August 17, 2023 • 19 mins
Are you ready to meet the game-changer in the hiring arena? We're bringing you an insightful conversation with Kashif Aftab, the innovative CEO of SkillGigs, a platform that's shaking up the staffing industry. With its unique approach to talent marketplace, SkillGigs is ensuring that travel nurses and software programmers craft their career paths with the best contract opportunities. But it isn't just about job listings, SkillGigs offers a secure credentialing vault for safeguarding your essential documents and a 3D resume tool which gives software engineers the edge by presenting their skills and experiences in an interactive way. So, what's in store for SkillGigs' future? Stick around to hear about the expansion plans for other specializations.
But that's not all. What if the job hunting process could be more than just a chore? SkillGigs is turning the tables by revolutionizing the job bidding process. Imagine a world where the intimidation of negotiations is non-existent, the process is transparent, and recruitment feels like a swift 'speed dating' experience. This platform is ushering in the era of gamified job hunting, making it thrilling for job seekers and recruiters alike. Be prepared to explore how SkillGigs is weaving magic by quickly filling roles, ensuring that the crème de la crème of talent is found and hired. Join us as we uncover the future of recruitment with Kashif Aftab.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Recruiting Daily's Use Case Podcast, a
show dedicated to thestorytelling that happens or
should happen when practitionerspurchase technology.
Each episode is designed toinspire new ways and ideas to
make your business better as wespeak with the brightest minds
in recruitment and HR tech.
That's what we do.
Here's your host, WilliamTincup.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is William Tincup and you're listening to
the Use Case Podcast.
Today we have Kashiifo and fromSkillGigs We'll be learning
about the Use Case or theBusiness Case, cost Benefit
Analysis, etc.
Like how do you justify buyingsoftware In this case?
How do you justify buyingSkillGigs, kashiifo?
Would you do us a favor andintroduce yourself, make sure I
(00:47):
got the conversation you'regiving me correctly and also
tell us a little bit aboutSkillGigs.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Thank you, william, absolutely.
My name is Kashiifo Afba, ceoof SkillGigs.
Founder and CEO of SkillGigs.
Skillgigs is a talentmarketplace where we're
disrupting your typical staffingindustry and converting the
staffing process into takingthat into a technology process,
if you will, and usingtechnology to help travel nurses
(01:15):
, as well as softwareprogrammers, land their next
contract gigs across the country.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I like that.
So right now, we're focused onthose two niches, or can we do
everything in between?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
No, we're totally focused on those two niches.
That's our bread and butter.
We have over 200,000 candidateswho have joined SkillGigs in
the last couple of years.
A lot of them are travel nursesand nurses, software
programmers, developers,engineers, database developers,
etc.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, a lot about nurses and trouble nurses in
particular is everything can begridded out.
They either have a degree orthey don't.
They either have certificationor they don't.
They have a specialization orthey don't.
They've worked in, whateverthey worked in or for how long
they have If you can almost seea matrix of they're a nurse and
a nurse to assist, they've gottheir certifications, they've
(02:05):
done all that stuff and they'vebeen doing it for 10 years.
It seems like that's easy togrid out.
Have you all seen the samethings?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It is easy to grid out absolutely, but I think the
challenge is how do you bring itall together and organize it in
a manner that it's affected forthe hiring managers.
They get the best out of it.
That's one of the problemstatements, the use cases which
is like a lot of these nurseshave background checks, they
have a licensure checks there'sso much that goes on when you're
(02:37):
in a healthcare deliverysituation and when you're
servicing acute care facilities.
That's one of the problems thatwe solve using SkillGigs, which
is you keep all of everythingin this one credentialing system
that we created a Vault, if youwill that is constantly updated
and the workflow, the userexperience and the UI is simple
(02:58):
and easy enough that you cankeep coming back and using it as
a nurse or as a hiring manageron the other side.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh, that's nice and you called it a.
It's a board.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's a Vault like a SkillGigs credentialing Vault.
Wherever you are, the documentsare secured, because a lot of
this stuff is proprietary andyou want to keep people's
information as secure aspossible.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
What I love about that is the portability.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, you can take that wherever they want.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes, I love that.
And the hiring managers again,they can take that, they move to
another place, they can thensign back up, et cetera.
I can see some symmetry betweensoftware is engineers and
nurses.
Is there a desire or anappetite down the road to go
after other types ofspecializations?
Are you good where you're at?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, no, a great question.
I think the name skill gigsderives from a vision that
anything that we can measureskills on we want to promote
within the marketplace and helplend them their next home jobs
or contract jobs, whatever itmay be.
Initially we started skill gigsas a focused business on
(04:06):
contract nurses or travel nursesand contract software
developers and engineers, etc.
But over the years we keptgetting hit and being asked to
open it up for full-time workersas well, and we did, and so a
lot of full-time job seekers arealso using skill gigs as a
different way than your typicalIndeeds and LinkedIn of the
(04:27):
world, which is a little bitmore static and more core
calling-based concepts, whereasthis is more of a using a
technology to promote a certaincandidate and then promote a
certain job and then bring themtogether.
So we use that concept in thefull-time as well.
So yes, short answer iseventually we're looking at
(04:48):
other skills that could bemeasured and graded in some
manner and bring them into skillgigs as well.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And again it's I like the phrase of credentialing a
platform, being able to actuallymake sure, validate these
things, which is reallyimportant.
I can see that both whereyou're at, with nurses, but also
with engineers.
Yeah, able to understand theold, to understand their skills.
Are you doing more of thetesting or how do you credential
(05:18):
them, if you will?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, great question.
Actually, we started skill gigsif the first market that we
attacked was software engineersin the Silicon Valley and we're
like, let's target these folksand see if they adapt to skill
gigs, and that was our riskassumption back when we started.
And what we did for them is webuilt something called a 3D
resume, which we patented andwhat it is.
(05:40):
That you come in and when youset up your profile in skill
gigs as part of that process, wegive them an option to go
create the 3D resume and wefeature that as a personal brand
building tool within skill gigsor a feature.
And what you do is you come inand you tell us, hey look, I've
been working on Java J2E in thisparticular job and I thought my
(06:03):
time in this job is spent with,let's say, microservices or API
development or cloud work, etc.
And we start gathering thesedata points from you in this
profile development and thenwhat we do is we take that away
a career and in your job and westop populating these bubbles in
a 3D resume format and we givethese percentages to that
(06:26):
particular document so peoplecan look at your 3D resume and
within seconds determine whatkind of a developer you are and
what are your real skills versuswhat are your strong skills
versus what are your weak skills, etc.
And that kind of helps in thatprocess of credentialing is what
you mentioned earlier andthat's something that we have
(06:49):
done proprietary in skill gigsto give developers that brand
effect, if you will.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I like the thing is, I like the three-dimensionality
of that to understand what theyhave.
And also, what's great about AIis it can then see something
that's not stated but it'simplied If they're doing this,
they're also doing this.
They can round that out.
And then what's great is if thehiring manager has an idea of
(07:20):
what they're looking for not ina list, not bullets, but the old
way, right.
Okay, I need this checklist ofthings, but if they can look at
something and build something tothree-dimensionality to
understand these are the skillsthat we need right now, but also
the potentiality of these otherskills.
Does this person have some ofthose skills and some of that
(07:42):
potentiality?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Now the potentiality is all key.
And look, even today,recruiters are using edit fine
on resumes to find keywords thatmatch what the hiring manager
is looking for, right, right,and keywords don't tell the
right story, right, a keywordmight just be there because that
is something that a person wason a team doing a certain skill
set, but really they didn't havehands-on knowledge of it.
(08:05):
And it's akin to, let's say,you need heart surgery.
You want to go to a surgeon whodoes at least 15, 20 surgeries
a month, versus a surgeon thatdoes two.
And I think same thing holdsfor hiring developers.
If you're hiring for a certaintech or you're trying to solve a
certain problem, you want toknow that this person had
hands-on knowledge on this.
Obviously, that's what you tryto validate in an interview
(08:28):
process.
But what we said was why don'twe validate this for you at a
primary level in a 3D resumeformat, so that you're not
wasting your time talking tosomebody?
That's not a fit for you?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
What's great about that is it's also great for
candidates.
So we can obviously see thegreat part for hiring managers
or recruiters, because itbubbles up.
