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Hiring in Budapest, how hard is it ? (21)

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Hi guys,

I'm in the process of setting up a company in Budapest - Hungary, and i'm wondering how hard it would be to hire qualified employees for our business ?

Mainly i'm looking for a good developer, if anyone has any experience hiring one there insights would be appreciated ?

I looked online and a lot of the job portals are in hungarian only so not much help, though a real life experience feedback would be better




Mehdi

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I guess this would depend on how compelling your employment proposition is ...

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That is part of the question indeed, what is a compelling proposition ?
Is it solely related to salary or more about the company's project etc ..?



Mehdi

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I would imagine it would encompass a wide range of factors. Salary for sure, also type of work, the people they will be working with, the name or brand of the company they work for, future career growth potential, a sense of purpose or pride in the work they are asked to do, etc etc.

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Hey Mehdi,

I'm a hungarian & living in Budapest. Drop me a PM, I'm sure we can discuss something beneficial for the both of us.

Looking forward chatting with you.

PS: I have some coding skills too.

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So you're saying the market is so that developers are very picky?
Because i'm no Kiva or Facebook, just a guy making a few bucks online

You're making it sound like no developer is out of a job there mate, and you have to have a totally awesome company to have them even consider .. the only + I can offer is a relaxed environement and an above market-average salary.

Cool, i'm sending you a PM



Mehdi

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Hey Mehdi, I can help you too, also Hungarian, so just let me know if you need any help. Just out of curiosity. Why did you choose Hungary to set up a company?

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Hi Balint,

Thanks for offering to help, it's appreciated

About the "why", it's because as a nomad entrepreneur I am sick of asking for visas all the time and be at the mercy of some fat bureaucrate that tells me how many days I can stay in which country or in most european countries cases if I can get in at all... therefore I've made it a life goal to become a european citizen before I turn 40 (in 10yrs) so i'm entering a "business immigration" process that will eventually lead to a 2nd passport, and after studying all available options hungary offers the program that best suits my needs/situation.

Ironically, I might want to settle at 40 and stop traveling.. though it's very unlikely.

Also, I don't have the exact dates but i'll be in Budapest for 2 weeks in October, so I'll hit you and Zoltan up to grab a beer if you guys are around



Mehdi

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Budapest is a cool place to hang out.

Western European amenities, Eastern European prices. There are quite a few marketers/entrepreneurs there already.

Re: hiring, I think you'll just want to treat it like any other country - pool candidates, vet them by skills/experience/CV, give them some short test tasks, don't bother moving to interviews for anyone who's work is sub par. If you have anyone you know who is skilled at the role you are recruiting for, see if you can ask them for some help with proposing short test tasks or reviewing a few submissions.

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Budapest would the last place in Europe to set up my organisation.

Boring and rude/unfriendly people. Small talent pool. Only few people to network with / learn from. You'll hardly find any stars there.

City is nice and girls look good, but that you can find in most countries.

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Ah ok, with Visas seems to make more sense for me. Tax-wise it is not the best as far as I know.

Yeah, Zeno+1, not sure what you've experienced (personally; small sample) Sebastian, but I would not say people are even slightly more unfriendly or 'untalented' in Budapest than in any other E-European cities. Looking at the cost factor, Western (and Northern)-Europe could be a no-go, as it does not really offer that more in exchange. South-Europe (and pretty much every warm climate country) is more like for the holidays and chilling than work...

So it seems like a decent decision imo, yeah hit me up if you're there.

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You could try the freelance websites like odesk ect give them small tasks and ask them to work full time .

As for your reason to why you chose Hungary in the first place , there is better options you can even get a strong passport in 3 years and the other one in 5 .

PM me and I can share my findings unless Hungary makes sense to you .

Cheers

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Thanx for the hiring advices Zeno!

