?

Charline de Vogeleer: 2:59

Oh no, they are on different places. For example, for businesses, we try to find them with which challenging games. We organize Odoo games, which is like a business game. They have to do at the office. We welcome them for a day at the office, and they have to find we also try to find this person directly from in high school or a university because we want to involve Odoo in their classes. And this is completely different.

Olivier Colson: 3:26

This is a bit like what Fabian was saying in a previous episode of this podcast. If you haven't listened to it go. It's episode one. Fabian mentioned that the marketing of Odoo was more centered on educating people, and so it's been the same for recruitment. So educating is like an investment because later on, when those students will need a job, they will apply to you, right?

Charline de Vogeleer: 3:48

Yeah, exactly.

Olivier Colson: 3:49

So that's definitely the strategy.

Charline de Vogeleer: 3:50

Definitely the strategy. And to come back to how to find this talent, also something that we have to do is to dare this is, I think, the biggest tip. I would say, for example, we are quite famous for things that we've done in the past for the recruitment.

Olivier Colson: 4:07

Like the ten K bonus.

Charline de Vogeleer: 4:09

Exactly.

Olivier Colson: 4:10

Could you explain?

Charline de Vogeleer: 4:11

The ten K one is something that shows a bit about how company culture is. We try to be as much transparent as we want to be. And the ten k bonus is actually, you know, instead of working with a recruitment agency where at the end of the day they give a certain amount of fee for this person, we prefer to give them to the person directly.

Olivier Colson: 4:32

So instead of being the agency, you pay the candidate.

Charline de Vogeleer: 4:34

Exactly. And also, you know, when we also worked with brainteasers, we sent brainteasers to developers in their work environment. And also it made a big scandal in the press and stuff. But you know, it's the same idea when you want to recruit someone, and you just send them a message, a private message on LinkedIn as a recruiter, "Hey, you want to work for my company?" You know, it's the same than just setting the brainteaser in the workplace. Instead, we're just transparent, and we don't want to hide this message.

Olivier Colson: 5:02

With this scandal, you're mentioning. Could you explain a bit more for people outside of Belgium who might have missed it because it was a big story, right?

Charline de Vogeleer: 5:09

Yeah. So we worked with the email address and addresses of the people with developers / with technical profiles, and we send them a brainteaser. So it was the thing they had to open and at the end they had a code message.

Olivier Colson: 5:26

Kind of puzzle.

Charline de Vogeleer: 5:27

Or yeah, exactly a puzzle. And they had to find a message. And in the message, they have to go to Odoo and try to hack the codes in the code of Odoo. And with this they were getting a message with the recruitment idea. "Hey, you want to apply? Just apply".

Olivier Colson: 5:41

And how did people react to that? What kind of comments did you get for that?

Charline de Vogeleer: 5:47

Like I was saying, they were shocked. But like I was saying, you know, it's more transparent way to send a message instead of sending a private message on LinkedIn.

Olivier Colson: 5:56

Because at the end of the day, it's something that everybody does. It's just that Odoo was doing it in plain sight.

Charline de Vogeleer: 6:00

You just have to dare and be creative. I remember back in the days Anthony and Fabien were in a job for, and instead of giving them a goodie for people who were Coming, they were giving €5, you know, because it's the same amount tt the end of the day. They also did the same for the 24 hours of Louvain-la-Neuve. They were in the stands, and they were saying, "Okay, you give us the CV, and we give you a beer". But also we try to organize more subtile activities, you know, to show them the company culture. For example, we organized an hackathon or even the Odoo business game, I was saying at the beginning. You know, it's just a challenge for either business profiles or developer profiles, but they get challenged by the product, and they can also see the company culture. And so it's not a message, Yeah, come and work at Odoo is just like, Hey, we will show you how to work it.

Olivier Colson: 6:57

So at the same time they get in touch with the product itself. So being from a functional and purely business point of view or directly with the code and they are with a few Odoo people and just sharing a good time with them.

