The 1tedjob.com platform, is a virtual recruiting space for companies and candidates. The novelty it brings in the Romanian HR market is the capacity of this website, through its elaborate recruitment instruments, to facilitate the hiring process for both companies and potential employees. We have spoken with Radu Stanescu, the founder of this platform, about the challenges an entrepreneur face in Romania, about the labor market, about how qualified are employees nowadays and more.
You have recently launched 1tedjob.com, a platform that wishes to redefine the recruitment process as we know it. Which were the biggest challenges you were faced with in your entrepreneurial path?
The biggest challenge for us was to understand the real needs companies and candidates truly have, and also the patience to finish building the platform. In the same time I could mention the ability of stopping before overdoing it with the development, we did not want to build a product that could not have been launched anymore. In the same time, I would also mention developing the ability to use the lean start-up concept, which means you need to change your mentality from “I am afraid others will steal my idea, I must not talk to anyone, I need to protect it” to “I need to stay open and to communicate with my clients permanently, from the beginning through the launch date, to exchange information with as many people as possible, to test the product with my clients before launch, to always accept feedback so I can make the platform better and to launch something that clients really need.”
How would you define the labour market in Romania today? Do we face too much demand, too many offers, overqualified people or, on the contrary, specialists are hard to find here?1
From my point of view, Romania is a difficult market and also very dynamic. During the years I have noticed that the work force has dropped in what concerns the skills and professional abilities of candidates. They come to interviews less and less prepared. From what I have spoken to managers, the need to change their employees with candidates coming from a younger generation, but the market doesn’t really offer a great potential. Youngsters finish college, but they have no practical experience which blocks their opportunity to get hired, and companies that implement real management trainee or talent development programs are very few. Organizations need themselves to be mature enough to grow young employees.
Moreover, there are people who are now jobless and who seem to be air pumped, like a balloon, thinking they are very good at their job, while reality keeps on showing them they are not and they lack many skills, while great employees are kept at any cost inside companies.
I can’t help but notice that in Romania there is a mentality, shared by many employees, that a job inside a company gives you safety – reality is that nothing is forever! Not to mention that, given the opening towards the EU, many leave the country, therefore it has become very difficult to find great people. The situation is similar in Bulgaria.
Is 1tedjob just as efficient forlarge companies as it is for small businesses?
Yes, it is just as efficient. For both types of companies we offer the possibility to test their future employees and to organize video interviews with all of them. The challenge when it comes to multinational companies, comes from the fact that many of them have all sorts of internal systems they use in recruitment, or they have various constraints based on internal regulations that can make the recruitment process very difficult.
Technically, 1tedjob allows a company to recruit employees from a distance easily. How often did you encounter relocation situations in Romania? Is this common here?
Yes, the platform allows long distance recruitment. I say this is one of our differentiators. You test the candidate, you have a video interview with him and then you decide if you want to meet him face to face as well. And yes, Romanians have become more flexible when it comes to hiring from a distance and relocating their employees.
Let us talk a little about the candidates as well. Which are the benefits that th platform gives the person who is looking for a dream job?
The most important aspect is directly related to the fact that a candidate with great potential and the required abilities to occupy a position cand be easily noticeable, by filling in the tests and by attending the video interviews on the website. He has more time to get prepared and to show the best he can offer a future employer.
What are your future development plans?
First of all we need to get more stable in Romania, to visit as many clients as possible, and to get them in touch with the best candidates possible. The market is full of all kinds of platforms, of recruitment companies, which gets people confused and frustrated by the constant birth of new players in the market, because people don’t have enough time to understand why one is better than the other. This is why communication is vital in order to make both companies and candidates understand the added value of our platform. Secondly, we plan to launch the platform in Bulgaria as well in the month of May. Then we will start working on launching it at European level, but only after we analyze the results we have had up to that point.
Please give a few pieces of advice to young entrepreneurs. What should they pay attention to before they take up on entrepreneurship?
At first, they should have enough money to cover the initial investment and have some cash flow. Then, they should be ready to deal with the fact that people around them do not believe in their idea, to receive negative feedback and to stay open to all advice. They should be patient because results don’t just show up, even later than you estimated in your business plan and when these results are late it is very important not to panic, to be able to adapt on the go, to develop new tactics (without giving up the main development plan), to be open to working with professionals (in other words, to choose experienced partners). I have a saying “pay for nuts, get monkeys”, so avoid working with clueless people.
(Foto: Steven Depolo, www.flickr.com)