Interesting insight seb, it's not the first time I read something like this, on quora I read that Hungarian are pretty hostile to non-hungarian speaking people, though I tend to take opinions of tourists with a big grain of salt, I never had problem having a social life in any country, i'm pretty outgoing and always try to learn the local language/culture if I plan to stay... plus, massive house with boose and parties, never fails

Seriously though, when I was in Barcelona we received tons of coushsurfers from different eastern european countries ( bulgaria, serbia, czeck republic, lithuania,..) and they were all lovely/funny people, so unless hungary is a weird exception in the middle of E-Europe, I think i'll be fine on that front.

About the taxes, it might not be the best, but for Europe it's not bad either.

I believe you're talking about the Self-Employed type of company where you pay more or less 50% to pay yourself every month right ?

I'm not in that category as I have enough money to sustain myself and wait for dividends at the end of the year, so as far as I understood, Corporate Tax is 10% under 1.8M€ tax base, and Dividend Tax is 16% which is pretty good, for example in France it's around 30 and 25%

And, will do (hit you up)

I'll shoot you a PM thanx, though I've spent dozens of hours reading and contacting lawyers for each country about this, and very few actually fit my profile or are legit enough to my liking.



Mehdi

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I think the fastest way to EU citizenship is finding a nice Spanish girl to marry.

Just sayin'

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Totally true, and I believe it is still the most used "method" to get to europe by a lot of 3rd world people, however I find it has some big drawbacks :

- Most people I know that did it marry girls they don't truly love, and i'm not keen to scam someone like this
- If the feeling is real, then it's just trading one freedom for the other.. being really married is not (yet) worth the trouble for me, still plenty of different (.)(.) that I look forward to meet



Mehdi

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If you are looking to setup a business in Hungary, make sure to very thoroughly study their basic tax laws and also look around for info about the economic climate.

I don't follow much, but overall I hear bad news about it in Hungary. Balint and Zoltan can probably help you there.

What is the difference between Hungary and Romania for your purpose? I am pretty sure that talent wise you will find more tech savy people there than in Hungary. It's not ideal to set up your business there either imo but worth giving it a comparison for your purpose.

Cheers,
Manu.

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Hi Manu,

What kind of bad things did you hear ? Are you talking about "economic climate" ?

Keep in mind I will be doing 0 business IN hungary itself, it's internet/affiliate marketing so doesn't really matter if i'm in Greece Mali or Tibet, I do not need anything from the country itself for my business to work.

I did study the tax laws and asked the lawyers handling my application tons of questions and gave real numbers simulation to be sure there was no hidden fee, for my case (llc type of company and I don't need to take a salary as I have savings to live off), it's 10% Corporate tax (up to 1.8M€, and 19% on what's over 1.8M) and 16% Dividend Tax, that is good enough for me.

And about Romania, I did check it out, and the problem there was that you they force you to have minimum 10 permanent employees during 5years, and unfortunately that's just too much, 1 to 3 employees forced on me I can handle, 10 I wouldn't even know what to have them doing all day ^^


Mehdi

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Well, the laws change very very often in both Hungary and Romania. I talked about having an LLC type entity in either Hungary or Romania; changing laws make it hard for a business owner to plan.

Employees forced on you sucks indeed, haha.

It's hard to know reality when only hearing some news but overall the Hungarian Gov't has passed, or tried to pass, some crazy laws and they are viewed as less of a democracy day by day. People with first hand experience can correct me here.

Romania has huge corruption issues still, although slowly seems to be moving in the right direction to some extent. I know more about that being Romanian obviously I just knew in general the 2 are comparable for expats.

Is the process so much more difficult for any of the better countries in the EU? You generally have all EU people wanting to move away from those, and for good reasons.

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Haha I was just joking. Marrying for the wrong reasons is probably one of the worst mistakes anyone can make.

If I did not have a EU passport and really wanted to get one, I would probably structure something via Portugal.

Just sayin'

http://www.pwc.pt/pt/fiscalidade/ima...ept_secret.pdf
https://www.kpmg.com/PT/pt/IssuesAnd...ent-PT2013.pdf

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I am from hungary speak hungarian and have employees. Feel free to pm.

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Gosh. I am doing the same thing in Slovenia

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