Charline de Vogeleer: 7:08

Exactly. And even if they're not working for some of the day, it just makes a good also commercial for even for the product itself if they want to use or do in the future as customers.

Olivier Colson: 7:20

Are there other ways we try to attract interesting people to the company?

Charline de Vogeleer: 7:25

Yeah I'm thinking about the referral application that we have. Our employees are a goldmine, so, you know, we have a sponsorship program, and when they refer someone of their environment, if it's a relative or a friend or whatever, we give them a bonus when the person gets hired. So because at the end of the day, we realized our employees are often as performing as their friends.

Olivier Colson: 7:50

So the assumption is really, if you're good for the job, you're fit for the job. Probably people around you also are.

Charline de Vogeleer: 7:56

Yeah, that's the idea.

Olivier Colson: 7:59

Okay. Do you maybe have some funny anecdote about someone we recruited or did not recruit, if it's not too secret to be disclosed here?

Charline de Vogeleer: 8:07

Oh, no, I can tell. So I remember that back in the day they wanted to hire a CFO. And, you know, for everyone, we give a logical test to pass. So it is something that we try to do to stay current and do the same recruitment process for everyone. And he was like, "Okay, no, I'm not going to do the test because, you know, I'm a CFO, I'm already important. Why should I do it?" And, you know, it shows that this is not the company mindset that we are looking for. And at the end of the day, this person did not get hired because of that.

Olivier Colson: 8:39

Interesting. And what kind of mindset is Odoo looking for?

Charline de Vogeleer: 8:44

I'd say that the biggest one is the proactivity. We are looking for someone proactive. For proactive people who want to take initiative even as they want. When they start, they can get involved in a really big project, and this is something that we want people to dare. And that's why also they are allowed to make mistakes. And it's something that we see a lot is like it's okay to fail, but it's not okay not to evolve. And it's something really important for us.

Olivier Colson: 9:10

I guess someone applying has to have this taste for challenges.

Charline de Vogeleer: 9:14

You can feel it directly. Yeah.

Olivier Colson: 9:16

And what tools are you using exactly? So I assume Odoo, right?

Charline de Vogeleer: 9:21

Yes.

Olivier Colson: 9:21

Haha I knew it. Why is it better than the competitors from your prior experience? What are the advantages of using Odoo?

Charline de Vogeleer: 9:27

Using Odoo is actually something that helps hiring much more people. Actually, everything is automated, just so you know, you don't lose a lot of time. You know, 60% of the recruiter are using a lot of time. For example, just for sending emails and organizing interviews, it takes a lot of time. With Odoo, every time that someone applies, we see them directly in our pipe, and with the optimization of the emails and stuff, we can respond to everyone, even the person who will not be taken, they always get a response. And when you take a candidate, you have a special journey in our pipe, so you can just follow the journey of a candidate. We can easily find a candidate with the language that they speak or the name of anything. And for example, even when we want to have an interview with this person. We directly send them a link, and they can take an appointment in our agenda.

Olivier Colson: 10:22

So directly on the website they have the agenda?

Charline de Vogeleer: 10:24

They have our agenda, and they can take, they can see when we are free. And so they just book in our agenda and even till the end of the recruitment process, one day they get an offer, they get an automatic offer with the link to the salary configurator. I will come back to that later.

Olivier Colson: 10:43

I will go back on this.

Charline de Vogeleer: 10:43

And they can also sign online, so they don't have to come at the office and sign the offer. And it allows us to gain a lot of time. And you know, it happens that a person can apply, and within a week, they can be hired and start the Monday after. This is also super nice.

Olivier Colson: 11:00

I assume you're way more responsive thanks to the tool, actually.

A personal anecdote: 11:05

before applying at Odoo, I had the situation where I applied in a company, and I had a bunch of interviews with them, I don't remember the details, and I had to wait for like one month to be sure that I wasn't taken because they weren't answering anything. I had no news from them. Nothing. So I guess they weren't using Odoo.

Charline de Vogeleer: 11:28

Yeah, haha.