It bubbles up the people thatare the most appropriate.
You can't spend time on all 100candidates.
It just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, you absolutely cannot do that.
You cannot spend time on 100candidates.
You want to have a targetedlist, then it helps.
As you said, it helps on the AIside as well.
A lot of these data points thatwe're collecting and that's the
AI engine that we're building,which comes from our perspective
.
The goal is that once we trackyour hiring habits for certain
(09:21):
roles and the 3D res many hiringhabits coming together starts
giving us a lot better idea ofwhat works for you and what kind
of candidates to bring to youwhen you're both in jobs or when
you're recruiting.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I like that because it also gives some flexibility
for both sides of things thatchange.
We're doing such a rapidchanging market with AI and
everything else that's going onin our lives that sometimes they
used to say this about booksthe very moment that you publish
the book is the very momentit's out of date.
It's the same way with jobdescriptions and this old way of
(09:58):
recruiting that you post a joband that made sense at that
moment.
A month later, it doesn't makeas much sense Having the
flexibility of understandingwhat again, which candidates to
focus on, who's the most matchedto it currently, but also who
has some upside.
(10:18):
Let me ask you a little bitabout the marketplace itself For
the candidate or employer.
With a candidate, how do yousign candidates?
Write me a balustrade.
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
We built SkillGigs to mimic your typical e-commerce
marketplace, other marketplacesand platforms out there, so we
wanted people to have a verysimple, easy to use user
experience into SkillGigs.
So you come in, you sign up, youcreate a skill listing, you
create your profile, you publishit and then you enter the
(10:56):
e-commerce marketplace, if youwill.
Now the secret sauce and all ofthat is our bidding process,
which basically allows thecandidate to transparently go
bid on jobs and, vice versa, theemployer to come and bid on you
, so the employer is actuallyapplying to you through the
bidding process.
It allows for a couple ofthings to happen.
Number one it means there'sreal action, real jobs, right,
(11:18):
and everything is just sped up,if you will.
So it's speed dating in thatsense.
But what it also does is itjust takes away this whole fear
of negotiations that happens fora lot of folks out there who
are trying to find a job, andthen creates this transparency
where now the staffing agency isnot determining the economics
of the job, with their ownmargins sometimes going up or
(11:38):
sometimes coming down.
Whatever it is, it's all hiddenin the staffing world, but in
our world it's all transparentand board parties negotiate a
placeholder, if you willcompensation first and then they
get to an interview.
So that's how the process works.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I like that a lot.
I like that a lot and it makessense to me because it's like
again, it makes everyone movefast.
So they're always sitting on aresume, so to speak.
Now the hiring manager can'twait around, because talent's
not going to wait for you.
And it's also great forcandidates, because they get to
know their market value.
Put something out there.
And if you put something outthere, let's say $150 an hour
(12:17):
and no one bites.
Yeah, you know for a fact thatthe market's telling you OK, but
you don't know that in the kindof the historical or
traditional way you don't know.
You just ask for something andthey either say yes or no and
there's no way to actually know.
Let me ask you a couple ofbuying questions.
One is your favorite part ofthe demo when you get to show
(12:42):
skill gigs to somebody for thefirst time.
What's your favorite part?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I think for me personally, it is when they get
into the marketplace and theyget to see the candidates live
interacting right then and there.
That's speed to recruit.
When they see that and whenthey get that happy look on
their face which is like, oh myGod, the relief that the can is
right there and I'm not havingto go through a whole pipeline
(13:07):
of cold calling, engaging andall the other stuff that happens
in recruitment.
I think that is that happymoment when they see that when
I'm looking for a director ofnursing or I'm looking for an
AWS developer or a Javadeveloper with certain important
skills that I need, for example, kubernetes or something like
that and right there, there'snot just one person.
There's 50 people in themarketplace right in front of me
(13:29):
that are active, not just namesthat I have to go contact
myself.
That is the most familiar demo.
That's the best moment.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I can see that being really exciting.
You know, I don't know if youever watched an eBay bid where
it gets down to the last minuteand people are just crazy doing
jockeying and doing differentthings.
There's an excitement to that.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Absolutely.
There's gamification to it andI think there's relief to it,
but I really love the fact thatit's like look, all of us who
are responsible for some kind ofa project or running anything.
