Interview: Hanna Kontinen, Head of Talent & Culture at Brella

by Martin Peet | Oct 5, 2020 | HR

Event-tech start-up Brella is doing so well that they need to hire new talents to keep up with the demand. In the middle of a global pandemic.

How did they manage to capture the newfound opportunity in hybrid and virtual events? As it often is the case, the secret is in the company culture. To find out more, we interviewed Hanna Kontinen, Brella’s Head of Talent & Culture.

In the wide-ranging conversation, we go deep into Brella’s humble approach to developing diversity and inclusion. But also, inside look into the state of the event industry, how to recruit A-players and tips to people starting out in the tech sector.

The interview

Brella is one of the leading event networking platforms in the world. This year, however, has not been business as usual for the event industry. So my first question would be simple: how is Brella doing right now? 

Better than ever. 🙂 The industry was pretty much in a state of shock in March, but our company was in a better position to cater to virtual environments than many others. 

We were fortunate enough to have a quick turnaround in production and thus gain quite aggressive traction within the virtual event space. The bottle-neck was actually handling the volume of interest coming our way, thus we’re now in need of new hires.

What did you learn as a company this year while tackling all of the challenges?

I think we’ve learned a lot about our capability to make an impact whilst working together as a team. The company hadn’t had to face as significant hardship before, so this one really brought the team together. The crisis took a measure of our culture, processes and ability to be agile, all of which thankfully have been important topics for us over the past few years. 

Our most significant learning was that we need to continue to cherish and invest in our people and culture, as it is the only reason we’re doing so well at the moment.

The growing amount of evidence suggests that we will be in this partly closed economy for a while, maybe even for the next few years. This means a lot of soul-searching for the event industry, as there is a need for new virtual and hybrid event concepts. How do you see the future of the industry at Brella?

We can already see from the industry research and movement that at least hybrid event experiences are here to stay. Large conferences are on a pause for at least a couple of years, global attendee gatherings maybe even more. 

We as people will still be drawn to F2F experiences in the future, and the live elements of events are coming back. However, there is a lot of innovation that needs to happen meanwhile. Attendees and event sponsors will become more accustomed to the new virtual offerings, thus demanding a different set of expectations from the organizers. How the event organizers can adapt to those requirements and create a business out of it is the real challenge. 

You recently started hiring again for quite a few roles. And with that, you have renewed your focus on building a diverse and inclusive workplace. Why do you see it as a key to your future success? 

Yes, it has been pretty busy recruiting fall for us, and we have also started our D&I journey along the way. We are still at the very beginning of this journey, but the goal is to start building a strong foundation for our future growth!

We have 14 different nationalities and people from very different kinds of backgrounds, so diversity has always been part of our daily work. However, we understand that diversity is so much more than just different nationalities, so we are now planning to take a more proactive approach to embrace both diversity and inclusion.

We believe that diversity unlocks innovation by creating an environment where “outside the box” ideas are heard. Also, diversity and inclusion in the workplace make all employees feel accepted and valued. When employees feel accepted and valued, they are also happier in their workplace. Put the people first, and good things will follow. 💜

We believe that diversity unlocks innovation by creating an environment where “outside the box” ideas are heard.

How do you measure success when it comes to a diverse team and inclusive working culture at Brella? Do you have long term goals and KPIs for that?

We are still at the beginning of our journey, and this will most probably be a lifelong journey for Brella. I mean, can you ever really be ready with these themes? It’s a marathon, not a sprint. 

We are planning to launch anonymous D&I survey to measure these themes. We want to give our Brellaneers the voice so that we know how we could develop Brella as a company. Our long term goal is that D&I would not be a ‘thing’, but just a normal part of our daily work.

Could you share some key learnings from your experience in building a diverse and inclusive work culture so far?

1. D&I is something that both employees and candidates value a lot.
2. D&I is a very sensitive topic, and companies should be quite humble when developing these areas.
3. D&I is definitely a competitive advantage.
4. Companies should participate and listen to their employees. It’s all about collaboration!
5. Employees are asking a lot of questions, and they will challenge you, which is great! Just make sure you are ready to discuss it with an open mind. 

How does Brella take D&I aspect into consideration when making a new hire, including during the recruiting and onboarding process?

This is a million-dollar question! We are talking a lot about this topic, and we are planning on organizing unconscious bias training for both our Brellaneers and our hiring managers. We have a lot of people participating in the hiring process, which hopefully makes the decision-making more transparent. Also, we want to ensure that psychological safety is always there, starting from the very first interview round. Earn and extend trust. Build it, keep it, and be an example for others.

