HackerRank, Hellohire, SmartRecruiters and The Martec team up to organise the ‘biggest speed hiring event in history’

HackerRank, Hellohire, SmartRecruiters and The Martec have teamed up to organise ‘the biggest speed hiring event in history’. ToTalent spoke to Stanislaw Wasowicz, Director Alliances at SmartRecruiters, who explains the reasoning behind the first-ever event.

Jasper Spanjaart on December 21, 2022 Average reading time: 4 min
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HackerRank, Hellohire, SmartRecruiters and The Martec team up to organise the ‘biggest speed hiring event in history’

New year, new career. That’s the mantra with which HackerRank, HelloHire, SmartRecruiters and The Martec are aiming to help both companies and candidates start the year on a bright note. The event, set to take place from January 16 to 20, will be free for all users through the Hellohire service. Hellohire is a speed interview and virtual hiring event platform that aims to help you meet more candidates and hire faster. They’re offering companies the chance to interview thousands of pre-qualified candidates in 5-minute virtual sessions. 

Hellohire was founded by Ravin Shah in 2020. “Recruiting is ready for change”, Shah wrote upon introducing the new service. “In today’s world, robots are taking over and recruiting technology has made the process faceless for most candidates. Whether it’s automation or AI, increasing efficiency for recruiters has been at the expense of the candidate experience. Candidates are required to jump through hoops before recruiters will even speak to them. We’re on a mission to make recruiting human again.”

Hiring anywhere, anytime

So what was the rationale behind it? “Many of our customers and partners have been affected by the wave of layoffs hitting the tech sector”, says Stanislaw Wasowicz, Director Alliances at SmartRecruiters. “We had to make tough decisions earlier this year as well, so we set out to help the people affected. That quickly expanded to anyone that’s looking for a new career move.”

“We would have to settle for a certain time and timezone, which would exclude a lot of employers and job seekers from being able to participate.

Originally SmartRecruiters wanted to host a virtual careers fair, but that had its limitations, Wasowicz explains. “We would have to settle for a certain time and timezone, which would exclude a lot of employers and job seekers from being able to participate. HelloHire specialises in allowing companies to promote, schedule and conduct speed interviews at scale, anywhere in the world, at times that work for them. They recently launched on the SmartRecruiters marketplace, so we reached out to them and the rest is history.”

Thousands of talented job seekers

Stanislaw Wasowicz

On the candidate side, HackerRank and SmartRecruiters have allowed for their databases to be used for free — as they line up candidates looking for a new career move. “Tech talent affected by layoffs, retails staff looking for a change of scenery, sales professionals feeling like a new challenge, warehouse operators ready to add more hours, anyone your looking for, we’ll try to get them there and inform you in advance”, Wasowicz adds.

“For most of the employers signing up, it will be the first time they try out speed interviewing, so there’s a good amount of buzz and excitement.”

So far, the reactions have been great, according to Wasowicz. And from all over the world, across a variety of sectors. “We’ve seen sign-ups from employers all over the world, submitting jobs ranging from software engineer to caretaker and even a match teacher. The fact that HelloHire has been so kind to offer their state-of-the-art technology free of charge obviously helps. For most of the employers signing up, it will be the first time they try out speed interviewing, so there’s a good amount of buzz and excitement.”

‘Speed interviewing doesn’t equal speed hiring’

Though as recruiting with speed may lead to butts in seats quicker, the concept is still being seen by some critics as a problematic form of recruiting. After all, how do you ensure speedy hires aren’t bad hires? “As with regular interviewing, this is very much up to the employers’ hiring process and skills”, Wasowicz says. “HelloHire’s technology allows for an element of pre-qualification, because employers can add knock-out questions candidates have to answer when signing up to be interviewed.”

“Speed interviewing hasn’t been conducted at this scale yet, so I’m very excited to see what comes out of it and what we’ll all learn from it.”

“Also, speed interviewing doesn’t have to equal speed hiring”, Wasowidz adds. “Some employers might extend offers to candidates on the spot when convinced. Others might use the speed interview session as “top-of-the-funnel” activity to quickly get impressions of candidates that applied for their positions, that go beyond their resumes, but will still move them forward in a traditional, multi-step, hiring journey. I’ll be keeping a close eye on the results myself. Speed interviewing hasn’t been conducted at this scale yet, so I’m very excited to see what comes out of it and what we’ll all learn from it.”

‘Now is the time to sign up’

Could this form of speed hiring become the norm? “Time will tell”, Wasowicz says. “Right now, we’re focusing on making this event a success, measured by the number of people we connect to jobs at scale. We’re having a great time doing it, so who knows. Employers that enjoy this approach and see it contributing to their hiring success can obviously organise as many speed interview sessions as they want using HelloHire’s technology. That will come at a price. If they want to give it a shot for free. Now it is the time to sign up, submit and promote their jobs.”

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Jasper Spanjaart

Jasper Spanjaart

Editor-in-Chief and Writer at ToTalent.eu
Editor-in-Chief and writer for European Total Talent Acquisition platform ToTalent.eu.
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