Draftboard
It’s been more than three decades since hiring first moved online. In the early 1990s, job boards like Monster, Dice or CareerBuilder pioneered online hiring, aggregating traffic of job-seekers and disseminating job openings to a growing audience of web-surfers. A second wave of innovation came in the mid-to-late 2000s, as a new generation of job boards — from Indeed to ZipRecruiter to LinkedIn — improved the online recruitment experience through the introduction of sophisticated analytics tools, one-click “easy apply” features, and pay-for-performance pricing models.
However, despite the innovation in the space, the job hiring market remains incredibly inefficient for both employers and job seekers. In the US alone, employers spend more than $205 billion each year on recruitment, and yet more than 70% of hiring managers struggle with attracting the right talent. For job candidates, the experience is just as frustrating: first they must navigate dozens of job sites that were built decades ago and beware job scams and phantom listings; even upon successfully applying, a majority of candidates face slow responses and even ghosting from prospective employers.
Undoubtedly, online recruitment is not going anywhere. If anything, demographic trends — with Millennials and Gen-Z now accounting for the majority of the workforce — and the rise of remote work will only accelerate employers’ spend towards digital hiring platforms. This reality highlights the need for a new kind of recruiting platform, one that better aligns the interests of candidates and employers and does not exclusively rely on digital traffic arbitrage.
That’s why we are excited to announce our lead seed investment in Draftboard, a recruitment marketplace for referral-based hiring. The premise of the platform is simple. More than 80% of companies offer referral bonuses for new hires, but they limit those bonuses only to their own employees. Draftboard wants to change that: employers can post their referral bonuses publicly for the world to see; any user can then join the platform as a ‘scout’ and refer quality candidates within their network in exchange for a referral bonus upon a successful hire. We think it is a win-win-win situation: companies can tap into a completely new pool of talent; scouts can act as “headhunters” by monetizing their network of friends and family for real rewards; and job-seekers can more easily find new employment opportunities.
Drafboard is the brainchild of Zach Roseman, who previously served as CEO of Mosaic Group, the world’s largest mobile app studio. As a former executive responsible for more than 500 employees around the world, Zach is extremely familiar with the pain points of hiring for an ever-changing workplace, as well as the benefits of job referrals. In his experience, the cost per hire for employee referrals is significantly lower than other recruiting methods; but most importantly, referral hires are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs, which leads to higher employee engagement and retention.
Much has been written about the future of work in the age of artificial intelligence, and the ways in which technology will continue to shape hiring. But technological advances will fall short of employers’ hiring goals, unless we fundamentally change the paradigm of how the world hires. At Twelve Below, our belief is that recruiting, at its core, is about people, networks, and trust. That’s the premise behind Draftboard, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with Zach and his team as they set out to democratize recruiting for everyone.
