The Principal Recruiter
Talent Acquisition Consulting · Berlin

Your hiring is costing youmore than it should

Most companies know something in their hiring is off. The process is too slow, the wrong people keep getting through, the team is stretched, or nobody can explain why good candidates are dropping out. We find what is broken, build what is missing, and leave you with infrastructure your team can run without us.

Book a 15-min callSee what we do
Founders making first 3 hires Heads of TA People leaders COOs scaling ops Seed → Series C DACH & remote Agency-fatigued teams ATS migrations
Founders making first 3 hires Heads of TA People leaders COOs scaling ops Seed → Series C DACH & remote Agency-fatigued teams ATS migrations
Founders making first 3 hires Heads of TA People leaders COOs scaling ops Seed → Series C DACH & remote Agency-fatigued teams ATS migrations

Built for the people closest to the problem

We work with founders, People leaders, Heads of TA, and COOs at companies across DACH. The work is the same whether you are a seed-stage startup making your first three hires or a 200-person company whose recruitment has outgrown its systems.

If you need to build hiring infrastructure from scratch, fix what is already there, reduce your dependency on agencies, or train your TA team to operate at a higher standard, that is what we do.

What we do

Three engagements, one standard

Build & fix

Consulting

We come in, audit your current hiring setup, and identify what is costing you, whether that is time, money, candidate quality, or all three. Then we build what is missing. That can mean a full process redesign, an ATS implementation and migration, a new interview architecture with scorecards and structured feedback, or an end-to-end recruitment operation for a specific hire or set of hires. The work is scoped to your situation, and the output is always documented so your team can maintain it after the engagement ends.

Typical engagements include
  • 01Process audit and redesign
  • 02ATS evaluation, selection, and migration (Personio → Ashby for companies hiring 100+ per year)
  • 03Interview architecture: structured interviews, scorecards, feedback forms, hiring manager calibration
  • 04First-hire infrastructure for early-stage founders who need to get their first three to five roles right
  • 05End-to-end recruitment for specific roles, including sourcing, screening, and offer management
  • 06GDPR and EU AI Act compliance review for hiring processes
  • 07And more
Workshops & cohorts

Training

We run workshops and on-site training for TA teams and hiring managers. Everything is built around your team's gaps, delivered in person or remotely, and designed so people leave with something they can use the following week.

Topics we cover
  • 01Structured interviewing and assessment design
  • 02Offer negotiation and closing strategy
  • 03Stakeholder management for TA teams
  • 04Sourcing strategy and execution
  • 05Data storytelling for recruitment
  • 06GDPR and EU AI Act compliance in hiring
  • 07Employer branding foundations
  • 08And more

Sessions range from 90-minute focused workshops to full-day training programmes. We also run multi-session cohort programmes for teams that need sustained development rather than a one-off session.

Group facilitation

Team Coaching

For TA teams going through a transition, a restructure, or a shift in how the function needs to operate. We work with the team as a group to identify what is holding them back, where the gaps are in how they work together and with hiring managers, and what needs to change for them to deliver at the level the business expects. This is structured group coaching, not a team-building exercise.

How it works

Scoped, fixed-fee, and documented

We do not do open-ended retainers without defined outcomes. Every engagement is brief, timeline, and price — agreed before work starts.

01

30-min intro call — free

You tell us what is going on. We ask questions. No pitch. No charge.

02

Scoped brief & fixed fee

Clear deliverables, clear timeline, clear price — agreed before work starts.

03

Build & deliver

Consulting by deliverable. Training by session or programme. No open-ended retainers.

04

Hand over the keys

Documented infrastructure your team owns and runs without us.

Results

What it looks like in the wild

Swipe
Founding hire

Viivi GmbH — Building hiring infrastructure from scratch

A Berlin-based real estate startup with early traction and pre-seed funding needed to hire their first engineer. They had no recruitment process, no interview structure, and no experience running a hiring project. We built the entire infrastructure from scratch: job descriptions, scorecards, interview flows, outreach sequences, and candidate communication templates. We brought in a trusted external technical interviewer, ran most of the screenings, and guided the founders through decision-making at each stage. Viivi hired their Founding Engineer. The infrastructure is reusable for every future hire.

ATS migration

Personio → Ashby for a 200-person company

A 200-person company hiring roughly 100 people per year had outgrown Personio. We managed the full migration to Ashby: rebuilding every job, interview process, feedback form, email template, and candidate record in the new system. We migrated the current state first and optimised later, kept live roles running in Personio until candidates cleared their interview stages, and built a full documentation library so the team could maintain the system independently. Go-live ran on schedule. The team is now running workforce planning, GDPR logic, and role-specific automation inside Ashby.

