Here’s why it is important to list your skills carefully on the internet, if you’re looking for a job

After spending hours on internet, scanning through social media, writing emails and recruiting for different startups, founders of hiring startup ‘Belong’ concluded that top coders or product managers rarely apply for jobs.

Vijay Sharma and Sudheendra Chilappagari said that most recruitments at these levels happen through connections or referrals, making it tough for employers to find great talent buried a few levels inside a company.

The two have helped hire people for startups including Exotel, Practo and Instamojo in their earlier jobs. They have now focussed on their know-how into a hiring company that uses big data and rules to tell which gifted programmer is likely to move jobs or which manager is bored of the job.

Belong not only matches skills but also checks if a potential hire can culturally fit in.

"People leave a lot about themselves online. That helps us match a potential employee and the culture of the organisation," Sharma, who has so far bootstrapped the company to a 35-member team told Economic Times.

The financial daily reported that the Bengaluru-based Belong analyses internet data and crumbs of information left on social media by potential hires to help companies identify candidates with high degree of precision.

"People do skill matching all the time. But what really makes an employee stick is the culture," added Sharma, who has been in stealth mode since leaving Exotel last year.

Many startups these days believe in hiring smart people and then figuring out a role for them, especially at senior levels. Mostly, these people might not be actively looking for jobs.

"People have joined us from various industries like FMCG and telecom, and you don't see a direct fit most of the times," Saurabh Sengupta, who heads recruitment at Zomato, told ET, adding, “the deal maker is if they are like-minded. We are taking a lot of bets on people and not on resumes.”

Belong, which was earlier known as Dataemo, has more than 15 paying customers including fast-growing companies such as Ola Cabs, Xiaomi, Snapdeal, Zivame and Akosha.

It profiles companies and potential hires based on various factors including the state from which they are, whether they are parents or is the engineering team low on women coders.

"Some people might even come to you and say we need ex-Army men in our operations team," said Sharma.

Sharma told the financial daily that using Belong, recruiters have rolled out over 100 offers in the past nine months, typically for senior engineering and product roles.

"We saw many of our friends, startup founders and others always saying, 'I would like to work with people I will enjoy working with and make an impact'. We are meant to belong, especially somewhere, where we spend 70% of our lifetime working," Sharma said.

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