How technology can empower us to make smarter decisions - an interview with Ben Aymé, Founder of SkillSnap

We caught up with Ben Aymé, Founder of SkillSnap and sponsor of the Future of the Workplace taking place on 20 September, to chat about his vision for the company and how it’s helping businesses save money and time in the recruitment process.

Please tell us about SkillSnap—the idea behind it and the vision for the company:

I founded SkillSnap because I’m passionate about how technology can empower us to make smarter decisions. As a recruiter, I was frustrated with the huge amount of time I spent sorting through CVs, which forms the first stage of a recruitment campaign and is a poor tool for identifying talent because they are prone to too much or too little information as well as to exaggeration or understatements.  CVs ultimately do a bad job of making a good first impression and of representing an applicant’s skill set and culture fit - the two most important ingredients for a successful hire. With this in mind, I set out to build a product that would disrupt how recruiting is done by replacing the CV with “skillsnaps”, holistic and interactive applicant profiles and focusing purely on what matters most for both recruiters and applicants.

How does SkillSnap work?

In a nutshell, SkillSnap is an innovative, web-based recruitment and matching platform that enables hiring managers and recruiters to quickly identify suitable applicants while also allowing applicants to present their genuine skill set, experience and personality.

SkillSnaps provide, at first glance, all the useful data needed to make an informed hiring decision.  This includes, objectively measured technical and soft skills, a video intro, psychometric questionnaire, samples of work and past employer references.  In short, all the information, which ought to be gathered during a recruitment campaign, is collated, in a very user-friendly way at the application stage.

While SkillSnap is free for job seekers, recruiters and hiring managers simply pay as needed – no subscription necessary.

What problem is SkillSnap solving for businesses?

Each year companies waste time and money trying to identify the right applicants as a result of using archaic recruitment techniques and platforms. High staff turnover is hugely expensive, especially when opportunity cost is taken into account.  Oxford Economics for example, calculated that the minimum cost of replacing staff is 50% of their annual salary.

SkillSnap solves this problem by giving businesses a user-friendly dashboard full of value-added features, which in turn allow recruiters and hiring managers to quickly identify suitable candidates. If they hire someone who is not only a good fit because of technical skills but also a good fit culturally, then hiring managers and recruiters should see less staff turnover. Of course we cannot guarantee cultural fit nor would using SkillSnap completely obviate turnover, however it is designed to make the hiring process easier and faster by taking a lot of the guesswork out of the equation.

What are the key benefits that SkillSnap offers its customers?

Skillsnaps are more powerful than CVs because they are supported by applicant vlogs e.g. intro videos, psychometric benchmarking, work samples, and employer references.  What’s good for applicants is that skillsnaps become a living and breathing reflection of their experience and skills as their career evolves over time. They are shareable and more visually compelling than CVs.  In turn, hiring companies can attract talent by sharing more about themselves, such as through virtual reality tours and videos.  On top of this we’ve added a matching engine powered by Artificial Intelligence, which is designed to suggest suitable applicants that hiring managers and recruiters may not have spotted. This is our key point of difference.

How does SkillSnap compare to what’s already on the market?

There are a lot of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and recruitment software on the market but these aren’t all user-friendly and force applicants to upload their CVs and then retype the same info all over again which is obviously not a great user experience.  Many start-ups have launched in recent years offering slick designs and solve some minor workflow problem but few have managed to capture soft skills and culture fit like SkillSnap has.  

What’s next for SkillSnap?

As a Brighton based company, we are formally launching on the 20 September at the Brighton Digital Festival, Future of the Workplace event. We have already several clients on board and a healthy pipeline of prospects. We want to engage with and support the local companies and job seekers first, build up that experience and knowledge and get ready for a rapid national and international expansion. Our mission is for everyone in the world to have and use skillsnaps

For more information about SkillSnap and how it could help you or your business, contact Ben Aymé ben.ayme@elevatology.com or Ferrie Van Echtelt ferrie.van@elevatology.com

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk