🏆 Talent Spotlight — Anja Bauer (No. 5 — 2026)

Welcome back to Talent Spotlight — where every month, we shine a light on standout talent professionals and the real stories shaping our industry.

Hey Anja, tell us a bit about yourself. Who are you, where are you, and what keeps you busy these days?

Hi there, I'm Anja, based in Berlin. I come from a sustainability and social impact background, and spent years designing workplaces and cultures where people genuinely want to show up, grow, and feel proud of what they're building — as a hiring manager, People & Culture lead, and eventually in management.

The big bang moment behind why I quit my job as a COO last year and started my founding journey: I opened a job posting at my last company and had to close it again within 72 hours, because we'd already received 450 applications. I remember thinking, I basically need to clone myself. I was trying to stitch together different tools to make my life easier, and told my partner about it — he said, "sounds like a software idea."

So we just did it, with a lot of naivety about the market and competition we were stepping into, on a mission to build the fairest recruiting software for start-ups in Germany (because why not, yolo). And with that, a new mini ATS was born, named CometHire.

What keeps me up at night these days is my own shift from Operational Lead to Founder — and figuring out how to build a company with a healthy, human pace instead of the usual "faster, higher" grind. I'm also a breathwork trainer and coach, and I think a lot about what it means to build software that still feels human behind the screen.

Your Story

A big-lesson moment:

Last year I pitched at a competition in Brandenburg. I'd prepared well, but disaster struck mid-pitch: I clicked my remote toward the wall instead of the laptop, and my slides just... didn't move. Total blackout. I somehow stumbled through the rest like a broken cassette player, convinced I'd blown it completely.

Then, shortly after, one of the judges called me — he found the whole slip-up endearing, said it was exactly what he was looking for, and wanted to partner with us. That call turned into CometHire's first customer, for whom we built an integration with another software.

It taught me not to take myself so seriously — mistakes can lead to good things. It's also part of why I'm learning to take up space as a speaker and see myself as an expert, imposter syndrome aside.

Something from a completely different field that helped your talent work:

As a breathwork teacher, I've learned to shift my brain from the fast, gut-driven pace our work often demands into a slower, more deliberate mode — similar to what Thinking, Fast and Slow describes. I used this constantly when screening applications and running interviews: reminding myself that behind every application sits a real person, and that I'm being interviewed just as much as I'm interviewing.

An interview is a power dynamic, especially panel interviews — and I believe the more regulated your own nervous system is, the better you can create a space that feels like an exchange between equals rather than a one-way evaluation.

Talent Talk

The most unconventional or creative thing you've tried in recruiting that actually worked:

At my last company, we built a fully transparent salary structure — long before Germany's pay transparency law existed. Every role had a published range (e.g., junior to senior software developer, with clear minimums and maximums), and everyone internally knew what everyone else earned.

That meant I could be upfront about salary range in the very first interview, so candidates and I both knew immediately whether expectations matched — instead of discovering a mismatch after five rounds. It sounds simple, but it built genuine trust and became a real part of our culture.

A sourcing, interviewing, or productivity hack that makes your day smoother:

Turns out I love databases. Three years ago I actively avoided them — Excel was my enemy — but now building one and thinking through its structure is genuinely fun for me. I've set up systems like this for CometHire, but also for friends and other small businesses; it's become a bit of a side-passion.

My whole productivity setup lives there, where I structure my posts, document and re-question our strategy, and dump random thoughts. Combined with tools like Claude, it's even more fun now since you can operate the whole thing through a chatbot instead of copy-pasting everything. I love building things myself — which, come to think of it, is probably also why I need to build software.

One belief about talent acquisition you've completely changed your mind about:

I used to believe hiring was inherently good — more people, more growth, more progress. I've completely changed my mind. I've seen (and, looking back, been part of) startups hiring for roles like sales before they even had product-market fit — without a clear strategy or roadmap for who the target audience even is, that hire becomes a liability, not an asset.

I now tell early-stage founders: think hard before doubling your team with a "founder's associate" or similar role. Talent acquisition without a strategy behind it doesn't make sense — and it still shocks me how rarely hiring is treated as a strategic topic, or how often HR has zero budget authority, when it's one of the most consequential functions in any company.

Community Connection

Someone in your network who inspires you:

Dana Fleschner, who I met at a Talent Crunch networking event and have stayed in close touch with on LinkedIn since. She founded her own company, The Value Box, after stepping out of a People Business Partner role — and I have so much respect for founders who leave a secure position behind with just an idea and actually go for it. I love her posts and her whole stance on things. Yes, please reach out to invite her!

One question you'd love to ask other talent professionals in our community:

Imagine you had one giant billboard at Alexanderplatz, and you could put one message on it — something you truly believe about talent and hiring, for the whole city to see. What would it say?

🔗 Connect with Anja on LinkedIn.