Employing the best hand for a job is a long, arduous, painful and stressful process because you have to sort thousand of curriculum vitae. In the end, you may not employ the best person to fill the vacancy. This process is not sustainable. But thanks to Kenya’s Shortlist which is deploying the latest technology in its recruitment process, growing enterprises can now round up their recruitment in a matter of hours or days. Innovation-village had an interview with the Managing Director of Shortlists. The MD told us about what Shortlists does and how it is leveraging technology to help growing enterprises hire based on skills, not pedigree. Excerpts
About Shortlist?
Shortlist was founded in 2016 and works in India and East Africa to help growing enterprises hire based on skills and potential, rather than pedigree. The Shortlist platform screens candidates using predictive chat-based interviews and online competency-based assessments, letting employers skip the most time-consuming and bias-prone phases of hiring.
Motivation for establishment
Shortlist is on a mission to unlock the professional potential for all job seekers and help companies build great teams. Shortlist was established with the aim of matching job seekers with amazing career opportunities and making hiring an easier and smarter process for employers. The Shortlist product suite screens candidates using predictive chat-based interviews and skills assessments. This offers Kenyan employers the opportunity to streamline and improve recruitment, and Kenyan candidates the chance be considered for jobs based on their demonstrated skills and merit, instead of just their CV.
Recently raised $2 million from Blue Haven Ventures
Blue Haven Initiative led the funding round with participation from several investors in Africa and the US including Compass Venture Capital and Zephyr Acorn. Other than furthering our mission of unlocking professional potential by connecting job seekers with amazing job opportunities, we will use the funds to expand outreach to job seekers, improve our algorithmic matching, and expand geographically.
Tackling unemployment
Africa has a huge untapped talent mine. The problem lies in the gaping hole between the number of people seeking work, and the number of jobs actually available. There’s also a growing mismatch between the skills young people have today and the skills that employers are demanding. Shortlist uses new approaches to education, skills development, and opportunity-matching to prepare the kind of ready-to-rock talent pools that can, over time, attract the large scale job creation we need. Most small and growing business and candidates love and are already using our products. This is because our product allows companies to assess what candidates can do before they hire them which wouldn’t be possible to achieve when using CV only in the screening process. We also hold candidate engagement sessions that teach soft skills – communication, problem-solving, and teamwork – to help candidates in their professional development journey.
Metrics for success
The number of clients we’ve helped with recruitment, number of successful placement of candidates to jobs, client and candidate satisfaction and reduction of time to placement
Plans for the next five years?
Expand outreach to job seekers, improve our algorithmic matching and Expand our footprint within and beyond East Africa
Challenges
Changing the mindset of recruitment teams in relation to what they should be spending their time on: Some recruiters still prefer using manual processes in recruitment such as sifting through CVs one by one, as opposed to using technology for increased efficiency. Bringing dignity back to the candidate application experience.
Kenyan tech space
Most companies are incorporating technology in their processes to increase their efficiency and cut down on operation costs in the long run.
Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
Challenge yourself. Life gives us an opportunity to learn more and better ourselves every day, use it and build a great team. A team will increase your odds of succeeding in business. Set yourself up for success by investing time and resources in building a great team to work with.
