The Rise of Talent Matching Platforms: Why We Invested In Hyre
Join us for a deep dive into Hyre, one of the latest investments in our portfolio of companies focused on HR and Talent Tech.
The TVG Approach
Long before the global pandemic disrupted the world, Talent Venture Group set its sights on developing technology to impact HR and Talent Tech. Over 30 years of experience in this domain and we remain dedicated as a team to the sector. We believe in the future of work and the potential of this sector to grow no matter the disruption happening in the world. Most of all, we believe in people and get satisfaction from matching great talent to the right opportunity.
The world of HR and Talent Tech is changing fast, which is why TVG invests in future-forward companies developing technology that addresses the needs of the market five or even ten years down the road. The fact is that today, a majority of recruitment experts say that the best way to improve the performance of talent acquisition is by investing in new technology. Why play catch-up when you can future-proof the talent acquisition process?
The TVG team believes that now is the time to double down in HR and Talent Tech. For this reason, our investment radar is finely tuned in to the search for great teams leading companies focused on solving the world’s biggest talent acquisition pain points. In the post-pandemic era, dealing with a shortage of skilled talent, remote and hybrid work environments, and the overall disruption of the hiring process are the top three areas ripe for new technology to swoop in and solve.
This is exactly where TVG has positioned its brand and the segment of the market where we invest in today’s most future-forward companies. When TVG discovered Hyre, they shared our vision to work toward a future of recruiting that benefits both talent and employers.
Meet Hyre
Hyre is a talent matching platform for junior talent. Employers love Hyre because they don’t have to waste time sifting through piles of CVs looking for that one good candidate. Talent loves Hyre because the platform looks beyond their work history to understand their interests and ambitions. It is through this people-first collection of deep data points that the Hyre platform is able to create meaningful employer-employee matches that forge a long-term relationship.
Hyre is the bridge from junior talent to employers, and no CVs, cover letters, or any of the old-fashioned hiring processes are required. Students and young talent use the intuitive Hyre app to find and apply for jobs from their mobile phones. On the other side, employers rely on Hyre to quickly and efficiently match their needs with the best available talent, with no unconscious bias and no wasted time sifting through resumes.
The Problem Space
Hyre has disrupted the extremely antiquated form of hiring through CVs, job boards, and other platforms that don’t benefit either talent or employers.
Trying to communicate everything about yourself as a candidate and why you’re the best choice for an open position is stressful, especially for young talent. As a performance analysis tool or predictor, a CV is actually horrible. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the average job candidate abandons online applications 60% of the time because they’re confusing or time-consuming.
From the employer’s perspective, Hyre has disrupted the extremely antiquated form of hiring through CVs, job boards, and other platforms that don’t benefit either talent or employer. According to Glassdoor, CVs are skimmed for an average of only six seconds, which is hardly enough time to read every nuance included. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time to sort through hundreds of CVs that come in for an open position, and the process is far from perfect. In fact, a Career Builder survey uncovered that 3 out of 4 companies have been negatively impacted by a bad hire.
The global war for talent has also created the following challenges:
- Companies have problems filling all the open roles
- The old processes don’t work anymore especially for young talent like students and graduates
- Employers are flooded by CVs and applications for single open positions and end up wasting time and not being able to make good decisions
Hyre’s USP
The TVG investment team recognized Hyre’s potential through its unique approach to a growing problem; the need for young, tech-savvy sales talent by the world’s scale-up companies. The war for sales talent begins with SMEs and scale-up companies filling their talent pipelines through their network of co-workers and friends. Eventually, they need to recruit to feed their sales talent pipeline as the company grows, and it’s at that critical point that Hyre makes a huge impact.
Hyre leverages its platform to collect more candidate data points, which is why it creates better matches for employers, saving them time and money. On the candidate side, Hyre streamlines the job search to focus on opportunities they are truly interested in. From the employer side, Hyre’s customers say that they couldn’t possibly access talent on the same level without the platform as the candidate profiles go much deeper as compared with other platforms.
The best part about Hyre is the scalability, as the platform will grow and expand with the individual throughout their career path, collecting more data and sharpening skills, interests, and experience. Hyre only gets better with age and experience, becoming even more robust at matching talent with the opportunities that give the most satisfaction, personal growth opportunities, and skill development.
LinkedIn’s Jobs on the Rise in 2021 and Monster’s 2021 Hiring Trends reports list sales roles among the most in-demand roles this year. In addition to permanent roles, freelance work in sales represents 15% of the overall opportunities.
Investment
Ultimately, our investment in Hyre was a foregone conclusion because we were deeply impressed by the founders and leadership team Max, Christof, and Luca, who were all very knowledgeable, very quick to iterate changes as the result of their testing, and constantly delivered progress and improvement in their product. As a team, the folks at Hyre have a unique, strong culture and a deep understanding of the target audience of students, having recently been students themselves. The Hyre team also had a lot of validation from other investors and supporters that knew them well.
“Max, Christof, and Luca impressed us with their combination of knowing the space inside-out but still being receptive to learning something new about it and from their customer’s feedback every day and never being tired of implementing and testing, something founders that spend a long time with a particular problem or in a certain space sometimes start losing.” — Felix Bensberg, Investment Manager, TVG
Hyre’s perspective
Hyre developed a platform to connect young sales talent with team-building companies because they recognized a huge opportunity in the market. The Hyre team had built a great product and had a group of business angels that knew and believe in them. In its early stage, Hyre was enrolled in APX, a Berlin-based accelerator, which gave them a basic business foundation.
When Hyre started talking with us, the team realized that TVG shares the same vision of how recruiting young talent should work in the future. Now, Hyre has the benefit of TVG’s knowledge and experience and its connection to the HR and Tech Talent global ecosystem.
“We knew that TVG would understand us, as they are experts in the HR and Tech Talent space. And they help us go deep, answer our questions, and give us the knowledge and experience we need to connect with the best people and resources.” — Maximilian Willert, Co-founder and MD at Hyre
Milestones
The Hyre team has reached the following milestone since TVG invested in them:
🤝 Won high profile clients including Lieferando, Enpal, moss, personio, and Porsche Consulting
🌟 Sourced over 1,000 sales talents through social and career networks
🎯 Through additional proprietary data and matching system, Hyre was able to identify hidden sales talents