You cannot do that without goodpeople on your team.
We know that not successdirectly related to the team
that we put together and I thinkif you ask anybody who's
managing anything or leadinganything, they would tell you
(14:11):
that their biggest fear is nothaving the right person, the
right role and then failingbecause of that.
And I think that sucks right.
And especially in healthcare,where there's a direct
correlation between filling thatrole and being able to save
lives.
Being able to providehealthcare and the speed and
time needed to do that is soessential, which was very
(14:34):
obvious to us during COVID times, where a lot of our new
customers who started up with usthey really came to us because
they were struggling to fillthese roles in their hospital
settings and especially inHouston, which is the fourth
largest city.
But you know what?
They were being outcompeted bycities like New York and LA and
(14:56):
Chicago and those places andthat relief when they were able
to bring in hundreds of nursesto their floors through skill
gigs was just an amazing thingto watch and see.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
That's fantastic.
Okay, so two things once buyingquestions, like for the
employer side what are questionsthat, if they've never used a
marketplace, if they've never,obviously they've never used
skill gigs.
What questions should they beasking your sales team when they
first interact with them?
They first do the demo and seesomething they've never seen
(15:28):
before, like what questionswould you love for them to be
asking?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yes, that's a great question.
I think the number one questionthey should be asking is how do
we defer from your typical andI'm talking about procurement
right Contractors or travelnurses?
So this is a procurementdepartment that is already using
a VMS or a different MSP model,and they should be coming in
and asking like look, how doesdirect sourcing help me fill my
(15:57):
contracting and procurementneeds and how does it save me
money and how do you ensure thatthe talent you have is as good
as your old model?
And I'm gonna get that in, atleast I'm gonna fill the same
model roles or more through youversus using your traditional
model.
I think those are top two orthree questions I would ask, as
a customer coming in, if I was acustomer who's looking for a
(16:17):
contract now, if I was acustomer who was looking to fill
poem roles and a lot of ourcustomers do both in skill gigs
they come into fill poem rolesas well as the contractor and
travel roles as hospitals Iwould ask myself how does this
help my recruiters, bring downmy cost of acquisition, reduce
my time to fill and ensure thatI get access to the best talent
(16:41):
possible in today's environment?
And then, how is this differentfrom me using a LinkedIn
recruiter, or indeed, and howdoes this really help me from?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
the data.
I think.
I think that's pretty just inthis phone call.
I think that's prettyself-evident.
That's the again.
Those are both all those things.
You have a place, the recruiteror all those places.
They all have a place, but notwhen it comes to something
that's specialized.
I just don't.
I think you need somethingspecialized that understands the
(17:11):
hiring manager's needs and thecandidate's needs.
The last thing is to shift yourfavorite success story without
telling brand names or any ofthat type of stuff.
But just what are your favoritestory that you like to tell
people, or your most recentfavorite story that you like to
tell people about skill gigs?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah, I think I'll go back to the time when the
largest hospital system inHouston approached us to help
them out during the throes ofCOVID, and the fact that we were
able to supply them with nursesat scale.
I think we ended 2021 bysupplying them with at least 500
to 600 nurses and became thetop vendors when it came to
procuring these nurses in justin time.
(17:49):
I think the fact that we hadsuch a direct impact on people's
lives during the scariest,probably, moment in American
history, in the last maybe Idon't know 40 years, where we
were actually dealing with stuffand not we had Cold War.
But in Cold War we were allthinking something might happen
here, but in the pandemic itactually happened.
(18:09):
Unfortunately, millions oflives were lost all over the
world, and being able to impactthat and being able to supply
the nurses and manage thatsupply chain using technology
was an extremely proud moment.
And then everything our teamdid to step up I think I can't
say enough about the leadershipteam, about the people who were
(18:30):
helping the hiring managers andas well as the nurses, to get
going and move at speed anddoing whatever it takes.
I think that was especially aproud moment I don't think I'll
ever forget that, in whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I do Drinks, mike.
Walk us on stage, brother.
I love what you've built and Ilove the markets that you're
serving and the way that you'reserving with credentialing and
the marketplace.
I just love it.
At least it's a wonderful wayto help talent Both.