Olivier Colson: 11:29

But it's interesting because I guess, for your job, it's very important to do that because correct me if I'm wrong, but it's also giving a part of the company culture to the people, right? The way you communicate with them, even when you don't hire them.

Charline de Vogeleer: 11:42

Just be efficient. Yeah. That's also the mojo of the company, don't lose time on like a task that takes a lot of time. Just try to be fast. And since we also have a big like, we can hire people like twice in a month. They can also choose when they want to start, which is also something that.

Olivier Colson: 12:01

So you don't force them like "Okay, you have to come"

Charline de Vogeleer: 12:03

No, they don't have to. Yeah. For example, I know companies and they only have two onboardings during the year. For us, they can start whenever they want.

Olivier Colson: 12:11

Okay. So that's very flexible as well.

Charline de Vogeleer: 12:13

Exactly.

Olivier Colson: 12:14

About the onboarding now. So once you get recruited, as you said, so you choose when you start and then what happens. Yeah.

Charline de Vogeleer: 12:22

Um, the idea here is to create an experience really to try to stay in touch with the candidate as much as we can, even once they sign. And between the time when they signed, and they started at Odoo, we try to stay in touch with them and see if there is anything For example, I know people are already always scared for the dress code, you know, the first day.

Olivier Colson: 12:43

Is there a dress code?

Charline de Vogeleer: 12:44

No, But, you know, they can think, what should I wear? Should I wear a dress or, you know, costume?

Olivier Colson: 12:49

No, it's true. It's legit. When you enter a new company, you don't know the rules. It's a lot of people following social rules. Yeah. So you don't know what you have to do, actually.

Charline de Vogeleer: 12:58

No, no, no. Exactly. And here we have a survival guide, you know, who helps you. That helps you to get to know the company culture in advance and to see who are the important person in the company. How are the departments linked to each other and stuff. And when they arrive, we try to keep this experience. You know, we offer them the breakfast, and we try to experience as much as they want to have information for. And we stay with them for the lunch, and we organize a game during the onboarding what is nice like for the onboarding, they all mixed with different person. So you can be a sales and be in the same onboarding with a developer and it helps you create friends and bonds for the rest of your journey.

Olivier Colson: 13:43

Strengthen the bonds between the departments.

Charline de Vogeleer: 13:45

It's important. People think that you know your sales, you have to stay with the sales and do the sales onboarding. Yes, we do have different onboarding, of course, related to the function you are here for. But I think keeping this idea of like staying with everyone, and because you might work with this person in the future later, all the departments are working together. So we try to create this onboarding like that. And also do some follow-ups after two weeks, after three months, after six months, after one year to see if everything is still going well. If they have ideas to give us about the recruitment, the feedback about the recruiting process.

Olivier Colson: 14:23

It's also a way to also criticize the way you work and make sure that it is actually working.

Charline de Vogeleer: 14:29

Yeah, we change it all the time.

Olivier Colson: 14:31

Do you have an example?

Charline de Vogeleer: 14:31

Yeah.

Olivier Colson: 14:32

Something you change like that because someone told you at some point."Yeah, but for me it didn't work for this or that." And then you were like,"Okay, we'll change the process a little bit just to adapt it to this kind of people". Do you have an anecdote like that in mind?

Charline de Vogeleer: 14:44

Yeah, even for, for the onboarding, we've heard that, you know, because they watch videos for two weeks, they watch ...

Olivier Colson: 14:50

What kind of videos?

Charline de Vogeleer: 14:51

It's videos that explain how to use the tool. So it can be a little theoretical. And, you know, you just have to listen to the videos all over again. And we've heard that, you know, it was a bit too much at the end of the day, and they had to use the product a bit more. So we tried to introduce some demos and use cases they were doing together so that they can use the product in a different way than just watching videos.

Olivier Colson: 15:14

So that the learning of the product can be a little more interactive and social, right?

Charline de Vogeleer: 15:17

Exactly.

