Developing Tech: Who Are talent.io?

While Europe’s software developer workforce continues to grow – 2018 saw 200,000 new developers, taking the total to 5.7 million – this still does not meet industry demand. Europe is currently missing one million software engineers, and according to Korn Ferry’s “The Future of Work” study, it is about to get a whole lot worse over the next decade. London is expected to suffer as it remains Europe’s number 1 destination for global tech investors. 

We caught up with talent.io‘s UK director, John Hazelton, to find out more about what talent.io is doing to help reduce the gap between tech talent and growing demand for tech talent from companies.

Can You Tell Us a Bit About talent.io?

talent.io is a selective, reverse recruitment platform for tech profiles. The current market is unbalanced, with the demand for tech candidates much greater than the availability. Hiring quality talent is becoming increasingly difficult, therefore we provide companies with a continuous source of high quality and highly responsive profiles.

How Did talent.io First Come to the UK and What’s Your Role in it all?

I have been in the recruitment space for 11-12 years now. The recruitment industry as a whole doesn’t have a very good reputation and I was particularly frustrated with the lack of transparency that was evident when I started out. Therefore, I began my own business “GO Digital Recruitment”, with the objective of building good relationships with hiring companies and their managers who are looking to recruit tech profiles.

I was successfully achieving this but on a very local scale, so when talent.io came to acquire my business I was very excited that they were looking to build relationships with companies and scale this idea across Europe. Furthermore, the reversed recruitment platform and direct communication between tech candidates and hiring companies was a very unique business model. I was able to apply my local knowledge of the UK recruitment industry to a French company that has become Europe’s largest hiring platform for software developers and other tech candidates.

How Have You Progressed Since Then?

I launched talent.io in the UK in 2016 with no one else in the team. I made some great connections at London and Partners and incubators such as WeWork, who helped raise awareness about what talent.io was doing to help businesses. To begin, talent.io was on a mission to help startups by being the simplest way to build a great tech team. Between January 2016 and January 2017 our revenue grew 4 times over in the UK alone, with similar levels of growth between January 2017 and January 2018.

We are no longer working with just tech startups but also larger enterprises as they start to see the benefit of working with a unique marketplace platform like ours. Our mission is now to be the simplest way for all companies to find tech profiles and build a great tech team.

Tell Us More About the Reverse Recruitment Platform? What Does it Mean?

Reverse recruitment is very simple actually. Rather than the traditional process where candidates apply to jobs, companies reach out directly to candidates through our platform. As a result, talent.io has an extremely active marketplace consisting of hiring companies and quality candidates, with a 99% response rate from candidates to companies who request an interview.

The objective for us is to empower businesses and software developers to connect directly, making sure they are in complete control of the recruitment process.

There’s a Lot of Competition in London, so How is talent.io Different?

talent.io has the human touch that no other competitor provides. Most businesses these days are looking to scale and this results in moving away from a human centric approach to an automated business process.

At talent.io, we automate to be efficient. This means using automation to remove inefficiencies in the business. However, we know the importance of keeping things human. The human-centric approach is the added value of talent.io, ensuring that our candidates are highly qualified and actively seeking a new job role. With this approach we are able to connect 5000+ companies with the best tech talent in Europe and ensure that the fit between the hiring companies and candidates is the right one.

Do you Have any Tips for Startups Looking to Open in London?

I would try to connect with as many local supporters such as London and Partners or Techhub, as they can offer a lot of benefits including financial advice. Furthermore, I strongly recommend prioritising internal recruitment. If you don’t hire the right people, then you will face problems down the line. Take the time to hire the right people, and give all applicants a good recruitment experience.

What’s Next for talent.io?

The primary objective will be expansion in the UK. We are already expanding across Europe as we now operate in 4 different countries: UK, France, Germany and Netherlands. UK expansion will take place internally as we increase our team to 35+ by the end of 2019 and externally as we look to provide our services in new UK cities to better help businesses/startups who operate outside of London.

For more information about talent.io, check out their website here