Searchability MD Nominated for Scale-Up Entrepreneur of the Year with new Scalability solution

2021 has been our busiest year on record at Searchability. Part of this is down to companies hitting the recruit button after a short break in hiring in 2020, and partly due to the increased demand for digital transformation of many businesses in this time also. What is really exciting however is that we are seeing a big increase in companies looking to drastically scale their tech teams in 2021. While a traditional approach to tech recruitment can help facilitate the volume needed to increase headcount of a tech team, dramatically scaling a tech team (or a business as a whole) requires a more considered and strategic approach in order to be executed successfully. Enter Scalability, our latest solution designed to help companies do just that! Having only brought this to market fairly recently, we already have some brilliant clients on board and our MD Martin Blythe was also recognised with an award nomination for Scale-Up Entrepreneur of the Year too! We caught up with Martin to learn more about the Scalability product and his award nomination too.

Since you launched Searchability in 2012 you have created a number of exciting sub-brands and solutions to help transform the way brands recruit tech talent, can you give us an insight into your newest edition Scalability?

“Scalability is such an exciting proposition and something that is so relevant in today’s market. It fuses together all the recruitment and employer brand innovation that we’ve been working on over last ten years and delivers an incredibly powerful solution to enable companies to scale at speed in a very competitive market. Not only does it enable short term wins in recruiting top tech talent, it ensures long term success for brands by delivering a solid backbone of employer brand, recruitment process and assets to assist their internal teams long beyond the partnership. Even better - the whole solution can be delivered with a commitment from ourselves to offer a complete money back solution.”

What was the inspiration behind launching Scalability as a standalone solution in 2021?

“In all honesty this project came to us almost 80% complete. There was a huge need for a service provider to be able to assist internal teams ramp up their tech recruitment. We have been building unique recruitment and employer brand tech since 2012 to help Searchability & JobHoller be the very best at what they do - that tech is ours, we designed it for us, we own the IP and it’s solely for our use. When the market came looking for a solution that had other agencies scrambling around for answers we knew we were already close to solving them. We have been championing the power of companies’ EVP (employer value proposition) since 2012 and we have been helping companies harness that power to assist not only recruitment, but engagement and retention too. This along with some incredible input from our lovely clients sparked the idea of Scalability - which started to take shape January 2021 - and within six months we have built a completed product and service that we believe in so strongly that we deliver it with a money back guarantee!”

How important do you feel it is for organisations to take a strategic approach to recruitment when growing their tech team at an accelerated pace?

“When we talk about scaling a tech team, or scaling a business as a whole, we often get caught up in the number of hires, but for scaling to truly succeed it takes a far more considered approach than just supplying volume of candidates. Scaling without structure in place can negatively impact on your culture, diluting the values that helped you get to the level of success your business was at prior to scaling, and even crash down on you if those new hires don’t engage with your brand and choose to stay. It’s a huge undertaking for a business to take hold of, which is why our Scalability solutions delivers on more than just the immediate supply of talent. We help companies look at scaling from a strategic point of view, and support them every step of the way whether it’s helping to discover their EVP, activating their values and employer brand across each touchpoint of the employee journey or developing a talent pool approach to hiring.”

Scaling a team looks different for each organisation, particularly when it comes to organisation size, would you still recommend Scalability for companies of all sizes?

“Absolutely and this is the whole ethos of Scalability, it can literally plug into any environment and it can be as disruptive or as controlled as you want. A 5 person start up looking to double to 10 is just as viable and exciting to us as a 10,000 strong workforce looking to add 40 developers to their tech team. The process and the methods remain the same - all we require are motivated stake holders that will enable us to install a Scalability process that is bespoke for each individual client. It’s this process that enables us to provide our delivery guarantee - no two processes are ever the same - it is all dependant on timescale, tech, existing employer brand, salaries, packages, locations but most importantly future value add within learning and progression!”

This new solution is one of the reasons you have been nominated for Scale-up Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2021 Great British Entrepreneur Awards, how did it feel to be nominated for this?

“I’ve been fortunate enough with Searchability & JobHoller to have been involved a lot of industry success since our inception in 2012, each award has been received with great pride as it is the result of some incredible work within our HQ that had always looked to disrupt and streamline what is an often fragmented industry. This nomination feels a little different as it’s personal and something I’m not that comfortable with if I’m being completely honest, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m absolutely delighted! I am genuinely over the moon that our brand- new solution Scalability, which excites us all so much, is being recognised in this way. I must be very honest though and say the reason behind my nomination is purely down to the incredible team I get to work with on a daily basis.”

What can we expect to see next from Searchability and or Scalability?

“We have a very busy year or two ahead of us - we soft launched Hirecracker in 2020 which is an agency all about “Inspiring your Hire” - really driving employer brand through our contingent search and focussing on any industry outside of tech. We are looking at launching four new key sectors after the successful launch of print & packaging, compliance, sales, logistics, hospitality and customer services. We are also officially launching Klickstarters in September 2021 - our answer to the tech skills shortage by showcasing entry level and grad tech talent. We are also looking at opening up in Vancouver and Melbourne within next 18 months following the successful launch of our Austin and Amsterdam offices last year. However - the biggest thing on the horizon is the enterprise launch of Scalabilty - I know I’m biased but I really do feel that the last 17 years of my recruitment experience has been building towards this - a genuine disruptor in the recruitment world that brings genuine value to your recruitment process.”

Follow us at @SearchabilityUK to find out more about the launch of Scalability and to see the results of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2021!