Let me tell you the story of a business decision that says a lot about recruiting Top Tech Talent … and about collaboration.
In the beginning, the SkillValue platform was designed to assess the developers that the Pentalog group was looking to integrate internally. But – too many people, too many technologies, and too many needs to continue recruiting in the traditional way without taking a few hits… and missing out on some rare gems.
LOGICALLY then, we created an automated assessment platform. We thus provided to all developers free access to a battery of tests dedicated to the principal languages and market needs. A simple and effective way to assess their skills in real time, to identify areas for improvement, and to recognize excellence at the highest scores.
As we began to offer a classic but parallel recruitment service, fueled by these evaluations, we quickly confirmed that a large number of excellent developers were working as freelancers.
Freelancing = freedom and flexibility for everyone!
Not everyone wants a permanent contract. Quite the opposite, in fact! Many prefer the flexibility, the variety of challenges, the intensity of engagement in specific assignments, with the intellectual and technical enrichment that this type of contract provides. And the better they are, the more they can afford it!
LOGICALLY then, with this new database (more than 400,000 people tested), we let the ones with the best scores promote their candidacy in freelance mode, by automating access to their profile and setting up this collaboration; in addition, SkillValue offered to manage all the administrative constraints.
And – success! Over the last two years, the demand for freelancers has exploded, and our model of finding the best has matured: +230% in the first quarter of 2021! Today, we have nearly 40,000 super-qualified developers … Up to and including the TOP 5%!
Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum!
At the same time, the companies that went through SkillValue to source, evaluate, and recruit permanent contracts or freelancers, realized that a gigantic pool of talent and services was already no more than a stone’s throw away in the Pentalog parent company, offered in outsourcing mode for the last 25 years. It would have been a shame to spoil that!
So the most active SkillValue customers started to bridge this gap themselves, learning more about the most advanced nearshore or offshore teams on the planet. From then on, they were able to integrate – on-demand – individuals or more complete teams, capable of very quickly developing products or services.
LOGICALLY, we listened to the demand side, and grouped the offerings together by merging the SkillValue platform with Pentalog’s; because basically, no one makes decisions based on a collaboration model, but instead, on the ability to react quickly at finding the best.
Permanent? Freelancing? Outsourcing? Individuals or teams? That’s not the question anymore!
Above all: pragmatism! The market is changing. The globalization of business, the rise of remote work, the immense variety of specialized subjects, like Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Big Data, and so on… These changes have created a plethora of demand, with increasingly high standards. Today, we are witnessing a permanent and critical struggle to identify top talent. And the contract doesn’t matter, as long as the work is exhilarating!
The merger of the SkillValue and Pentalog platforms is therefore a LOGICAL operational decision: sourcing + evaluation + recruitment + freelancing + outsourcing + consulting, all under the same umbrella and all with the same level of standards and quality!
But above all, it is proof that the market has changed and that we will all now be able to focus on the one answer that matters: finding the right person or the right team for the right mission, quickly, and whatever the contract.