How do you usually find the candidates to hire in the first place? Do you publish a job offer and just wait? What % of hired candidates has been sourced and headhunted?

The dynamic has changed a lot during the past few years as the candidates often have the power to choose between companies. Employer branding is everything: companies which can communicate their “WHY” throughout the recruiting process will win the war for attraction.

Our Brellaneers have excellent networks, A players know other A players. 😉 So at the moment, the sourcing percentage is only around 5-10%.

Do you use any other channels for finding different talent? Do you have a different approach to hiring for specific roles?

Absolutely, different roles need different approaches, especially in tech fields. A company needs to reach out to the technical people, not the other way around, which is why we have partnerships such as with Junction and Dash. 💫

Also, our working language is English which provides us with a great opportunity to hire globally!

What advice would you give to people looking to get hired in a fast-growing tech company like Brella?

1. Be active and try to build good networks. People are usually ready to help, but you need to be proactive.
2. Do you lack relevant experience? Be open to volunteer works as well! These are usually great experiences and give you a glimpse of what it’s like to work in a fast-paced growth company.
3. Know where to look. For example, platforms like MeetFrank and TheHub are great places if you are looking for a job in a growth company.

To end the interview, let us focus on the state of diversity at a workplace in Finland for a moment. The international evidence seems to suggest that diverse teams perform better. For example, some studies have found that these teams are more innovative and generate higher profits. If D&I is, at some level, just good for the business, then why do you think there is still a need for a lot of educating and progress in the area?

Great question! Sometimes change is slow, and unfortunately, not everyone has realized this competitive advantage. Also, we have a lot of historical baggage on our shoulders, so it takes some time to change the habits of our working life.

However, we truly believe that inclusion encourages success. We trust that if employees feel welcomed into a work environment where success seems attainable for everyone, it encourages them to bring their best selves to work. And every employer wants that, right? This is also one of Brella’s values – humility, respect, and integrity are all easier to carry than a large ego.

We truly believe that inclusion encourages success.

Thank you very much for your time! At the end of every interview, we ask five rapid-fire questions.

What is your favourite question to ask at interviews?

“Can you tell us about a work project you are most proud of? What made you succeed?” 

What is the biggest mistake that job-seekers make when applying to a new job?

For some reason, most people still seem to write very generic job applications. Show your personality! 💫  Also, use concrete examples instead of just fancy words. 👌

What is the biggest challenge when hiring people to Brella?

We want to keep the bar high when it comes to culture, so we have to find people who are ready to live our Brella values. Innovation, Growth mindset, Brella spirit & Collaboration are the magic words. The biggest challenge is assessing these values during the relatively short hiring process.

What are your favourite recruitment tools and channels?

LinkedIn, MeetFrank, and the amazing networks of our Brellaneers. 💜

If you weren’t a recruiter, what would you do?

That’s a tricky one, I love my job! 😅 I would most likely work in a role where I could somehow develop today’s working life. We are on a good track, but there are still many things we could do better. 🙏 

5 Reasons to Start Hiring with MeetFrank

by Karola Karlson | Sep 9, 2020 | HR

Hiring top talent is easy: write a job offer, share it, do a couple of interviews and sign the contract.

If you tried to follow the above workflow, you’d soon bump onto the questions like “how to write a job offer?” or “how to get my job offer across to the right people?” or “how to decide between tens of applicants?”

Hiring isn’t that easy after all.

However, MeetFrank can make it times easier for you – no matter if you’re an experienced recruiter or the CEO of a small venture making your first hire. 

We’re here to help. 🙌

If you’re not exactly sure how MeetFrank is different from all the other hiring platforms out there, take a look at the main benefits of adding your job offers to the app.

It might sound too good to be true, so try it for yourself!

Yes, MeetFrank is real –  Image source

1. Create a hyper-targeted job offer in 5 minutes

MeetFrank’s mission is to transform the hiring process for both sides: employers and job-seekers.

For job-seekers, we have built a sleek app that sends them a notification every time a relevant job offer appears, and gives them information about job market trends (like salary levels in their industry).

Job-seekers download the MeetFrank app

Companies looking to hire talent can login to MeetFrank’s desktop platform for employers and set up the job offer in a few easy steps.

One of the best parts about MeetFrank’s job offer posting is that you don’t need to write a 1,000-words long essay of a job offer. 

Your MeetFrank job opening will be automatically compiled based on the small bits of information that you select during the setup process.