Talent never sleeps.
Talent moves really fast.
It's moving even faster todaythan it was a year ago and that
(19:05):
helps everybody.
It helps the hiring managers ifthey want to move fast, and
they usually do if they want tomove fast.
You can't move as fast as thecadence are moving.
So I just love what you'vebuilt and thank you so much for
coming on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Oh man, thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure and greatquestions, and let's do this
again sometime 100%, 100% andthanks for everyone listening.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Until next time.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
You've been listening to Recruiting Daly's Use Case
Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe on yourfavorite platform and hit us up
at RecruitingDalycom.
Welcome to Recruiting Daily's Use Case Podcast, a
show dedicated to thestorytelling that happens or
should happen when practitionerspurchase technology.
Each episode is designed toinspire new ways and ideas to
make your business better as wespeak with the brightest minds
in recruitment and HR tech.
That's what we do.
Here's your host, WilliamTincup.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is William Tincup and you're listening to
the Use Case Podcast.
Today we have Kashiifo and fromSkillGigs We'll be learning
about the Use Case or theBusiness Case, cost Benefit
Analysis, etc.
Like how do you justify buyingsoftware In this case?
How do you justify buyingSkillGigs, kashiifo?
Would you do us a favor andintroduce yourself, make sure I
(00:47):
got the conversation you'regiving me correctly and also
tell us a little bit aboutSkillGigs.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Thank you, william, absolutely.
My name is Kashiifo Afba, ceoof SkillGigs.
Founder and CEO of SkillGigs.
Skillgigs is a talentmarketplace where we're
disrupting your typical staffingindustry and converting the
staffing process into takingthat into a technology process,
if you will, and usingtechnology to help travel nurses
(01:15):
, as well as softwareprogrammers, land their next
contract gigs across the country.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I like that.
So right now, we're focused onthose two niches, or can we do
everything in between?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
No, we're totally focused on those two niches.
That's our bread and butter.
We have over 200,000 candidateswho have joined SkillGigs in
the last couple of years.
A lot of them are travel nursesand nurses, software
programmers, developers,engineers, database developers,
etc.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, a lot about nurses and trouble nurses in
particular is everything can begridded out.
They either have a degree orthey don't.
They either have certificationor they don't.
They have a specialization orthey don't.
They've worked in, whateverthey worked in or for how long
they have If you can almost seea matrix of they're a nurse and
a nurse to assist, they've gottheir certifications, they've
(02:05):
done all that stuff and they'vebeen doing it for 10 years.
It seems like that's easy togrid out.
Have you all seen the samethings?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
It is easy to grid out absolutely, but I think the
challenge is how do you bring itall together and organize it in
a manner that it's affected forthe hiring managers.
They get the best out of it.
That's one of the problemstatements, the use cases which
is like a lot of these nurseshave background checks, they
have a licensure checks there'sso much that goes on when you're
(02:37):
in a healthcare deliverysituation and when you're
servicing acute care facilities.
That's one of the problems thatwe solve using SkillGigs, which
is you keep all of everythingin this one credentialing system
that we created a Vault, if youwill that is constantly updated
and the workflow, the userexperience and the UI is simple
(02:58):
and easy enough that you cankeep coming back and using it as
a nurse or as a hiring manageron the other side.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh, that's nice and you called it a.
It's a board.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's a Vault like a SkillGigs credentialing Vault.
Wherever you are, the documentsare secured, because a lot of
this stuff is proprietary andyou want to keep people's
information as secure aspossible.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
What I love about that is the portability.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, you can take that wherever they want.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes, I love that.
And the hiring managers again,they can take that, they move to
another place, they can thensign back up, et cetera.
I can see some symmetry betweensoftware is engineers and
nurses.
Is there a desire or anappetite down the road to go
after other types ofspecializations?
Are you good where you're at?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, no, a great question.
I think the name skill gigsderives from a vision that
anything that we can measureskills on we want to promote
within the marketplace and helplend them their next home jobs
or contract jobs, whatever itmay be.
Initially we started skill gigsas a focused business on
(04:06):
contract nurses or travel nursesand contract software
developers and engineers, etc.
