How Do You Build a Trusted HR Community?

Timur Novopashin on growing the International HR Club, building trust and creating practical value for members, community founders and HR vendors.

Timur Novopashin · Founder and Talent Community Manager, International HR Club
Host: Ksenia Izotova · Co-founder, UnifyHub · Co-host, HR Circle

Timur Novopashin is the Founder and Talent Community Manager of International HR Club, a peer-to-peer community connecting approximately 2,000 HR, Talent and People professionals across 50 countries.

Based in Brussels, Timur has more than seven years of experience in talent acquisition and has worked on hiring across 30 countries. His current focus is building trusted professional communities, developing international HR connections and making practical people practices more accessible across markets.

Profile links:
Connect with Timur on LinkedIn
Visit International HR Club

A trusted professional HR community can support career growth by giving members access to experienced peers, real workplace cases, referrals, professional visibility and knowledge from other markets. Its value comes from repeated, credible exchanges: members know who they are learning from and can ask for help without the conversation turning into promotion or noise.

In this context, a professional HR community is a peer network for HR, Talent and People professionals. It is different from an employer's talent community, which usually consists of potential candidates.

Season 1 was originally published as HR Circle, a joint editorial project by International HR Club and UnifyHub, co-hosted by Ksenia Izotova and Timur Novopashin. In this episode, Ksenia interviews Timur about the community he founded and the lessons he has learned while growing it.

A professional HR community is a peer network for people working in HR, Talent Acquisition, People and related fields. Members join to exchange experience, find reliable expertise and build relationships with professionals facing similar problems.

This is different from a company-run talent community, which is usually built around potential candidates. International HR Club brings together HR professionals working across countries and markets, many of whom use English as their main or second business language.

Timur describes four recurring sources of value: knowledge sharing, professional networking, opportunities to demonstrate expertise and access to practices from other countries and markets.

That value can become very practical. Members may hear about a role through a trusted contact, find a specialist for a project, compare HR technology or ask someone who has already handled a similar problem. The community does not make career decisions for them. It shortens the distance between a question and a credible person who may be able to help.

An active community needs more than a busy founder. As membership grows, people need reasons to speak to one another directly. Timur recommends creating horizontal connections, involving volunteers and giving active members responsibility for specific areas such as networking or knowledge-sharing sessions.

Trust grows through repeated positive experiences. Members need to know that recommendations are credible, questions can be asked safely and disagreements will stay professional. That requires daily moderation, clear values and consistent boundaries.

Professional communities can introduce HR vendors to relevant experts and decision-makers, but a sales pitch on its own rarely creates much value. Timur’s advice is to contribute something members can actually use: a piece of research, a practical tool, a well-run educational session or specialist knowledge that answers a real question.

This matters because purchasing cycles in HR technology, training and professional services can be long. Useful contributions build familiarity and trust over time. They also give vendors direct feedback from the people their products are meant to help.

The first step is to stop treating every task as the founder’s task. Volunteers, team members and an active core can take responsibility for recurring activities and help the community develop relationships that do not always pass through one person.

Timur also shares a simple working rhythm that suits him: protect the first part of the day for focused work, schedule most meetings later, take a proper lunch break and plan both short and longer periods of rest. The details will differ for each person, but the underlying point is hard to argue with: if a community relies on one permanently available founder, neither the person nor the community is particularly resilient.

Information is easy to find. The harder part is working out which answer applies to a particular company, country or situation. Timur sees professional communities as a way to structure knowledge around practical questions and connect people with experts who have already dealt with similar problems.

Timur discusses plans to develop the International HR Club website and organise the community’s accumulated knowledge into a more structured resource. The aim is practical: help HR professionals find relevant information, compare possible solutions and connect with experts around questions such as salary benchmarks, candidate sourcing, HR technology and people practices in different markets.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability while preserving the speakers' meaning.

Ksenia Izotova: So Timur, finally, you are the guest of our today’s podcast. Of course, the first question that I’d love to hear is about your career path.

Timur Novopashin: It’s a bit of a strange feeling to be a guest on your own podcast and not be on the end of hosting and asking questions, but actually answering them. But I promise to do my best. Long story short, for those who don’t know me, I’m Timur. I’m based in Brussels, Belgium. And now I’m a founder and talent community manager of an International HR Club, which is a peer-to-peer community for HR professionals working globally. We unite 2,000 HR experts across 50 countries.

