Hi there I'm Gordon and I am a software engineer! I have worked in the startup space for the 4 past years in London and San Francisco. Over this time I, like many others, have experienced the way in which the world of tech recruiting works. I have grown frustrated by the number of times I have been contacted about roles not suited to me and how recruiters regularly pitch me roles based on technologies I used in previous employment. I have also experienced recruitment from the employers point of view where I had to build a team out in San Francisco which was equally frustrating.
I believe the systems that we employ to help us find a job/recruit falls short of our expectations and is in need of some desperate rejuvenation and optimisation!
5 months ago I arrived back from San Francisco and teamed with 2 former colleagues who shared a passion in trying to improve this experience for both developers and hirers. I would like to invite you to be one of the first people to see and use Workshape.io - a talent matching service for Startups.
The key premise to Workshape.io is that we are a matching service that focuses on what you want to do in your next role - more specifically: what tech you want to work with and how you want to spend your time as a developer. We feel when you are open to another role your aspirations should be recognised as one of the key components to matching you to a role.
We are focussed on rolling out in London right now and currently have roles from companies such as Shazam, Spotify, Qubit and Moo.com online.
We are very early stage right now and would really welcome your feedback on the experience, thoughts on the site and how we match you to roles.
Still focusing on just the tools? Why is no one talking about the people? I feel that the biggest factor in whether I'll like a job or not is whether or not I enjoy the people. Is there anyone there I can learn from? Anyone I find entertaining/interesting? Will I fit into the dynamic?
We all feel great when we are in the presence of a group of people that feels like the perfect mix of personalities. Where each person plays off the others in a way that feels awesome.
When I am interviewing for a new tech job, I always want to meet the team before deciding if I want to join up. Rarely do I get the chance.
It sounds cheesy, but I feel like recruiting should be more inline with matching people and personalities than matching tools and technologies.
I'm having some trouble logging in. First time I got redirected back from Github (to http://www.workshape.io/api/0/session/connect/github/callbac...), I got {}, second time I tried, I got {
name: "RqlDriverError",
msg: "Object field 'id' may not be undefined",
message: "Object field 'id' may not be undefined"
}
Matching based on what you want to work on sounds dreamy for developers, and a like a disaster for startup employers.
Startups are defined by change, and a critical thing you want to hire for is flexibility and tolerance for technology schleps. This seems like the opposite of what you're selecting for in developers.
If you want to make things more pleasant for engineers, perhaps you should be targeting more stable companies on the other end -- the ones that know precisely what they need, and know that it won't change next week.
Recently, there seems to be a trend that everyone should be pushing code to github. While it's great (real project is much better than a paragraph in CV and it shows your activity over the time), there are a lot of devs who just don't have time or just can't push code there for good reasons.
For me, I push my toy projects there - my first RoR app, and that kind of stuff. Would I like an employer to decide hire/no hire based on my weekend projects? Thanks, no.
GitHub profile is a nice add on for a job application, but it shouldn't be the whole job application.
We don't actually use Github for determining any part of the match, it is just a social sign in so that we can minimise the friction when signing on. The match is generated based on primary information gathered by our app.
We will add another form of social sign up soon so that people who do not use GitHub can sign up - most likely Twitter.
Bug report: I tried to sign up (great landing page BTW - I think you pull off the flashy design) but when I clicked the "authorise" button from GitHub, I got dropped into JSON at http://www.workshape.io/api/0/session/connect/github/callbac... qeury params> (Not sure if its unsafe to post the whole URL. I cannot web).
Here's the JSON {"name":"RqlDriverError","msg":"Object field 'id' may not be undefined","message":"Object field 'id' may not be undefined"}
I've been looking for something that's both useful for me personally to check out the current work available and that works as an employer. I think this is it.
It's incredibly difficult as an employer to convey exactly what the job will involve. Unless you're hiring a direct replacement of somebody you likely won't know what it is they'll be working on. Equally, as a developer, it's easy to see a job spec as a pack of lies, which they often are, and it can be hard to break into a slightly different role. A recruiter's aim is to fill the jobs their clients are paying them to fill and not to advance careers of candidates. I believe this [will] solve the problems in the current recruitment industry from the perspective of both invested parties.
I fully expect this to stir the waters of technical recruitment, so best of luck to you both.
At present there is a crude tree of connected skills that feeds into the matching algorithm. CSS3 has the same root as CSS. The presentation of what you entered will remain the same though.
This seems really interesting, unfortunately nobody seem to be looking for a starlord willing to take over the universe.
How would this work for companies looking for candidates? I saw no search or nothing. Companies signup a different kind of account?
Do you have plans to integrate topcoder, hackerrank etc?
Will you be emailing users when you add new stuff? I regularly signup to services to test out them, but then immediately forget them as I get no reminders of new stuff or reminders about the existence of said service.