For example, you can select the seniority and skill set that you’re looking for and it will be visible in your job offer. No need to type it all out!

Read our guide on creating the perfect job opening in MeetFrank.

The only things that are left for you to describe in the written part of your job description are:

• Who are you looking for?
• What will be the main tasks of that person?
• Any additional information you would like to add

Here’s an example of a job opening text we created when hiring a marketer to MeetFrank’s team:

Once you have created your job offer(s) it’s time to make them visible! 👀

And with MeetFrank, you’ll have plenty of options for reaching top talent.

2. Get a beautiful job offer to be shared on social media

Every time you publish a new job offer in MeetFrank, there will be an auto-generated stylish landing page that you can access and share. 😍

Some companies hiring with MeetFrank are using their job offers instead of a Careers page – a great hack if you don’t have the resources to build a beautiful Careers website.

See an example job description page here.

You’ll get a job opening 2.0 with high-quality images, lots of context and all social media profiles included – perfect for sharing on your company’s social media accounts and for asking your team members to share with their networks.

The job offer page even features blog articles and media coverage about your company + your operating markets…

… and you can list all of your company’s social media accounts for easy access.

But hey, you don’t have to do all the heavy lifting on your on. We will also share your job offer with all relevant MeetFrank app users!

3. Automatically reach the talent pool of 300,000 people

More than 300,000+ job-seekers across Europe have downloaded the MeetFrank app. 

Every time you publish a job opening, our algorithms make sure that it reaches all the relevant job-seekers. 

We’d like to emphasise the word “relevant.” – Based on the details that you selected during the job offer’s setup process, we will find the best-matching candidates for the job. 

This way, you will get only relevant applicants and save hours of time on reviewing all the applications.

You can review all the candidate profiles conveniently on your MeetFrank Employer account, see their LinkedIn profiles, and chat with them to agree on the best interview timing.

4. Reach both active AND passive job seekers

There is one HUGE difference between the talent that you reach through the MeetFrank app vs on job portals…

MeetFrank app also helps you to reach passive talent – that’s people not actively looking for a job.

You can also reach passive talent with MeetFrank – Image source

Because you know… Only people actively looking for a new gig are checking the job search sites. And your perfect applicant might actually be currently employed and not looking for a new job in particular.

How do we do it? – By having thousands of users that check the MeetFrank app not because they necessarily need a new job, but because they’re curious about the latest job market trends.

5. Build your employer brand together with MeetFrank

We are serious about adding value for both sides on the MeetFrank job market: employers and job-seekers.

And when it comes to attracting top talent, one of the most valuable assets is a strong employer brand. 

Here’s one more BIG benefit of hiring with MeetFrank: We create cool marketing collaborations together with our clients to boost their visibility in the job market.

1. Special Facebook ads:

We regularly invest some 💵 in Facebook and Instagram advertising and promote the job openings of cool companies hiring with MeetFrank – to help you find more top talent and let people know that you’re hiring.

2. MeetFrank blog interviews

We regularly get in touch with the recruiters in some inspiring companies and interview them for a fascinating glimpse into their hiring processes and office life.

One such interview was with Nikolai Kabatsikov, Head of Talent at Bolt. Read it here!

Even better if the timing coincides with a positive announcement such as the next €100M fundraising round. 🎉

Want to be interviewed for the MeetFrank blog? Drop a hint to your sales representative and our marketing team will get in touch!

3. Seasonal marketing campaigns:

We love collaborating with the cool bunch of companies hiring with MeetFrank.

So we’re looking for creative ways to visit your office, talk to the people working there, and sharing our findings with the world.

In August 2020, we reached out to 50 companies across Europe and conducted a photoshoot in their offices. Not only did we share all the pictures with our clients, but we also created a Facebook ad campaign introducing all the companies and people working there.

All costs were covered by MeetFrank. 🤭

See an example of a Facebook ad that we created for Katana (among other 30 companies) below.

This campaign won’t certainly be the last one that we launch. There’s plenty more to come!

Building a better hiring experience ❤️

In MeetFrank, we believe that building long-term relationships with our customers and helping them find top talent is the key to success on all sides.

Let’s build your employer brand together!

If you don’t have a MeetFrank account yet, sign up here for a free trial.

Interview: Signe Virolainen, Head of HR at Fortumo

by Martin Peet | Aug 3, 2020 | HR

In case you haven’t heard: Boku, a publicly-traded company on the London Stock Exchange, bought Fortumo for up to 40M euros in a deal that was announced at the end of June. The exit is one of the largest in the Estonian start-up history.

