How to Recruit in the Moldavian Market

Most of the roles I recruited for were in a niche market, within a regulated industry and the local market knowledge was always a must-have requirement. Fortunately, IT as a global industry has adopted internationally recognized and unified processes, certifications and best-practices. In other words, you can write a script, create an animation or develop an app for anyone, anywhere in the world.

Currently, due to political decisions, EU nationals can work and travel anywhere within the union, without too many restrictions, and international mobility is a real help when you have a shortage of local talents.

Originally, I am from Moldova – not the Maldives, neither Malta nor Mordovia. It’s a tiny place in Eastern Europe, with an exciting and appealing talent community. In private discussions with professionals and international recruiters, I find out that “home-made” talent acquisition strategies are less efficient while translated to the local market. I decided to create and share with you a market overview, from a generic, HR and IT professionals’ perspective.

Moldova has one of the best and fastest internet connections in the world, as well as the cheapest in terms of Dollar/Mbit.

The IT market is dominated by young, multi-lingual (English, Romanian, Russian, French, Italian or German) speaking professionals who graduated from well-known local state universities – like UTM (Universitatea Tehnica a Moldovei, Moldova Technical University), USM (Universitatea de Stat din Moldova, State University of Moldova), followed by ULIM, Pedagogical University or Tiraspol University from Chisinau. The central technical hub is the capital – Chisinau, and here the major and oldest IT players are based – like Amdaris, Arbos, Allied Testing, DAAC, Endava, Est Computer, Gilat, Noction, Point, Pentalog as well as smaller players. Software and web development, testing, animation are the most common areas. Some companies also provide consulting services.

The market is dominated by small and mid-size companies, often local or regional players who developed into well-known established firms. Large corporations, like Accenture, Oracle, IBM aren’t present.

Most of the employees are mobile (they either hold or will hold a Romanian or a Bulgarian passport, as dual citizenship is common due to the country’s history). They will consider mostly a well-established market like the UK, Germany or The Netherlands, as well as exotic destinations like Estonia, Ireland or Belarus (especially the ones with Russian citizenship). However, Romania will be the top option, because of the common language, history, customs, and national identity.

LinkedIn hasn’t a good penetration, and it’s not very popular. The traditional recruitment channels are:

Job Boards

https://www.rabota.md/index-ro.php is the national generalist job-board with more than 30.000 job offers as per February 2018 and great for vacancies in the IT sector. According to public data, the site has more than 15.000 visitors/day and has a CV database with more than 50.000 active CVs. The website is available in Romanian and Russian only. Has a decent search option, but contact details are available only with a paid subscription.
http://www.moldovajob.com/ – interface in Russian only. Own open CV database with lack of search option, however sort by is category available. For IT related roles, most of the CVs are in Russian or Romanian, usually within the software and web development, freelance activities, IT Engineers, etc. http://www.moldovajob.com/resume/index_resume.htm?category=1
https://joblist.md/ro/ – Romanian and Russian interface. About 24.000 job offers and extensive CV database with over 6700 CVs (as per Feb. 2019). CVs in the IT category are sorted in the following categories – Program IT (programming), IT Management, Administrare Retea (network administration), Specialist in calculator (PC specialist), Telecomunicatii (Telecom) and SEO
https://www.angajare.md/en – About 26.000 jobs and 1700 active CVs with open contact details in Romanian or Russian version, with lack of search option.
https://999.md/ro/category/work – as part of 999.md, first and largest online info desk, local Craigslist. Interface available in Romanian and Russian
https://jobs.diez.md/employer – Romanian and Russian versions available. Targeting young professionals and early career. CV database available for registered corporate users (but free subscription available)
http://piatamuncii.md/ro – Modest site with Romanian and Russian interface – cca. One thousand two hundred job offers and less than 100 CVs
https://www.novajobs.md/en/ – one of the few available in English. Job board with open CV library. The CV format is unusual, offering salary, basic skills, and contact details. You can only sort by category
http://www.civic.md/angajari.html – provides a job board, but they focus on NGO, humanitarian and press related roles, as well as front and back office.

Facebook

You don’t need your Facebook sourcing skills here. As I will mention in the second part, local professionals are not feeling comfortable, while approached by strangers on Facebook. There are some groups dedicated to jobs in the IT companies (not just IT specialists, also HR, Sales, Marketing and similar roles). There are strict moderation and rules to be followed (there is a special place for those who ignore the rules). The largest are:

DeveloperMD Community – A discussion group. Job posts are not accepted; however, links for training are allowed. Most of the active members are professionals related to high tech / IT industry.
IT Jobs Moldova is the largest Facebook community designed for advertising new career opportunities, with over 4000 members.
- If posting an add, you must:
  - Describe the company, role, job requirements, project, employment type (part-time, full-time, project-based, freelance).
  - Salary bracket is highly appreciated.
  - If you have more than one vacancy, you need to add all in one post.
  - If it’s an office job, the office must be located in Moldova
  - You can publish the same vacancy only after seven days
Freelance Moldova – Local Freelance community with over 2.000 members, accepting job postings as well. You are required to provide Job title, Job description, Requirements and optional – payment type (per hour/project, etc.) and deadline
Grupul IT-istilor Chisinau / Rep Moldova – small discussion group without strict rules on job postings
JOBS in Moldova – generic job adds group, not actively targeting IT professionals.

Use LinkedIn as a headhunting tool, rather than a job board. IT professionals, in general, have active profiles, but they don’t use it on a daily base.

Professional networks like GitHub and Stack Overflow are known as well.

The country is small with people well connected, and word of mouth is speeding fast. People will be ready to help if you ask.