Olivier Colson: 15:17

Okay, good idea. Indeed. So we talked about the way Odoo attracts people and how it makes sure it starts well for them in the company. And then so let's say I've been hired, I stay there for a while, you know, two years and two years later is there still some things, some things that are done for me, for the social sphere really of the company or nothing. And I have to just.

Charline de Vogeleer: 15:44

Survive in the company.

Olivier Colson: 15:45

Survive on my own, haha.

Charline de Vogeleer: 15:47

No, no, no. Of course, like I was saying at the beginning, it's a thing to recruit a lot of people, but it's also a challenge to keep these people in the company. So that's why we really try to focus on the retention of the different profiles and different person that we have in our company by organizing activities. You know, for example, we organized a rental bike where they were biking and running from the Odoo office to the farm, and they were in trios or duos. And also they were mixed in departments. And the idea was to, yeah, to get to know people outside of work kind of. We try to organize as much activities that we want. Like, for example, we know that we have people with a talent outside their work and we wanted to organize a Odoo talent where they were coming with their external activities and show them to the people.

Olivier Colson: 16:37

So like have some kind of little stand. And they showed that thing.

Charline de Vogeleer: 16:40

And if you're a really good photographer or if you, you produce, I don't know, you make beers or whatever.

Olivier Colson: 16:46

How did it go? So you did it, if I remember well, a few months ago, Right? Was it a success?

Charline de Vogeleer: 16:52

Yeah, it was. And I think people were kind of proud and happy to show another part of themselves than the part they show at work. But also we try to maintain this group activity. For example, if you want to make sports after work with a minimum of 6 employees of Odoo, you can get a refund by Odoo just because you're together and you organize even like it's for the 20 kilometers of Brussels, for example, of their own to organize a race or whatever.

Olivier Colson: 17:21

Okay? So it's a way to ensure some social link is still made between people and that the family side of the company can stay alive, right?

Charline de Vogeleer: 17:30

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's important to feel at home in a company because at the end of the day, you spend a lot of time off work and that's also a reason why we, we want to create as much comfort as we can with the flexible hours, for example.

If you are really early person, you can arrive at seven in the morning, 7: 17:43

30 in the morning, and leave super early. But if you're a lead person, like.

Olivier Colson: 17:50

If you work in R&D, haha.

Charline de Vogeleer: 17:52

Yeah, maybe. You can just arrive later and leave later. We also have really great lunches at work. Food is really important to focus, we know that. We also have a sports organized sports room, and I think outside this really nice advantageous also with the hybrid work and three days at work and two days of I'm working the values that we promote within Odoo are important.

Olivier Colson: 18:19

Would you say that this value is also reflected in management? It's also something we can find there.

Charline de Vogeleer: 18:25

Yeah Yeah, definitely. You know, like I was talking about being proactive and taking initiatives. Something it's also important is the communication that you might have with your manager. We always like to say we don't like corporate and stuff, but we are a big company now, so we need these team leaders to guide these people and to coach these people. But we always try to keep this startup mindset, you know, with the communication, the easy communication you might have with the team leader. At the end of the day, they do the same job as you. They just have this coaching side.

Olivier Colson: 18:58

Yeah, Sebastien was mentioning it a few episodes ago that actually managers At Odoo were not selected just for the sake of selecting managers just because they wanted power, but rather because they had the skill. And so the people selected as managers are the ones who actually show the best skills in the team.

Charline de Vogeleer: 19:15

They do the work.

Olivier Colson: 19:16

It helps for this relationship with the people they work with, right?

Charline de Vogeleer: 19:18

And yeah, besides that, the autonomy and responsibilities. Like I was saying at the beginning, employees are encouraged to be as proactive and autonomous as possible. Make mistakes if needed, but learn from them. I'm thinking about a candidate I hired, like two months ago. I think she started two months ago, and after three weeks, she's been told, okay, you will do the podcast for Odoo. And it was three, three weeks after, and it was her first job.

Olivier Colson: 19:45

And poof, here we are.

Charline de Vogeleer: 19:46

Yeah. And poof, here I am. Here you are.