But over the years we keptgetting hit and being asked to
open it up for full-time workersas well, and we did, and so a
lot of full-time job seekers arealso using skill gigs as a
different way than your typicalIndeeds and LinkedIn of the
(04:27):
world, which is a little bitmore static and more core
calling-based concepts, whereasthis is more of a using a
technology to promote a certaincandidate and then promote a
certain job and then bring themtogether.
So we use that concept in thefull-time as well.
So yes, short answer iseventually we're looking at
(04:48):
other skills that could bemeasured and graded in some
manner and bring them into skillgigs as well.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And again it's I like the phrase of credentialing a
platform, being able to actuallymake sure, validate these
things, which is reallyimportant.
I can see that both whereyou're at, with nurses, but also
with engineers.
Yeah, able to understand theold, to understand their skills.
Are you doing more of thetesting or how do you credential
(05:18):
them, if you will?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, great question.
Actually, we started skill gigsif the first market that we
attacked was software engineersin the Silicon Valley and we're
like, let's target these folksand see if they adapt to skill
gigs, and that was our riskassumption back when we started.
And what we did for them is webuilt something called a 3D
resume, which we patented andwhat it is.
(05:40):
That you come in and when youset up your profile in skill
gigs as part of that process, wegive them an option to go
create the 3D resume and wefeature that as a personal brand
building tool within skill gigsor a feature.
And what you do is you come inand you tell us, hey look, I've
been working on Java J2E in thisparticular job and I thought my
(06:03):
time in this job is spent with,let's say, microservices or API
development or cloud work, etc.
And we start gathering thesedata points from you in this
profile development and thenwhat we do is we take that away
a career and in your job and westop populating these bubbles in
a 3D resume format and we givethese percentages to that
(06:26):
particular document so peoplecan look at your 3D resume and
within seconds determine whatkind of a developer you are and
what are your real skills versuswhat are your strong skills
versus what are your weak skills, etc.
And that kind of helps in thatprocess of credentialing is what
you mentioned earlier andthat's something that we have
(06:49):
done proprietary in skill gigsto give developers that brand
effect, if you will.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I like the thing is, I like the three-dimensionality
of that to understand what theyhave.
And also, what's great about AIis it can then see something
that's not stated but it'simplied If they're doing this,
they're also doing this.
They can round that out.
And then what's great is if thehiring manager has an idea of
(07:20):
what they're looking for not ina list, not bullets, but the old
way, right.
Okay, I need this checklist ofthings, but if they can look at
something and build something tothree-dimensionality to
understand these are the skillsthat we need right now, but also
the potentiality of these otherskills.
Does this person have some ofthose skills and some of that
(07:42):
potentiality?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Now the potentiality is all key.
And look, even today,recruiters are using edit fine
on resumes to find keywords thatmatch what the hiring manager
is looking for, right, right,and keywords don't tell the
right story, right, a keywordmight just be there because that
is something that a person wason a team doing a certain skill
set, but really they didn't havehands-on knowledge of it.
(08:05):
And it's akin to, let's say,you need heart surgery.
You want to go to a surgeon whodoes at least 15, 20 surgeries
a month, versus a surgeon thatdoes two.
And I think same thing holdsfor hiring developers.
If you're hiring for a certaintech or you're trying to solve a
certain problem, you want toknow that this person had
hands-on knowledge on this.
Obviously, that's what you tryto validate in an interview
(08:28):
process.
But what we said was why don'twe validate this for you at a
primary level in a 3D resumeformat, so that you're not
wasting your time talking tosomebody?
That's not a fit for you?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
What's great about that is it's also great for
candidates.
So we can obviously see thegreat part for hiring managers
or recruiters, because itbubbles up.
It bubbles up the people thatare the most appropriate.
You can't spend time on all 100candidates.
It just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, you absolutely cannot do that.
You cannot spend time on 100candidates.
You want to have a targetedlist, then it helps.
As you said, it helps on the AIside as well.
A lot of these data points thatwe're collecting and that's the
AI engine that we're building,which comes from our perspective
.
The goal is that once we trackyour hiring habits for certain
(09:21):
roles and the 3D res many hiringhabits coming together starts
giving us a lot better idea ofwhat works for you and what kind
of candidates to bring to youwhen you're both in jobs or when
you're recruiting.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I like that because it also gives some flexibility
for both sides of things thatchange.
