Match made in heaven – Secrets behind our matchmaking process
Five simple steps. All it takes for us at Thriv to connect your company with the best freelance developers in the market. After reading this article, you should be familiar with the different stages of our matchmaking process – and maybe even ready to test the process with us in practice.
1. Need identification
Being on the same page with the client is key to us at Thriv. Hence, we always start our matchmaking process by listening carefully, asking questions, and creating a common understanding with the client. The eight most important aspects we aim to find out in the need identification step are:
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What is the scope of the project?
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What is important in the role?
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What are the tech requirements and other needed competences?
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What is the project team like?
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How long is the project?
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Is the project full-time or part-time?
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What is the working language?
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What is the remote working policy?
Getting this information before we start talent scouting helps us to sell the project to the talents as well as to find the most suitable profiles for the client’s needs.
2. Talent scouting
When the needs have been identified, it is time to start scouting for the most suitable talents. When we select potential candidates, we always, of course, consider clients’ requirements regarding tech stack, remote working policies, team fit, etc. In addition, it is crucial to ensure that the talents with the right technical skills find the proposed project interesting to them personally. If a talent is motivated about the project and feels that he or she will be working on something meaningful, the talent will most likely be a good fit for the company in the long run. Win-win situation for everybody!
In the beginning of our talent scouting process, we screen possible candidates whose tech stack, location, and availability fit the client’s needs. Our talent pool currently consists of over six hundred tech talents with diverse skill sets, so it is quite probable that we will manage to find talents that suit your needs as well. After the initial screening, we “short-list” potential matches based on their knowledge, interest, and culture fit. Ultimately, we contact the short-listed talents to discuss their interest for the proposed project.
3. Talent proposal
When we have selected suitable talent profiles from our pool of experts and mapped out their interest and availability for the project, it is time to propose these candidates to the client. The client gets a chance to go through the proposed candidates and invite the most promising ones to an interview.
Our goal is to have no more than 1-3 candidates to propose to each client. As we at Thriv like to say: we are not a CV bank, we are matchmakers. By doing the vetting at our end, our clients can save a considerable amount of time that would normally be spent on going through numerous CVs. In addition, our humane approach makes us an easy and agile partner to work with.
4. Interview
Next it is time for the most exciting part – the interview! We book a meeting between the client and the talent so that they can familiarise with each other and to talk about the project opportunity. Sometimes there might be several steps in an interview process, for example if the client requires a tech interview. In these cases, our job is to ensure that all the stages of the process go as smoothly as possible, and that the communication is clear in all directions.
After the interview we aim to get decisions from both the client’s and the talent’s side without unnecessary long waiting times for anybody. As we are operating in a hot market where things are happening very fast, it is critical to move quickly if the perfect match is found!
5. Contract agreement
Even though this stage of the matchmaking process might seem to be the most boring one, it is crucial to go through it carefully for juridical reasons. Also, contract agreement might be the part where things start pending because different companies have different frames and terms of purchase.
At Thriv, we have our own frame agreement that we propose and send to the customer in an early stage of the matchmaking process to make sure that they have time to familiarise with it. This usually helps the process to proceed much faster as the frame can be agreed before any candidates have been accepted yet, leaving only the project order itself to be made later. This part might not be that visible to talents, but our priority is to keep them also as updated as possible in order to increase transparency.
Extra: Maintaining and nurturing the relationship
Our process doesn’t end here as building long-lasting client relationships is our top priority. Once the project has started, we actively stay available for both client companies and talents. This is our way of ensuring that the project is progressing smoothly and people working on it are happy. Active communication from our end is something that our current clients and talents have appreciated a lot. We value openness and transparency in everything we do.
Even though the entire process might seem long, it is actually very simple and fast. Our official record in matchmaking is four hours. Yes, you read it right. Only four hours from the first client contact to the point where contracts had been signed between the talent and the client. Usually, this process takes a couple of days but that still isn’t a long time if you compare it to a traditional recruiting process.
Want to find senior level tech talents in a matter of days? Give us a call or send a message and we will let you test our matchmaking process in action.
Joel Liukkonen
Key Account Manager
joel.liukkonen@thriv.dev