A large part of the deal’s press coverage was about how Boku admired Fortumo’s team, which made us extremely curious to talk with the woman in charge of building it every day. 

In the interview, we’ll cover among other topics: What are Fortumo’s principles for building an outstanding company culture? What does their hiring process look like and how to be successful in attracting top talent? How has being acquired by a bigger company changed their everyday life? 🤔

The interview

It has to be especially satisfying to the Head of HR to hear your CEO Martin Koppel say in multiple interviews that Boku bought Fortumo mainly for the team. I know you joined Fortumo only this year, but well-deserved congratulations!

Thank you!

The deal got you a lot of media attention. Are more people reaching out to you to get a job in the company?

Yes, we have received more attention lately, and it is clear that the candidates are more aware of Fortumo. During the interviews, we get lots of questions about what the plans and goals for the future are.

Fortumo has rigorously built the hiring process and company culture over the years, and it’s something that you are very proud of. Was there a concern during the acquisition talks that things might change under new ownership?

It was exactly the opposite.

Management of both companies knew each other well for some time already. Fortumo team, culture, the way we work, our corporate image, what our customers talk about us, etc. were only some of the things Boku liked about Fortumo.

The main thing they admired was Fortumo’s ability to reinvent itself, adapt to the market, and innovate. This is very deep inside Fortumo culture where we acknowledge that when we keep doing the right thing for too long, we will lose the market. This means we invest ahead of the market based on the trends we see so we could be ready when industries are changing.

When we keep doing the right thing for too long, we will lose the market.

This is not something one can simply create or build, such a mindset has to come deep from company culture. This was the ability Boku admired, what they also wanted and why they did not want Fortumo to become Boku, but to continue independently to drive that culture and innovation for the group.

We are part of Boku´s team – but both companies will continue as a team with their own culture and processes. But if there is something that we can implement in Fortumo and we see it is valuable for us (and vice versa), we take over some new and shiny practices.

You joined Fortumo only in the spring of 2020, so you probably remember the hiring process well. How did Fortumo’s culture seem to you from the outside? How would you describe it now?

It is even better than it looked during the hiring process. Even then, everything seemed super great, but when I started my onboarding process, I discovered every day that Fortumo’s value proposition is multi-layered and exciting – and it still is. 

I am referencing Martin Koppel again, who said that in Fortumo employees stay motivated mainly because of the team, culture, and the mission, not because of the salary. However, your team is already 70+ people strong. How do you get the new hires still to buy into Fortumo’s mission and culture?

The fundamental thing when hiring to any company is to have a cultural match. Skills can be developed, but values and culture are mostly not the things people will change. So fundamentally no company should hire people and they get their buy into the culture, they should hire only people who correlate with the culture, otherwise, things will not work out.

Skills can be developed, but values and culture are mostly not the things people will change.

In addition, we are a cool and exciting partner for a candidate – it means that Fortumo offers candidates opportunities to grow with the company. Job is attractive, partners to work with are exciting, and the person has a chance to shape themself a dream role. We do not have a written job description; instead, we have expectations and we let people develop roles and find new tasks internally. So, we constantly change and improve our internal possibilities, and that means people inside the company have the potential to grow and discover new roles.

Employees indeed tend to stay a quite long time in Fortumo, which is not the case in every startup. I think more than half of your employees have been there for over three years. How do you keep the team motivated over long periods?

Indeed, more than half of the team has been at Fortumo for more than three years. Why? We have a bureaucracy-free atmosphere and going the extra mile is encouraged, even if mistakes are made along the line.

There are interesting relationships all over the processes and exciting environments that keep people here. Our management is people-oriented and encourages people to take the extra mile, we all ask questions how-to improve, and all team members push each other to achieve the goals while we all support each other. As we are rather a small team, then everyone’s contribution counts!

What are the main things that you are looking for in the new hires? Is it mainly about technical skill, culture fit or excitement about your mission?

All that you mentioned above but also passion, “can-do” and “work hard, play hard” attitude, and readiness to learn a lot to achieve the goals. So we are looking for people who are on the same page with us – as we are ambitious, curious, and also we contribute as one team, so we care for each other. Again, everyone counts!

Please tell me a bit about your hiring process. I have heard that it consists of three rounds and there’s a scorecard involved somehow.

Our hiring always starts with a scorecard where we write down what skills and what kind of person we need. As it is crucial to understand who we need, the purpose of that role and what we want to achieve, etc.