We're doing such a rapidchanging market with AI and
everything else that's going onin our lives that sometimes they
used to say this about booksthe very moment that you publish
the book is the very momentit's out of date.
It's the same way with jobdescriptions and this old way of
(09:58):
recruiting that you post a joband that made sense at that
moment.
A month later, it doesn't makeas much sense Having the
flexibility of understandingwhat again, which candidates to
focus on, who's the most matchedto it currently, but also who
has some upside.
(10:18):
Let me ask you a little bitabout the marketplace itself For
the candidate or employer.
With a candidate, how do yousign candidates?
Write me a balustrade.
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
We built SkillGigs to mimic your typical e-commerce
marketplace, other marketplacesand platforms out there, so we
wanted people to have a verysimple, easy to use user
experience into SkillGigs.
So you come in, you sign up, youcreate a skill listing, you
create your profile, you publishit and then you enter the
(10:56):
e-commerce marketplace, if youwill.
Now the secret sauce and all ofthat is our bidding process,
which basically allows thecandidate to transparently go
bid on jobs and, vice versa, theemployer to come and bid on you
, so the employer is actuallyapplying to you through the
bidding process.
It allows for a couple ofthings to happen.
Number one it means there'sreal action, real jobs, right,
(11:18):
and everything is just sped up,if you will.
So it's speed dating in thatsense.
But what it also does is itjust takes away this whole fear
of negotiations that happens fora lot of folks out there who
are trying to find a job, andthen creates this transparency
where now the staffing agency isnot determining the economics
of the job, with their ownmargins sometimes going up or
(11:38):
sometimes coming down.
Whatever it is, it's all hiddenin the staffing world, but in
our world it's all transparentand board parties negotiate a
placeholder, if you willcompensation first and then they
get to an interview.
So that's how the process works.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I like that a lot.
I like that a lot and it makessense to me because it's like
again, it makes everyone movefast.
So they're always sitting on aresume, so to speak.
Now the hiring manager can'twait around, because talent's
not going to wait for you.
And it's also great forcandidates, because they get to
know their market value.
Put something out there.
And if you put something outthere, let's say $150 an hour
(12:17):
and no one bites.
Yeah, you know for a fact thatthe market's telling you OK, but
you don't know that in the kindof the historical or
traditional way you don't know.
You just ask for something andthey either say yes or no and
there's no way to actually know.
Let me ask you a couple ofbuying questions.
One is your favorite part ofthe demo when you get to show
(12:42):
skill gigs to somebody for thefirst time.
What's your favorite part?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I think for me personally, it is when they get
into the marketplace and theyget to see the candidates live
interacting right then and there.
That's speed to recruit.
When they see that and whenthey get that happy look on
their face which is like, oh myGod, the relief that the can is
right there and I'm not havingto go through a whole pipeline
(13:07):
of cold calling, engaging andall the other stuff that happens
in recruitment.
I think that is that happymoment when they see that when
I'm looking for a director ofnursing or I'm looking for an
AWS developer or a Javadeveloper with certain important
skills that I need, for example, kubernetes or something like
that and right there, there'snot just one person.
There's 50 people in themarketplace right in front of me
(13:29):
that are active, not just namesthat I have to go contact
myself.
That is the most familiar demo.
That's the best moment.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I can see that being really exciting.
You know, I don't know if youever watched an eBay bid where
it gets down to the last minuteand people are just crazy doing
jockeying and doing differentthings.
There's an excitement to that.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Absolutely.
There's gamification to it andI think there's relief to it,
but I really love the fact thatit's like look, all of us who
are responsible for some kind ofa project or running anything.
You cannot do that without goodpeople on your team.
We know that not successdirectly related to the team
that we put together and I thinkif you ask anybody who's
managing anything or leadinganything, they would tell you
(14:11):
that their biggest fear is nothaving the right person, the
right role and then failingbecause of that.
And I think that sucks right.
And especially in healthcare,where there's a direct
correlation between filling thatrole and being able to save
lives.
Being able to providehealthcare and the speed and
time needed to do that is soessential, which was very
(14:34):
obvious to us during COVID times, where a lot of our new
customers who started up with usthey really came to us because
they were struggling to fillthese roles in their hospital
settings and especially inHouston, which is the fourth
largest city.