Olivier Colson: 19:50

Okay, so you talked already a bit about the working sphere at Odoo. About the offices themselves and the way they are dispatched and organized is there something special to mention as well that allows retaining or recruiting employees?

Charline de Vogeleer: 20:06

I talked about the hybrid working, the flexible hours, the open spaces so that you can just work with your colleagues and get to know them. But of course, if you have like an important meeting, you can go to a box. But anyway, I think the collaboration between the different departments is important and also the communication between the different offices. We have an Erasmus program, something that might be attractive for external people. We have an Erasmus program. I think it's like about one year and a half or two years within the company, you can open a new office, a new Odoo office, or work for another office in the world, in the different subsidiaries that we have.

Olivier Colson: 20:48

So you keep your job and move abroad.

Charline de Vogeleer: 20:49

Yeah, and change completely the way of working in the environment. At the moment I'm working with a guy from the US and he is coming in Belgium and we are trying to organize this. He's coming in the team, I think it's really great.

Olivier Colson: 21:05

Yeah, I guess it's very attractive for people indeed. Okay. About the salary now, because you mentioned the salary configurator earlier, and you said we'll go back on that. Now it's the time.

Charline de Vogeleer: 21:17

Yeah, Now is the time.

Olivier Colson: 21:17

What's the salary configurator exactly? And why is it so interesting?

Charline de Vogeleer: 21:22

It's really interesting. And it's great because you get to choose your own package. You don't have to take things like other companies. For example, here, you receive a budget, and with this budget, you are allowed to take whatever you want in your salary package. So you can build your own package. Let's say you're really car lover, and you love Tesla. It's possible we have Tesla. Of course, we don't have only big cars, we have Dacia, we have an Opel Corsa, We have a lot of different cars. If you drive a lot, you get to choose the amount, like how much money you want to put on your gas cards. If you prefer holidays, you can get up to 15 extra-legal holidays. You can actually choose whatever you want and stay comfortable with your package, but every year you can change it.

Olivier Colson: 22:07

Yeah, you configure it just like a video game. You have skills points to put everywhere. Okay. That's the idea. Interesting. And then how does the salary evolve after that? So I spend a few years in the company. How do I get a raise? How does it work?

Charline de Vogeleer: 22:25

Every year you will get one because you have an Odoo anniversary. But then, of course, we have more personal evaluation. So every year, you have an evaluation with your manager to see, to get feedback, positive, negative feedback to just evolve. And then if you did the extra mile, of course, we look at that, and you can get a raise as well.

Olivier Colson: 22:49

So if you're really performing super well, you can get a little more. Okay, we are reaching the end of the episode. So before concluding, I don't know if you have something more you would like to say or some funny anecdote you would like to share with us.

Charline de Vogeleer: 23:02

Yeah, I'm thinking about the really funny one just to show that at Odoo and everywhere, you have to adapt to your time. It was during COVID. There were online interviews, of course, and it was a guy for a developer position. He was doing an exercise and he just had to go to the bathroom during his interview, and he never came back. So we were like, What happened to him? And actually, he got locked. But we learned that after. But it was, yeah, that was a funny one.

Olivier Colson: 23:34

Crazy adventure in the toilets during the interview.

Charline de Vogeleer: 23:37

That's exactly.

Olivier Colson: 23:38

Yeah. Phew. Okay. Legendary story now, right? Thank you for sharing this.

Charline de Vogeleer: 23:44

You're welcome.

Olivier Colson: 23:45

Okay. So, Charline, thank you for your answers to all my questions. I think it was very interesting for people to see the inside of all the recruitment mechanisms at Odoo.

Charline de Vogeleer: 23:55

Thanks for inviting me on the podcast.

Olivier Colson: 23:57

My pleasure. And thank you to everybody listening to us, and see you in the next episode of Planet Odoo. If you'd like to stay with us a little longer, I recommend the episode with Pauline Van out on Odoo experience. The link is in the description. As always, make sure to support us by hitting the subscribe button, leaving a review, or sharing it. See you next time. Cheers.