Recruiting Startup of the Year: Recruitsy

Recruiters! Recruitsy is your Online Brand Reputation management platform. With the tools and insights to proactively measure and manage your social brand you can extend your social reach to online audiences with crowd-sourced validation.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Register here!  Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

We speak with Kurt Smith, CEO and founder of Recruitsy with 15 plus years scaling startups as a technology leader. He explains how at some level we’re all involved in recruiting and how Recruitsy can improve this experience for the candidate one review at a time.

What’s your company’s elevator pitch?

Recruitsy is the first crowd-sourced rating and review site that helps people connect with the best recruiters and staffing agencies. As consumers in the digital economy, we expect access to information to make smart purchasing decisions.  If we are buying products online, we check Amazon reviews.  If we are looking for a doctor, we check HealthGrades or ZocDoc. If we are looking for a contractor,  we check Angie’s List.  If we are looking for the best local cafe, we check out Yelp!. But where do we go to find the best recruiter? Recruitsy!

What gave you the idea for your startup?

I was inspired to create Recruitsy after layoffs with a former employer. A few of my prior employees asked for some advice on which recruiters they should connect with to assist with their job search. I had established relationships with several recruiters in the market, so I could easily point them in the right direction.

That was really the “Aha! light bulb” moment. I recognized that the average job seeker was lacking access to this information and there wasn’t a “Yelp! For recruiters” app to voice their feedback on their recruiter interactions.

How do you envision the idea changing the landscape?

The consumerization of reviews in the staffing/recruiting industry will put more focus on human interactions, relationships, and candidate/client satisfaction.  Recruitsy empowers candidates to publicly rate their experiences which democratizes access to a centralized recruiter directory.

With this level of transparency, there will be a big shift to a performance driven culture that fosters more intense competition. Your brand will live and die by your online reputation.

There will be more focus on building proactive relationship and more placements will be made via word of mouth and referrals.

What does the phrase ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

Our people are the organization. So ‘hiring success’ really speaks to the hiring, cultivating, and retention of employees that are passionate and driven to pursue the company’s mission and vision

Establishing clear expectations from a candidate and employer perspective is vital, as is a creating culture that promotes transparency, feedback, empowerment, and accountability.

What is your favorite interview question and why?

What is your ‘why to buy message’?  Which translates into their elevator pitch and 30 second sale for why I should hire them. Our personal/career brand is everything and we should be prepared to quickly describe our value proposition. I’m looking for what makes this person unique relative to their peers. It’s also a question that they typically haven’t rehearsed coming into the interview.

What is the role of technology in hiring?

Technology should be viewed as the enabler of more human driven interactions that put emphasis on candidate experience. Hiring is a contact sport that requires human contact. Any technology that misses the candidate experience and only focuses on process efficiency, is not likely to survive the long-game.