But you know what?
They were being outcompeted bycities like New York and LA and
(14:56):
Chicago and those places andthat relief when they were able
to bring in hundreds of nursesto their floors through skill
gigs was just an amazing thingto watch and see.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
That's fantastic.
Okay, so two things once buyingquestions, like for the
employer side what are questionsthat, if they've never used a
marketplace, if they've never,obviously they've never used
skill gigs.
What questions should they beasking your sales team when they
first interact with them?
They first do the demo and seesomething they've never seen
(15:28):
before, like what questionswould you love for them to be
asking?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yes, that's a great question.
I think the number one questionthey should be asking is how do
we defer from your typical andI'm talking about procurement
right Contractors or travelnurses?
So this is a procurementdepartment that is already using
a VMS or a different MSP model,and they should be coming in
and asking like look, how doesdirect sourcing help me fill my
(15:57):
contracting and procurementneeds and how does it save me
money and how do you ensure thatthe talent you have is as good
as your old model?
And I'm gonna get that in, atleast I'm gonna fill the same
model roles or more through youversus using your traditional
model.
I think those are top two orthree questions I would ask, as
a customer coming in, if I was acustomer who's looking for a
(16:17):
contract now, if I was acustomer who was looking to fill
poem roles and a lot of ourcustomers do both in skill gigs
they come into fill poem rolesas well as the contractor and
travel roles as hospitals Iwould ask myself how does this
help my recruiters, bring downmy cost of acquisition, reduce
my time to fill and ensure thatI get access to the best talent
(16:41):
possible in today's environment?
And then, how is this differentfrom me using a LinkedIn
recruiter, or indeed, and howdoes this really help me from?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
the data.
I think.
I think that's pretty just inthis phone call.
I think that's prettyself-evident.
That's the again.
Those are both all those things.
You have a place, the recruiteror all those places.
They all have a place, but notwhen it comes to something
that's specialized.
I just don't.
I think you need somethingspecialized that understands the
(17:11):
hiring manager's needs and thecandidate's needs.
The last thing is to shift yourfavorite success story without
telling brand names or any ofthat type of stuff.
But just what are your favoritestory that you like to tell
people, or your most recentfavorite story that you like to
tell people about skill gigs?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah, I think I'll go back to the time when the
largest hospital system inHouston approached us to help
them out during the throes ofCOVID, and the fact that we were
able to supply them with nursesat scale.
I think we ended 2021 bysupplying them with at least 500
to 600 nurses and became thetop vendors when it came to
procuring these nurses in justin time.
(17:49):
I think the fact that we hadsuch a direct impact on people's
lives during the scariest,probably, moment in American
history, in the last maybe Idon't know 40 years, where we
were actually dealing with stuffand not we had Cold War.
But in Cold War we were allthinking something might happen
here, but in the pandemic itactually happened.
(18:09):
Unfortunately, millions oflives were lost all over the
world, and being able to impactthat and being able to supply
the nurses and manage thatsupply chain using technology
was an extremely proud moment.
And then everything our teamdid to step up I think I can't
say enough about the leadershipteam, about the people who were
(18:30):
helping the hiring managers andas well as the nurses, to get
going and move at speed anddoing whatever it takes.
I think that was especially aproud moment I don't think I'll
ever forget that, in whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I do Drinks, mike.
Walk us on stage, brother.
I love what you've built and Ilove the markets that you're
serving and the way that you'reserving with credentialing and
the marketplace.
I just love it.
At least it's a wonderful wayto help talent Both.
Talent never sleeps.
Talent moves really fast.
It's moving even faster todaythan it was a year ago and that
(19:05):
helps everybody.
It helps the hiring managers ifthey want to move fast, and
they usually do if they want tomove fast.
You can't move as fast as thecadence are moving.
So I just love what you'vebuilt and thank you so much for
coming on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Oh man, thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure and greatquestions, and let's do this
again sometime 100%, 100% andthanks for everyone listening.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Until next time.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
You've been listening to Recruiting Daly's Use Case
Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe on yourfavorite platform and hit us up
at RecruitingDalycom.
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