We interview Jobr, the new app thats becoming the Tinder of Jobs

by Startacus Admin

If there is one thing we are certain of here at Startacus, it’s that searching for a job is no fun whatsoever. Not only can it be a rather unpleasant experience but it is also laborious, time consuming and involves an inordinate amount of reading dull and repetitive vacancy adverts.

Those of you are partial to a spot of online dating may well be familiar with a location-based app called tinder which burst on to the scene a few years ago. Its premise is a simple one – you are presented with images of a prospective partner alongside some basic info and by either swiping your screen left or right indicate whether or not you are interested in them…clinical, unromantic but mighty effective.

Jobr is hoping to bring the same cut-throat effectiveness to the world of job applications.

We caught up with co-founder Alex De Simone to learn a bit more about this innovative new startup.

So Alex, Jobr seems to have burst out of nowhere, but we are sure that isn’t the case, so can you give us a little idea of where the app has come from?

Our team decided to create Jobr after discussing the difficulty that recruiters and hiring managers face while searching for candidates. Initially we thought a job discovery mobile app was an interesting concept, but we all had full-time jobs that occupied most of our time. The more we talked about it though -- between ourselves and with friends -- the more we realized that a mobile-focused solution to job discovery needed to exist. We began working nights and weekends on Jobr, and as we continued to validate the idea, excitement and momentum grew to the point where we needed to make it our #1 priority. Fast forward 3 months, and Jobr is now live in the App Store. We have plenty of work to do, but we’re excited about our progress so far.

We recently read that you guys have just passed the '1 million swipe' mark (we doff our caps to you!). Can you give us an idea of where that puts you in the grand scheme of things and where you want the app to go in the future?

Crossing 1M swipes in our first two weeks was an important milestone, and we think it validates that people are intrigued by the idea and our design. Our main focus, however, is on creating as many meaningful matches as possible. Swipes are fairly good indicators for engagement, but optimizing for matches is more complex. The biggest challenges we’re facing are 1) balancing supply (jobs) with demand (candidates), and 2) creating a highly personalized, frictionless, and efficient experience for both candidates and recruiters. We aim to tackle both of these and will continue to move quickly to make everyone’s experience on Jobr even better.

So we have had Tinder, and now there is Jobr. Do you think that we are standing on the brink of a revolution where a large number of major decisions will be made through a simple swipe?

The growth of mobile is fundamentally changing the way people interact and make decisions, and it continues to be underestimated and underdeveloped in many industries. It provides a unique advantage in being more accessible to users, but there are several guidelines that need to be followed to build a truly engaging mobile experience. As experiences on mobile devices improve, global becomes local, feature-rich becomes simple, and comprehensive becomes curated and personalized. Images are generally more engaging than text, and search functionality is being replaced with personalized feeds. These are themes we’re weaving into Jobr, and we believe that they’ll flow into other untapped industries as well to optimize and enhance decision-making.

We have heard loads about how great Jobr is for Job Hunters, but can you tell us a little bit about its benefits for recruiters?

We believe the hiring process can be improved on both sides. Generally speaking, recruiters have a hard time finding the right candidates, and candidates have a hard time finding the right opportunities. With Jobr, recruiters have access to high quality candidates who are often not engaged on other job seeking platforms, either because they are not actively looking for a job or because those platforms present barriers to entry (requiring too many inputs to create a profile). Jobr provides an easy, fun, and addictive experience for all candidates, including passive job seekers. Recruiters on Jobr will also only speak with candidates who who are interested in speaking with them, so time isn’t wasted on cold emails. In-app messaging provides the ability for recruiters to instantly chat with prospects, so conversations with candidates progress much faster than via email. Our team is currently building tools for recruiters to improve their efficiency on Jobr, as well as providing feedback and data on the performance of their listings and the candidates who have viewed them.

Tinder has been praised for its simplicity and sledgehammer efficiency but criticized for being somewhat impersonal and soulless. Do you think that Jobr could come under similar criticism?

The parallels between dating and job hunting are easily apparent, especially since people are changing jobs more frequently nowadays. The two are closer now than they have ever been, but there are still some very significant differences. While Tinder creates one-to-one matches, Jobr creates one-to-many matches. We’ve spent a great deal of time on the design and nature of the information presented to both candidates and recruiters, with the hope that both sides have the information they need to make educated decisions. On the hiring side, studies show thatrecruiters spend 6 seconds on each CV / resume. We’re making sure that the most important and relevant information from these studies is presented to recruiters on the candidate card and detail view. We believe Jobr provides a more personal, fun, and engaging approach to job search than sifting through resumes and job boards.

Cheers for sharing the story Alex, we shall definitely be keeping a close eye on what you guys get up to next.

If you like the sound of this innovative new startup and want to see what all the fuss is about why not take a look at the Jobr app?

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Published on: 3rd June 2014