🎉 first joint party? and all the latest from last week!
Issue #66 (28 Aug) – Sales jobs; coffee with Mirela; PDF of 43 questions for your interview; FYRE ice-cream festival; seven opinions most people disagree with; how to stop smoking.
Programming note: We are close to 4,000 more or less active subscribers, and I could not be more grateful that YOU open Handpicked so often. Thank you! I am still looking for your feedback on how I deliver the content (order of sections and structure). It will take 3 minutes, I promise. 🙏
We are also throwing a party with
, make sure you can make it (with or without your +1). More info inside.👀 Handpicked roles
submit yours on the link; it’s free
🧞♂️ Sales, Customer Success and Operations
More positions in Handpicked online database.
🌟 Handpicked Kleinanzeigen
Please be fair to the readers and me.
😎 Cool stuff:
Info for your artwork from the poster shops we discussed here already: You should hang your artwork at cca 147cm from the floor. Once you see it, you won’t be able to unsee it. If it is a composition, you need to determine the center and treat it the same. If over sofas, or similar, 20-25cm gap would make sense.
🔍 Searching for roles:
🥁 Jim seeks a role valuing people & products over titles. 5+ yrs as Creative Director in conversational AI, 10 yrs Producer & Product Manager at BBC. Has a video of actress Olivia Colman calling him a name I can’t print here.
Joe (e-mail) is a reliable aeronautical Information Management Officer with 6+ years of professional experience. He is looking for roles around Information Management.
Kaori is an experienced freelance design strategist looking for service design or brand strategy roles. Especially interested in health tech and healthcare delivery.
Cansu is a computer science master's graduate with a few years of experience in the AI/Big Data field. She aims to pursue her career on innovative projects as a Machine Learning Engineer and/or Data Scientist.
Rashid is looking for roles in TA/Recruitment with five years of experience hiring tech/non-tech. He also has experience with other hands-on topics of HR.
🎉 🕺🏻💃🏻 Handpicked & Berlin Events Weekly Backyard Party: Let’s meet in person!
We joined forces with Zim and are organising the first joint get-together for all subscribers. Get your FREE tickets while they last: you can also BRING A FRIEND or TWO (name your +1 or +2 at the checkout). But please book only if you are sure you can make it! You will meet new interesting people and expand your social circle. Looking forward to meeting you at Crack Bellmer on Saturday, 9th of September at 17.00 - until late! Be there or be square! 😜
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Mirela Mus from Product People
We continue with Mirela, a founder of Product People. You should give her a follow for good quality takes on Product Management. I love her choices:
500 Million, But Not A Single One More (article) - I tear up whenever I reread this; it helps me regain faith in humanity.
Romanian language songs (Spotify Playlist) for when I miss hearing my native language. I also have one I listen to ironically.
The Player Of Games (book, audiobook) is an amazing introduction to Iain M. Banks' utopian post-scarcity society. You can also start with Use of Weapons, which gets even better on the 2nd reading. I suggest skipping Consider Phlebas, The State of the Art until there's nothing left to read but The Hydrogen Sonata as they're less "Culture-y" than the rest.
🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff
💬 I published a PDF of my 40+ questions for your next job interview. (LinkedIn) Get it if you think it can come in handy; please like it/repost it. Of course, feel free to connect with me as well ☺️
📊 I also published an article explaining the dashboard for the Berlin Salary Trends survey, which 50% of you completely missed. It’s useful and Reddit comments also made me re-think the approach for next year.
🇩🇪 Not sure if I want to go through the paperwork, but it will soon be possible to get German citizenship after three years. I have been here longer, but I once checked the list of documents and closed the tab.
🍦 FYRE of food festivals? A reader sent me a report of a disastrous organisation and misleading advertisement of the Ice Cream Festival by Duo Sicilian Ice Cream. Someone clearly underestimated and/or underpriced the event (reports here and here). Be careful with these types of events. This reminded me of Thai Park at Jules B where we waited one hour to end up empty-handed (ok, at least we had some beer). I can imagine how disappointed the kids were. Sad.
🐽 A random pig fact: In May there were 524k pigs in Brandenburg, a 16.8% drop from the year before (St. BB). This is consistent with this drop in pork meat consumption (more, 🇩🇪):
😔 Bad news: Getir laying off 2,500 (11%, Berlin situation unclear. Delivery in Germany only stays in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, München, Düsseldorf and Cologne).
