This time we’re talking to Yamato Sasagawa, a director for PT Media Makmur in Indonesia, and their new employee, Shella!

Q.1 What kind of job were you hiring for?

We were looking for a content writer for our service.

Q.2 Can you tell us bit about the person you hired?

Shella just graduated from a university in Jakarta. She found us when she was looking for a place to work after graduation, and she’s already started working with us on April 28th, 2015.

Q.3 What kind of work is she involved in on your team?

Shella had already completed a number of internships, and she knows a lot about creating video content. We love her creativity, and we plan on having her create video content for us in the future. For example, we may have her create video content during blogger gatherings that we can go on to offer as seminars.

Q4. You were originally looking for a content writer, not necessarily a videographer, right?

That’s right! She came to us through our Wantedly post, and it just so happened that we also needed a videographer. For us, it was a happy accident.

After she applied we realized she was also a friend of one of our managers, which made the hiring process very smooth.

Q5. How had she found out about Wantedly?

She had actually found it through Google. I believe the keyword she used was “job seeker website”.

Q6. Did your other employees help out when you were using Wantedly?

We didn’t really push employees very strongly to push the Support button for us, but it turned out they were engaged in the process, and clicked it on their own. Just a little bit of Support ended up resulting in success for us!

Q7. Can you tell us about other applicants for the post?

We had 15 people apply to the post, and of those people we got in touch with 5 different candidates. Most of these people were young, and they all had internet related backgrounds.

When we used Jobs DB, we had 100 applicants, but there were really only 10 people out of those 100 that we wanted to get in touch with. This shows what a huge difference there was for us in terms of the quality of applications we were receiving.

We found that with Jobs DB people were applying regardless of whether their background fit with our company, but with Wantedly we were impressed to see that the applications we received fit much better with what we were looking for.

Q8. What factors do you consider when you’re deciding whether an employee will be a good fit?

We want to see their work experience, and where they’ve been employed previously. Even if the candidate is a student we want to see if they’ve gained experience by taking part in internships.

With Wantedly, we were able to see all of these things easily by looking through the candidates’ profiles.

Q9. Do you think that Wantedly’s business plan is a good deal for the price? Is it something you want to try in the future?

Definitely. It’s worked so well for us that for that kind of price we want to get started right away!

[At the time of this writing, PT Media Makmur was signed to our US$150 plan. Ed.]

Q.10 What about Wantedly would you recommend to other companies?

We found that Wantedly allowed us to screen candidates easily. The user interface is also exceptionally good, especially compared to Jobs DB and JobStreet, which we really weren’t impressed with.

With Wantedly, it’s easy for candidates to apply to our post, and the process from there until hiring moves along very smoothly. The Support button also helped us to reach out to the network of people around our company much more affectively than just having employees introduce people to us.

The people you meet are still connected to your network, so there’s a higher level of trust from the start. Friends support our posting, and then their friends may end up coming to us.

We really appreciate this, because those are the sorts of connections we had wanted. That may be my favourite thing about Wantedly. I also like that there are a lot of different startups using the service as well.

Q11. How did the interview process work?

Originally I met with her one-on-one to talk to her. We then had her come again to go out for food with some team members, and get a feel for the atmosphere inside the company.

Next, we also talked to Shella about her experience using our service.

Q. Can you tell us what you think about using Wantedly?

I was really happy with Wantedly. It was straight-forward and simple to use so it was pretty easy for me to find the kind of job I was looking for. Before that I had tried JobsDB too, but there were just so many different listings. It was hard to find the kind of job I was really looking for.

Conclusion

The quality of your applicants can change your recruiting effectiveness tremendously. But in order to gather many high quality applicants, you must raise the quality of your recruiting process as well.

Here are some tips to get you started on the right path:

1. Write job posts honestly and from the heart. Think about what you truly want from a new team member in terms of both tangible skills but also intangibles, such as personality and spirit.

2. Don’t concentrate too much on the details. Remember, you want a human and not a robot. We humans are all able to learn new skills and improve on old ones over time. Don’t turn away a meeting with someone because they only have 4 of the 5 skills needed for your position.

3. Emphasize your team culture. The most important factor is making sure your candidate can be a part of your team and share the same vision, spirit, and work ethic. Expressing this in the beginning will help attract those that are compatible with your organization to apply.