Interview -> Reflection -> Evaluation (March 15th Blog Post)

Interviews Done:

Indeed – Elisse Humphreys (Team Lead, Client Success)

SimplyHired – Amy (Assistant Operations Manager)

RUN.ATL – Tashfique Shantanu (Executive Director)

Factual Part:

I conducted three interviews of 15-20 minutes each. I kept it very brief as the three individuals I spoke to are very busy and it was nice of them to give me some of their time. I was glad to get an interview with an expert of Indeed who were my primary competition.

Between my interviews with the mentioned individuals the Indeed and SimplyHired were from the perspective of a company insider who works there. Indeed expert worked with employees and company representatives to help them find recruitment and post their jobs. SimplyHired expert worked with job seekers and the conversion aspect of job seekers. The last interview was strictly from a startup company management employee, who discussed why they use certain platforms to post their jobs and how they find recruitment.

INDEED – Interview:

For this interview I asked questions from the perspective of her expertise:

• What is one challenge your company faces trying to compete in this industry?
• What is one area in the industry you see opportunity in?
• What are your success ratios in terms of another employee recruiting through your website?
• What is one area you believe a startup in this industry should prioritize to have success?
• What makes Indeed so special compared to other substitutes?

Among other questions these were the very important questions that gave me information regarding the industry and Indeed. She told me one of the challenges her company faces is the applicant tracking system, she doesn’t believe indeed has the best applicant tracking system because the employees who post their jobs on the website a lot of the time has issues tracking the number of applications they received, specially start-ups. She mentioned that Glassdoor has a better applicant tracking system according to her. She mentioned there are areas of opportunity in terms of conversion, she says most of the job posting sites focuses resume database, sponsored jobs, staffing service etc. because those are the most effective areas of revenue but it’s the users specially job seekers and employees posting these jobs that spend most of their time on these websites. Therefore, conversion aspect should be a bigger focus. She said success ratio from the employee side of job posting and finding recruiting from her estimate is close to 11%. She said if someone is starting up in this industry, the best thing would be to have a big differentiator because many of the agencies are very similar and easy to imitate. She believes Indeed’s differentiator sets them apart from others because:  the application process is easy. Being able to manage jobs is easy. Big database. Products and services. – Sponsored jobs (employers sponsor jobs) – Targeted ads for example – nursing targets (ex) – Hired service staffing agency. (15% of starting salary) – Resume database.

SimplyHired – Interview:

This interview was short lived compared to the other two, she told me regarding the job seekers side of things. I asked her question such as:

• What percentage of your job seekers are college level students?
• What are your success ratios in terms of converting job seekers to succeed in getting a job?
• Reflecting on your work with SimplyHired, what are some mistakes you would advise a start-up to avoid?

She told me about estimated 17% of job seekers on their database are college. Their success ration in terms of conversion of these job seekers usually comes to an overall 21% but for students it is 8%. She said, due to online applications and many students applying many companies do not get to check their application or follow through from the database. She said the main mistake startups should avoid in this industry is trying to ONLY build a database of users who they provide service for, instead also build a database of employees, companies, recruiters and others who will work with you to help your base; because if you only build massive user database and don’t go around making deals with companies and use 3^rd party platform to convert the consumers through your platform, the third party can easily cut off your access because they are not getting paid.

RUN.ATL – Interview:

This interview was very brief, the main purpose of this interview was to see what makes them choose certain platforms to post their job listings. The questions I asked were:

• For a startup like yours, what platforms work best to find new talents? Why?
• Do you work with these platforms in order to gain revenue and/or exposure?
• What’s the success ratio in terms of finding recruitment from these agencies and sites?

According to him platforms like Indeed and Linkedin works best because of their popularity and brand name. Most new talents know these two platforms and they tend to always use those. That’s why they choose to post most of their posting on these platforms. They have a small partnership deal with Indeed and Glassdoors for advertisements and job postings, this helps them get exposure out there of their new company which is essential because these companies are affordable in terms of advertising cost for them. The success ratio to them is very small because most of the applicants from these websites don’t get noticed through the system so much, because they operate on an algorithm basis where online applications certain things must get checked when application is submitted those are the ones that gets docketed. He estimates the success ratio to be around 20% or so in terms of recruitment from these sites.

All these interviews provided me a good insight into the industry of job agencies and posting websites. I got the viewpoint of inside these companies and even from an employee perspective. Around ending of each interview, we briefly discussed my class idea for the business. They all said they see a measure of value in it, but they all gave advices on how it can be improved and modified. One of the best advise I received was that:

• My value proposition is very one dimensional and to broaden it more. Seek more opportunities with companies, where instead of making website applications which don’t get many recognitions, you can call these companies directly regarding a client and present on behalf of them by talking about their qualities. Sort of like a manager. Which was something I found very interesting.

Reflective Part:

I was shocked at how much the priority Indeed and SimplyHired put is on their employee and companies’ sectors. Allowing more employees to post on their site is how they build their brand. Where before I had the knowledge that job seekers are their main priority and converting these job seekers to employees is what they do. However, I was completely wrong. A lot of my follow up questions from the pdf file professor provided helped me get more information than I could have thought. A lot of times they elaborated the communication pathways and passages between the company and the platform. The interview raised questions for me in terms of what more value I can instill to the venture. The overarching theme that I noticed was that the companies and employees from other sources must be integral in order for these agencies and job posting websites to succeed. While the customers are the most essential factors, it is them that makes the business tick in this industry.

The Next Step:

I believe the next step I should take in more customer analysis. Develop scenarios and test them to see how well it works with the idea that I have in my head. From the student survey in class and the confidence shown by the people I have interviewed, I would say as of now the idea is worth pursuing but it requires a lot of tuning and as of now, I’m not sure how else and how much more. The expert interview gave me more of an industry insider while the student survey gave me more of a customer insider because the target market are the students. The expert information showed me that student priority is slim in the job finding industry, my venture would only work with students which can bring a lot more conversion rate. The survey showed 15 out of 23 people believe this venture will help them while 4 others see potential of benefit in other students. This indicates there’s some spark and relevance in this idea. Therefore, I would say it would be best to stick with this idea and see how much I can elaborate and pursue.