HR Tech Interview with Arnaud Devigne, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Jobgether

Journey into Tech

Please tell us a little bit about your role and responsibilities in your current company. How did you arrive at the idea of starting an HR Technology organization?

We identified a gap in the market for a platform that would make it easier for both employers and job seekers to find remote work opportunities. The global trend towards remote work was a driving factor in this decision, as it created both opportunities and challenges for both employers and job seekers.

By creating a platform that connects employers with top remote talent from around the world and provides detailed information on remote conditions, we aim to address the hiring difficulties faced by companies and make it easier for job seekers to find remote work opportunities that align with their needs and preferences. We saw an opportunity to leverage technology to address a growing demand for remote work and create a more efficient and effective hiring process for employers and job seekers alike.

As one of the co-founders and co-CEOs of Jobgether, I have a wide range of responsibilities related to managing the overall direction and growth of the company. With my background and experience in digital tech, consulting, executive leadership, and entrepreneurship, I am well-suited to oversee various aspects of the business, such as marketing, talent acquisition, and strategic planning. My previous roles at Google and Indeed have provided me with a wealth of expertise in recruitment and job search technology that I bring to my current position.

As someone who has worked remotely for over 10 years and is passionate about the “Future of Work” topics, I am heavily involved in shaping the company’s vision and mission around remote work. My direct experience as a single parent with a young daughter also informs the company’s focus on inclusivity and accessibility in remote work opportunities.

Overall, my role and responsibilities at Jobgether encompass a wide range of areas, including strategic planning, business development, marketing, talent acquisition, and ensuring the company’s continued growth and success.

What is Jobgether and what are your core offerings? Which industries benefit from leveraging your platform?

Jobgether is a global search engine that connects talented individuals with remote and flexible job opportunities worldwide. The company was founded during the Covid-19 pandemic with the belief that the future of work will be flexible and remote.

Jobgether offers a comprehensive platform that identifies, aggregates, moderates, enriches, and makes available all remote jobs compatible with the applicant’s location, free of charge. The platform uses AI and machine learning to scrape all relevant job listings in real-time and build the most comprehensive global remote jobs database. This approach ensures that job seekers have access to the most relevant and up-to-date remote job opportunities worldwide.

Our platform benefits a variety of industries as it provides employers with the opportunity to diversify their talent acquisition campaigns with global outreach. The platform also offers a one-stop-shop solution for accessing talent pools across the globe with a flexible mindset, saving recruiters time by providing candidates with the right level of detail so they know what to expect.

In addition, Jobgether offers employers promotional tools such as “Sponsored Jobs” to help them promote open positions and find the right talent faster, as well as a “Flex Score” ratings aimed at fully flexible companies who would like to highlight their employer branding. Overall, Jobgether aims to make remote work accessible to everyone and help companies find the right talent for their needs, regardless of location.

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Please tell us a bit about your recent funding story and how this would infuse the HR tech marketplace with new energy and innovative ideas?

Jobgether recently closed a €1.4 million seed financing round with participation from finance & invest.brussels and 4Ventures, as well as business angels. We aim to use the funding to establish and consolidate Jobgether’s leadership in the remote work space by strengthening the search engine’s job aggregation capacity and talent acquisition strategy, focusing on Europe and emerging markets. The platform already offers over 50,000 remote positions and attracts one million users monthly, out of whom 100,000 have applied for open positions in the last month.

The funding received would infuse Jobgether with new energy and innovative ideas, as the company aims to solve the problem of a lack of transparency and details on flexibility conditions of remote jobs. By using AI and machine learning to identify and dynamically score the most flexible employers among those offering positions, creating a “flex score” based on 30 criteria, Jobgether would help job seekers find genuinely remote and flexible jobs while enabling employers to create genuinely remote work cultures.

What are “Flex employers”? How are these sets of business owners different from enterprise and SMB owners?

“Flex employers” are companies that offer the most comprehensive remote and flexible working policies to attract and retain talent in skill-shortage hot spots, such as San Francisco, Cambridge, Massachusetts etc. These employers are different from enterprise and SMB owners in terms of their HR policies, as they place a greater emphasis on offering remote work arrangements and flexibility to appeal to in-demand skills.

Jobgether’s TOP100 Flex Companies Rankings reveal that tech-related industries, including computer and software, information technology and services, internet, and fintech, are leading the way in offering flexible working arrangements. The rankings also show that companies from mature markets are more likely to embrace flexible working arrangements, with the majority of large and scale-up companies headquartered in the US, followed by the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Flex employers are assessed based on Jobgether’s “Flex Score,” which considers 30 different criteria split into three pillars. These categories assess remote work frequency and adaptability, as well as other aspects, including the number of working days, hours, and holiday periods, as well as the type of contract available.

Tell us more about your own HR technology stacks—which tools and solutions do you use for your own organization and why?

Overall, our HR technology stack is designed to streamline our HR functions and improve the employee experience. We try to keep the number of tools as few as possible to avoid overwhelming ourselves with unnecessary solutions that could confuse our employees.

One of the primary tools we use is Deel, which helps us with compliance, payroll, and benefits administration. Deel has been helpful for us in global hiring as it enables us to easily manage contracts and payments in different countries and comply with local laws and regulations.

