Manchester start up firm launches world’s first talent sharing platform
Manchester based technology start-up Final Stage has launched the world’s first talent sharing platform that looks to help job seekers and companies connect.
Founded by Eddie Lewis and Will Morris, two childhood friends from primary school, the company is getting organisations to invite their shortlisted candidates who don’t receive an offer, to a network of top employers who are actively looking to hire.
“In many cases, organisations shortlist three or four top candidates at the final stages, but only have one role available” said Eddie.
Rather than simply rejecting the other strong candidates, the platform enables companies to give them a helping hand with their job search by inviting them to the network and be recognised as top pre-vetted talent.
The pair came up with the idea whilst running a student-led recruitment company where they’d find themselves getting great candidates to the final stages of a client’s recruitment process, and if they didn’t secure a role, they’d have nowhere left to put them.
“Time and time again we’d be in the position where all we could do was wish great candidates well and watch them go and secure a similar (or even better) position, and this got us thinking, what are other companies doing with such talent?” said Morris.
The short answer was nothing and although companies are spending a lot of time and resources engaging with talent, it turns out that the majority of the market are failing to realise any real value from individuals once it becomes apparent that they are no longer going to be associated with the company – something that they saw as a huge area of wastage.
The company operates a strict invite-only policy for both companies and candidates to join the network and companies who contribute the platform also gain access to the shared pre-vetted talent pool, helping them find future talent.
Final Stage has been under the radar for the last year while they have been building out the technology but they are now ready to open up the employer network and grow the community.
“We wanted to stay discrete while establishing and refining our model, however we’re now putting the market on notice that talent sharing has well and truly arrived” says Lewis.
This growth should be helped by the recent backing of Capgemini, Bloomberg, Grant Thornton and advisory firm PwC who in March selected the team for their Scale Programme, designed to help innovative technology companies scale-up. The pair are now raising capital to fuel the next stage of growth.
