Zoran Lazukic, director of Profil Group - Wages of top managers in Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia equalized

Zoran Lazukic

Serbia is still counting millionaires. According to last Tax Administration data, the best paid Serbian earned EUR 250.000 in 2012. Whether this record is broken will be known after May 1 which is the deadline set by the Tax Administration for income registration.

In individual annual income tax returns for 2012, 79 applicants identified themselves as bankers, that is, banking clerks, while 2,512 people said they were economists.

In the search for information on how to get a well-paid job and which occupations are most wanted, we spoke to Zoran Lazukic, director and a partner in the recruitment and selection company Profil Group.

This "headhunter" with an extensive experience in staff recruiting in Serbia confirmed us the data of the Tax administration – financial experts as well as technical staff with adequate licenses are the best paid ones.

- The best-paid managers in Serbia earn much more than “an average Serbian salary” and most of them come from financial institutions – banks, funds, insurance companies and auditing companies. Financial experts employed in some other companies whose core business is not finance are also well-paid. The list comprises technical profiled staff that has extensive knowledge and licenses as well – mechanical engineers with all expert exams, IT experts, etc.

An interesting thing is a fact that salaries of top managers in Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia equaled. Salaries of executive board members in banks are higher than of their Slovenian colleagues and according to data of our collocutor, some of them earn more than EUR 10.000 net monthly.

There are foreigners as well among the best paid managers. Media published that almost every third person with a working permit in Serbia is a millionaire. A total of 852 foreign citizens submitted requests for income taxation because they earned more than two million dinars in 12 months.

We asked our collocutor why companies opt for hiring managers from abroad.

- Decision of a foreign company to appoint its manager at the managerial position relates to the fact whether they will find a suitable candidate’s profile and knowledge in our country. They mostly appoint their employee for protection and investment safety and some of them want to select a local candidate as the company is growing.

The road to the best candidates is not an easy one. As Lazukic explains, companies get “an independent candidate’s selection for a position”. Their selection opts out elements which, directly or indirectly, can affect the fact that a client is not a good choice, neither when it comes to professional nor personal characteristics. Simply, companies opt out “employment through pulling strings”.

- However, employment through pulling strings is not 100% negative because job does not contain only numbers – adequate rhythm leads to positive results. Why not then hire somebody we know is good? It is a bad thing, though, if this reason is misused.

Headhunters’ job is to find the best person available for a specific position to an employer which hires them.

(Photo: Ivana Vuksa)

As he says, the best candidate has a stabile career, adequate education and considerable progress in knowledge…

- When selecting potential candidates, we analyze knowledge, potential and personal features. Career stability can be seen in CV. This is where we get information on education and career while we get to other information through an interview and tests. Our current practice shows that the best candidates are mostly in foreign companies in Serbia. A candidate must have a few years of experience, that he or she went through all business segments – our collocutor explains, adding that it is “difficult to find a manager in McDonald’s restaurant who does not know how to prepare a hamburger”.

Lazukic reminds that human factor comes first.

A guarantee period goes for any candidate who came to a company through Profil

- If a candidate gets fired for a reason or if he or she gives up the contract within a three-month period as of the moment he or she started working, Profil Group will find a new candidate for free.

Activation of a guarantee, according to our collocutor, is very rare. They had only three cases in the past seven years.

Lately, it has been noticed that Profil works a lot on financial profiles and with banks, and speaking about their clients, our collocutor days:

- Profil cooperates with all banks in Serbia. Some of them work with us and we work with some others.

Headhunters’ income

- There are so-called "success fee" agencies which work on the basis of a deal – a client pays the moment a candidate starts working. The second type of agencies operates on the retainer principle. It is a principle of our agency as well. Namely, not only we have a signed recruitment contract with a client but also a client pays a portion of an agreed investment in advance. We know that this strategy causes a loss of a huge market share but we also avoid thus unserious clients who invent virtual needs or do not even know what they really need. I think that it is smarter to cooperate with a couple of serious companies and work with them quality. On the other hand, the work in this way is more credible from our candidates’ perspective because a client showed a payment ability and a level of seriousness which is not to be neglected, especially for a person who changes job.

(Photo: Ivana Vuksa)

There are some 40 sites in Serbia where agencies offer recruitment and selection. However, most of them are not specialists and can look for from a marital partner to the executive board president.

Speaking about headhunter’s salary abroad, Zoran Lazukic told us a funny story.

His colleague, a president of the international association of headhunters had a meeting in Belgrade. When he was supposed to leave, when asked what time his flight was, a colleague answered he came by his plane.

- However, we did not agree upon inclusion into an international network because we would be banned to work in the countries where that network already has its branch offices. This way, we can run projects in Austria, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, even in Russia! Why wouldn’t we from Serbia finish headhunting projects in Germany if we do it at the same quality and at more favorable price?

Still, salary in Serbia is an average one, a collocutor of eKapija says.

- Anyone who thinks he can work only 8 hours five days in a week and earn for fiat 500L, is strategically mistaken. This job is only for those who commit a whole day, hoping to dream o fit maybe even at night.

The greatest challenge

Zoran Lazukic reveals who his greatest challenge was.

- Finding a new director of Tax administration of Serbia after Mr. Simic left.

Portrait sketch

Few of them were led by a saying - "Chose the job you like and you will not have to work a single day in your life". Our collocutor is one of them.

Smiley and energetic, he says "his job is his lifestyle ". He adds there are but a few people who can afford so many challenges, travels, unusual places for work, new people …

He was born in Ljubljana where he finished his master studies at the Faculty for social sciences. He worked at Glas Ljubljane radio as a journalist and marketing board executive member. Later on, he moved to car industry where he worked for Kia motors and Chrysler for the ex-Yu region. Last 12, he has been at the headhunting business where he will, as he says, end his career.

Profil Group is an independent consulting company which operates in the field of recruitment and selection of managerial and expert staff as well as in human resources management consulting.

It was set up with private capital in 1989 in Slovenia and over the time it opened offices in all bigger cities of the Adriatic region (Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Skopje). Thus, today they operate in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Albania.