If the scorecard is ready, we create a recruitment flow – how many stages we need to validate the perfect teammate as we are looking for long term relationships where both parties are happy and continuously growing. Once these stages settled, we decide who will be the members who participate in the recruitment process. In general, they help to find people who fit our team best.

What suggestions do you have for an applicant to be successful in the process?

Be yourself and be brave.

How do you usually find the candidates to hire? We heard from Nikolai Kabatsikov, Head of Talent at Bolt, that only 30% of their hires come from active applicants. It means that they have to invest a lot of time and effort in innovative recruiting techniques. How are things for Fortumo?

We are looking for good employees among friends and enemies 😊 jokes aside, I use LinkedIn Recruiter, MeetFrank, our employee recommendations, different communities, external partners, etc.

And one more question for the end, something which has become quite mandatory these days. Have you revised the hiring plans for 2020 and 2021 in light of the potential economic slowdown?

As Martin has said several times: Fortumo’s team is growing, and we haven’t changed our hiring plans and will continue recruiting.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! To end the interview, we’ve got five rapid-fire questions for you.

What’s your favourite question to ask at interviews?

On scale 1 to 10, how weird you are?

What’s the biggest challenge when hiring people to Fortumo?

Finding and hiring the superheroes abroad, as some roles are unique, and seeing these people is a real challenge.

What are your favourite recruitment tools and channels?

LinkedIn, as it is the most common tool for HR, and there are different communities where to search. 

If you weren’t a recruiter, what would you do?

Mom definitely, but maybe a producer (I have lots of ideas but cannot achieve them all) or an extremely bad astronaut. 

Got any summer vacation plans?

I have 😊

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Photography by Mikko Leo Selg

Interview: Nikolai Kabatsikov, Head of Talent at Bolt

by Karola Karlson | Jun 29, 2020 | HR

After COVID-19 hit, Bolt, a ride-hailing service provider and the 3rd fastest-growing company in Europe, found itself in a unique position.

While Bolt’s competitors like Lyft and Uber were laying off up to 30% of their workforce, Bolt raised €100M in funding. 

Which left us all but wondering how the everyday work and life in the company feels these days. Are they getting more job applicants? Are they thinking about layoffs as well? How is the recruitment team spending their days? 👀 👀 👀

When I met with Nik, the Head of Talent at Bolt in the company’s kitchen for the first time after 3 months, I had SO many questions for him. So I figured that Nik would make for the perfect subject for the first interview in a series launching in MeetFrank blog.

He said YES! 😍

The interview

Thank you Nik for taking the time to answer!! In the past few months, there has been news about Bolt’s competitors laying off up to 30% of their team. How are things going at Bolt?

Things are great. We’ve managed to keep the whole team employed. Many companies were forced to lay off employees but we were lucky to avoid making such decisions. This is mainly due the way Bolt in being run – well-organised, cost efficient and financially strong.

Bolt just raised a €100M funding round. Are more people reaching out to you to get a job in the company? 

Closing the funding round in such circumstances was pretty remarkable and it will definitely help us grow faster. And you’re right, my linkedin inbox is getting a bit out of control 🙂 

However, I wouldn’t say that the number of job applications has dramatically increased after the funding round. There’s a moderate growth trend mainly due to our improved employer brand while there’s an overall decline in the job market.

As we mentioned earlier, a lot of tech companies have laid off some talented people in the past 3 months. Is Bolt trying to find and hire them?

Yes, we’re monitoring key talent from competition and hoping to hire some. To be honest, we’ve always done that.

How do you usually find the candidates to hire? Do you publish a job offer and just wait? What % of hired candidates has been sourced and headhunted?

Apart from traditional job postings we invest a lot of time and effort into headhunting, social media, referral programs, hiring events and innovative recruiting platforms.

Only 30% of hires come from active applicants, even less in tech jobs. This means that we have to go and find the talent ourselves. Waiting for job applications will not get us far.

Bolt has always praised itself for being the most efficient ride-hailing operator. Is hiring for such an efficient team different?

Bolt’s focus on efficiency can relate to each function inside the company, and recruiting is no different. We only hire when we need to. 

Priority is to solve problems with the use of technology and automation, not by throwing more people at the problem.

Have you revised the hiring plans for 2020 and 2021 in light of the potential economic slowdown?

We did. On one hand, we expect to hire less than in previous years and be mindful about the potential consequences of the crisis. On the other hand, we’re launching so many new products with ambitious plans to expand to new territories which means we’ll still grow the team quite significantly.

During COVID19 outbreak, hiring was paused in nearly all companies. What did the Bolt recruitment team do to stay productive? Did you have a chance to work on some things that you’d been planning to but never had the time for?

That’s true, we’ve also been postponing some hiring which is now fully back on track. 

During the down time we were focused on improving the systems, testing new tools and upgrading our own skills in online training and hackathons. In other words – sharpening our knives.

I happened to check out your LinkedIn profile and would say it’s the perfect example of a well-curated and informative profile. What are your top 3 suggestions to people looking to improve their LinkedIn profile to have higher chances to be found and hired?

1. Keep in short and precise – only write the things that matter, the achievements that count. I like straight-to-the-point linkedin profiles just as much as I like 1-pager CV’s. Nobody enjoys scrolling through essays of text.

2. Show some personality. We’re not hiring robots (yet), we’re building people teams. We’re looking for team members who will bring something new, not just “fit”in our culture but rather add to it. Whether it’s a fun fact, unique skill, impressive achievement or simply the way you describe your journey so far, be yourself and avoid the buzzwords.

3. Set your goals. Think about who do you want to get noticed by? Which companies and which fields do you want to get into? Find the people who currently occupy those roles and look for patterns in their profiles. What is it that they have and you don’t? Once identified, you can get on the right track and obtain the missing experience, skill or qualification required to get where you want to.

What advice would you give to people looking to get hired in a fast-growing hot tech company like Bolt? 

Reality is that working in fast-growing companies is hard, no matter which role or department it is. There’s always an enormous amount of work that needs to be done asap without sacrificing the quality. This often means long working hours and a fair amount of stress. Reward, however, is worth it with the amounts of learning and the quality of experience you’ll gather. 

My advice at first would be to evaluate your real motivation because startups and high growth companies are not for everyone. If you still want to join – try to obtain the needed qualifications as soon as you can, pimp up your LinkedIn profile and start job hunting. There will be a lot of rejections, failed interviews and high competition but perseverance will always get you there.

How have you set up Bolt’s recruitment team? Are you assigning hiring jobs to the team based on region, specialty, seniority or something else?

The recruitment team is split into two parts: technical (product & engineering roles) and non-technical (operations, HQ, sales and support roles). 

The rest is flexible as we don’t want the routine to take over. This means that each team member will work on a mix of senior and junior roles across a variety of locations. By doing that we’re always exploring new markets and meeting new people while sharing expertise inside the team.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! To end the interview, we’ve got 5 rapid-fire questions to you.

What’s your favourite question to ask at interviews?

Describe the achievement you’re most proud of.

What’s the biggest challenge when hiring people to Bolt?

Challenges vary per location and function. Talking about HQ, there’s a tiny local talent pool and a struggle to relocate the right people to Estonia. The increasing popularity of remote work will surely solve this soon.

What are your favourite recruitment tools and channels?

Linkedin recruiter, AmazingHiring, Mixmax and MeetFrank.

If you weren’t a recruiter, what would you do?

I’d be an unpopular singer or “the always injured” athlete.

Got any summer vacation plans?

Just Helsinki for shopping and Riga for partying. I’m also invited to a wedding in Bali but let’s see if the universe will make it happen, fingers crossed.

Recruiting During COVID-19: What Has Changed?

by Hannes Aava | Apr 7, 2020 | HR

The effects of quarantine are kicking in, and recruitment during COVID-19 is not the same as before.

Europe has gradually closed down and all of the countries represented in the MeetFrank job market. People are experiencing restrictions of movement and physical interaction at workspaces. And companies have thus found themselves in an unprecedented situation.

As global markets panicked and economic activity stopped in many sectors, the hiring slowed down in many companies. The recruitment sector, in general, seems to be in trouble as the recruitment giant ZipRecruiter has laid off roughly 40% of its staff.

Candor’s live feed on companies that are hiring, freezing hiring or laying off workers. – Source

Candor has released an extensive overview of over 1700 businesses, with 60% reporting hiring freezes. It is also clear from it that software development companies, although strongly affected, seem to be in the best spot when it comes to the hiring-layoffs ratio. Some will perish, some will come out of this even stronger.

But statistics aside, the crisis is most immediately felt by those who work with people and this is where HR managers and recruiters come into play. 

As physical interaction has fast become a total non grata, companies that already have or can switch to remote work with minimal effort will have a clear advantage. 

How is the current situation affecting recruiting efforts though?

