Existing solutions for human resource management around the world are outdated. Qpage sees this as an opportunity and wants to shake the market with its comprehensive solution.
Human Resource Management Technology
There are various methods for managing people management functions, each proposing a different type of solution. The three most common are the Human Resources Information System (HRIS), Human Capital Management (HCM) and the Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
The HR information system is related to managing the day-to-day affairs of the company such as viewing staff profiles, requesting leave, uploading legal documents. The human capital management system is additionally offering the list of employees’ salaries. Process supervision for acquiring and hiring also helps businesses manage staff appraisal performance management.
The applicant tracking system is a software application that enables the electronic handling of recruitment, hiring automation, applicant scoring system, and on-boarding. An ATS can be implemented or accessed online at the enterprise- or small-business levels, depending on the needs of the organization; free and open-source ATS software is also available.
Companies, such as Bamboohr, Gusto, and Paycor are some of the well-known software tools available in the field of HR. Applicant process management also includes SmartRecruiters, Workable and Lever software.
The Founders
Pouya Lotfi, the Co-founder and CEO of Qpage, was born in 1984. He completed his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Tehran. He holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) Aalto School of business, Finland. Pouya has the experience of working with companies such as LG Electronics as senior business Unit Manager, Entekhab Industrial Group as Business Unit Director, and Pars Online as an entrepreneur in house. He also has startup experiences being a co-founder and CEO at Reyhoon.com, and held positions in Bamilo.com Iranian leading marketplace at the time as CEO and Chief Operating Officer at the same time.
Aram Jafari is another co-founder of Qpage who works in the field of artificial intelligence. He holds a Bachelor of Computer Software Engineering from the University of Science and Culture and a Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations from Kharazmi University. He has been dedicated to science and business analysis at Reyhoon, Bamilo, and Snapp companies.
Farhad Jafari, Chief Designer of Qpage, is born in 1987. He is an undergraduate in computer software engineering from Islamic Azad University. Farhad was a UX consultant at Yara, Mabna, and Netap, who also collaborates with DigiKala, Bamilo, Alonak and Mellat’s Beh-Pardakht in the field of User Experience and product design.
The starting of the business
The idea for Qpage comes to Pouya’s mind in March 2019, and he shares the idea with Ali two months later. In May, he planned to migrate abroad to meet an angel investor. After agreeing with him, they start working with Ali and Aram and Farhad join them in June.
They initially locate their startup in the Tivan collaborative workspace and, after a month, they rent a new office that currently houses a team of 16 people. After six months of operation, Qpage was released in January. Also, choosing the name of Qpage comes from Quick Page module based SaaS.
Problems, inefficiencies, and outdated solutions
In Iran, HRM processes are performed manually and at best on spreadsheet software such as Excel. For this reason, there is no integration between the different parts of the process. To date, in Iran, only the part of recruitment sites has become online and have attracted the attention of businesses.
Existing solutions for human resource management around the world are outdated and inappropriate for new business mechanisms. Workforce planning, job descriptions, job posting, job searches, recruiting potential candidates, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and staff evaluation for HR and other staff is a very difficult process. Existing solutions do not meet the needs of businesses in all of these sectors.
Also, none of the solutions work automatically and are mostly used to solve problems 5 years ago. For example, there is only one fixed and specific process for the hiring process that does not meet all the needs of businesses. It also does not have a good user interface and artificial intelligence does not interfere with their process automation.
Platforms are analyzed and evaluated by platforms through common behavioral tests that are partially responsive. The judgment of the interviewer is also influential in the judgment of individuals because there is no set standard and the individual acts according to his or her reasoning. Judgments should be based on company standards, not personal standards.
One of the big problems for job seekers is completing different resumes in different places. This causes frustration for the employer because of the lack of standard resumes. Also, after the end of the face-to-face interview, the business usually does not announce the final response for various reasons.
Though the applicant got no clue on what process and stages they are in, where it takes a hefty amount of efforts for recruiters to inform them all.
The solution is a comprehensive human resource management platform
the first step, Qpage has been able to cover all the recruitment steps and processes required for pre and post-hiring on an online platform. Meanwhile, all processes are flexible and businesses can customize it according to their flows. Qpage also integrates with recruitment sites, automating the process of hiring ads, receiving resumes, reviewing resumes and filtering them.
The Qpage platform has been able to automate a large amount of demanding tasks with the help of artificial intelligence to reduce the workloads of HR and recruiting professionals. Besides, this platform is the canvas of the interviewers with the help of artificial intelligence and data mining during the interview and judge phase.
Resume with a single photo
This startup also helps job seekers to easily present their resume to employers. It also automatically puts the employee in the hiring process and notifies him/her of the final response after the business is finally declared.
Proposed Value, Human Resources Total System (HRTS)
Qpage is a solution to facilitate communication between the job-seeker, employee, recruiter, and employer. Despite the platform’s simplicity, it integrates the hiring process for both the employer and the employer, so that they don’t get confused on different platforms. In other words, Qpage is a comprehensive talent management system.
Pouya defines the value of the Qpage as follows:
We want to be a human resources management operating system for small and medium-sized businesses. Also, as we simplify this area, we can get people out of the dryness and lifelessness of recruitment processes and cut costs.
The product
The original product offered by Qpage is more capable than its external competitors, such as Lever, breezy Warehouse and even Workable. According to Pouya:
We can’t say we released the Minimum Acceptable Product (MVP); because this version of Qpage is the Minimum sellable Product.
Workforce planning
Qpage helps businesses to easily embed their organizational charts into the platform. They can then simply identify their vacancies at the time of hiring to decide on whether to recruit or not.