And we bring them together for knowledge sharing sessions, networking activities, in-person events, and of course, we’ve got several curated private chat spaces where those experts can exchange their perspective, opinions, ask questions, etс. So that's my main activity right now, and I’m very proud of what we achieved already because this project started naturally, organically as a small private chat with other HR professionals working globally. At first it was like 15 people, then 20, and now we grew to 2,000, which is amazing.

Ksenia Izotova: How did you come up with an idea of having a chat in general? How did it all start?

Timur Novopashin: I come from a talent acquisition background, so I’ve been working in talent acquisition for more than seven years now. And for the past four years I’ve been focusing specifically on hiring in the European Union, so I consider my career to be global because at this point I would confidently say that I’ve hired across 30 countries. So this was always my main area of expertise. Recruitment, adaptation partly employer branding, but not the main focus.

And as a talent acquisition professional, you naturally connect with a lot of people. So you talk to candidates, you host kickoff calls with your stakeholders, hiring managers. You communicate a lot. So communication is not just part of your profession, it actually is your profession. And I enjoy it and it comes from the place of, I don’t know, my upbringing, let’s say, my psychotype, etс. So I enjoy connecting with people.

So basically it was maybe one or two years into my career. I was kind of now rising as a recruitment consultant in the consulting agency and I’ve noticed the pattern that people do need spaces and places where they can exchange opinions, ask for help and basically connect with peers. So I wasn’t just recruiting for any positions when I started my talent acquisition journey. I was recruiting specifically for people and HR positions.

So basically, I was a recruiter for HR roles, meaning that I was connecting with a lot of HR leaders, HR experts on the market. And it’s a bit of a unique situation because working in the recruitment agency, your clients are companies, and you’re recruiting personnel, you’re recruiting candidates for them, and usually, your main contact person is an HR.

So at the same point, I was also recruiting for the HR positions, meaning my vis-a-vis, so my contact person in one instance can be my client, and I gotta deliver services to this kind of, you know, to the company and interact with the client. And for another instance, it can be a candidate. So it’s a bit of politics involved all the time.

And throughout these communications, I’ve learned that we lack such spaces. Of course, again, I’m happy to see that there are different talent communities, chats, and private spaces where experts can connect, but back in the day, it wasn’t that widespread. So I was constantly receiving questions like, "Okay where can I… I don’t know. I lack expertise." You know, there was no ChatGPT, just Google search back then. So the people really were longing for this professional connection.

And I figured I enjoy talking to people, I enjoy connecting with them in a meaningful way, and I’ve got like a bunch of, I don’t know, like hundreds of HR professionals in my professional circle. And some of them have already asked to create something. So I’ve decided to just go for it and create it. It took me a while to figure out how I should do this, because it wasn’t a business venture, I just decided to do it.

And of course, when I relocated, so I became an international talent myself. In 2022, I relocated to Hungary. I found myself in the same position but with an international twist to that. It means that I was an expat living in a foreign country, didn’t speak the language, no friends, no one. And my team — back in the day I was working for a global company, like it’s a big tech company, Wolt.

So I was one of the only members of my specific global recruitment team based in Hungary. My manager was based in Denmark. The manager of my manager was based in Japan, and most of my colleagues, most of my peers, and fellow talent acquisition partners were based in Finland, Germany, Czechia, and everywhere but Hungary.

And I’m like, "Okay, I need this peer support." It’s the first time for me to recruit in the European Union, so I do need practice sharing, et cetera. And I’ve decided to create the International HR Club. Back then it wasn’t a club, it was just a private chat, where I was inviting people in the same situation. Mostly people who have relocated to Europe or to the US, and they were looking for a professional connection or just a human connection as well, just to talk with someone who is in exactly the same situation as you are.

So that’s how it all started. And it turned out that it’s not only valuable and not only a very needed kind of a practice and place and space for me, but also for members. So people started joining organically. So I wasn’t posting on LinkedIn, no advertisement, nothing. So people started joining, etс. And at some point I’ve realized that we need to institutionalize that. So I do need to put an effort into creating a more structured space and like a proper talent community.

That’s when I started to learn about talent communities more, the way they work, what brings value to the community, how to communicate with counterparts, etс.

Ksenia Izotova: I remember that I joined the chat more than a year ago, and back then I don’t think that there were more than 300 participants. Maybe even less. And this chat was introduced to me by one of my HR colleagues, and they told me as an intro that, "You should join. This is the top chat where everyone is." I thought, "Hmm, okay, so everyone is here, I need to be there as well." But in a year this chat has grown so much. I’ve just checked, it now has 1,599 members. And that’s amazing. Is it all organic or was there some time when you grew dramatically after something?