We’ve spoken with recruiters working for some established tech companies – Bolt, Veriff, Supermetrics – about their practices of handling the crisis and steps to mitigate the short-term effects and mid-term effects of a social lockdown and economic uncertainty.

We hope that sharing their insight and MeetFrank data will help you navigate the tough times ahead.

Companies are hiring less, but more for remote work

As anticipated, the global crisis has started to have an effect on the job market as well. 

At MeetFrank, there has been a considerable drop in job offers, with a 13% fall taking place in March, compared to the steady growth that was happening the same time last year. 

The number of job applications saw a drop throughout in February and the first half of March, when the pandemic had already conquered headlines globally and the uncertainty regarding the economy started kicking in. 

According to Bolt’s recruiter Anna Golubchenko, this outcome is actually natural as people are cautious about job change especially in times of changes.

She added that ‘depending on how long the outbreak will last and its impact on businesses in the long term, we can expect more applications once the companies start to react and optimize their workforce according to the new demand and market conditions.’

This seems to be in process already as there has already been a steep rise in the number of applications to the jobs in the MeetFrank app that begun on the second week of March.

Remote job offers get much more applications

In times of quarantine, remote work has always been a societal necessity. The tradition goes far back as even Isaac Newton worked remotely for his studies during the plague, which paved the way to some of his greatest ideas.  

According to MeetFrank’s data, the number of remote work offers has nearly doubled compared to the situation in January.

The rise in the number of remote work applications is even more drastic – a 105% rise in the third week of March, compared to the same period in February and a staggering 135% rise compared to January.

At MeeFrank, we’ve reacted accordingly by launching a new remote work-only section in the app helping companies to make the transformation to remote work. You can also read our blog article about the benefits (and dangers) that remote work offers for companies and workers.

Want to see the remote offers that companies are hiring for? Check out this article with more than 90 remote job offers.

How are recruiters experiencing the effects of the pandemic? For what roles are companies still hiring?

During a pandemic, avoiding physical contact (and washing hands) has become the utmost act of responsibility and this forces companies to make fundamental changes to their processes. 

Recruitment is naturally one of the activities where a face-to-face meeting has always been a norm – well, not anymore!

Finnish marketing software developer Supermetrics recruiters Marika Salkola and Viivi Marttinen said they are still recruiting to all our open positions, but the biggest problem lies with deciding on starting dates, especially for candidates outside of Finland as the country is about to close entry for all foreigners.

“The biggest change for us has been shifting our whole recruitment process fully online, with all interviews happening through video. We believe this will be the way we’ll continue for the time being. Naturally, we will also have to plan a great online onboarding process for our new employees, which is totally new for us,” commented Salkola.

She predicts that the company might have to slow down recruitment in some teams, but currently, recruitment is moving forward unaffected. Supermetrics is currently hiring software engineers, sales executives, a performance marketing manager, a CMO, and other roles.. 

Supermetrics workers must be feeling sorrow for not being able to work from their awesome-looking Helsinki office  – Source

According to Kristiine Kukk at Estonia’s identity verification software developer Veriff, they have already found a new satisfactory way to continue hiring in the time where everybody is working remotely. 

Using some outside help, they have prepared a remote onboarding process that helps to bring people over smoothly into a team that is working 100% remotely. “All in all, we are continuing the same as we did before,” Kuke said.

Veriff continues to hire for all the same roles – we are looking for technical professionals – for example, front-end engineers – and other skilled professionals like legal counsel and sales professionals.

How are the job applicants reacting to the crisis?

Fears of a viral pandemic mixed with the fear of losing your work and thus, income – the workers have a two-sided sense of fear on their minds at the moment. 

Recruiters have felt the sense of unease emerging and Bolt’s Anna Golubchenko has offered a viable scenario for the course of events: “People are cautious about job change overall and in times of changes, such tendency grows. Depending on how the outbreak lasts and its impact on businesses in the long term, we can expect more applications, once the companies start to react and optimize their workforce according to the new demand and market conditions.“ 

She also predicts that “international applications will probably recede for a while, as most countries have closed their borders and flights have been canceled, so moving abroad is physically hard and people are not willing to take a double risk of a new job and the new country at an uncertain time.

Many people are also using the slowdown to take some time off and work on the projects they’ve been postponing for months.

Some people rediscover the projects they didn’t have time for before

In Finland, for Supermetrics the major changes haven’t kicked in yet. “Everyone has shown a lot of understanding towards the current situation and understands the process might be a little slower or the starting date might have to be a little further into the future than normal,” commented Marika Salkola.

