🤔 a mini-project to name businesses that challenge reviews?
Issue #96 (08 Apr) – 20+ jobs; Sales, Cust. Succes & Ops; we want speakers!; photoshoot offer; Coffee with Nastia; career in automotive?; best paying Berlin employers; Germans speaking english.
Programming note: I am looking for great speakers for my test events. Topics are Handpicked Berlin related: career, Berlin and mind-provoking timeless topics. If you’d like to speak or know somoene that would like to speak at one of my events, please do approach me. It’ll be a simple concept: a short 20-minute keynote followed by an informal subscriber get-together.
Don’t forget to follow my Instagram, looking to crack that 1061 number.
🌟 Handpicked Community
📨 Submit your input here. Inspiration for all the categories on the link.
🎪 Meet — tech & other events:
berlin product managers #9: Building Roadmaps & Strategies for Mobile Apps | Tue, 16.4 at 18.30 | remerge
🇩🇪 Special FutureTalk: Yes We CANnabis | Wed, 17.4 at 18.30 | Bettertrust
Women in Tech Berlin 2024 | Thu, 25.4 at 18.30 | HelloFresh
😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
CIRCE fellowship supports projects from Europe’s cultural and creative economies (CCE) that transfer research and knowledge into practice.
🇩🇪 Der Bauhaus Vorkurs in 180 Minuten, free online workshop, 16th of April, 18:00.
New here? Free Berlin Welcome Tours are back. See the link for the full schedule.
🔍 Ask — for a Service / Co-founder / Project help & similar:
Founding team member (development): Can you imagine helping millions of people at the same time? mexb.ai is working on an innovative solution to digitize mental health care with the help of AI. They need your Unreal/Unity skills.
Looking for the submission link? It’s below the title ⤴️
👀 Handpicked jobs
📨 Submitted by HR or readers
5️⃣ from the rotation this week: Sales, Cust Success & Ops
The remaining jobs (also outside rotation) are in the Handpicked online database.
📸 Exclusive offer: get those proper pics, tiger/tigress! 🐅
🚨 This is a great opportunity to transform your CV/Linkedin, dating, or social media profiles!
My good friend Jonathan is visiting the first weekend of May. He is a great photographer, and we’ll do a limited, special offer photoshoot.
We’ll meet YOU in Kreuzberg on Saturday, 4th of May.
You’ll get 10 photos in up to 2 outfits.
Trust me! You need some good photos on for Hinge/Bumble/Tinder or your Linkedin. It makes a huge difference.
Get your name on the list.
Super limited spots, first come-first serve basis.
Special deal: €99 (normally €149)!
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Nastia Gussewa
Nastia is one of my go-to sources for everything HR and has helped me immensely with finding and connecting some of the best people in HR in Berlin. Here is what she prepared for you:
If you never heard about Kurt Tucholsky - you should get to know him by reading this essay in English about Berliners. He is witty and sarcastic; he is Berlin. Surprisingly, 100 years later - nothing has changed. Well, almost nothing. A great author with a tragic destiny.
If you speak German, here is my favourite podcast: Macht und Millionen. They cover a lot of big fraud cases, offering well-researched podcasts with valuable insights about European and global fraud cases. For instance, stories about Signa or AviMedical.
A website, Gratis in Berlin, has an extremely ugly design but great events that you can visit for free. For example, I had a chance to visit some of the events of Berlin Fashion Week or a lovely tomato festival in Kreuzberg.
🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff
📸 Missing a good photo of yourself? Get 10 of them on the 4th of May! Limited spots. + A reminder: Are you one of them or do you know any great speakers?
We had the mildest March ever in Berlin (+4.2 degrees above the average). It was also the warmest March in Germany since 1881. (DWD)
Tagesspiegel (🇩🇪, €) made a list of the top 10 best-paying Berlin employers based on Kununu data with a minimum of 50 submitted salaries. I’ve often featured many here, but was recently sceptical about Cariad (VW’s software company).