See all case studies
What clients say

In their own words

“
As a startup preparing to hire our first engineer, we lacked structure, reusable assets, and experience in running an end-to-end recruitment process. We needed someone who could bring operational clarity and set up a foundation that we could scale with. Andreea built everything from scratch: job descriptions, scorecards, interview flows, outreach sequences; and made it all plug-and-play. She evaluated and made recommendations about technical tools, sourced and recommended a trusted external technical interviewer, and ran most of the screenings. We got advice (made decisions easy by guiding us through trade-offs, biases, and best practices) and execution (full ownership of the process: scheduling, interview prep, candidate communication, and offer negotiation). We successfully hired our Founding Engineer, someone we're confident in both technically and culturally. The entire process ran efficiently. The hiring infrastructure she delivered is reusable and clear, and we now have a solid playbook for future hires. If you're a founder without a dedicated talent advisor, Andreea brings structure, speed, and strategic insight. You'll come away with a scalable system and a better understanding of how to build a team properly from day one.
Felix and Jacob Harz
Founders (Consulting Client)
Common questions

Things people ask before booking

01What does a talent acquisition consultant do?
We work with companies to fix, build, or improve how they hire. That can mean redesigning a broken process, implementing an ATS, building interview structures, training a TA team, or running recruitment for specific roles. The goal is always to leave the company with infrastructure that works without us.
02What is the difference between a recruitment agency and a talent acquisition consultant?
A recruitment agency fills individual roles on commission. A talent acquisition consultant builds the systems, processes, and team capability that allow you to hire well repeatedly, without depending on agencies. We sometimes recruit for specific roles as part of a consulting engagement, but the purpose is always to build infrastructure your team owns long-term.
03Do you work with companies outside Berlin?
Yes. We work with companies across DACH, and we have delivered projects internationally. Consulting and training can be delivered on-site or remotely depending on what the work requires.
04How much does talent acquisition consulting cost?
Every engagement is scoped by deliverable and timeline, with a fixed fee agreed before work starts. A focused process audit is a different investment from a full ATS migration or a multi-month embedded programme. Typical consulting projects range from a single-session diagnostic to engagements spanning several weeks. We do not work on open-ended retainers without defined outcomes. The free 30-minute introductory call is where we work out whether the scope makes sense for your budget and what the fee will look like.
05How long does an ATS migration take?
It depends on the size of the company, the volume of open roles, and how much data cleanup is needed before go-live. For a 200-person company hiring roughly 100 people per year, migrating from Personio to Ashby took approximately eight weeks from project start to full go-live, including data cleanup, system configuration, process rebuilding, and candidate transition. Smaller companies with simpler setups can move faster. We migrate the current state first and optimise later, keeping live roles running in the old system until candidates clear their interview stages so nothing stalls mid-process.
06When should a company hire a talent acquisition consultant instead of a recruiter?
If you have one role to fill and the rest of your hiring works, a recruiter or agency is probably the right call. A consultant makes sense when the problem is structural: your hiring process is slow, inconsistent, or producing the wrong outcomes repeatedly, and you need someone to diagnose why and build something that fixes it long-term. We also work with companies that need to build hiring infrastructure from scratch, migrate their ATS, or train their TA team to operate at a higher level. The deliverable is a system your team can run without us.
07What is involved in an ATS implementation or migration?
An ATS migration is a full systems project, not a data transfer. It involves auditing your existing setup, mapping every job, interview process, feedback form, and email template to the new system, cleaning up candidate records, configuring workflows and automation, and running parallel systems while live candidates finish their interview stages. We also build documentation so your team can maintain and extend the system independently. For companies outgrowing Personio and moving to platforms like Ashby, we manage the full project from scoping through to go-live.
08Do you run training for hiring managers?
Yes. One of the most common gaps we see is hiring managers who are expected to run interviews without ever being trained in structured assessment. We run focused workshops that cover structured interviewing, scorecard design, calibration, bias reduction, and how to make evidence-based hiring decisions. Sessions are built around your team's specific gaps and can be delivered in person or remotely, ranging from 90 minutes to full-day programmes.
09Can you help us with GDPR and EU AI Act compliance in hiring?
Yes. The EU AI Act classifies most AI tools used in recruitment as high-risk, with full compliance obligations taking effect from August 2026. We review how your hiring process handles candidate data, where automated tools are involved, and whether your current setup meets GDPR and AI Act requirements. The output is a clear audit of where you are exposed and a practical plan to close the gaps, including documentation, human oversight protocols, and transparency measures that satisfy both regulations.
10What does "first-hire infrastructure" mean for early-stage startups?
If you are a founder making your first three to five hires, you likely have no recruitment process, no interview structure, and no documented way to evaluate candidates consistently. First-hire infrastructure means we build everything from scratch: role definitions, job descriptions, scorecards, interview flows, outreach sequences, candidate communication templates, and a decision-making framework for founders who have never run a hiring process. The output is a reusable system that works for every subsequent hire, not a one-off search.
11What results should I expect from a talent acquisition consulting engagement?
That depends on what we're solving, but the common outcomes across engagements are: a documented hiring process your team can run without external support, shorter time-to-hire, higher quality shortlists, reduced dependency on agencies, and better hiring manager confidence in their decisions. For ATS migrations, go-live on schedule with full documentation. For training engagements, measurable improvement in how your team interviews and evaluates candidates within the first month.
Get in touch

Let's talk about what you are dealing with

Thirty minutes. Free. You tell us what is going on, and we will tell you whether we can help.