In Estonia, Veriff has started moving candidates into video interviews instead of inviting them to their office already a few days before the emergency was declared. According to Kristiine Kukk the feedback from candidates was not positive at first as they felt like the company is overreacting. 

The situation changed immediately after the state of emergency was declared: “Everyone has been very understanding. Usually, during the first 5 minutes of interviews, we discuss the situation of the country they’re currently at, how they are feeling about working from home. You can feel the people taking the very humane approach and come together with finding solutions!” she added.

How to get through the crisis as a recruiter and prepare for recovery?

“Keep calm and carry on!” doesn’t seem to suffice in these times (did it ever?). The crisis demands for swift action from the head of HR, who might even be the person to tell the CEO’s how to act in this situation while recruiting decisions and communicating those decisions, is more vital than ever.

According to Kristiine, Anna, Marika and Viivi the key aspects of overcoming the crisis are:

🔊Communication

Anna Golubchenko, Bolt: “No matter what your strategy is – whether you continue to hire or pause hiring, communicate your next steps clearly to your active candidates.

Bi-weekly updates for everyone who are on hold will be a nice touch even if you actually do not have any news. Embrace yourself for a few nasty Glassdoor reviews and think about a long-term strategy for recovering: where to source? Which tools to use? Where to post? Maybe add additional benefits like working from home, childcare or health insurance that have proven to be in demand during the quarantine”.

💕 Empathy 

Marika Salkola, Viivi Marttinen, Supermetrics: “Show empathy. Even healthy people might have anxiety or stress about this situation, which is unlike anything most of us have had to go through before.

Remembering that your own company consists of people and those people might feel the effects of the covid-19 pandemic in different ways. Support and show understanding, now if ever it’s important for all of us to be there for each other.” 

🤜💥🤛 Supporting your company 

Kristiine Kukk, Veriff: “I think the key here is that recruitment is here to support the business. The key here is to take the humane approach, be understanding and solutions-oriented.

There are recruitment communities like Recruitment Thursday and Facebook group “Straight outta candidates” where people have come together and try to find solutions to the day to day challenges. Some companies are very heavily affected by the current situation and we already have some recruiters who are cooperating with each other to find a new job or a short term challenge.”

Marika Salkola, Viivi Marttinen, Supermetrics: “Try to adapt your recruitments to the current situation by running the processes online. If your employer is pausing ongoing recruitments, then now is the perfect time to take a step back and think about how to improve your processes, rethink the hiring needs and schedule for the rest of the year in the ideal situation and worst-case scenario or to brainstorm for new recruitment marketing materials!”

Smells like Team Spirit: Supermetrics holds regular web meetings and socialising events to keep the spirit high

Other great ideas that Supermetrics launched were introducing daily remote hangouts and encouraged their team to continue our social events online, offering child care benefit for employees with small children, introducing more flexible with the working hours – people can now you work whenever they are able to; communicating actively about how the company is doing financially to alleviate stress people might feel. 

What lies ahead in the upcoming months?

Anna Golubchenko (Bolt) is confident that there will be a change in the job market that is in favor of companies. “Some businesses will be severely affected and have to lay off people or offer unpaid leaves. In the first case, that means the number of applicants will grow naturally and as the demand for jobs grows, there will be a slight drop in salaries.” As we noted before, this already seems to have started according to MeetFrank data. 

Anna went on to theorise that unpaid vacations will allow people to pick up short-term gigs and freelance projects varying from couriers, drivers, retail workers, and customer support as well as software development, marketing, and design. 

Experiencing a decline in ride-hailing Bolt itself has actually already changed a lot in their operations, putting several functions on hold, while also adding new services and products like food and groceries and even a bookstore to their list of companies available at Bolt Food. According to Anna Golubchenko there will be more important functions added, as the countries go deeper into lockdown.

Puänt Books is one of the new stores available at Bolt Food now. – Source

Kristiina Kukk (Veriff) states that everything depends on the state of emergency and whether it is possible to relocate candidates. They are considering hiring relocating candidates first as remote workers and moving them to Estonia as soon as the situation allows it. “As Veriff’s business grows, recruitment will go on as well. Hopefully, in the next two months, the situation will calm more as well.”

To help job-seekers around the globe, we have launched the Remote Work Feed in our app. All new companies hiring with MeetFrank will have a free trial and we will extend it throughout the crisis. Help the community by adding all your remote job offers to the MeetFrank app. Get started.