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Sweden – Video recruitment start-up expanding to the UK

29 May 2015

A Swedish start-up is hoping its love of selfies will help businesses across Europe sign up the best sales staff while eliminating the lengthy, formal recruitment process, according to Channelnomics.

SelfieJobs launched in Sweden at the end of last year, and following success in the wider Nordics region and Germany, is now branching out to the UK. The firm aims to be the most-loved job application for young adults by 2018 and claims to have its eye firmly on the U.S. market in the future.

The company's offering works by getting young sales hopefuls to apply for jobs through the medium of a short video pitch in which they outline their skills, educational background and other information such as their favourite Instagram photo.

The idea, the firm claims, is that businesses save time trawling through long CVs by being able to judge them through social media, similar to the process on dating app Tinder, it says. SelfieJobs adds that its offering will attract the best young sales staff who have been put off by the formal recruitment process.

"We started SelfieJobs to let young people self-express their job application in a way not seen before," said SelfieJobs' chief executive Martin Tall. "A few bullets about your education and work history, your favourite picture from Instagram and a short video pitch is all you need to get started.

"Companies in service industries love this interview-first approach because they can see and screen the applicant and opt to chat with them instead of reading through a long, detailed CV. This makes the job search simple and fun for both applicants and companies while illuminating millions of hidden talents through user pitch videos. Add in the popular Tinder-style user interface and you get a fun, frictionless job app that shakes up the traditional hiring process."

Tall added that the process is a good way to attract the most outgoing sales hopeful.

"The best young talent in sales and services just want to get to the interview to showcase their skills to sell, promote or provide the best customer service," he said. "Service companies need outgoing young professionals to hire in positions where self-expression is the biggest or only requirement.

"Using this hypothesis we took inspiration from success stories around the web including Uber and Instagram and combined it with our own secret sauce. The result has been greatly received with over 10,000 users abroad."