Staffbay.com is an interactive fusion of online recruitment and social media. And with the innovative service being completely free-of-charge for both employers and candidates, creators Tony Wilmot and Elliot Kidd expect their latest venture to change the face of the job market.
Unlike the traditional method of posting a CV directly to employers or via a recruitment consultant, candidates on Staffbay.com build themselves a multi-media profile that is constantly searchable and viewable by potential employers. The enhanced profiles can include audio-visual components as well as links to social media channels, offering organisations far more insight into whether a person will be a good cultural, as well as professional, fit for a vacant post.
Co-founder Tony Wilmot believes that because a wider breadth of useful information is being made accessible without cost, the Staffbay.com concept will lead to a sea change in how recruitment is done. As he explains:
“There are two things about Staffbay.com that make it unique. The first is the fact it’s free. Organisations can spend hundreds of thousands of pounds every year on consultants and head-hunters, but we’re offering them tools that will enable employers to effectively find and approach candidates without that cost. Given the current economic climate, that will have a few consultants looking nervously over their shoulders.
“The other leap forward is the nature of the information employers can now access. The combination of increased professional and personal insight moves the journey further down the road to appointment than a written CV could, so it saves organisations both time and money.”
Staffbay.com launched its free service in early October, and the site now has over 1,000 jobs and 10,000 candidates available to view online. Numbers are expected to grow exponentially in the coming months, as fellow co-founder Elliot Kidd comments:
“There’s really no downside to posting a position or a profile on the site, and it means the employment market will be freely accessible open for trading 24/7. The fact that Staffbay.com is free will be music to the ears of every organisation in the country, but there’s more to the concept than just financial benefit.
“As an employer you can get a much better feel for the calibre of candidates out there, and you can approach who you want, when you want. From a candidate point of view you can keep yourself in the shop window all the time, pushing yourself up the wanted list with the multi-media tools. There are privacy settings on there to ensure discretion, but essentially it will make the process of moving jobs more fluid.
“It’s a big jump forward in our industry, and we know people will not want to get left behind.”
With the current explosion of interest in social media, and the general need to rein in business expenditure such as recruitment budgets, the creators of Staffbay.com believe they have found a gap in the market and have set to work to fill it. Their target is to get the number of candidates to over a million before the end of the year.
