First call was with talent acquisition based out of California. He told me that the hiring manager is an Indian based out of Germany, and he has been living there for 15 years and speaks fluent German.
When I was put through to the hiring manager stage, I figured my CV has been passed on to someone based out of India, who has never lived in Germany before and doesn’t speak a word of German.
The call was scheduled for half an hour but went on for 1h (!!). During the call he said he is based out of India and looks after the DACH region (!).
He asked me a lot of process specific questions. It was very clear that he was fishing after German sales intelligence, and clearly was not interested in hiring someone on the ground. This impression was further strengthened when he said that he has two people in India that look after the DACH region and don’t speak a word of German. Unfortunately, he still hasn’t understood the market :)
I also brought up the -15% sales headcount reduction which was showing on LinkedIn insights. He said that was only in North America. He was nervous so one could clearly see that this wasn’t the true picture.