Timur Novopashin: Now it's a whole infrastructure of a talent community. So it started as a private chat in Telegram, as you mentioned. Now it grew into an entire infrastructure. So we've got a YouTube channel where we post our amazing podcast, HR Circle. Also, we've got this private space in Telegram created, as you mentioned, almost 1,600 participants, and more people joining every day. On top of that, we've got a curated Slack space, which is approaching 400 members as well. We've got a LinkedIn page with more than 2,000 subscribers. So we are growing in all possible ways. So it's the whole infrastructure.

And the reason why the infrastructure grows and basically what we do is simple. Our mission is to make best practices, best people, talent, HR practices on the market available for experts. So I've been living in four different countries. Now it's my fourth country, Belgium. I've been hiring across 30 countries, and what I see, I see an inconsistency in implementing and utilizing the best available tools and practices.

And our community is solving exactly this problem. So by joining the community, you're not just joining a group of peers, you're also joining a group of experts. You can learn from those experts, you can connect with them in a meaningful way, and interact. You can do business. You can find jobs, etс. On a daily basis, I receive positive feedback from members, "I got a job offer because of the community." or, "We found an ATS that we would like to implement."

So now it's not only a place of connection and a place of, let's say, a bit of a stress relief when you can connect with people in the same situation, it's also a place of business. So the company started to take it seriously, and that's great. And of course, it creates organic traction. We've got an invitation system, so members can invite other members. After that, we vet everything, so we double-check our LinkedIn profile, etс. And only if the potential member clicks all the boxes, we add this expert to the community.

Who would get the most out of International HR Club? So let's say if you hear this description and you realize that's who you are, you're gonna join. So you get the most value out of the community.

If you're working in a field of people, talent and HR on a global scale, possibly supporting recruiting, hiring, or educating people in several locations, and English is your main or second business language, International HR Club is a place to be. You will get the most value, and receive the most insights if you join with these prerequisites, I would say.

Because just to also say a few good words about fellow community builders — there are different variations and types of talent communities on the market. So there is a local setup. Let's say talent community in Berlin, talent community in Brussels, in Helsinki, et cetera. It can be just based on the location, or it can also be tailored to your specific job function.

Let me give you an example. There is an amazing community that I consider our friend community, our peer community, which is Helsinki HR Community. So basically, this community unites HR professionals working in Finland and in Helsinki specifically. So that's a great example of a location-based — a location plus a profession-based talent community. There is such a community which is called People & Perks by Leapsome. So it's a vendor-led global talent community for HR people and talent professionals. They recently crossed ten thousand members. And they unite people also globally across countries, so they are not targeted to a specific location.

The same way we are. We're also not localized in a city or in a country. We're a global community that unites HR professionals globally. So you can basically find a bunch of those communities if you Google. Each community offers a different setup. So it can be free of charge or it can be behind a paywall, meaning that you gotta pay if you would like to join. Or you gotta belong to a specific, let's say alumni community, to a specific group of people who have been working previously in the particular company, etc. So there are variations, different types and ways the community brings value to you.

But I would say that there are four main ways in which people usually contribute and get back from the community. First is most of the communities that I come across, most of the talent communities have some kind of a knowledge-sharing practice. It can be knowledge-sharing sessions. The same way we do it in the International HR Club, we try to host at least two knowledge-sharing sessions a month, on various topics. We invite industry leaders, known experts in their fields, and we ask them to share their knowledge with us. And we tailor it specifically for our audience, meaning that most of our discussions are case-based. We take a very specific concrete case of an implementation of a certain practice, and we dig into that.

On top of that, networking opportunities. It can be in-person events. Recently, we hosted a couple of networking sessions in April in Amsterdam, then in May it was in Berlin, and we are planning our next session in Amsterdam for the beginning of October. So that's an offline setup. It can be an online networking done in various ways. In our community, there is a networking board which is basically helping us on a monthly basis to connect people, not randomly, but based on their professional interests and their preferences, if they would like to connect with fellow experts living in their own location, let's say in Berlin, and they want to meet in person.

Or they are targeting HR professionals based outside of their country, and they're open for an online format. So there are variations, but again, it's about networking and meeting new people. And in a lot of cases, from such connections, meaningful cooperation grows. So that's the second way, networking.

