Nothing is easy in a pandemic, even when recruiting employees.
Business travel bookers TruTrip and TravelBank, alongside accommodation providers AltoVita, hire for a variety of reasons, from laying the foundation stone to creating special roles related to pandemics. But they all have one type of role that they want to play together: the product manager.
While you’d expect the talent pool to have expanded significantly over the past year, recruiting isn’t as easy as you might think.
Plug in
TruTrip is one of the few companies launched in the midst of this crisis, and its co-founder, Hugh Batley, actually believes this will give the Singapore-based corporate travel platform the edge as travel reboots.
“Business travel becomes more complex from route to route. How can we help people with this? “Said Batley. He now wants to position TruTrip as a platform for small and medium-sized companies that not only focuses on booking for them but also covers all aspects of their travel management.
With a number of specialized companies offering security or tax advice, he wants TruTrip to be flexible enough to hook up to these type of platforms and offer them to customers. The Risk Intelligence company is a new addition Risklinewhile also looking at insurance platforms.
For this type of integration, Batley is hiring a product manager, product coordinator and growth manager who can redesign workflows and digitize and automate processes as much as possible.
“We will always integrate partners. The idea of a company going out into the world and finding 10 different service providers it needs to do good travel management with health, safety and wellbeing is unreasonable, ”he said.
It’s already a trend among some of its rivals, including TravelPerk, which recently Acquired travel information API provider Albatross and Introduced a new tax refund tool.
TruTrip has 50 customers, 80 percent of whom are smaller companies and the rest are larger companies. “We’re new to the market too, so a lot of it comes down to making sure those basics are in place to make sure customers get to the platform,” added Batley.
How to find the right people
Building the foundations has been made easier to some extent as more people have adapted to working remotely, so the talent pool is bigger. However, startups can be inundated with applications – – and not all applications are the same or relevant.
AltoVita is in the hospitality industry and is looking for a full stack engineer and product designer.
The company wants to consolidate its suppliers and integrate them into more real estate and channel management systems. It also connects with other moving and mobility technology partners like Benivo. “They have such unique workflows that we have to create tailor-made systems and interfaces for them so that product development takes a long time,” said founder Vivi Cahyadi Himmel.
The AltoVita founders Vivi Cahyadi Himmel (right) and Karolina Saviova.
After posting the vacancies on LinkedInCahyadi Himmel said she filtered applicants down to fewer than five people who met the criteria after receiving more than 100 resumes. She also posted the jobs on UpWorkwhich has a “many skilled talented technicians” and a community website for product managers Pay attention to the product.
TruTrip’s Batley said he received 150 applications after posting project management roles on LinkedIn. “That’s a crazy answer,” he said. “We’re trying to be robust in this process and we’ve been working all over the weekend to respond to all applicants, not the lack of connection to the human resources that people are talking about.”
London-based AltoVita has doubled its workforce since Covid launched to 20 employees and aims to grow to 40 employees by the end of this year. However, the competition will be fierce.
“They were easier to find for hospitality staff. There are clearly major layoffs in the industry, ”Cahyadi quoted Himmel as saying BridgeStreet’s bankruptcy. “It’s not quite the same when it comes to technology and product development because you are competing against other thriving technology-driven companies for the same talent pool.”
Batley agrees. “In Singapore alone, TikTok has brought together tech teams, including neighboring countries. It creates a challenge, ”he said, adding that he sometimes reaches out to people directly when he hears their company is laying off people.
The end of lunch
California-based TravelBank was recently looking for a full-stack engineer, product manager, and product designer to help grow the company Cost product that it launched last year.
“There have been requests for more robust corporate resource planning support and the ability to delegate user support for expenses,” said Product Manager Angelina Kim. “Both functions will be introduced at the beginning of this year and indicate a growing need to integrate workflows and optimize communication where possible.”
There have also been requests for more insight into Covid-19 rules and status updates while traveling, such as access to flight-specific cleanliness information supported by new employees, she added.
Kim said the hiring process is different with the pandemic.
“We have a fun and engaging corporate culture and our face-to-face interview process included taking candidates out to lunch,” she said. “Now that we need to conduct interviews remotely, we’re looking for other ways to get the most out of the process through Zoom.”
On the first day that TravelBank published its vacancies, it too received more than 100 applicants. “It’s quite a lot. We are seeing a lot of people who have been affected by layoffs in Covid and this is really cross-industry, ”Kim added.
CORRECTION: This article originally stated that Alto Vita is integrated with Topia and that bespoke property management systems were created.
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Photo Credit: Tech-driven companies are recruiting in anticipation of a new return of the trip. Briana Tozour / Unsplash
