Staffing an entire French-German subsidiary in Munich: A Case study

Opening an agency abroad means building an entire team all at once, in a market where the company is still unknown. That was the challenge our client was facing; a well-established provider of tailor-made luxury travel, preparing to open its first German agency, in Munich. Eurojob Consulting handled the entire recruitment: the agency's management and five travel advisors, each with their own geographic specialization.

After a successful pilot project in Switzerland, our client launched its first expansion beyond the French-speaking world. Munich was to lead the way, with further cities planned for the following years, depending on the success of this first step. When a few internal transfer options failed to materialize, it fell to us to build the entire team.

Our client had a solid commercial presence in France and Belgium and that successful swiss pilot project, a real asset with candidates who doubted the viability of the German project.

The positions offered particularly attractive terms: profit-sharing and incentive schemes that can amount to several months' salary, a package modeled on French standards (supplementary health insurance, generously funded pension contributions, meal vouchers) and, for the management role, a concrete prospect of further expansion within the group. But the project also carried uncertainty: would it be possible to recruit the entire team before the planned opening date, given the requirements, notice periods and so on?

On top of that, we only learned late in the process that the German company (GmbH), already “being set up” according to our client at the kick-off, was in fact barely out of the starting blocks. The lack of a German employment contract threatened to delay signatures and cost us valuable candidates, a scenario we know all too well and narrowly managed to avoid.

The talent pool was narrowed above all by a threefold requirement: language, presence and expertise. We needed advisors who can sell tailor-made trips in German to a very well-informed and demanding clientele; who communicate with headquarters and the French-speaking teams; and who convey a genuine passion for travel, ideally with an already established specialization in a particular destination.

As the team took shape, the priorities for the destinations sought shifted. Unlike recruiting a sales team, for example, where every employee fits a comparable profile with a similar professional background, the opposite was true here: the team had to cover as broad a range of expertise as possible. The specific country knowledge of each new hire therefore kept changing our search criteria, so that we could target the regions still missing.

For the advisors, our salary recommendation quickly proved to be in line with the market once the search was under way; candidate feedback overwhelmingly confirmed the range. For the management position, our salary studies confirmed the budget set by the client. Nevertheless, several particularly qualified profiles came in well above that range. Freelance collaborations on product development in the destinations are being considered for these experts in the future.

From the very start, the first candidate we present is a perfect match for the profile. But with no one to compare her with, the client hesitates. Only after a cover letter, and our own insistence on the strengths of her profile, does an offer follow.

Yet the German employment contracts are not ready. The weeks go by, while life goes on for the candidate. With no signature in hand, she can neither tell her current employer she is leaving nor begin preparing her move. Until a change in her personal situation leads her to withdraw her application.

Our recruiter talks to everyone involved to find a quick solution. Thanks to the client's responsiveness, the offer is renewed and adjusted slightly upwards to reflect her greater professional experience. Other, younger candidates had meanwhile received comparable offers. This significant gesture restores the confidence of a candidate who, after all the waiting, had begun to doubt the company's willingness to work together. The hire is secured.

Six months after the start of the assignment, the Munich agency has a complete team ready for onboarding: one management position and five travel advisors, hired between January and July 2026. Thirty-eight candidates were presented over the course of the assignment, with the pace driven more by the diversity of the specializations sought than by a rigid set of criteria.

The candidate selected to lead the agency spent seven years working her way up at a tailor-made travel agency specializing in Europe, until she led the company's largest team and handled demanding luxury trips. Now she is returning to Munich, her home ground, to head the new agency.

Alongside her are five advisors with highly complementary profiles: a travel professional with twenty-five years of international experience and particular expertise in Greece; a former head of a local luxury travel agency who later moved into international sales, an expert on Mexico; a recognized specialist in luxury travel to East Africa, with fifteen years of hands-on experience in the field (a decade of it living there) and several hundred tailor-made itineraries for a very demanding clientele; and two advisors who found their way into the industry not through classic tourism training but through their personal journeys: one after a year and a half traveling the world across ten countries, the other a young graduate passionate about the Asia-Pacific region, after several years living there.

Our client was very satisfied with the collaboration and plans to call on eurojob consulting again when it opens its next German agency, as well as for the future growth of the Munich team.

“Opening an agency in a new market means recruiting an entire team for a brand that nobody knows yet. If the quality of the product sparks interest, a well-managed recruitment process is the key to keeping the best candidates on board.”

Nikolai Rabald
Recruiter
Eurojob-Consulting

This assignment was led by Nikolai Rabald. Our team is on hand for all your recruitment needs. [Contact]