There is a third way, which is a place where you can showcase your expertise. If you're a fractional talent or you're an independent consultant, freelancer, you can share manuals, you can share checklists. So basically you can share your expertise, showcase your expertise, and potentially it can bring you business, so you can earn money out of that. Or it's always good for brand awareness, personal and professional brand awareness.

And the fourth, last but not least common way of how the community brings value — they allow us to broaden our horizons. So that's exactly what we do. Because again, what I've noticed working throughout various countries and markets, that's an inconsistency and the gradient of implementation of different practices and tools. And talking with people who have already done that helps you to close this gap. It can be a knowledge gap, technology gap, any type of gap that you're facing that's an issue for you or your company.

Ksenia Izotova: For the next season, is there anything that you’re planning to do but not doing yet?

Timur Novopashin: Absolutely. So we're gonna launch our website, because for the time being, we don't have an official website. Because as I mentioned, the community started as a side passion project. It wasn't like a business venture. So we have no budget, no sponsors, no one, just pure enthusiasm and pure passion. My own passion and also us, our members. But now we come to the part where we do need to formalize our infrastructure because there are so many things that are going on.

So we need to put everything in one place, one window concept where a member or potential member can go check everything and decide, "Okay, I would like to join this session," or, "I would like to participate in this networking round," or, "I wanna go to this offline event." So it's gonna be released soon.

On top of that we’re gonna announce our first long-term exclusive sponsor for the community. So that's a vendor company with which we are currently renegotiating the terms. We like their product, and basically they offered to support our knowledge sharing efforts, and that’s also exciting news. So it's not like a one-off collaboration, it’s more of a long-term exclusive partnership. So that's also very exciting. And of course, more knowledge sharing sessions, more networking opportunities. So that's, I would say, the most important thing.

Because we can spend hours talking about the technicalities. When you put two, three, four people together, it’s already become a complex system. Imagine what happens within the community, which is as ours around 2,000 members. So there are a lot of things going on. On a daily basis, we gotta deal with requests, you know, messages, different types of situations.

But that’s what being a truly peer-to-peer community means. So you are not just creating an interface or you're creating a sales funnel for a company, which is totally fine as well. But you’re actually creating a space where you’re valued as a peer. The people see you as an expert, but such activity, and such type of community has a specific dynamic to that. Meaning that you gotta deal with people on a daily basis, and they come to me in this case because I’m the face of the community. So if they need something, they come to you. If they wanna ask something, they come to you, ec. And I gotta deal with this on a daily basis.

And that actually brings me to maybe… It’s not an announcement because I wouldn't say that we already started building the product, but it’s definitely the direction in which I’m now thinking and putting effort into that. Now where I find myself. So I was working in talent acquisition, and I was dealing with candidates, hiring managers, internal stakeholders, on a daily basis.

And the candidates were coming to me because they were looking for a job. The hiring managers were coming to me because they were looking for results. We need this position to be filled, etc. So everything is clear. But on a daily basis, I was bombarded by this interaction, by the questions, and topics. So people need something from you.

When I started the community it was super fun. It’s still very fun. But now when it’s 2,000 members, I also find myself in a similar situation. Only the counterparts changed. So now it’s not candidates who want something from me, it’s members, our experts or external vendors, etc. They come to me and they ask, okay, in their mind, I would say I was kind of also asking the people who are coming to me asking questions, what kind of type of association do you have with my name, with the community? And usually people come to me asking where I can find salary information or salary benchmark for a specific location. Where I can find candidates, what type of HR tech solution should I implement, etc, etc.

So we can categorize those requests and conversations in several layers, and I think there is a product to be built on top of that. So probably we’re gonna be developing some kind of a tool or knowledge hub where people, actually experts, HR experts can go and find this information on their own.

Ksenia Izotova: That’s an amazing announcement. So it's going to be some platform where I can come and search for the needed answer, right?

Timur Novopashin: Yep. So we're gonna start with our website. So we're gonna put together like a knowledge library. The important thing is, let’s specify the problem that we are trying to solve here. Because we can look at the problem from two different angles. First angle, we can assume that experts, HR experts need more knowledge or more information. The second angle, we can assume that actually what they’re looking for is not more information but solutions. Something, they need something to be done. And they see coming to me for advice or coming to others, kinda, you know, their peers in the community asking for help, they see it as a shortcut to this quick solution.

