Issue 12 2019

CORPORATE VISION / Issue 12 2019 17 , Oct19449 By Techies, For Techies Getting hired for a job can be tough, especially in the tech industry. It can take 58 days for a software engineer to be hired in the UK. Tech recruitment platformhackajobmanages it in 17. This boutique sized company has grown exponentially over the past five years and doesn’t seem to be slowing down for anything. We caught up withMark Chaffey, hackajob’s Co-Founder and COO, to discover more about this exciting start-up. Established due to a frustration with the traditional recruitment agency approach, as well as the difficulty of hiring top engi- neers, co-founders Razvan and Mark decided to create a hiring platform by techies, for techies. Now boasting Europe’s largest technical talent pool of over 100,000 people, the company continues to grow at an excep- tional rate. We talked to Mark about what the driving force behind hackajob was. ‘At hackajob, we believe that tech recruitment is broken; getting a job should be about practical skills - not who you know or how well your CV looks on the surface.’ It sounds straight- forward, matching the appropriate skillset to the appropriate com- pany, but the process of making a shortlist for potential work uses a subtle blend of cutting-edge artificial intelligence and good old-fashioned human curation. Candidates are invited to showcase their abilities through hackajob. ‘Because we believe in skill set alone, we offer a library of over 1,000 technical tests for candidates to choose from so that we can verify their ability,’ explains Mark. ‘We can also work with employers to add their own technical tests to the platform for chosen candidates to complete.’ This system encourages those who are self-taught and have no formal training to demonstrate the ability they have. Currently, hackajob works with over 1,500 companies including Vodafone, Elsevier, Skyscanner and Apple to reduce hiring time, engage with clients and provide the best technical talent on the market. Since its inception, hackajob has helped a vast number of companies to hire technical can- didates fairer, faster and more cost-effectively. Additionally, it’s worth nothing that hackajob is a SaaS company and offers a full enterprise service that can inte- grate with any Applicant Tracking System (ATS). A partnership with Workable and Greenhouse means that hackajob remains at the forefront of this technology, able to adapt to this aspect of the recruitment process. By referring directly to a can- didate’s skills, hackajob is led entirely by the facts. ‘As a com- pany, we’re completely insights led,’ explains Mark, ‘we believe in data-driven creativity.’ Operating within this system of meritocracy has led to an unbiased approach to hiring overall. In fact, over twice as many women apply and are successfully hired via hacka- job than the industry standard for software developers. hackajob depends on the sense of togetherness within the com- pany that binds its community together. Much like the product they sell, every person has a vital role to play. ‘We celebrate our successes, and all provide support, which is what makes hackajob such an amazing place to work,’ Mark tells us. ‘Our structure is fluid and everyone gets a say in important business decisions, regardless of their po- sition in the company.’ This liquid approach to company structure is part of the reason why hacka- job is one of the most diverse, non-biased technical recruitment platforms in the UK. Providing a specific service to techies has proven a major suc- cess for hackajob, with approval from both the recruiters and the recruited. Finding the right talent for a job can be a challenge, but hackajob make it look easy. Hav- ing launched outposts in Paris and Berlin, and looking to expand even further afield, we wonder where hackajob will go next. Contact: Mark Chaffey Company: hackajob Web Address: www.hackajob.co