Skillers

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Roku pioneered streaming to the TV. We connect users to the streaming content they love, enable content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provide advertisers with unique capabilities to engage consumers. Roku streaming players and Roku TV™ models are available around the world through direct retail sales and licensing arrangements with TV OEMs and service operators.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Skillers?

Roku aims to hire only the best engineering talent globally. Skillers helps Roku in Ukraine recruit the top software professionals in a highly competitive environment.

SOLUTION

How did you select this firm and what were the deciding factors?

Skillers has vast experience in the recruitment field with solid track record of filling software engineering roles for several demanding customers. Skillers is one of the most established recruitment services we found in Ukraine, operating in the talent market since 2005, their knowledge of the local market was a key factors in our decision to engage with Skillers.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

Roku had several software engineering and managerial positions opened in Ukraine. A dedicated recruiter from the Skillers team was assigned to each open position. After the kick-off meeting for an open position with a hiring manager, the detailed requirements list for a role was clarified. Skillers then used their sources to recommend candidates for the open positions and led the interview process with the hiring managers and the candidates.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We actively collaborated with the Director of Recruitment and several recruiters from the Skillers team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

Skillers team successfully filled five open positions they worked on with us - Java software engineers, DevOps engineers, and a Site Lead position. The team members that Skillers helped us to hire, successfully passed the onboarding programs and keep contributing.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Collaboration with Skillers was smooth and efficient. The recruiters from Skillers proactively followed up on the candidates' status in the recruitment pipeline, and communicated with the hiring managers and the candidates. Skillers also suggested ways to improve collaboration and the recruitment process.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Skillers has a large network of connections with engineering talent on the job market in Ukraine. Over the past decades, they built a team of professional talent sourcers and recruiters who follow high standards of ethics and communication. The recruiters from Skillers understand the technical aspects, which is essential to communicate effectively with hiring managers and candidates.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Share more information on the state of the talent market; more ideas are welcome on improving the recruitment pipelines for hard-to-fill positions.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm HR/Office Manager at Ubiquiti. Ubiquiti Inc. create technology platforms for Businesses, Smart Homes and Internet Service Providers. Ubiquiti offers routers, branch nodes, access points and other network equipment as well as devices for IP-telephony and video surveillance systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Skillers?

Recruitment

SOLUTION

How did you select this firm and what were the deciding factors?

We had a small tender and interview with few recruiting firms. After the interview Skillers show the most proficient approach and understanding of the current market.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

Skillers provide us with the CVs of the potential candidates. And support the hiring process on all stages. As well they taking care for the preview of the technical experience of the candidates which allows us to save our time in the technical expertise

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

No more vendors in recruiting process

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

Skillers managed to satisfy all our needs in engineers/QAs/PMs/Front-Ends Dev.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The communication is almost every day as Skillers are very proactive. It's allows to make decision more quickly and not to lose candidates due to slow recruitment process.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their technical expertise and persona approach to the candidates are impressive. For example, they always find a way to greet newcomer with sweets/greetings / checking the happiness during the trial period. Good approach for communication with us as with customer, loyalty for delays in responses from our side, ability to find a compromise

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

All good so far

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am HR Director in a game development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Skillers?

They helped us to hire game developers and artists. for our project.

What were your goals for this engagement?

to hire as many people as possible and close all vacancies. Which Skillers help us to fulfill.

SOLUTION

How did you select Skillers?

we worked previously when i worked in an other game development company. They did a great job with finding us the right talent.

Describe the engagement in detail.

each year we give them around 5-10 vacancies and they usually help with atleast 50-60% of them, the other half are being recruited by internal team. Lately we request for artists, animators and QA engineers and Skillers do a great job in providing us with the right candidates.

Also they are always interested in honest feedback about each of them to be specific in detailing the rejection reasons and keep candidates hot for the future.

What was the team composition?

they had 3 dedicated recruiters working on our requests

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

we managed to hire several critical artist vacancies, especially taking into account that in Ukraine most of the talents are unqualified for our needs and are unable to introduce proper performance due to lack of experience. Therefore we had to source many candidates and consider only the most talented and choose wisely.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Its always quick and interactive. Guys from Skillers are always trying their best to be quick & precise when considering candidates and responding to any of our immediate requests.

What did you find most impressive about this vendor?

They keep going even when it's hard and complex, they never stop until you ask them to. Even if they fail, they always make right decisions and improve. I can trust them

Are there any areas for improvement?

Sometimes recruiters contact candidates who work for companies with non-solicitation agreement with Frag Lab. I believe recruiters should clarify such details clearly before recommendation them

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Smart Trader Labs is a Ukrainian company representing the USA companies SmartTrader and Market Traders Institute. It operates in FinTech area, specifically in a financial trading software. I am a CTO at Smart Trader Labs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Skillers?

We needed help with recruitment because we didn't have any inner recruiter at the company. And when we got an inner recruiter we still needed help to speed things up.

What were your goals for this engagement?

We needed help with recruitment for complicated positions and in cases there were too many opened positions needed to be closed quickly.

SOLUTION

How did you select Skillers?

Skillers was recommended by very trusted HR Manager as a really professional and experienced team of recruiters and HR specialists.

Describe the engagement in detail.