And I strongly believe that actually what the market and HR experts need is a solution, not more knowledge. Because nowadays, knowledge is everywhere. Yes. Meaning that what we do, we structure. So with the community, we structure knowledge sharing, etc, so it's already almost like a solution as I mentioned. So you can watch our knowledge sharing session on the performance review, and you can find two specific examples of how the performance cycle was built in two different companies. It sounds like a solution to me. So you've got like, it’s not just some knowledge or some information, I would say.

I strongly believe that there is still a room for improvement, in a technical way. So we're gonna build on an already existing library of our knowledge from our members. We’re gonna build the website and on top of that website, potentially there’s going to be like a hub where people can go and check salary benchmarks. They can find various sources or areas when they can look for candidates, etc. So I haven't finalized the concept yet, but we are moving toward this direction. So we started with the community. Now the community is big enough that we’re evolving towards a formalized website and formalized portal, let’s say. And then we are moving towards a very practical thing, which is a hub where you can find all the information, knowledge, and connect with experts and potential like a HR tech solution that you need for a problem.

Ksenia Izotova: That sounds super promising and definitely super useful for the community. And what I can say is that the community now is super alive. It’s vibrant, people ask questions, and there are so many things going on. What is the secret ingredient? Because it’s not only about announcing a knowledge session, I know that on a very regular basis, you’ve had an amazing attendance actually, right? So usually so many people sign up, and about 50 or even more percent of the people who sign up, show up, so what are the other super important ingredients — not just to have a community, but to have a community that feels alive like yours?

Timur Novopashin: Usually if it's a, let’s say one person army, some passionate individual, passionate expert starts a community, and as long as this person is investing enough of their time, the community stays alive and fresh. And then let’s say the person, for personal or professional reason, decides to step down or to turn it down a bit, so the community slowly starts to degrade. That’s true. So you need a core, let’s say an active core of active participants and a founder, let’s say, for each community to be alive.

That’s why it’s super important to build horizontal connections. So it's hard to do everything by yourself, especially when the community is as big as 2,000, even 500 people, it’s hard to manage. So what we need to do, and what my advice would be for fellow community builders — start building those horizontal connections. Create volunteer positions within your community. Find areas where you need help or the community needs someone who is gonna be handling this particular area, for example, coordinating networking. So find passionate experts or members of the community who can volunteer, who can dedicate some time to keeping this community alive.

Or if you got a budget, it can be even a full-time position, a part-time position, so you can hire someone to do that. But of course, it’s best when it’s like it comes from a place of passion, not from a place of employment. So there is a bit of a tweak in that. So you can actually see that person is actually passionate about it. So build horizontal connections. Don’t try to do everything by yourself. It’s impossible. You’re gonna burn out. Believe me, I’ve been there.

So horizontal connections, onboard volunteers, so utilize the power of experts who are already members of your community. That is the first thing. And the second equally important thing is trust. Every successful community is built on trust. So it's a trust network. When I’m going and asking questions in my curated chat space, for example, I’m looking for a facilitator for a strategic session for senior leadership. And traditionally, those sessions are actually led and done by external facilitators. So I would go to my community, I would ask, and when I receive kind of, you know, put together a short list of those experts, of the potential facilitators, I trust the feedback of the members.

So I do trust the information and knowledge that I get from the community. And if a person or an expert has several of such successful touchpoints with the community, there is a trust. So it's a trust network. And fostering this trust is actually one of the main jobs of any talent community manager. So you gotta build Trusted space, and you gotta expand this trust network. So two things again, horizontal connections and trust. And this is combined what makes the community alive and running.

Ksenia Izotova: 100%. Being a trustworthy space, that’s incredibly significant for sure. I would also add, I think as an observer, and as a community participant, an important aspect for me, of course, other than trust, other than professionalism of community peers, is a zero toxicity vibe. I don't know how you do it, but this is what I can say about the community. You always feel safe doing something inside. And to me, it’s also a matter of trust, right? And zero toxicity is definitely something the person would want.

Timur Novopashin: I couldn't agree more, and I’m proud that we built this place known where everyone feels safe to express their opinions, to ask questions, to connect with colleagues. And we are working so hard, and I personally am working so hard to make sure that that is the case. Because again, when you’ve got several people in one place, in one room, there are different opinions. So we all come from different economical backgrounds, religious backgrounds, ethical backgrounds, political backgrounds, etc, etc. So we are different in a lot of ways. And of course, sometimes those opinions and those beliefs can be, so there is a clash, or traction happening.