👩🏼💼 Career: Here is a good thread on Hacker News about red flags during the hiring process. Most are extreme, but a nice reminder not to allow much bullshit. What would you do, for example, if a recruiter is not responsive? Does this say something about the company? Drop it in the comments.
r/berlin choice of the week is tipping again. The situation is getting out of hand.
🥾 Looking for a September hiking challenge? How about this 421km tail through 66 lakes in Brandenburg? It is flat, but you should still do it in stages.
🧂 I enjoyed this collection of seven expert opinions that most people disagree with. I was especially surprised by the “learning styles aren’t real” and that “children don’t learn languages faster than adults.”
🤖 AI hype is REAAAAL! LinkedIn has seen a 21x increase in global English-language job postings mentioning new AI technologies like GPT since Nov 2022. Also interesting is that they have seen a 75% monthly increase in members using keywords like “GAI”, “ChatGPT”, and “Prompt Engineering”. I wonder how many with several years of experience. 😅 Full report.
👎 On the other hand…a well-known sceptic Gary Marcus listed five observations to help end the hype. He mentions deployment issues, hallucinations, and use for spam and scams. The jury is out! Apropo scams: Bots can now easily defeat CAPTCHa.
🎥 Have you seen Run Lola Run? I haven’t yet, but it’s on YouTube. (via
).✈️ Why are flights so expensive (+32% YoY)? Amongst others because of regulatory fees, including a €10 cap for passenger and luggage control. The slow recovery of the German air market from COVID-19 has led to a supply-demand imbalance, pushing prices up. Also, budget airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet are avoiding Germany due to these high costs. (more, 🇩🇪)
💬 Briefly:
Can’t make this shit up: on a leaked Zoom all-hands CEO said employees must return to offices because they can't be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom.
German government plans to invest €1.6B in AI research during this mandate. The investment includes establishing six AI centres and creating 150 AI professorships.
Since Paris banned e-scooters, Tier will replace parts of the Berlin fleet with newer models (until they get banned here, too?). They have 13k scooters and 3k bikes in Berlin.
Home24 will delist from the stock market (for €7.5/share) after being taken over by XXXLutz, the worst-named company in history.
Munich-based car subscription company Finn in 2021 reported a loss of €19.9M.
Ach, komm! Deutsche Bahn is expected to narrowly miss its target of 150 million long-distance passengers this year, despite growth compared to last year. The initial hope was for "well over 150 million." (Handelsblatt)
German auto suppliers are losing global market share and lagging in international competition, according to a PwC study. Since 2019, they've lost 2.7 percentage points in world market share, a setback to gains made over the previous 20 years. (Handelsblatt)
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
Anytype | Berlin | A peer-to-peer web builder designed to restore our digital freedoms. | €12.4M | No careers.
HOLY | Berlin | A healthy soft drinks startup. | €10.5M Series A | Careers.
Schüttflix | Gütersloh | Aims for efficiency in the construction industry through innovative solutions, reducing waste and emissions. | €45M | Careers.
Aily Labs | Munich | AI-for-enterprise company | €19M | No Careers.
Wirelane | Munich | Distributes charging stations with integrated credit card terminals. | €11M Series B | Careers.
Clinomic | Aachen | Developed a medical device to improve patient care in intensive care units. | €16M | Careers.
beeOLED | Dresden | Developing new, efficient emitters for electronic displays. | €13.3M Series A | Careers.
Qualifyze | Frankfurt | Offers end-to-end compliance solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. | $12M | Careers.
Accure | Aachen | Developing a prognosis system for batteries. | €7.2M | Careers.
🤓 Timeless and useful
I thought about publishing this earlier but wanted to wait a bit to ensure it worked for me. I was an ex-regular and, after stopping, an occasional smoker with extremely weak discipline, sometimes buying packs and hating myself afterwards. I finally managed to smoke my last cigarette almost two months ago with the help of The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr.
The method is efficient and helps you understand what a terrible drug nicotine is. This (repetitive) book will help you free yourself from the addiction by killing the nicotine monster. It doesn’t preach health stuff, just a simple mental trick. I warmly recommend it if you were ever considering stopping! It worked for me, and I’m optimistic it lasts forever.
😅 Meanwhile
when asked if you have any leadership experience on your interview you can reply
This is a footer 💰💰💰💰 lottery win tip for you. It can ruin your life, so be careful!
✌️ Handpicked essentials:
- Berlin Salary Trends Report 2023: How do you compare?
- Why do people read handpicked?
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
If you have made it this far, smash that like button or leave a comment!
Congratulations on no longer being a smoker 👏. I read his book a while back and it also helped me stop.