Skillsme is a business set on a path to revolutionise the recruitment industry for developers. We sat down with Founders Zifeng Liangand Bernard Leong to discuss their platform and ambitions for the future.
Terry, Zifeng and Bernard
Gap in the market realised
When Zifeng was helping a recruitment agency develop an app for their hiring process, he witnessed their screening process and noticed many graduate applicants for coding positions were being discarded due to lack of practical experience – in fact he learned that 94% of graduate coders struggled to get hired in the software industry for lack of practical experience beyond the university curriculum.
He then started thinking about the way in which people from all over the world come to be a developer. The reality is that many coders are self-taught. Moreover, many of those who want to code don’t have access to a university education. “Why should you need an expensive education to prove your capabilities as a developer?”
After discussion, Zifeng, Bernard, and their other Co-Founder Terry Jiang, realised there existed a gap in the market to help coders raise their professional profile, without requiring years of practical experience or a qualification.
Helping coders land their dream job, no cv required
Skillsme is a powerful platform that provides considered functionalities for both developers and those who want to hire developers.
Every new developer to the platform is given a project set by Skillsme to complete within 48 hours. Upon completion, that developer will receive a Skillsme rating from industry leading experts from the likes of Google, Airbnb, and Facebook. This Skillsme rating is then made visible to employers on the platform. Beyond this, the users profile is completely anonymous.
“It’s a completely merits-based assessment of a coders hireability, removing the need for a certificate, university qualification, or years of hands on experience”
For an employer or recruiter, Skillsme offers a seamless, effective CV screening and interview process. The open online talent pool allows businesses to have access to a global talent pool of developers, with ease assessing a candidate’s suitability through their Skillsme rating. Once an employer believes they have found the right candidates, they simply send them an invitation for a job interview directly through the platform, and via their dashboard can manage all their potential candidates and interview processes. Skillsme offers an additional referral system, whereby their AI and machine learning software refers endorsed coders to relevant employers.
Covid 19 has changed the way people are employed. “We see a big shift to agile working and companies hiring remote programmers that could be based anywhere around the world. At the same time, we recognise a lot of companies are finding it difficult to employ remote programmers due to not knowing what the technical skills of that programmer is. This is where Skillsme can help”, says Bernard.
Global disruption
The team hopes their platform will disrupt the approach to hiring developers, and that one day any developer will be able to get a job without a CV. “There needs to be less reliance on theory and professional experience, and more reliance on practical projects during the hiring process.” They want to drive a change in how the industry perceives validation, and help people realise it is better to receive validation from those within the industry, rather than from an institution.
Not only this, they see their platform becoming a global sensation. “We built this platform with global ambition from day one and ultimately, we want every coder in the world to have a Skillsme rating at the beginning of their career”.
Having only launched six months ago, the short-term focus for Zifeng and Bernard, with the support of Kea Connect, is to partner with New Zealand businesses to understand how they recruit developers, and who can provide feedback on the Skillsme platform to help them evolve.