New Innovator: Globehook

Recruiting staff is often a challenge for small companies with limited resources to spend on the hiring process. Even posting jobs on-line can cost up to €1,000 for a 30-day advertisement.

Tralee-based start-up Globehook aims to level the playing field when competing for talent by offering a 90-day posting for €150 and what its co-founder Keith Sheehan says is a far more accurate candidate matching system than currently exists.

“Employers don’t have a low-cost, efficient mechanism for recruiting and even the large websites and social media are not hitting the spot for employers despite the money and time being spent on them,” he says.

“According to the CareerXroads 2013 Source of Hire Report, on average only 3 per cent of candidates hired are sourced from each of the top three recruitment sites – Indeed, Monster and Careerbuilder – and only 2.9 per cent from social media including LinkedIn.”

Company co-founder Margaret Townsend came up with the original idea for Globehook and the partners spent a year building its site. "What gives us the edge is our unique matching algorithm. It has more than 10 elements, based around job type, location, qualifications and salary," she says.

“It avoids many of the problems affecting existing job recruitment websites that utilise keyword searching and CV trawling for matching activity. Our algorithm provides far more relevant matches – around 90 per cent. Only suitable candidates can apply for jobs on Globehook because of how it was built. This is not the only feature that makes us different. For example candidates are private and cannot be searched making it the perfect place for those in work to seek out new opportunities. HR managers spend a long time searching for these ‘passive candidates’ elsewhere.”

Globehook is a worldwide platform that allows Irish companies finding it difficult to source candidates locally to search abroad for potential employees. Over 10,000 job seekers have already signed up. There is no cost to them to use the site.

Employers using Globehook include Telefonica, ABB, Lotus Works and Ryanair. Users have their own private space where they can create multiple profiles and keep track of their application history.

Globehook went live in June and to date Sheehan and Townsend, have spent about €200,000 developing the business with financial support from the Kerry Enterprise Board and good advice from the Cork Business Innovation Centre. The company is about to recruit its first full-time employees and expects to create 19 jobs within 18 months.

Globehook has been designated as a high potential start-up by Enterprise Ireland. The company is now looking to raise €200,000 to fund a marketing drive and further develop its website.

– OLIVE KEOGH