Job Description
There can be two types of writing job descriptions in Qpage. When intending to hire a regular position, only the three characteristics of the position, responsibilities and salary and benefits are defined. In the advanced case, adding to the aforementioned, the required capabilities, evaluation approach and any other factors that are demanded by the business will be defined in the platform.
Job description standardization allows businesses to simply post their recruitment ad across all recruitment sites by a single click. Businesses can also publish a standard job description form on their social networks by connecting them to Qpage.
Integration with recruitment sites and easy filtering
Due to the definition of a standard online job description, candidates can be easily classified and filtered according to the organization’s needs, and then be interviewed in order of priority. If more information is required, the two parties can communicate with each other on the platform, in real-time.
Personnel within the company who are eager for a job promotion or transfer within the organization can easily access job opportunities through the Qpage platform. Managers in each department can also store potential candidates that there is a possibility of future cooperation with to refer to them at the right time.
Qualification
In addition to the scoring of job interviewers, Qpage helps employers process fair scoring concerning candidate’s resume and personality, behavioral and voice tests. This reduces the effect of the interviewer’s personal feelings on the judgment of individuals. Finally, all the items listed in the job-seekers profile are displayed to the final decision-maker.
Telephone, video and in-person interviews
In addition to a question-and-answer list for the initial review that is being sent to the job seeker, Qpage will be able to arrange telephone and in-person interviews. This platform can also help in outsourcing the interview phase if needed by businesses. In both cases, the job-seekers can receive points and the interviewer’s opinion is included in their interview form.
It is also possible to designate several people for the interview, in which case the interviewer’s rating and comments are recorded in the profile of each job-seeker. Emotional and behavioral analysis of the job with the help of artificial intelligence in the interview is also done by Qpage. That is, in addition to examining one’s personality traits, one can test how judgment, decision making, power of logic, tone of voice and so on are.
The stages of organizational adoption
This platform helps new employees get to know their company within the first 100 days of their work. That is, the department manager briefs the individual on his / her responsibilities by identifying several specific tasks that ultimately lead to the accomplishment of a mission. It also provides statistics on the number of employees, the recruitment process, ongoing interviews, employee leave, vacancies, and so on.
After completing each task, the designated individuals can rate the new employee to determine their performance. Besides, if new employees need assistance, they can provide it through the platform and arrange in-person meetings if needed.
In-company team building
Organization members can form different teams to communicate with each other. This feature helps new employees find their place in the organization more easily and get to know people. It is also useful for the recruitment process that requires multiple decision-makers.
Online Resume
To prepare a resume, it is only necessary for the job-seeker to send a PDF of his / her resume so that the Qpage can create a profile ready for him/her using artificial intelligence. The accuracy of parsing and analyzing of the resumes is 85% in Qpage. After submitting the resume, the initial analysis will be carried out on it and be sent to the eligible employers.
This feature helps Qpage to show the ratings and comments of all the interviewers in the profile of the person so that the employer can make a comfortable decision.
Income model, Freemium
The earnings model is Freemium. The features listed in the product section will be provided for free and users will be paying a membership fee for advanced tools and features that will be released in the future.
Market size, 500 million SMEs
Qpage’s main customers are particularly medium and large businesses (SMEs) and startups. The number of these businesses in the world is estimated at 500 million. It is estimated that this market will reach $ 65 billion by the year 2025.
Competitors and Partners
Pouya expresses his view on their global competitors in the following:
In the global marketplace, platforms like Workable and Lever are our main competitors. With 15 years of experience, Workable has cooperated with 5,000 businesses and is valued at $ 700 million. The 15-year-old Workable has much fewer features than the first version of the Qpage. Lever is our other competitor. It has been operating for nearly eight years and has raised $ 75 million in the capital. Lever has only 20% of the benefits which the first version of the Qpage offers.
In the Iranian market, platforms such as Adilar and Civito are also competitors to Qpage.
Recruitment sites are the most important business partner of this platform. Qpage needs a large number of job-seekers to complete its hiring process. Recruitment sites like Glassdoor and Linkedin can help this platform get access to job seekers’ resumes.
Vision, solution for job-seeker, recruiter, employee and employer relations
Pouya: “If we can meet all the needs of the four segments of the job-seeker, recruiter, employee, and employer and satisfy them, then the good experience they have in the platform will help us complete our supply chain. I think in the next five years we will be able to provide a comprehensive human resource management solution. “
Online assessments
One of the main problems of the interview is the influence of the interviewer’s logic and feeling on the decision making. In addition to the existing tests, QPage plans to incorporate the online job-seeker into its platform. For example, if a programmer is hired, a test will be put on the platform by the hiring organization’s programming team to test the job-seeker.
Sharing interview results
If the job-seeker agrees, the results of his interviews will be shared with all employers. In doing so, the platform would be additionally reducing the complexity of the decision-making process in the recruitment process, as well as the interview time and providing the employer with more comprehensive information about the candidate.
Crow-sourcing interview
Shifting to crowd capabilities will ease the recruitment process particularly once a new expertise requires to be joint to the team.
Managing staff performance
In the future, with the ability to evaluate the performance of existing staff in the organization, this platform will accommodate HR management from A to Z.
Challenges
To provide a comprehensive solution, Qpage needs to get APIs from recruiting sites, which can be a great challenge to work with them.
To date, only recruitment sites have been the focus of business in Iran. Businesses’ unfamiliarity with HRM technology makes it difficult for Qpage to adapt them to this platform. Also, the membership fee payment model is not commonly accepted in Iran yet.
The hiring process alone has many complexities that make people run away from it. Qpage aims to cover the whole hiring process and its pre and post procedures. It is very difficult to assemble different capabilities into one product, as it can confuse HR managers, employers and job seekers.
All in all, QPage is targeting Nordic and North America market, while offering a lifelong freemium model for Iranian SMEs as well. Will see more on their progress in near future.
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