Core Product
Connection as a Service
Your plug-in talent partner. Flat monthly retainer, cancellable any month. Active direct search, deep calibration, full pipeline ownership — paid to solve, not to close.
See the CaaS math →Connection as a Service
Recruiting, re-engineered.
High-signal candidates at a fraction of the cost.
The flat-fee alternative to the 30% success-fee agencies.
Monthly cancellable · No hidden fees · Flat monthly retainer
90%
Invitation Acceptance Rate
60%
Final Placement Success
60–80%
Cost Efficiency vs. 30% Success Fees
Endorsed by operators
René and his team are among the best in the business. They carefully screen candidates and validate cultural fit, so clients get the best possible match — and they build long-term relationships with a deep understanding of your needs. Highly recommended.
mobilezone
The CaaS Model · ROI
One pipeline. Predictable math. No success-fee theatre.
−60–80% cost per hire
✕ The old way
The Old Way · Success-Fee Agencies
20–30% of candidate's first-year salary.
Example: €80k salary = €20–30k per hire.
- ✕ Unpredictable.
- ✕ Transactional.
- ✕ Low cultural focus.
✓ The CaaS way
The Blueprint · Connection as a Service
€6,500/mo flat fee. Growth tier.
2–3 concurrent roles from one active pipeline. Cost-per-hire collapses to €2,500–8,000.
- ✓ Deep cultural integration.
- ✓ No hidden success fees.
- ✓ Flat monthly retainer.
Cost-per-hire drops to €2,500–8,000 as a byproduct of sheer efficiency, not a discount.
How the math works
You pay for the pipeline, not the head.
The 30% model is pay-per-head: every hire is a separate transaction, and the pipeline resets to zero the moment it closes. The faster you scale, the more it costs — a growth tax.
CaaS funds one continuous, dedicated pipeline. Active sourcing never stops, so the same engine fills role after role and keeps a warm pool ready for next quarter. Cost-per-hire collapses as you scale — because you're funding the process, not paying a bounty per head.
1
Flat monthly fee
Predictable budget
1
Dedicated pipeline
Continuous active sourcing
Many outcomes
- Talent A — Hired
- Talent B — Hired
- Talent C — Talent pool, Q3
One engine, many outcomes. That's the multiplier.
Tiers
Flat retainer. Monthly cancellable.
Essential
€4,000/mo
For 1 key position
- —Dedicated Talent Partner
- —Fully Managed Sourcing
- —Weekly Reporting
Popular
Growth
€6,500/mo
For 2–3 concurrent roles
- —Dedicated Talent Partner + Specialized Sourcer
- —Deeper Market Insights
- —Weekly Reporting
Scale
€12,000/mo
For 4+ positions
- —Fully Dedicated Team
- —Customized Recruiting Strategy
- —Max Cost Efficiency
All tiers monthly cancellable · No hidden success fees
What we do
One core product. Two focused add-ons.
Add-on
Advisory
A second brain for your in-house talent function — process design, structure, automation.
Explore advisory →Add-on
Executive Search
Classical retained search for C-level, VP and Lead roles only.
Explore search →Methodology
A relentless three-step process. Run on every mandate.
01
Deep Dive
Culture, requirements, and the precise 'Character' your team needs.
02
Active Sourcing
Direct extraction of passive High Performers. No CV spam, no LinkedIn carpet-bombing.
03
Dedicated Reporting
Weekly market intelligence. Transparent pipeline. Zero hidden agenda.
The human edge
Senior engineers ignore most recruiters.
They reply to us.
The math only matters if the right people actually pick up. After two decades in the scene, they do — and that's craft, not luck.
01
A network, not a cold list
We don't start from zero in a stranger's inbox. Years in the digital-tech scene mean relationships — the people you want often already know us, or know someone who does.
02
The approach gets the reply
When a company DMs a passive senior engineer, it usually dies at 'not interested.' When someone who speaks their language and respects their time brings the real opportunity, it becomes a conversation. Reach beats spray.
03
Candidates tell us the truth
As a neutral party, people are honest with us about motivation, comp, dealbreakers and doubts in ways they never are with the hiring company. We surface the real picture — and probe hard before it ever costs you interview time.
