DeveloperAuction (http://hired.com), which launched in 2012 (http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/06/quora-airbnb-others-made-30m-in-job-offers-to-engineers-in-first-2-weeks-of-developerauction/) to revolutionize the engineer recruiting market, is today rebranding itself as Hired.com, and putting its sights on a much larger target covering designers, data scientists and more.
The idea is pretty straightforward: companies can bid on candidates, who then get to see the company's offer before accepting or declining an interview; companies must honor their highest offer to a particular candidate, and the potential employees are not bound to accept the highest offer (or any offer). DeveloperAuction takes a fee from companies, and offers a bonus to employees once the candidate accepts an offer.
A year ago, co-founder Matt Mickiewicz (https://twitter.com/sitepointmatt) told me that DeveloperAuction was the "first transparent marketplace for recruitment." Now, Mickiewicz tells me, "We see an opportunity that's much bigger than developers and engineers."
Mickiewicz says DeveloperAuction was too limited, as it implied that the site was just for engineers, and notes that the auction part of the site had negative connotations, as many employers thought that the highest bid won the talents of the best engineers. Mickiewicz has told me on multiple occasions that a majority of engineers do not accept the highest monetary offer that they receive, but evaluate offers on a variety of factors.
He explains that the company spent six months searching for a new name once it realized that DeveloperAuction was too limiting. The company hired an external consulting company and almost pulled the trigger on a few deals before they fell apart at the last minute. Mickiewicz notes that the Hired.com domain was "the most expensive option" for the company, but ultimately conveys the company's mission the best.
The company raised $2.7 million (http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/14/developerauction/) from NEA, Sierra Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Google Ventures, Jeff Clavier's SoftTech VC, and John Suliman's Step Partners in March. Mickiewicz says most of that money is "still in the bank." He added that the company, which is now up to 22 employees, is on a multi-million dollar run-rate for 2013, but declined to discuss further specifics on the company's financial situation.
Recruiting is consistently a challenge for tech companies, from Apple and Google to the youngest startups. I've seen a wide variety of solutions to the issue, but none as impressive as DeveloperAuction. And with the company's new name, it can take on more than Silicon Valley recruiters, as DeveloperAuction seeks to disrupt the worldwide recruiting model for every industry.
Earlier this summer, the company opened its auctions (http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/05/developer-auction-begins-offering-free-intern-placement-tests-expanding-to-designers-as-it-pushes-to-change-recruiting/) to designers and interns. Mickiewicz tells me that shortly after the company opened to data scientists a few months ago, he hired a data scientist off DeveloperAuction to work at DeveloperAuction.
DeveloperAuction has added over 250 companies since May, bringing the total approved employers using DeveloperAuction to over 560. The company is still approving employee applications by hand, and whittled down over 3,000 applications to 200 engineers for the platform last month.
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