For employee onboarding and performance management, we use Clickup and Google Workplace. These tools allow us to create custom checklists and workflows to ensure a smooth onboarding experience for new hires. We also use Clickup for performance management, which allows us to set goals, track progress, and provide feedback to our employees. Clickup’s customizable dashboards and reports help us stay on top of our performance metrics and identify areas for improvement, adding efficiency to asynchronous work. Google Workplace provides collaboration tools that are easy to use and integrate with our tech stack.

For employee engagement and communication, we use Discord. It’s our primary chat, divided into channels that help the team be aware of the current workflow, enhance interpersonal communication, and share day-to-day remote life updates. This helps us stay connected even in a fully remote and distributed environment.

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For the sake of our readers who could be new to the whole employment data analytics —please tell us how you collect and analyze data to identify workforce opportunities around the globe?

We collect and analyze data to identify workforce opportunities around the globe by scanning all the remote offers available in the internet and the companies that publish them. We then evaluate these offers and companies based on our FlexScore to understand the remote work arrangements and choose the best ones that suit our criteria and the needs of our users.

With the help of data science and machine learning, we have evaluated over 34,000 companies to know exactly how the market looks like today and create the supply/demand (offers/talents), where these employers are looking for talent, and how flexible they are.

One of the key insights we have gained from our analysis is a deep mismatch between the offers suggested on the market and where talent is looking for opportunities. Many companies are country-centric and hire remotely only in one particular location, whereas talent understands remote work as being able to work from anywhere. In fact, only 2% of the offers we have evaluated are available worldwide.

Our organization aims to advocate for global hiring as there are huge talent pools in different regions, and many companies are not aware of additional tools that can help them to hire in any country, such as Deel or Oyster. If companies continue to search for talent locally, we will soon see a shortage of talent. The only solution is to go global to build successful and sustainable remote teams to keep your business operating.

With our global outreach campaigns, we understand what and where talent is looking and try to bridge the gap between companies and talent. By collecting and analyzing data, we are able to identify opportunities for global hiring and help our users to connect with the best remote work opportunities around the world.

What are the biggest challenges in the modern remote and flexible working scenarios?

The modern remote and flexible working scenarios present several challenges, both from a market perspective and a product perspective.

From a market perspective, one of the biggest challenges is the gap between talents and employers in approaching remote work and flexibility. While many employees now take the extra freedom for granted and won’t accept going back to a rigid model, some employers have only superficially adapted and may be tempted to move backward. However, enforcing rigid working patterns may lead to failure, as 90% of talents want flexibility. Employers who fail to provide flexibility may struggle to attract and retain the best talents, as flexibility has become the biggest currency on the job market.

At Jobgether, the goal is to bridge the gap between talents’ expectations and employers’ behaviors. Job offers are published with transparency regarding remote and flexible conditions, and the market is evangelized by showcasing best-in-class remote employers to convince others to surf this opportunity to attract top talents instead of pushing back.

From a product perspective, delivering what both talents and recruiters need is another challenge. Talents want comprehensive and accurate information on remote policies, and Jobgether works hard to identify all true remote jobs available worldwide and ensure accurate remote locations. Doing this at scale is not an easy task.

On the employers’ side, hiring globally can involve receiving a large volume of applications that are hard to screen due to the diversity of backgrounds and experiences. Recruiters need help pre-qualifying their candidates, and Jobgether puts a lot of focus on machine learning, AI, and continual product updates for end-users.

How could CEOs and HR leaders take better control of their talent pool and reduce employee churn in the long run? How does Jobgether help organizations reduce employee churn?

I think CEOs and HR leaders can reduce employee churn in the long run by creating a positive work culture that values employee engagement, provides opportunities for growth and development, and fosters a sense of community among employees. Additionally, offering competitive compensation and benefits packages, implementing fair and transparent performance evaluations, and providing opportunities for employees to give feedback can also help take better control of the team..

We aim to reduce employee churn by connecting top remote talent with the best remote job opportunities, helping companies find and retain the right employees for their organizations.

Do you think AI augments workplace experience and employee engagement?

Definitely. AI can help streamline repetitive tasks, freeing up employees’ time and allowing them to focus on more meaningful work. Additionally, AI can assist in tasks such as training and development, performance monitoring, and personalized career development plans.

As for how AI will affect the job market, it’s difficult to make a blanket statement. Some jobs may become obsolete as AI takes over certain tasks, while other jobs may emerge as a result of increased AI implementation. To remain competitive in the job market, it’s crucial to keep one’s skills up-to-date and stay abreast of technological advancements.

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Your recommendations to business leaders looking to change their hiring strategy: What lessons can they take from the European market?

Business leaders should consider incorporating remote work opportunities to access a more diverse and inclusive talent pool. Our experience has demonstrated that remote work can lead to increased productivity, improved work-life balance, and reduced costs.

By embracing remote work, companies can also have a positive impact on society by promoting inclusivity, reducing carbon emissions, and narrowing the income gap between developed and emerging economies. Jobgether is committed to making remote work accessible to everyone, and business leaders can learn from our platform’s success in connecting top talent with remote job opportunities.

Thank you, Arnaud! That was fun and hope to see you back on HR Tech Series soon.

[To participate in our interview series, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com