Listen to this article (coming soon):
Who is Saj Abbas (my LinkedIn profile)?
Hi there, I'm Saj. The founder of Talently. It's been a side project of my since mid-way though Covid (around 2020). It all started when I decided to take a look at the job market. I was expecting things to have moved on since I last applied for roles (some 6-7 years ago). It was 2022 afterall... I was expecting fancy new software as a service like websites where I can manage my job search, references and interview process... I don't think anyone reading this would be suprised to learn that all I could find were old skool job boards with slightly updated front-end websites.
Where it all started?
By now, I was becoming quite frustrated at the lack of functionality job boards in 2020 offered. It's almost like they have forgotten candidates exist. Don't get me wrong, I understood that it's the hiring managers responsibility to be responsive but the least these job boards could offer was a section of there website that shows where I'm up in the interview process and what's coming next. As an amateur web developer and with some time to pass (thanks to Covid) I began building an early wireframe of what my idea of a recruitment platform should look like.
People seemed to like the early prototype
I was introduced to an online business social website called LunchClub (drop me a message on LinkedIn if you want an invite) and quickly realised that it would be a great place to share my wireframes and pitch the idea. To my suprise, people really gravited to the idea. A personal brand which goes well beyond a triditional CV, somwhere to request and track your references and an easy to use interview tracking functionality. Infact, even well before the big Tech layoffs, people seem to be well aware of the problems extrapulated further by the lack of functionality job boards offer. But, it quickly dawned on me... This is not a small problem. Nor a trivial one. Who am I against the big recruitment job boards and why wouldn't real customers even care about Talently?
The Inner Entrepreneur
It was screaming at me... I have never been the type to back down. Those who know me and are reading this post know I love a big, complicated challenge. Thankfully at the time, my schedule was fairly open and there wasn't much else going on. Maybe it was time to calibrate that inner entrepreneur against a real problem. Meh, not much to loose. I continued working on the wireframes in Bootstrap, HTML, CSS etc and stuck to the easy front-end tasks. Just enough to interview and calibrate real recruiters, other entrepreneurs and previous collegues (HR Managers, recruiters and directors). The feedback remained positive. But the task at hand was complicated. It was around here I decided to go all in.
What happened next?
I have some server side experience but by no means was it up for the task in hand. So I decided to seek some professional help. I had heard of UpWork and the developer skills up for hire. I created a profile, pitch and began interviewing development agencies. I choose an agency who understood the problem and seem to be interested in the project. They took my wireframes and basic (somethings wrong) instructions and started doing their magic.
Version 1
MVP verson 1 was released a few months later. I used it to further calibrate against those who took interest in the idea during the wireframe stage and seized the opportunity to build an early adopters list. Should Talently become ready, would you be open to using the product? These conversations were some of my key moments during my entrepreneur journey. It now felt real. People were waiting for me to finsih the product and a sense of ugency took shape.
Where am I up to now?
MVP version 1 worked; organic users though cold pipelines signed up, feedback remained positive but it looked rough. My budget (which was my money) was used on the server side functionality and not the front end UI. More importantly real recruitment agencies had a look of feedback and without the features they require, Talently was dead in the water.
MVP version 2
I'd like to keep this post short; version 2 is coming early Q2 2023... In part 2 I'll share what we improved, added and changed. But the main value proposition remains the same. Talently will offer candidates the ability to build a powerful CV, personal brand and a hiring process management system. For hiring managers, it will offer a powerful SaaS to deploy jobs, build pipelines and manage their candidates, feedback, company profile(s) and much more. We're open to feature requests so if you're interested in trying the MVP and providing some insight, please let us know! You can contact me via LinkedIn or using the comments section below.
When will part 2 be released?
As soon as MVP version 2 is loaded onto our production server :)