And the job of the talent community manager is to make sure that if we are a professional community, we stay professional. So sometimes you gotta interrupt some discussions, sometimes you gotta moderate, you gotta reiterate constantly the values of the community, what we stand for, what is appropriate to do and what is not appropriate to do, and that’s a daily effort. But only doing that you can actually build a safe space, because again, nobody wants to be a part of the community or nobody wants to be a part of the team, toxic team, where this, you know, Stockholm Syndrome develops. Why should I be a part of this group if I can join a much nicer, more welcoming, open and inclusive group?

That’s why we’ve got a zero discrimination policy in the community, zero tolerance for ambiguous hateful comments. But still, sometimes it can happen and me personally and the community, we do not tolerate that. So we build on the principles of inclusion, safe space, zero discrimination, and zero kind of, you know, hate policies. That’s a very important thing for me. And I’m glad to see that it actually translates to what you see within the community, so it's working.

Ksenia Izotova: I cannot help asking you a personal question. So you keep the community alive. You’re always so positive, in a good mood, commenting. You’re always here. You’re always answering questions, in a very friendly way, very detailed where necessary. So how do you maintain such a positive, happy attitude? Because I know that for a startup and, let’s say international HR community is now, let’s call it a very promising startup. How you don’t burn out? How do you maintain sanity and wellbeing?

Timur Novopashin: That’s a very good question. Well, some people would say work-life balance. Actually, I do not believe in work-life balance per se. Because when I’m passionate about something, I’m passionate about it. So I’m a workaholic in a good way, let’s say. So I like what I do, so I get energy out of that. It does not mean that I don’t get tired. I do. It does not mean that at some point when there are too many interactions, too many conversations, etc, I can feel a bit exhausted. I am human, it happens.

But the fundamental principle is that throughout my professional career, right now I’m trying to do what I really found meaningful. So if I believe that what I do is meaningful to me personally and to the people with whom I do it, that brings me energy and keeps me running. If at some point I understand that what I do is no longer meaningful to me or I don’t see the real value that I bring to the table to the stakeholders when I was a talent acquisition partner or to the community members when I’m a talent community manager right now, I will sit down and I will think hard what’s happened, what changed.

There are also super practical, technical things that you can do. What helps me, first of all, when it comes to meetings, online meetings, in-person meetings, I would like to structure that. I know that the first half of the day, my thinking capacity is the best. So I’m the most efficient and productive. It means that I am trying to schedule meetings for the second half of the day. Because for the first half of the day, I’m gonna think, so I’m gonna do brainstorming, strategic sessions, so something when I need to think hard and actually use my cognitive capacity.

After that, there is a break. Lunch break is super important. I try to plug out, so basically it’s not a full screen detox. Of course, I’ve got my smartphone, etc, but I try to snooze and mute all the notifications, I try to not to constantly check my messengers, etc. So I try to enjoy my lunch. I’m walking, so I live in Brussels now. It’s a very kind of pedestrian or people friendly, person-friendly place, so you can actually work around some nice historic building scenarios. So I do some, a couple of circles maybe in my district and, after that I can come, enjoy the meetings and use my cognitive capacity in a different way.

So these are the practical tips that I usually offer. So group your activity by the type. Find out in which part of the day and in which circumstances you are the most productive and make sure that you make the most out of this time. And, last but not least I usually try to take short and longer breaks, so during the day I do some, you know, coffee and breaks, and also, I usually try to do longer breaks a couple of days, like three days, four days monthly. On a quarterly basis, it’s like a big break. So you gotta rest because rest is actually a big part of your productivity. If you don’t rest well, you don’t work well.

Ksenia Izotova: Thanks. Totally noted. I definitely should try having less meetings in the first part of the day, maybe schedule them for later. That’s a great tip. I’ve never considered it.

We’ve talked a lot about HRs being an integral part of the community. But of course, providers and companies that want the others to get to know them better, want to share knowledge, share what they have, are also an integral part of the community. Can you tell a little bit more about — can a community offer to providers like ours, for example?

Timur Novopashin: We live in a market economy, so every job has its value and gotta be paid for. I’m a big believer of that. So there's supposed to be like a contribution for both sides. And when it comes to community interacting with vendors, basically there are three main types of interactions that are common practices on the market. The first one, as I mentioned, is like a vendor-led community. When a company creates its own community, let’s say an HR vendor, an ATS, creates its own community, and this community is a natural way for them or natural space for them to advertise their ATS and connect with the potential buyers. So that's a vendor-led setup.