They helped to prepare the JDs for open positions and performed filtering and selection of suitable candidates. A prescreening was made for the selected ones with the resulting report creation and providing to us together with CV of a candidate.

Interview was arranged for candidates who was approved by our side with all with all the necessary accompanying actions. As a result of conducted interviews the best person was determined and the offer was sent to them with help of Skillers company, as well as they help starting of the onboarding process of a new employee.

A feedback was gathered after each above-mentioned step and an adjustment of was executed when needed.

What was the team composition?

I had an account manager who oversaw the overall process and helped to make it effective. Additionaly, there were recruiters and interviewers who searched for suitable candidates and interviewed them respectively.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

We closed our positions pretty quickly, it took a noticeably small number of interviews on our side and quite a few cycles of adjusting requirements and selecting candidates.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Skillers representatives were always open to communication and assistance in areas where we needed support. Information was provided in a convenient format and on time, moreover they are ready to adjust it for specific client.

When there were delays from our side they reminded it in the most polite manner.

What did you find most impressive about this vendor?

Skillers really works to help their client and and do their job efficiently and fast.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I would recommend diversifying different communication channels to make their work even more effective.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the talent acquisition coordinator at Alteryx and I work at the Kyiv office. We are a US-based product company. We’re a pretty big company with about 1,000 people and we work with big data analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Skillers?

I was the first person who was hired directly to lead the talent acquisition. Before me, there were just operating managers that were supporting the recruiting site. We were looking for a good recruiting agency in Ukraine. 

Since I’m the only person in the office working on talent acquisition, from time to time, we add recruiting agencies to help us because it is really hard to be a coordinator as well as a recruiter. We’d worked with a previous agency, but they didn’t provide good candidates and it wasted our time, so we hired Skillers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked together on one position, a senior automation position. We then decided to add Skillers to the process. They provided two candidates and the first one was a real match for us at every single point, so that was great. 

What is the team composition?

Initially, I was in contact with Igor (Director of Operations) and I then worked with Nadia (Technical Recruiter).

How did you come to work with Skillers?

Skillers were recommended to me by my former boss. She had worked with them before and let me know how great they were. We chose two agencies to work with, but after some time, we decided to only go ahead with Skillers as it was much easier for me to work and communicate with them.

How much have you invested in them?

Their fee is 15%–20% of the annual salary of the candidate — it depends on the seniority level. Mid-level is 15% and 20% is for team lead or a manager position so it is usually discussed when we are opening a new position.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between April–June 2020; it was pretty quick.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They were open. What I liked most about them is that they tried to find the best fit for my company; they weren’t trying to sell random candidates. They asked the right questions and prepared before providing us with any candidates, which was something that really mattered to me.

The candidate that we hired from their services gave positive feedback on their experience with Skillers, saying everything was quick and clear. It’s a win-win situation for both the company and the candidate to work with them.

We are still in touch from time to time and they try to understand how our company is doing. We’re going to be opening a lot of high-level positions soon, and I only want to proceed with Skillers.

How did Skillers perform from a project management standpoint?

Nadia guided me through the whole process, and she provided me with updates. She was the person in between me and the candidate and it was really easy to communicate with Skillers. 

The Ukraine and US markets are really different. For example, the Ukraine job market, especially the IT market, is really quick. We have a lot of companies and you need to move really fast with candidates. Sometimes, the candidate will get an offer from another company within one day so we needed to be quick with feedback and updates, and Skillers made sure to do that. When the candidate asked a lot of questions, Skillers supported everything involved in the process. It was awesome. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Communication and great technical expertise make them stand out. When we were preparing to open a position, they were 100% prepared and sent over documents and questions, even asking questions I didn’t consider. They have great recruiters in their agency with the right expertise who know the market. 

I worked with five or six agencies in Ukraine, but Skillers was different and did an awesome job. They really love what they do and aren’t just a sales company. I know it is a really competitive market and I felt like an individual with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that I can think of right now. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Think about everything that you want to see in the candidate, not only from the tech side but also when it comes to soft skills; that’s really important. For example, we told them what type of person we wanted to see and what person could fit this team in particular. You need to have a checklist before working with an agency because the more information the better.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a software company developing applications enabling the education sector in the UK. I am a development manager in the UK.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Skillers, and what were your goals?

We needed to recruit strong and lead testers in Ukraine. We had heard good things about Skillers' reputation and we were not disappointed.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Being very honest, we used Skillers because we were not currently working with other recruiters in Ukraine. However they have given us no reason to feel we should look at other recruiters; we ar happy with the service provided.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We needed to make several hires to fit into our agile development organisation. We used video calls and emails to do this. The steps were, review CVs, select candidates to interview, interview via video, then negotiate a salary via email.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We primarily worked with an IT Recruiter at Skillers. We had some cover from her colleague, but I do not have his job title.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I work in quality so measurable outcomes are debatable, however I have made two hires through Skillers, and both have been exceptional candidates who work well within our team.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Comms were via standard business tools - video chat, email.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

A professional and helpful organisation, one thing which stood apart was their ability to assist in translating British contracts into Ukrainian.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing which other recruiters do; as ever, the back and forth nature of recruitment can be tedious but this is not Skillers' fault. At times our budget was questioned, but eventually we found good candidates at the budgeted rate.