Meet Our ATC Innovators – @WeirdlyHub

The Amazon Innovation Lab is coming up in June! Today, Trevor chats to Simon Martin @NZSimonM, Co-Founder of Weirdly Hub to find out why it’s now hip to be weird, the value of culture fit, and where the company wants to go from here.
 
TV: Simon, please tell us a little about your solution, what is its purpose and value proposition to clients and candidates?
SM: Weirdly is disrupting the traditional recruitment process by putting internal culture fit where it belongs: Right at the beginning of the process. 
We make the process more fun and more effective – improving the candidate’s experience, streamline the shortlisting process and achieving the holy grail for busy recruiters: Reducing applicant numbers while increasing candidate quality.
Users can filter candidates by how well they fit your team and manage the whole process through a fun, easy-to-use dashboard. It’s particularly awesome for businesses who care about their employer brand.
 
TV: I’ve got to know, why the name Weirdly?
SM: We spent a long time throwing names around that described what we DO. Then, one day we were talking about WHY we do what we do. We wanted to connect real people, with all the complex, unique skills and experiences that real people have, with roles that would fit their particular cocktail of strengths. We got hooked on the word “weird” – talking about that unique “fit” idea and how it’s the weird things about people that are the things that make them brilliant in the right role. And the name Weirdly naturally evolved from there. 
Of course, it didn’t hurt that Dr Seuss had written a quote that perfectly summed our ideas up for us as well!
TV:Which clients are currently using the solution, to what impact?
SM: Some of our clients include Spark, Publicis Loyalty, Xero, Vend, Glengarry and Jucy Rentals. We’re also being used across a diverse range of small businesses – often with an external recruiter or HR-head managing it on the owner’s behalf. 
Across the board, our clients are reporting time savings, with the initial filtering of candidates into a ranked shortlist almost eliminating the initial phone screen step. It also helps that they’re seeing a reducation in volumes, but a real increase in candidate quality.
Finally, we’re getting feedback that retention is higher for staff hired using Weirdly – our clients are finding that staff who fit with the team, share the company values and have a real passion for their business, just don’t want to leave as often. Candidates love the process and talk about how great it is being able to get a real sense of the business’s brand from the first interaction they have with the company.
TV:What are you hoping to achieve from presenting in the Innovation Lab and what type of Aussie clients are you wanting to connect with?
SM:We’ll be focused on demonstrating how fun and easy Weirdly is to use, how much time and stress it can save and showing how quickly you can see positive results. We’re looking to connect with clients who care about their employer brand and want to front-foot that brand experience in the recruitment process. Australia is full of cool businesses who recognize hiring people with just the right kind of weird is what drives really productive, happy teams. We want to talk to those guys.
TV: Us Aussies think its ‘weirdly’ that the Kiwis beat us in the Cricket World Cup.  Did the NZ team use Weirdly to select the players and gain some X-Factor to beat us?
SM: We can neither confirm nor deny our involvement in recruiting the current team of soon-to-be World Champions. Just like we can’t comment on rumours of our involvement in the world champion All Black team, the World Champion Black Ferns team and the six-time World Champion Black Socks teams. Lydia Ko may or may not be a friend of Weirdly too.
We will give you this though; Australia can proudly take responsibility for matching the Farn with an ailing Little River Band. We’ll always wish that was one of ours. Great job on that, guys.
TV: What’s the next step for the Weirdly Group?
SM: Over the next few months we’re focused on growing our client base in NZ and Australia and continuing to develop some tasty new features. In the works at the moment are multi-admin accounts, integrations with new job boards and ATS platforms, as well as adding slick analytics for our users that’ll help with planning and reporting (as well as being super-fun to play with).
Then, in the second half of this year, we’re looking to move into some larger international markets.
TV: Guys, thanks for you time.
 
Even if you can’t make it to ATC2015 this year, you can still network and meet the speakers at our Amazon Innovation Lab. Join Bill Boorman, Martin Warren and Todd Davis for a pre-conference night of drinking, networking and the newest and coolest new HR tech around.
 
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