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WHAT A STRONG CV DOESN'T SHOW The CV was strong. No question about it. Clean C-level layout. The right positions, the right titles. Anyone familiar with the brief would have found every keyword in that document: market development, product positioning, international expansion, P&L responsibility. On paper, this candidate was a better fit than most I had seen throughout the mandate. Then we sat down to talk. THIRTY MINUTES I don't run HR interviews. No questions about leadersh

If you're a company trying to fill a leadership role in the bicycle industry, you're dealing with a real information problem. Reliable salary data for the sector barely exists. Generic job portals mix bicycle OEM roles with unrelated outdoor retail positions — which helps no one when it comes to budget planning or negotiating with a strong candidate. That's the problem we set out to solve. How the benchmark was built The foundation is real conversations. With candidates, hiri

In late March, I signed two mandates. Senior Sales Managers for two geographically and culturally challenging territories at a DACH premium cycling manufacturer: Western Germany combined with a parallel BENELUX market entry, and Eastern Germany in the premium segment. Both territories had to be built from scratch — no predecessor, no established distribution network, no revenue. Every additional week of vacancy cost the client immediate market presence. By early May, both emp

What a Head of Product in the cycling industry really needs to bring in 2026. I’ve supported several Head-of-Product searches in the cycling industry over the past few years. In quite a few cases, the candidates we presented failed at the same point — and it never appeared in the job description. When managing directors ask me today why the role is so hard to fill, I usually answer with a question of my own: what does your job spec say? The reply is almost always a variation

Loss of revenue due to unfilled positions Currently, it takes an average of 149 days in this country for a vacant position in a company to be filled (as of September 2022, Federal Employment Agency). This means that the time it takes to fill vacant positions is currently at its highest level. The current shortage of skilled workers is further exacerbating the problem. The crux of the matter is that an unfilled vacancy means high daily costs for companies. This is because a la

From SENTINEL SPORTS , Your Specialized Recruitment Partner for the Bicycle Sector PART I: The Final Diagnosis (Final Survey Results, N=68) The one-week survey among employees and candidates in the bicycle industry is complete. The results are alarming and confirm a critical erosion of trust that is severely destabilizing the entire talent market.. 📊 Final Result: Given the current wave of layoffs and economic uncertainty, how much has your trust in the bicycle industry as