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Metro Retro | Case Study

How we helped start-up Metro Retro make their first hire outside of the founding team

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The background

Metro Retro’s UX designer knows Oliver and Mark, the owners of SEEKR, and recommended them to Metro Retro.

Metro Retro is an online whiteboard product that has been built entirely by its two founders. They are close to reaching a million users and need to expand their engineering team. The business is self-funded and they need to hire carefully. They are looking for a full-stack engineer who can work well with both founders and help deliver new features at a rapid pace.

The problem

The founders are busy with product development and marketing, and any time away from these activities will negatively affect their business. While there are many platforms to advertise the role, they are concerned about the time it will take to review all the CVs and conduct interviews to find the right talent.

The solution

SEEKR requests a 45-minute discovery call to learn everything about the business, including its hopes, dreams, wins, and stumbles. They create job adverts, email campaigns, and a video job description to share with interested candidates. SEEKR maps the market for the required skills against the business's budget and initiates a slow and precise campaign to reach out to relevant candidates with personalised video messages. Interested candidates are given a 30-minute video interview with a SEEKR team member using an interview script tailored to target specific personality attributes.

The result

As a result, Steve and Jamie hire a candidate named Kit, who was slightly more junior than they originally had in mind. Kit has been with them for since April '23, and everyone is pleased with the progress. The pace at which Metro Retro is now able to build and release new features is a testament to the success of this hire.

At a glance

Challenges:

Recruiting = time consuming
Other business priorities to juggle

Results:

1 new hire
Increased product development

"It's tempting to think you can do it all yourself and save the money, but when looking at the time we saved, it’s completely worth it."

Steve, Co-founder (Metro Retro)

Testimonials

Working with Oliver on finding my next role has been a pleasure. He was able to understand my motivations and recommended positions accordingly. His good relationship with a broad range of interesting tech companies--in addition to Banks--plus his great advice before and after interviews are invaluable. I will definitely work with Oliver again in the future.

Ricardo

Lead Engineer, Challenger Bank

Upon first working with Oliver he quickly proved himself to be a cut-above his competitors, with his ability to understand the business and requirements of the particular role, and most importantly, deliver. Oliver became a trusted partner whereby we could both have honest and no-nonsense conversations. Oliver has always gone above and beyond with offering market insights and benchmarking when asked or even when he thinks something is worth sharing. I can’t recommend Oliver highly enough.

Lucy M

HR Director, Capital Markets Business

Oliver is without doubt one of the best recruiters I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Trustworthy, technically savvy and pragmatic are not necessarily traits you would associate with every recruiter, but certainly set Oliver apart from the rest. Having worked with Oliver for a number of years, it is clear he has an innate ability to understand his clients needs and translate that into highly relevant profiles. The open and frank conversations that we have ultimately allow me to make the right decisions quicker and coupled with Oliver's ability to close a deal, leads to a very fruitful relationship. I wholeheartedly recommend Oliver.

Andy S

CTO, Smart Energy

I worked with Seekr to find my next career step, and it was simply the best recruitment experience one could ask for. I benefited from clarity, engagement and availability throughout the whole process.Micaela has been an excellent communicator, staying in touch and guiding every step of the way, offering tips and materials and anticipating issues. It took all of five minutes for the Seekr team to convince me that they mean business. I'd applied for a DevOps role, and after asking a couple of questions, they offered me a Platform Engineering role instead. This role turned out to be an excellent match. The interview process was a long one, spread over multiple months and over the Christmas break, and Micaela's engagement throughout was stellar. She helped set all the correct expectations...

Vlad F

Platform Engineer, Fintech

Oliver is an experienced recruiter who invests his time to truly understand his clients’ and his candidates’ needs. I found Oliver’s insight and advice very valuable. He is truly passionate about finding the right people for his roles and he goes out of his way to learn about what skills it takes to successfully fulfill the requirements, his knowledge goes far deeper than “buzzwords”.

Tom S

Head of Engineering, Utility Company

It has been an absolute pleasure working with Mark. From the outset, he has really illustrated his passion for what he does, and at every step of the journey, his communication has been on point. His guidance has made me comfortable in the process - and it afforded me the confidence that ultimately landed me some great opportunities. Thank you, Mark!

Matt K

Software Engineer, Online Travel Company

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