04
We chase, then we dig
We follow up professionally, re-engage strong people over time, and pressure-test the promising ones. Persistence plus judgment turns a maybe into a hire.
The founder
Twenty years in hiring. One stubborn idea.
Characters Connection is founder-led by René Kuhl — he calibrates and drives every search himself, and is building a team of specialists around the same standard. You get a principal on your mandate, not a hand-off to a junior.
His path didn't begin in tech — it began in HR. While studying business law (Diplom-Wirtschaftsjurist), he was already at a boutique tech-headhunting firm, cold-calling directly into companies to source and win over passive engineers — long before a tool did the sourcing. When social media arrived, he built out LinkedIn and social recruiting from day one, then sharpened it as a Senior Consultant at an international recruitment agency, where he was named Rookie of the Year before going independent and founding characters in 2011.
Across a dozen-odd engagements as a freelancer and with characters, he has repeatedly embedded inside fast-growing startups to scale their engineering orgs from around 10 to 50+ developers — for example, close to 50 hires at one scale-up in about a year, and nearly 20 at another in just four months. Always shoulder-to-shoulder with CTOs, founders, team leads and the engineers themselves.
Two decades in tech hiring showed him exactly what's broken about the standard model: 25–30% success fees reward the close, not the match. So he built the opposite — CaaS turns recruiting into a flat-fee, predictable service, paid to solve, not to close. Based in Cyprus, hiring across the roles that move digital business — Cloud, DevOps, Data, AI/ML, Security and senior engineering.
"In tech, you never stop learning. Every day brings new topics, conversations with inspiring people, and a wider perspective to pass on."
- 20+ years in tech hiring
- Founded characters · 2011
- Scaled teams 10 → 50+
- Business-law background
Markets
GERMANY / AUSTRIA · US · UAE · NETHERLANDS · UK · IRELAND · CANADA · POLAND · CZECHIA · CYPRUS
Strategic Consulting · The Brain
A second brain for your talent function.
- 01Recruiting Strategy, Process Analysis & Design
- 02TA-Structure Optimization (Roles, KPIs, Decision Processes)
- 03Employer Positioning & Candidate Journey
- 04Growth Strategy & Scaling Hiring Capacity
- 05Active Sourcing & Pipeline Management Advisory
- 06Recruiting Automation (AI Tools, ATS/CRM, Workflow Design)
- 07Process Engineering for Internal Talent Teams
Workshops · Sparring · Management Reports
Executive Search
Classical headhunting. Lead positions only.
Reserved for C-level, VP, and Lead roles where retainer-based search is the right instrument. Everything else goes through CaaS.
Specialization
Where we deploy.
Boutique by choice. Deep by design. We operate inside specific sectors and fill specific roles — and we say no to everything else.
Sectors
FinTech
Payment
Blockchain
SaaS
eHealth
IT Security
Music/Streaming
Embedded
Engineering & Technical
AI / ML Engineers
DevOps
SecOps
Cloud Engineers
Database Engineers
Data Engineers
Embedded Developers
System Admins
LANGUAGES — C++ · JAVA · C# · GO · RUST · PYTHON · JAVASCRIPT / TYPESCRIPT
CLOUD & PLATFORMS — AWS · AZURE · GCP · KUBERNETES · DOCKER · TERRAFORM
Leadership & Product
Product Owner (Digital Business)
Lead
Head of
VP
CTO
CIO
CSO
Built for Digital Business
FINTECH · PAYMENT · BLOCKCHAIN · SAAS · EHEALTH · IT SECURITY · MUSIC / STREAMING · EMBEDDED
For Characters
Serious engineers, serious opportunities.
No CV carpet-bombing. No ghosting. We reach out only when the role actually fits your profile and ambition — Cloud, DevOps, Data, AI/ML, Security, and senior software engineering. When we connect, it's because it's worth your time.
Join the talent pool →Book a sparring session
30 minutes. We tell you where the process is bleeding.
Pragmatic. No pitch deck. No follow-up sales sequence. Pick a slot.
Pick a slot
Opens my live calendar · 30 min · No prep needed