Sir Richard Branson with swob co-founders Stephanie and Alexander Florio
By Stephanie Florio
is a social recruiting platform to help employers and HR professionals in high turnover industries find local talent, using our smart recruiting service. Sir Richard Branson even endorsed Swob™ as the Number 1 social recruitment platform amongst millennial job seekers.
Stephanie and Alexander Florio
The idea for Swob came from my brother, Alexander, who was in the process of applying for jobs, and thought there needed to be an easier way. Prior to launching in November of 2017, we spent a year meeting with Millennials and Gen Z’ers to learn about how they apply to jobs, and their frustrations in doing so. What quickly became evident was the lack of resources and tools to help them in their employment search. While the ‘full-time, professional’ market has resources, there was no relevant resource available for young job seekers.
Not only did we meet with young job seekers, we also met with employers to understand what they would like to see in a recruiting platform. We were surprised to learn that a lot of employers struggle to recruit top young talent, and that many are looking for new and innovative solutions.
It was clear that the job boards already available were not sufficient in helping these struggling employers recruit. We built our website based on the feedback we received from the human resources departments at McDonald’s Canada and Recipe Unlimited.
Employers in high turnover industries face common problems and we have addressed these pain points with our employer dashboard. All of the different features available on Swob came from employer feedback. For example, a Tim Hortons store owner in Toronto mentioned to us his frustrations when posting on other traditional job boards. He mentioned that when he would post part-time roles for his store in Toronto, he would receive applications from candidates in Vancouver, which was upsetting for him.
Once we heard this, we took his feedback and developed a solution on our website called ‘Maximum Applicant Distance’, where employers have the ability to select how far they want candidates to apply from, ensuring local applicants. We heard a problem, and we developed a solution. Some of the key features that makes Swob unique include our filters, which allow employers to filter candidates by age, availability, education and experience, reducing the time spent screening applications.
Another feature we developed for employers using Swob is saved job descriptions, which lets employers duplicate an existing job without having to complete the job details again. It was after meeting with numerous employers that we learned that many other job boards don’t save the job description, even though employers might need to duplicate the post. Employers also have access to the applicants full application and Swob profile, and can use our automated emails to start the conversation with these candidates.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult for employers to retain and find talent, with turnover exceeding 80% per year. With more young talent looking for tools like Swob, it’s clear they are moving away from traditional methods. For many employers, they want to ensure they adapt to new innovations, and not fall behind on advanced trends. Employers posting roles on Swob no longer have to go through physical stacks of resumes, rather they can post jobs, screen applicants, and communicate with the candidates they are interested in right on Swob.
This new technology captured the attention of Sir Richard Branson in May of 2018, as Swob was awarded $10,000 and named the first ever Canadian company to win Richard Branson’s “Pitch to Rich” contest.
To date, Swob has helped many young job seekers find meaningful employment and is working with companies such as McDonald’s, Virgin Mobile Canada, The Source, Tim Hortons, Cactus Club, etc.
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*Partner content. To work with Retail Insider, email: craig@retail-insider.com