There is an independent community, meaning that you can invite different vendors to sponsor your activities or partner somehow. That’s like an independent setup, and it can be done in various ways. So there are various ways that vendors can interact with the community.

Why do vendors actually trust communities and why do they partner with communities and specifically talent communities such as ours? Because they earn money. So the point of a vendor, at the end of the day, is business. They would like to earn money. So if you develop your ATS or HRIS, you would like to sell this HRIS or ATS to companies. If you provide trainings for senior leadership, you would like to sell those trainings. So that's a very simple, from the first side, business transaction. You come to the community, you invest some money into activities with those communities, and it looks like, okay, the participants are gonna buy my product.

The only way that this works is actually when you build brand awareness through communities. Because no company, that I know of at least, would buy any service without comparison. Before you buy or purchase anything for a company, first you’re gonna go and you’re gonna do the market research. And interacting with talent communities, especially if you're a startup company, your product is new, is actually solving this part. Because you gotta know, so the people gotta know the name of your product, the brand of your system. They’re gonna recommend it. Or you can Google, etc, or you heard it somewhere from some session or meetup, et cetera.

So for the company, first and foremost, any interaction with the talent community is a good brand awareness opportunity. Also, when you actually as a company create value for communities, not just coming and saying, "Hi, I’ve got this amazing product." It’s totally fine. Again, we’re living in a market economy. But if you actually create the value, like meaningful value for example, you can create together with, in collaboration with the community, you can do a research which is really deep and really matters for the community members. And throughout this research, you communicate with the HR experts or any other experts of your choosing.

So you communicate, you connect with people. They know you. They see that you’re an expert in what you’re doing. And the next time when they need to purchase any service for the company or they are looking for a provider, they’re gonna think about you and not just a name that they heard somewhere, but actually like an expert or kind of, you know, place of expertise, etc.

So you gotta create the value for the community, yep, and it’s super important to remember that you know, the third thing that it’s gonna be lasting. The sales cycles in HR tech world are quite long. It’s half a year, maybe a couple of years, depending on the setup, so you gotta invest and foster those relationships. And that’s why vendors come to the communities. Because there they can find decision-makers who are actually gonna decide what service to buy. There they can showcase their expertise. They can show kind of know, contribute to the brand awareness of them, etc, etc.

So again, it’s a complex setup. There are various practices, but basically everything comes down to, again, contributing, putting your product out there, and actually creating a trust between the potential buyers and your product.

Ksenia Izotova: I can't agree more, and I would also add that, as a provider, myself, I can also add that a very important part is getting the feedback from the community, right? Because negative feedback is feedback as well. If you're selling something and people are not buying it, perhaps you need to think about altering this product, or changing it, in a way. So that's very, very precious, as well.

Timur Novopashin: I strongly believe that right now is the time for complex and I would say very not, you know, there is this term U-shaped career. So basically now is actually the time where you can follow your passions, you can do what you want and these areas of interest can change throughout your life. And I’m the perfect example of that. So when I was doing talent acquisition actively, I was super passionate about it. Now, my focus switched to talent community management, which is actually a very different com- activity. But I’m also passionate about it, so I followed my passion in my heart. Who knows? Maybe in 10 years I’m gonna find myself embracing the spirituality of this world, et cetera.

So the message that I wanna put out there is that follow your passions, follow your dreams, but do it in a smart way. So find a place on the market or area on the market where you can actually apply your competencies and be happy with that. I think that’s a very important thing that you don’t have to do what you don’t like to do. Find an area where you excel and build on that. Build your own product, create a community, become a blogger, or be a very successful in-house employee. It’s also totally fine, and it’s not easy to build a career in-house. It’s also kind of a very tricky road and kind of a ladder to climb. So basically be authentic and passionate in what you do.

Ksenia Izotova: Thanks, Timur. That’s a really inspiring one. I’m very grateful for this conversation, and I’m sure the listeners are as well, because we got to know more about international HR community, about the plans, and now we know that next year is going to bring us many amazing opportunities, both to the providers and to those willing to get new knowledge, network, and interact with peers. So thank you very much for doing that and for today’s interview.

Timur Novopashin: Thank you so much. So stay tuned. Stay tuned, and let’s make people and HR practices better.

Ksenia Izotova: Totally agreed.