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Licorne Society helps digital and Tech companies, startups and scale-ups hire outside France, across Europe (Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Spain...) and beyond, whether they are expanding abroad or entering the French market.
5/5 · 198 Google reviews More than 200 companies and startups have hired with Licorne Society, in France and abroad.
Testimonials
We have made several C-level hires with Licorne Society. By far the best recruitment agency I have ever worked with.
From individual contributors to members of our leadership team, Licorne Society delivered candidates we were fully satisfied with at every level of our organisation. They put forward outstanding candidates who closely matched our technical requirements and our culture, whatever the level, IC or leadership.
We ran a CTO search for our highly technical startup. We met 4 or 5 strong candidates before hiring our current CTO, and we are very happy with the outcome.
From our base in Paris, we recruit wherever our clients are expanding and wherever the companies entering France come from. Nine regions account for most of our searches.
Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille, Nantes, Lille
Our home market: we build the French teams of international companies setting up in Paris or elsewhere in France, from the General Manager France to the first sales hires, and find multilingual candidates for French head offices.
London, Manchester, Edinburgh
The first stop abroad for many French scale-ups: opening the London office, hiring a Country Manager, building English-speaking Sales and Marketing teams that report to Paris.
Spain, Portugal, Italy
Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon and Milan: markets with close cultural ties, where we build local teams for French companies and hire for the Tech hubs opening there.
Geneva, Zurich, Lausanne, Basel
A demanding market where candidates are often trilingual: subsidiary leadership, finance, Tech and Sales for French companies, and for Swiss groups hiring in France.
Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg
Brussels, Amsterdam and Luxembourg: the natural first step abroad for a French company, and a pool of multilingual talent for European head offices.
Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Vienna
Continental Europe's largest market and a must for scaling up: German-speaking Sales, Marketing and Tech profiles who can report to a French head office.
United States, Canada
New York, San Francisco, Montreal and Toronto for scale-ups crossing the Atlantic, and French teams for North American companies setting up in Paris.
Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria
French-speaking Tech, Data and Sales teams for subsidiaries and service centres in Casablanca, Rabat, Tunis or Algiers, and the executives who run them.
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel
Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Doha and Israel are drawing French Tech and services companies: we find the General Managers, salespeople and specialists who drive their growth in the region.
André Farah
Our specialist consultants handle cross-border hiring, from launching in a new country to making your first hires in France.
Are you a French digital or Tech company looking to open a new market abroad? We help you find the key people for your expansion across Europe (Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Spain...) and beyond: Country Managers, local sales teams, and executives who can drive your international growth.
What we do
find and attract multilingual, culturally agile talent who can build your business in a new market.
Are you an international company looking to launch in France? We support your entry into the French market: hiring your General Manager France, your first sales hires and your operational teams, backed by a close knowledge of the local ecosystem.
What we do: give you a head start by hiring the right people from day one in the French market.
Licorne Society is a natural partner for your international hiring, and brings you:
Our network spans more than 50,000 digital, Tech and business professionals, many of them multilingual and open to roles abroad.
Our consultants find, approach and screen the right candidates for your expansion plans, from individual contributors to executives.
Built entirely around your roles and target profiles, combining artificial intelligence and automation.
The role, a package benchmarked against local standards, the languages required, the employment set-up you have in mind (subsidiary, Employer of Record, freelance): we take the time to understand your expansion or market entry plans before the search begins.
We tap into our community of more than 50,000 professionals, many of them multilingual, and headhunt directly on the local market, in the local language, for the people who aren't in our network yet.
Video interviews in the language of the role, language skills tested live, mobility and cultural fit checked, and references taken from former managers abroad.
You receive a list of qualified, available and interested candidates, and a single point of contact coordinates interviews across time zones all the way to the signed offer.
Outside France, we hire multilingual, culturally agile talent across all our specialisations:
Executive Search:
Country Managers, General Managers and bilingual executives, through our Executive Search practice.
Sales & Marketing:
VPs of Sales, Sales Managers and Marketing Managers who can work across several countries.
Tech, IT & Data:
our IT recruitment agency hires CTOs, Software Engineers and Data Engineers.
Operations & Finance:
Operations Managers and CFOs to structure your subsidiaries.
We handle permanent, interim management and freelance assignments, in France and across Europe (Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Spain...).
Resources & related pages
Looking for a job outside France, or at an international company based in France? Browse openings in digital, Tech and business on the Licorne Society platform.
Ready to hire your talent internationally?
Our fees are a percentage of the candidate's gross annual package, base salary and variable pay included, and are only payable on success. The market rate is typically 20% to 27%, at the higher end for executive roles and scarce profiles. Outside France, your budget depends mainly on local pay levels: the same role costs a different amount in Paris, London, Zurich or Berlin.
You can usually expect a first shortlist of qualified, available candidates within a few days, then two to four weeks to complete interviews and make the hire.
Executives in a local market are rarely looking, so hiring them comes down to headhunting. We map comparable companies in the target country, identify the people already doing the job or the level just below, then approach them directly in their own language. This is the work of our Executive Search practice: defining the scope of the role and the package against local standards, running a confidential search, then handling interviews and reference checks remotely.
They depend on the set-up you choose: setting up a subsidiary in the country, which lets you sign a local employment contract but takes time and adds overhead; using an Employer of Record, which employs the person on your behalf and handles payroll, social charges and compliance; or a contractor agreement, which is more flexible but carries the risk of being reclassified as employment. We point you to the most common option in the target country, which you should then confirm with your legal and employment advisers.
We start with evidence from their career: having lived, worked or led a team in several countries, having reported to an overseas head office, having launched a new country. Language skills are tested live during the interview, not taken from a CV. We then dig into real situations: balancing head office standards with local practice, hiring and managing remotely, adapting a sales pitch to a market that doesn't respond the way France does. References from former managers abroad then confirm or challenge what we have heard.
Our specialities
We help companies find and hire senior executives and C-level leaders.
Learn more Tech & DataHire people with strong technical expertise in software development and data, in a highly competitive market.
Learn more Sales & MarketingWe help companies structure their Marketing and Sales teams so they can drive the growth of the business.
Learn more OperationsHire the people who will run and optimise your operations and processes.
Learn moreRecruitment by sector
We recruit across the major French tech and digital ecosystems, and support your growth across Europe.
