How Bling achieves ambitious growth objectives with JOIN

The Challenge

Scale-up efficiently with a time-saving hiring process

In September 2021, hiring became an increasingly important part of Bling’s daily business in order to meet their ambitious growth objectives. After raising funds successfully, they had to scale up from three to ten people within just a few months.

As a very early phase start-up who could not rely on strong employer branding yet, they had to convince applicants with other assets, like a very streamlined hiring process, to score with an excellent candidate experience.

These were the  three biggest challenges Nils and his team needed to master for that:

• Shape an effective, well-structured and time-saving hiring process.
• Creating clear job profiles transporting their employer branding and company culture.
• Offer their candidates a great hiring and onboarding experience.

With the help of JOIN’s easy-to-use Talent Attraction Software, they managed to solve all three problems and grew their team more than threefold in just four months.

“The fact that JOIN publishes job ads to different platforms helped us a lot to get interesting candidates, to speak with them, and to build this team we have now. We look forward to keeping it going like this, as recruiting is a key part of our business.”

Nils Feigenwinter

Co-Founder & CEO

The solution

Bling started using JOIN to attract great talent faster

Nils and his two Co-Founders needed to find a time-saving solution that would allow them to hire talent as quickly as possible–for both themselves and their applicants–without dropping their candidate quality.

That was the moment when JOIN was introduced to the team. One of the Co-Founders had worked successfully with JOIN before, and thus recommended it to the team.

And *Bling*, they had everything at hand that they needed to start hiring with a streamlined recruiting process, along with a modern and pleasant candidate experience.

Here is how JOIN’s easy-to-use Talent Attraction Software helped Bling to grow rapidly:

Increased outreach to qualified candidates through Multiposting

By using JOIN’s free multiposting option, Bling posted their jobs to multiple job boards at the same time and reached more potential candidates, which increased the number of incoming applications tremendously.

It is worth noting that among the seven new team members they hired during the past four months, there were two C-Level Managers as well. Hiring executives is well known for being a very challenging task that can take companies a lot of time and resources. 

And, it requires especially clear communication–not just with regard to the job description.

More targeted talent attraction through A/B-Testing

As Nils mentioned above, creating clear job descriptions was a huge challenge they were facing during their early hiring processes. Sometimes, the hiring managers needed to try out a little what works best for their job ads.

And so, they used JOIN’s job listings for a simple A/B-Testing of job ads with slightly different headlines and formulations. This didn’t just help them reach more talent, but also improved their targeting for certain groups like working students over time.

Another reason for the rise in incoming applications was certainly the new structure of their job descriptions:

More compelling job profiles thanks to improved employer branding

“When you’re a young start-up, nobody’s coming to your career page, because no one has heard of you or what you are doing before, right? And that’s the big point! Since we began using JOIN, the number of applicants really increased”, Nils remarks.

In JOIN’s Job Editor, Bling found a dedicated section for introducing their company, their mission and vision, and their values. Also, they could upload pictures of their team and office there to improve their employer branding and highlight their attractiveness as an employer.

“With JOIN, we got the opportunity to get new applicants coming to our job profiles and finding out about our mission and vision–and for them to easier decide on handing in their application. I think that was what changed things the most.”

Fewer dropouts through time-saving candidate experience

Saving not just their own, but also their candidates’ time, has become one of their key success factors when it comes to hiring. Thanks to JOINs easy-to-use application forms and features like Login without password, candidates can hand in their applications with just a few clicks.

And lastly, thanks to our latest Messages-Feature allowing communication with candidates directly via JOIN, Bling can now easier than before keep track of their hiring, which further streamlines their hiring process and allows them to react quicker.

“Time is something very valuable–not just for us as a company, but also for our applicants.”, Nils affirms.

How does Bling hire with JOIN?

As Bling is a very young company, they do not yet have a dedicated hiring team. At this moment, the C-Level Managers are responsible for finding and hiring suitable candidates for their departments.

Decisions are finally made together with the other members of the C-level team, who are all working together within JOIN. “Another great thing we really like about JOIN is that the whole team can collaborate, screen applicants, give their feedback, and write comments”, Nils further explains.

“When it came to external hiring, it was always with JOIN, and I hope it will always be.”, he adds.

What does the recruiting process look like at Bling?

In order to hire the best talent for their ambitious growth plans as quickly as possible, they set up a very streamlined and efficient structure for their recruiting process:

Step 1: Creating a job description and multiposting it via JOIN. 

Step 2: Screening incoming applications / resumes and preparing first interviews.

Step 3: Conducting a 30-minute “Culture Call” to assess the cultural fit and culture add.

Step 4: Creating a shortlist of 6-10 candidates for the next step of the interview process.

Step 5: Conducting a 60-minute “Job Call” to assess their qualifications and talents.

Step 6: Making a decision and jumping to an “Offer Call”.

Step 7: Starting a seamless onboarding experience.