The founders of Weekday have discovered that more than 95% of recruiters do not seek referrals from previous coworkers when assessing candidates for a position. To address this issue, Weekday has developed a hiring platform focused on referrals and references through job seekers’ social graphs.
The Problem with Current Hiring Practices
Weekday’s founders, Amit Singh, Anubav Malik, and Chetan Dalal, experienced challenges hiring for their previous startup. Despite using various job platforms and networking tools, it took them three months to find their first engineer. They turned to their networks to get references, doing video calls with friends and asking them to go through their LinkedIn connections to find promising candidates. This approach almost doubled their candidate pipeline.
The Vision Behind Weekday
Weekday was created to productize the same approach that worked for its founders. Singh explains that Weekday did a survey of more than 200 companies’ hiring practices and found that the majority do basic background checks on candidates, but less than 5% use reference checks from previous colleagues when making hiring decisions.
How Weekday Works
Weekday makes the process of getting references central to the recruitment and hiring process. Recruiters connect their social graphs on LinkedIn or their phone contacts to access Weekday’s platform. Then, Weekday provides a shortlist of talent at various companies based on recruiter requirements, including years of experience, skills, sector, and type of company previously worked at.
The Shortlisting Process
Singh says that the average shortlist created by Weekday includes about 100 people, with recruiters typically picking about 10 to 12 they want to learn more about. Once they pick their final shortlist, companies can use Weekday’s "Backchannel" feature to get background references.
The Backchannel Feature
Weekday selects people who have worked in the same organizations as the candidate to ask (job candidates can choose to exclude their current employer from the process). Weekday then sends them automated reference forms through WhatsApp and email, making the process easier. Singh says that Weekday is usually able to get references within 24 hours, before a candidate’s first introductory interview with recruiters.
Passive Candidates
Because shortlists are built through social graphs provided by users, Weekday has a large pool of passive candidates or people who aren’t actively looking for a new job but are open to one. Weekday only collects backchannel references about them if they are shortlisted by a company and chose to be onboarded into the hiring process.
Weekday’s Progress So Far
So far, more than 120 companies have used Weekday. Most of them are headquartered in the U.S., while most candidates are based in India or Southeast Asia. Singh says that Weekday’s typical customers are startups hiring their early teams. There are 62,000 active users on Weekday, and the platform has facilitated over 10,000 connections between job seekers and recruiters.
Weekday’s Goals
Singh emphasizes that Weekday’s goal is to change the way companies hire employees by making referrals a core part of the hiring process. By leveraging social graphs and automated reference forms, Weekday aims to make hiring more efficient and effective for both employers and employees.
The Future of Hiring
Weekday’s innovative approach to hiring has the potential to revolutionize the industry. By placing referrals at the forefront of the hiring process, Weekday can help companies find top talent more quickly and efficiently. As the job market continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how Weekday’s platform adapts and grows.
Conclusion
Weekday is a game-changing platform that aims to transform the way companies hire employees. By leveraging social graphs and automated reference forms, Weekday has the potential to make hiring more efficient and effective for both employers and employees. As the company continues to grow and evolve, it will be exciting to see how Weekday shapes the future of hiring.
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