We’re Talentful, and we’re reinventing the recruitment industry
2 April 2019
Our eight-step manifesto to help companies grow teams which are bursting with talent.
Reinvention? A lofty goal, sure, but a much-needed one – for the most part, recruitment as it stands is out of step with the needs of the modern workplace.
Yes, your IT set-up might be perfect, your canteen free, and your stakeholder meetings take place round a pool table, but if your team isn’t quite right, 99 percent of the time things aren’t going to turn out the way you want them.
The tech industry is booming, worth a tidy £184bn in the UK and outpacing the wider economy according to the FT, but the recruitment sector hasn’t kept pace in terms of innovation and fresh thinking. Until now.
Fusing our knowledge of people and our knowhow of technology, we’re out to change the entire game for the better. Here’s how.
We’re doing away with commission
Way back in 2015 — in simpler times when the nation was split over the colour of a dress rather than backstops and the Common Market — Talentful co-founders Chris and Phil met for a pint.
Both worked as in-house as recruiters at tech startups, and both shared a simple goal: to fix an industry that was quite clearly broken. Recruiters were more interested in commission and KPIs than their own clients, and they were giving all of us a bad name.
Before they’d even ordered a second drink, Talentful was born, with the goal of changing the recruitment industry for good. Within a month, we had our first client. And though our office and our headcount might have grown quite a lot since then, our mission hasn’t changed.
We’re making work more fun
If you don’t enjoy your job, we reckon it’s not the job for you. A sentiment backed up by science: studies show that employees with a smile on their face are more collaborative and 12 percent more productive than their gloomy counterparts.
Tech roles at high-growth companies can involve a lot of hard work, which is why we seek out candidates who love what they do, even when the pressure is firmly on.
And while we’re pro-flexibility in terms of how, when and where people work, we’re aware it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Just because one company finds working from home in on Thursdays in their PJs hugely productive, that may not be the right approach for another.
We’re redefining how employees are employed
Flexible working is the single biggest trend in the modern workplace. The idea that all expertise needs to be in-house and all-the-time is being eroded away, meaning people can sell their knowledge for the price it’s really worth.
What’s more, a YouGov survey of British businesses and employees found 89 per cent considered the option to work flexibly to be a key motivator to their productivity.
At Talentful, we work on a project basis – and, because we know how that works, we help our clients source employees and teams who can work on a project basis too.
We’re thinking about more than ping pong tables
A good job isn’t just about free breakfasts and beers on a Friday. And while we love a game of table tennis as much as the next tech startup, we know that people are looking for more from their working life than superficial promises and shiny gimmicks.
According to the New York Times, modern workers are much more interested in a sense of purpose, and we’re right behind them. Having a job in which you can learn, develop and progress takes priority over having an on-site chef or a pod to nap in at lunchtime.
That’s why, while we care about placing people in great offices, we care more about putting them into great jobs first. Although, just to be clear, we really like an on-site chef.
We’re bringing big companies back into the fold
Those great jobs? They’re not always where and who you’d expect. Nowadays, startups act more like big companies and big companies act more like startups – for the discerning candidate, this means some of the best and most interesting roles going can be at well-established, major players.
We never turn our noses up at the big corporations — yes, you may not be sharing a lift with the founder every day, but the benefits can be excellent and the opportunities even better. What matters to us is that it’s the right job for you.
We’re not just hiring our friends
In tech, that’s a rarity – but we encourage our clients to take a leaf out of our book. We believe everyone’s full of talent (it’s in our name, after all), and we’re tired of identikit staff lineups and stuffy old boys’ club boardroom. That’s why diversity and inclusivity are at the forefront of everything we do.
And boy, there’s work to be done, with a report in 2018 finding a worrying lack of diversity in the technology sector, with almost two-thirds of boards having no female representation at all.
A mix of personalities — plurality of opinions, beliefs, and ways of approaching a challenge — is important for any ambitious company. So, with a little help from our unique Talentful algorithm, we’re making it our mission to fill teams with the perfect blend of personality types they need to progress.
We’re embracing (friendly) AI
Read any of the hundreds of ‘robots are going to take our jobs’ articles out there, and you’ll have a pretty good reason to be unsure about AI. But, used right, it’s a fantastic tool which can help companies hire the right candidates.
In fact, the evidence points to robots taking on crappier roles, and a whole new sector of jobs for humans, based in technological innovation, emerging.
That said, recruitment is about placing humans with other humans. That’s why, while we embrace machine learning to help us put people in the right jobs, the most important thing to us will always be people. Nice ones like you.
But most of all, we’re putting people first
Teams are everything to us. Whether your company is 20 people or 20000 (we’re somewhere in between), a good team is the most vital thing when it comes to success. We should know: we’ve got a great one.
Together, our goal is simple: to help companies grow teams which are brimming with talent. A high-performing team equals a high-performing company, and a happy team equals a happy office. When the perfect candidate finds their perfect job, everyone walks away with a smile on their face. Us included.