Because I clicked on one ad, my Instagram stories are full of law firms offering deletion of bad Google reviews. It’s a big business because I get a lot of ads served on the “Löschhelfer” Google query. With this templated business model, businesses can harass reviewers for a couple of EUR. Here is a BZ report on a not-named popular Café in Mitte (🇩🇪). A part of me is, “fuck it, who cares,” but a part of me is like, “Let’s name the bars and restaurants doing it.” What do you think? (you can also leave a comment: I am especially worried about dealing with all the negativity)
Let’s talk about careers in automotive, one of the most well-paid and important industries in Germany (see Cariad above). EVs are mainstream (=everyone producing them). This means price wars and the cost of old models dropping (see Hertz). Chinese (heavily subsidized) EVs are here or coming. Tesla just missed delivery numbers, the stock tanked, and Musk re-invented robotaxis. In Economist (€), analysts at UBS “reckon that legacy carmakers’ global market share will drop from 81% today to 58% by 2030.”
I feel the best bet for your career is to work for an upcoming brand that wants to expand in Europe. What about you?Career: The easiest mental shift to get promoted: “Don't ask leadership for permission. This moves the burden of responsibility onto them. Instead, communicate your plan of action and welcome their feedback if anything needs to change.” (Tweet)
Timeless: never underestimate the power of words and how language can be used to dehumanize anyone who “needs to be killed.” A short impulse talk by Stephen Fry from 12 years ago.
Timeless: This is one of the long reads that answers pretty much every question you could think of about eating healthy. One for your bookmarks. Now get that carbs! And beans!
Reddit choice of the week is this oldie but goldie about recognising a German speaking english. I am guilty of adding “…., or?”. My favourite, not on the list, is still “Happy EasterN!” because it’s Ostern in German.
💬 Briefly:
😔 Bad news: Out of 8000, SAP will “restructure” 2600 in Germany.
“U.S. layoff announcements rose 7% in March to the highest since January 2023, led by technology and government-sector job eliminations.” (RT) Tech layoffs are trickling to Europe as well.
Stats: On average, we eat 51.6kg of meat annually (-430g YoY) in Germany. Out of which 27.5kg is pork, 13.1kg poultry and 8.9kg red meat. (FAZ)
On Friday, all 72 fountains and other public water installations in Berlin were turned ON!
It’s good to work for a bank now. “European bank shares have hit a six-year high after lenders promised record shareholder returns and profits surged thanks to rising interest rates.” (FT, €) Until the rates drop?
Pair Finance (Berlin, debt-collection) is expanding to Spain. (FinanceFWD)
Consolidation in ticket selling business: CTS Eventim (Munich) is buying See Tickets from Vivendi. (HB)
Activist investor hedge fund Sachem Head started a 3.6% position in Delivery Hero. This usually means nervous C-level management and stock price appreciation. Last week, the stock settled at +18.47%.
WeWork’s restructuring is complete, and it’s supposed to be back in a healthy state by the end of May. And, of course, Adam Neumann is interested in buying himself back in.
Cargo bike manufacturer Babboe is facing a criminal investigation after 8 of their model sales were banned. (BZ)
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
Recare | Berlin | Digital discharge management in healthcare | €3.2M | Careers.
Blackwave | Munich | Carbon fiber structures for aerospace | €6.1M | Careers.
Stackfield | Munich | Privacy-focused all-in-one collaboration platform | €10+M | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
not a Bubatz fan, but found this really funny (r/ich_iel)
✌️ Handpicked essentials and a treat:
- Signing a new employment contract in Germany? Read this before.
- Don’t make these mistakes with your side hustle!
- ❓Surprise treat for the curious
- The best questions to ask at a job interview
- Write it down now! Or why you should journal at work?
- What do hiring managers look for in CVs?
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
Wow, I love your persistence! If you have made it this far, smash that like button! ♡
Vabali did it, Standard Pizza did it. Luckily, it’s easy to defend your review if you paid with a credit card – you have a proof your review is not fake and you visited the establishment on that date and time. It worked every time the business tried this lame, sad and pathetic technique.
> Shall we start a mini-project to list places challenging bad reviews with lawyers?
You should expect that, should you do this, you will be *immediately* sued by all of these law firms. Which isn't a reason not to do it, but if you do, you need to talk to a lawyer first and find out what you need to do so that their cases don't hold water, probably something like having people send in the notice that they were sent.
To be honest, even if you are 100% perfect in how you present this information, even the legal fees of fending off the lawsuits will probably be very overwhelming.