Welcome back to the Don’t Tell Me About Yourself podcast. We are at the Shaker booth at Unleash America in Las Vegas. And today we are sitting with Daniel Birkholm from Start. Daniel, can you tell us about your company? Sure. Yes, so Start is a platform used by a lot of enterprises worldwide to measure hiring experience. So, think of it as candidate experience measurements, hiring manager satisfaction, quality measurements and stuff like that. So, that’s what we do. We love data. I mean, so that sounds and we love data in the hiring space specifically. What kinds of metrics do you help companies with or what do you notice that your clients are most focused on from a metric or data standpoint? Yes, so one of the things that Start is most famous for that is basically bringing the NPS into the candidate experience game. So, we call it CNPS, candidate net promoter score, right? Net promoter I just make sure we tell everyone what that is. Yeah, so the net promoter score and yeah, that’s there’s an NPS framework, so it’s a scale from 0 to 10 taking the ones giving you 9 and 10 and deduct the ones giving you 0 to 6. And that would give you a score between 100% and minus 100%. >> is that measured? What goes into that measurement? Yes, so basically we trigger out these surveys going out to candidates after a recruitment process is done. Yeah. It can be, you know, and the recruitment process can end in many ways. You can get hired, you can get rejected, you can get rejected after screening and you can also get rejected after an interview. Right. After assessments, it can be that you withdraw yourself and stuff like that. So, basically we just help them you know, a question could be how likely are you to recommend others to apply for this company. Yeah. Based on your own experience and then you rate that. See, we’ve worked with companies before that only think about the candidate experience for the people that got hired, right? But it’s like what is the candidate experience for the people that don’t get hired? Do they leave feeling well evaluated? Are they going to continue to recommend your company anyway? And I just noticed that that is a downfall for some companies not to consider that as well. Exactly. I mean, as I told you just before, we are bringing this concept concept of healthy hiring to Unleash and and the point about making hiring healthy that is that most companies they reject 95% of their candidates. So, so basically the one you hire that that’s 5%. Right. And that is and ultimately if you are making 95% of your candidates, let’s say disappointed, angry and and like, you know, detractors ultimately, well, then your hiring is not that healthy. Right. Because then they then your brand would suffer of it, right? Yeah. So, you know you know, so there’s a little bit of a sustainability element into this where you can say that the more healthy your hiring is, the more your the way you approach hiring is also creating, you know, organic sourcing of of new candidates in the future. Yeah. And now I know myself I have some ideas of why this might be important or how it might help companies, but are there any results that the companies and clients that you work with see when they do put the focus on some of what we’re talking about? Yeah, I think there’s you need to have a conceptual buy-in of the fact that if you are making if you are pissing off people by the way you recruit, then probably it’s not a good idea, you know. >> Right. Right. And there are different kinds of studies. I think it’s like 50% of candidates that are that are unsatisfied after hiring process, they are most likely not going to be a customer of yours in the upcoming period. And if they are super happy, then they are actually more willing to buy your products. Yeah, that’s such a great point. We were talking to someone earlier that was making the point that the candidates are also your customers. >> 100%. And if you’re not if you’re overlooking that, you’re definitely missing something, you know, in the process and it’s super important. >> and then there’s also just the hiring element to it, right? Which is you can say that most candidates they they are interviewing for several companies. And a lot of the things that is making them choose you or or between you and and another company that is maybe also what they feel during the hiring process. Mhm. So, meaning, you know, your hiring experience is also ultimately impacting your quality of hire. Yeah. And we we have in our social media following, we get a lot of comments and direct messages from people with horror stories of hiring and being ghosted and just really having a horrible experience and I think of it a lot like when I go out to dinner and I have a great meal, I you know, I I might tell people about it, right? But I’m not you know, I’m not running to Yelp or Google to review it. But if I have a bad one, I’m like everybody needs to stay away. And so the same kind of applies, right? >> 100%. In this instance as well. So, measuring that could have significant impacts for companies because you can’t measure that. And this is actually also it’s part of the business rationale of doing it, right? Because then what what we help our customers with that is to do that in a more closed environment where it’s getting more nuanced because they can also very they also paint this picture of, “Yeah, I was I was rejected, so this is just an awful experience.” And that’s that’s that’s why the context is extremely important, right? So, Yeah, because you can be rejected for a company and like Lorna said, feel well evaluated, have a great experience if there’s communication was there and you understand why. >> Exactly. Um Yeah. you can still walk away having a great experience and then the company itself has somebody who might come back around someday, right? If they’re missing skills or weren’t the right fit at the time for the team that you have, you don’t want to ostracize that person in case when you do have an opening that fits their skills, they upskill or the opening changes, right? That you have that person to come back to. So, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Is there is there one thing that talent leaders need to know in the year ahead and what would that be? Only one thing? That. We got time. Well, I am actually surprised and I know I have to say that because of the product that we are selling or the platform that I’m representing that I’m I’m really surprised by the lack of, let’s say, outside-in perspective that is on on recruitment. I think that a lot of TA leaders at the moment they are super obsessed about, you know, how can we utilize AI? How can we implement the AI in how we do hiring? But they have they have not installed these kind of feedback loops which basically ultimately is is measuring the user experience of it. It’s so focused on reducing cost per hire and time to hire and and increasing efficiency and so on. But but it’s just hiring is ultimately about bringing in the right people to the company. And if that is done in a unhealthy way, well, yeah, so so I think maybe a data-driven a data-driven mindset is is what I hope you will see talent leaders have even more going forward. Facts over feelings. That’s how it should be. Can you tell our listeners where they can find more information about you and your company? start.com That’s nice and easy. That is nice and easy. All right. >> It is. Well, thank you so much. >> and remember that Start is one of the only companies in the world having our own Spotify playlist that everyone has, right? So, the there’s the >> to check it out. No, but I mean the songs that you like, they would be your Start playlist. Huh? Now you get it. He’s a jokester. He is a jokester. I mean, you went from so timid to like throwing jokes by the end of this episode, so Wait, we’re wondering how Yeah, way to overcome. >> Yeah, well done. They go find that. Yeah, okay. All right. He’s like, “Don’t butcher my language anymore.” All right. Well, thank you so much for your time today and we hope you enjoy the rest of the conference. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
