CVWarehouse
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CVWarehouse
Human resources
Public
Company
Belgium
Fast and transparent recruitment
Inge Geerdens
Benoit van der Maas
Inge Geerdens
Summary
CVWarehouse offers an online recruitment platform that is linked to a website of a company to put all their candidates in a database quickly. By using this platform, candidates will have a good feeling about the company.
Background
CVWarehouse is a spin-off of the previous company the founder Inge Geerdens created, Executive research that is now part of the Acerta-group. In that previous company she developed a tool to make recruitment more transparent and efficient.
CVWarehouse started with that tool but completely adjusted by customer demand. The name CVWarehouse speaks for itself, it’s a kind of warehouse for resumes.
The first year she financed the start of CVWarehouse with the profit she made with her previous company. After the first year she raised one million euros from venture capitalists.
Mission
CVWarehouse tries to help companies as well as candidates to recruit or find a job on an efficient and transparent way for an affordable price.
Vision
To make recruitment transparent and efficient for companies and candidates.
Values
Transparency, feasibility and efficiency.
Business Model
CVWarehouse is a ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) company. Clients will have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to use the online platform depending on the amount of jobs offered and the size of the company.
The businessmodel CVWarehouse uses is quite innovative compared to other companies. CVWarehouse is based on one model that is used for every client where as competitors use a customized model for every client.
CVWarehouse ensures that every candidate that applies for a job with a company using CVWarehouse gets a good and professional feeling about that company. CVWarehouse aims for at least a 95% customer satisfaction rate.
Growth
In 2009-2010 the recruitment market was almost disappeared due to the financial crisis. In that period it was very difficult for CVWarehouse to grow. Since the end of the financial crisis CVWarehouse is growing at a steady rate. Today CVWarehouse has offices in Belgium, Portugal and the United States.
Customers
CVWarehouse targets the whole market, from small start-ups to big multinationals as McDonalds. They have clients from all kinds of industries; aviation, automotive, food, finance, government and many more. Basically all companies with an own website who are in search of new employees are potential clients.
Competition
CVWarehouse has different competitors, for example Oracle’s Taleo and Successfactors.com. There are companies that tried to copy CVWarehouse’s concept but Inge Geerdens doesn’t see them as a thread because copycats are always lagging behind.
Conclusion
The biggest opportunity for CVWarehouse is to grow in the U.S. because most companies make their decisions in U.S. headquarters. Threads are the constantly changing technology, because of the changes it’s difficult to keep the tool up-to-date. But the founders isn’t really scared of other threats anymore because their revenue is widely spread over all their clients, their biggest client only counts for 1% of the revenue.
The best advice Inge Geerdens could give for starting entrepreneurs are based on quotes she heard in the U.S.:
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If you have an ‘A’ product and a ‘B’ team, they will find a way to screw it up.
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Surround yourself with the proper people with the right motivation.
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If there’s no customer willing to pay for your product, you have no company at all.
The biggest problem the founder faced during the start of CVWarehouse was the financial crisis, because all the costs had to be paid but without revenue this is a difficult situation. The founder’s ambition is clear, within a few years they want to become the best recruitment tool for companies in Europe.
Posted on 12/05/2016