David Banaghan and Caroline Gleeson. Image: BidRecruit
Our Start-up of the Week is BidRecruit, a company that has created a technology-driven solution to common recruiting problems.
BidRecruit was founded by Caroline Gleeson and David Banaghan in 2017. The start-up now operates in Ireland and the UK, and over the last six months its team has tripled in size.
Both Gleeson and Banaghan come from a background in tech recruitment, having worked together for Morgan McKinley in Dublin.
“This experience was vital to the success of our business because not only have we been in the shoes of most hiring managers, we’ve also used the majority of tools out there,” Gleeson told Siliconrepublic.com.
“We understand the pain points and as a result we’ve been able to focus on the core features a hiring manager needs to find the best talent, all of which have been built into the BidRecruit platform.”
As well as having experience in recruitment, Gleeson has previously worked in project management and journalism.
‘We understand the pain points and as a result we’ve been able to focus on the core features a hiring manager needs to find the best talent’
– CAROLINE GLEESON
The goal
In a nutshell, BidRecruit aims to make smart hiring simple. “We are passionate about automation in the recruitment process and empowering our customers with the tools they need to recruit, quickly and effectively,” Gleeson said.
The start-up’s main targets are industries such as hospitality, healthcare, retail, facilities management and logistics. Gleeson explained: “Our solution works best with companies that are recruiting frequently and require a system to manage their hiring processes effectively in-house.”
After talking to a number of HR managers, Gleeson and Banaghan learned that many of them feel as though 10pc of their job description is recruitment, and yet it takes up 70pc of their time. The company was set up to create technology that would make this whole process simpler and less time-consuming, so HR managers can focus on the human elements of the recruiting process.
“BidRecruit is a cloud-based candidate engagement and tracking software. The platform uses a combination of automation, logic matching and artificial intelligence to help customers identify and hire the best-suited candidates, quickly and cost-effectively,” Gleeson said.
“Many of our customers report up to 50pc reduction in time to hire and 78pc reduction in annual recruitment spend.”
The future
Gleeson added that the ultimate goal for BidRecruit is to position itself as a global market leader and trendsetter for the recruitment industry.
In December, the company closed an investment funding round for €500,000. “This has allowed us to push our growth outside of Ireland. We do have plans for a larger investment round but at the moment we’re very focused on hitting key milestones in sales and customer acquisition,” Gleeson said.
She lauded the support systems, accelerators and mentoring programmes in Ireland, as well as Government grants, noting that it is these resources that helped BidRecruit get to where it is today.
The co-founder added that entrepreneurs and business owners are usually very generous with their time in this country. “All you have to do is ask. I’ve been lucky enough to receive some excellent advice from peers and former colleagues. As a result I’m always keen to pay it forward and help others on their journey where I can,” she added.
Gleeson’s advice for self-starters based in Ireland is: “Keep your eye on the product market fit and make sure that you are really focused on a specific target market to begin with. Get some real traction, learn from your mistakes and scale from there.”
Update, 27 November 2019: As of today, BidRecruit has changed its name to Occupop.
