PitchMe

Linear presentation of the professional identity via CV does not allow people to adapt their skillset to a changing employment landscape.

PitchMe introduces a SmartMe™ profile - a multilayered view of candidate’s skills created relying on a combination of traditional sources and digital traits, eliminating bias from candidate's screening. We offer a digital dashboard for management of professional development that relies on skill-based dynamic presentation of the candidate, a continuous analysis of a job market and identification of educational opportunities that maximise candidate’s employability.

PitchMe helps candidates and employers to adjust to the new structure of the job markets, support continuous process of reskilling and address the uncertainties of the future of work.

As jobs are transformed by the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, more than 1 billion people need to be reskilled by 2030.

In the next two years – by 2022 – 42% of core skills required to perform existing jobs are expected to change.

More than 1 billion jobs, almost one-third of all jobs worldwide, are likely to be transformed by technology in the next decade, according to OECD estimates. By just 2022, the World Economic Forum estimates 133 million new jobs in major economies will be created to meet the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Targeting MOOCS will lead to the potential reach of millions of people. In 2017 over 81 million users were registered at MOOCs. One of the main advantages our marketplace has is the ability to bridge online education and employment market. 

Target audience benefiting from the platform is the following:

1.  SMEswith no internal HR team and with a limited recruitment budget. SMEs that are in active growth stage, making between 5-100 hires a month. At the moment we are working with tech and creative sectors, but are planning to expand to wider industries (financial, sales, management, etc.)

2.  Candidates with non-obvious career story– graduates, young professionals and career shifters (including job seekers with non-obvious career stories). We help them to get matched with jobs matching skillset as well as create individual learning plans.

3.  Enterprises– we will be integrating our assessment/recruitment/profiling technology into existing HR systems.

4.  Online education platforms– PitchMe is an outsourced career service for MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses). Online courses’ main challenge is to attract users. The main motivation behind taking an online course is to improve/change career path; therefore, our partnership will enable online courses to guarantee employability for users. 

PitchMe was formed to develop a skills-based talent marketplace. It introduces an anonymous Skillsourcing process, relying on multilayer profiling of candidate’s skills and matchmaking between those offering their skills and those who need them.

The technological advantage of the Skillsourcing system is an ability to conduct early assessment of skills relying on combination of traditional sources and digital traits, eliminate bias from pre-screening of candidates. Proprietary algorithms that support matching relying on skill analysis reduce subjectivity in hiring.

The technology that was developed by PitchMe achieved these goals via five technological developments:

1. A methodology for assessment of skills analysing digital traits

2. A new form of professional online identity that relies on combination of hard and soft skills of an individual- SmartMe© Profile

3. A revised and dynamic version of a skill map that supports matching and efficient development of human resources relying on skill analysis and the analysis of the changes in the demands of the job market

4. Proprietary algorithms that support pre-screening of candidates based on their skills, utilising machine learning

5. Online infrastructure that supports integration of professional identity, personalised career planning and online education opportunities, in order to enable and facilitate continuous learning of candidates

So far, most of the technologies that have been used in order to recruit people, specifically at the stages of pre-screening, shortlisting and assessment of candidates, relied on an analysis of the employment history, as manifested in candidate’s resume. As an outcome, many candidates who have better skillset, but not relevant employment history or skills in the CV, are often not selected for further assessment and evaluation. That contributed to inequality around employment opportunities, and limited not only the capacity of some candidates to get jobs that match their skills, but also the capacity of companies to find and hire the best candidates for their needs.

PitchMe's main asset is the know-how relating to skills profiling using variety of digital sources. The technological innovation lies in ability to conduct early assessment of skills relying on combination of traditional sources and digital traits. With a help of ML, NLP and proprietary methodology we convert big data from 32 digital sources (unstructured text, images, videos and code) into real-time profile of hard, soft skills and personality profile. 

Activity: a new form of professional online identity - SmartMe© Profile and a skills-based talent marketplace. 

Output: candidates are able to find a job that matches theirs skills and get access to a reskilling tool. Employers tap into the talent pool and hire the best candidate for their position.

Short term outcomes: candidates are able to find a job based on their skillset. Also, they receive individual career development recommendations. Employers make an objective hiring decision and expand horizon of talent search.

Long term outcomes: a one-stop-shop for a career development and a job search for candidates and employers that supports continuous upskilling and reskilling. 

2020- 50.000 SmartMe profiles for candidates; staffing positions for 210 employers 

2021- 300.000 SmartMe profiles for candidates; staffing positions for 1,000 employers 

2025- 1.700.000 SmartMe profiles for candidates; staffing positions for 5,000 employers 

Further technology development next year:

- Access new data sources. At the moment PitchMe is able to analyse 32 various obvious and non-obvious sources. The potential of integration of new sources is limited at the moment, but has a great potential to expand and use new sources across different geographies and professional sectors.

- Automate position description. Employers are often struggle to write accurate job description and therefore are introduced to wrong candidates.

 - Suggest personalised improvement of skills for candidates.

Next 5 years:

- SaaS development

- Integration with HRM systems

- E-Wallet for candidates. Online infrastructure that supports integration of professional identity, personalised career planning and online education opportunities, in order to enable and facilitate continuous learning of candidates.

The risk for the next year is struggling against the traditional mindset of employers, that would like to have the full information about employment history and educational background of candidates.

An additional internal risk for next year is hiring top talent and financial resources.

One of the risks we can face in next five years - lack of the available data from digital footprint, due to changes in the legal environment and platform's API. 

We address the challenge of access to data by obtaining license from valuable sources. We also are working on the new solution which will help us to be independent from the third parties, including relying on the technology of personal data wallets that will allow the candidates to share with us directly the data they think can be valuable for analysis of their skills.

We are going to produce research and share outcome of it via media to show that our approach does not only support inclusivity, but also allows employers to find the best candidates. We will show that it is the interest of employers to rely on anonymous process and use our algorithms.  

As for our internal risk, we believe that we have built a very strong team that is dedicated and determined to find our marketing mix and positioning. We are also fundraising to give us a sizeable runway.

We operate in those markets as a talent marketplace connecting candidates with employers and online education providers. 

4 Co-founders

6 full-time

2 part-time

Our team has a unique skillset and knowledge that distinguishes us from other HR tech companies. Our co-founders have over 30 year of experience in total and come from various backgrounds: academia, business and IT.

We have have been nominated for multiple Awards recognising our project and team:

1. City Rising Start Award 2017

2. Young Professional of the Year Award, 2017.

3. AIconics, AI for good, 2019

4. Europas Award, Best HR tech, 2019

Our data scientists and psychologists have vast experience in working with big data and behavioural studies. 

Our CTO had 2 previous exits.

We partner with tech hubs and education providers in London:

- Huckletree

- Tech Hub

- Red Academy

- General Assembly

Providing their members special deals for hiring.

We partner with universities in the UK and Europe, working with departments of computer science, mathematics, engineering. We help their students to prepare for the future work.

PitchMe creates a unique talent marketplace in the Recruitment landscape. Currently, PitchMe is a fully functional platform and connecting:

• candidates
• employers
• online education providers (MOOCs)

We are funded by investors and are reinvesting revenue back in the company.

One of the biggest milestones for us this year is to develop and integration with HR Management systems and work with enterprise clients. If we are selected this Challenge we will be able to invest in this technological development and help corporate clients with internal mobility and team management. 

We would love to integrate our solution with SAP and Oracle