Nice idea and really well executed. I run http://www.zonino.co.uk with a couple of other chaps and we think similarly about the need to bypass recruiters. Get in touch if you'd like to have a chat about the wild London startup scene!
Hey. Thanks for your feedback, appreciate your point of view. We had to start somewhere though, and this is the area all founding members have domain knowledge. We will roll out to other sectors and geographies (right now mainly in London) when resources allows.
No matches so far (I got more on tinder, lol), but extremaly useful, well done. Altough it would be nice if one could also explore offers that don fit him perfectly, especially when there's no others. It always good to know what market needs.
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
I believe the systems that we employ to help us find a job/recruit falls short of our expectations and is in need of some desperate rejuvenation and optimisation!
5 months ago I arrived back from San Francisco and teamed with 2 former colleagues who shared a passion in trying to improve this experience for both developers and hirers. I would like to invite you to be one of the first people to see and use Workshape.io - a talent matching service for Startups.
The key premise to Workshape.io is that we are a matching service that focuses on what you want to do in your next role - more specifically: what tech you want to work with and how you want to spend your time as a developer. We feel when you are open to another role your aspirations should be recognised as one of the key components to matching you to a role. We are focussed on rolling out in London right now and currently have roles from companies such as Shazam, Spotify, Qubit and Moo.com online.
We are very early stage right now and would really welcome your feedback on the experience, thoughts on the site and how we match you to roles.
Thank you for your time
[+] [-] OpenDrapery|11 years ago|reply
We all feel great when we are in the presence of a group of people that feels like the perfect mix of personalities. Where each person plays off the others in a way that feels awesome.
When I am interviewing for a new tech job, I always want to meet the team before deciding if I want to join up. Rarely do I get the chance.
It sounds cheesy, but I feel like recruiting should be more inline with matching people and personalities than matching tools and technologies.
[+] [-] rob_mccann|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] resetti|11 years ago|reply
Matching based on what you want to work on sounds dreamy for developers, and a like a disaster for startup employers.
Startups are defined by change, and a critical thing you want to hire for is flexibility and tolerance for technology schleps. This seems like the opposite of what you're selecting for in developers.
If you want to make things more pleasant for engineers, perhaps you should be targeting more stable companies on the other end -- the ones that know precisely what they need, and know that it won't change next week.
Source: running a startup.
[+] [-] timjahn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gedrap|11 years ago|reply
For me, I push my toy projects there - my first RoR app, and that kind of stuff. Would I like an employer to decide hire/no hire based on my weekend projects? Thanks, no.
GitHub profile is a nice add on for a job application, but it shouldn't be the whole job application.
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
We will add another form of social sign up soon so that people who do not use GitHub can sign up - most likely Twitter.
[+] [-] bjackman|11 years ago|reply
Here's the JSON {"name":"RqlDriverError","msg":"Object field 'id' may not be undefined","message":"Object field 'id' may not be undefined"}
[+] [-] adlawson|11 years ago|reply
It's incredibly difficult as an employer to convey exactly what the job will involve. Unless you're hiring a direct replacement of somebody you likely won't know what it is they'll be working on. Equally, as a developer, it's easy to see a job spec as a pack of lies, which they often are, and it can be hard to break into a slightly different role. A recruiter's aim is to fill the jobs their clients are paying them to fill and not to advance careers of candidates. I believe this [will] solve the problems in the current recruitment industry from the perspective of both invested parties.
I fully expect this to stir the waters of technical recruitment, so best of luck to you both.
[+] [-] snlacks|11 years ago|reply
Does it take into account relationships between tags? Like if someone puts in CSS3 will it put CSS in the listing?
Is there going to be a "questions" section? :P
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juhq|11 years ago|reply
How would this work for companies looking for candidates? I saw no search or nothing. Companies signup a different kind of account?
Do you have plans to integrate topcoder, hackerrank etc? Will you be emailing users when you add new stuff? I regularly signup to services to test out them, but then immediately forget them as I get no reminders of new stuff or reminders about the existence of said service.
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
Company sign ups are curated, there is no public sign up form presently.
We will inform users of future developments periodically.
[+] [-] 500and4|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtheory|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vonmoltke|11 years ago|reply
Thus, I was bummed after I signed up and discovered it is basically for matching developers with web startups. :(
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kornakiewicz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] softdev12|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] instakill|11 years ago|reply
That being said, I was mostly guessing the ratios for those 10 segments and I wouldn't be surprised if I was off by 20-40% for some of them.
[+] [-] poppahorse|11 years ago|reply
think the design of the homepage, interface, and signup are all very slick
feel like it runs aground slightly if there are no matches, and as I had no matches, can't really comment on the end goal / application experience
otherwise good work, pretty interested to see where this goes, good luck!
[+] [-] sprthompson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] motyar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adam-_-|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Roonio|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lnanek2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themullet|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GordyMD|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peakepoetics|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peakepro|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdickert|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ScottCraig|11 years ago|reply