Please Apply: How Qimple is Changing the Way Companies Hire
MONCTON – One New Brunswick startup is changing the way businesses do one of their most important tasks: hiring.
Qimple is an online platform that makes it easier and faster for companies to find exceptional talent, while at the same time being crazy user friendly and straightforward for applicants. Because we all know how awful and confusing online job applications can be.
The idea for Qimple came to founder Yves Boudreau in 2012.
“I was helping people with a career fair and I thought there was a lot of inefficiencies,” Boudreau said. “There were a lot of things that were done manually that I felt could be automated and there could be better tools to match job seekers with employers looking for candidates.”
It was an idea that consumed him. In 2013, he put together a design plan and started sharing it. He said both government and companies alike were excited to help develop the platform and/or take part in a beta testing program for it.
“We knew we had something on our hands and just went all out from that moment on.”
Qimple allows companies to create a profile, jobs postings and create customized application forms. They are able to post to over 30 different job boards (Career Beacon, Monster, etc) with just one click. The platform also offers tools that allow employers to keep track of candidates and make short-lists. No more long email chains or excel spreadsheets.
Any company can use the platform, even small ones that don’t have a human resources department. Since launching officially earlier this year, over 100 companies are currently using Qimple to find candidates. The majority of these companies are outside of New Brunswick, including companies in Toronto, California and New York.
“For us what was important was to get external validation on what we were doing,” Boudreau said. “Because [New Brunswick] is a great place to live, obviously, but a lot of companies won’t gain a lot of credibility locally until they prove externally that other people believe in what they’re doing.”
How exactly did they manage to get that external credibility? By hopping on a plane and getting ‘face time’.
“That’s one thing I was really adamant about really early into the company,” Boudreau said. “I spent most of the year outside Atlantic Canada this year. Six months in San Francisco and a month between New York and Toronto.”
Qimple is a prime example of how the hiring process is changing. Boudreau says it will continue to, and Qimple will be a part of it. They want to transform the way companies and job seekers communicate with each other.
“The biggest thing we’re trying to do is kill the resume. I know, that sounds like a bold statement,” Boudreau said. “I think people are not realizing that we’re slowly moving from the resume within our platform. It’s still going to be the basis of how people send their information, but the way their information is transferred and how visual we make it – it levels the playing field for jobseekers.”
He said moving away from the resume makes the whole process more fair, giving everyone an equal opportunity to showcase their skills without having to fit it all on two pages.
“We’re trying to remove some of those factors that may remove chances of job-seekers getting an opportunity just because they’re not good at selling themselves on paper.”
After a successful year, Boudreau says the company is in the early stages of planning a rebrand for the coming year. Going into 2016, he says Qimple will focus on exponential growth, with plans to hire eight to ten more employees.
“A lot of it is focused on not necessarily product development this time, but it’s focused on growing the company and just improving what we have that’s currently available,” he said. “We’re just going to prove we’re one of the best options in the HR space.”