How Kinetik is enabling hiring-on-demand for employers in the digital sector

Energising talent acquisition is the mission for Sam Baxendale, Director & CoFounder, Kinetik, who shares ideas on improving hiring efficiency.

This article is brought to you by Kinetik Hiring.

Kinetik is a business we launched in mid-2020 to provide a scalable recruitment solution for digital and technology businesses and departments across ASEAN. Since then we have pioneered on site talent acquisition (OTA), which enables our partners to scale quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively, through deployment of experienced in-house talent acquisition (TA) capability, via a monthly subscription based model. Since inception we have grown to 40+ consultants and have successfully completed 30+ hiring engagements across the region, many of which are ongoing.

Based on our hiring model, we have been able to save partners anything from 50-70% of their total cost to hire versus a traditional agency approach. We provide support across all digital functional areas including technology, marketing, creative, sales or even operational and C-suite roles. We have a track record of supporting start-ups and SMEs, though to large corporates across a range of industries from digital native brands through to conventional brands transitioning to digital.

A key feature of our service is the ‘Kinetik Hiring Funnel’ approach - an elevated end-to-end delivery process from market mapping and sourcing through to offer management and onboarding. We provide a comprehensive, project-based methodology which entails access to tools, subscriptions, and reporting to deliver a full range of hiring insights backed up with data. Such insights include hiring process, candidate drivers, and D&I versus market benchmarks. We are also able to grow your candidate reach through on-line channels like LinkedIn by building compelling content marketing campaigns in support of your employer brand.

As a primary case study, we have been working with Makro Digital, based in Bangkok, for nearly 18 months now. We deliver this solution remotely from Kuala Lumpur, with a supervised team of three providing support for a ground-up technology hiring project.

We have made 50+ hires over the course of the last year, predominantly in areas like tech, product, and data.

In this engagement, we have been partnering with the existing TA team to provide an integrated solution. We use our own network, though to generate fresh pools of niche talent, we used a variety of latest localised tools and platforms to broaden reach, almost in an experimental fashion, until we discovered approaches that deliver the results we need. We have driven this internationally to balance local and foreign talent where needed. In collaboration with Makro Digital, we have created a hiring funnel to enable us to hire efficiently by testing with a cookie-cutter approach and consistent standards of evaluation. As we developed this process and built trust, we have been able to form a long lasting and robust relationship that we are particularly proud of and we know brings mutual value.

As a key milestone in our growth story, we're thrilled to be welcoming Oliver Hinchliffe and Ian Turnpenny as two key strategic appointments to a newly formed board of directors at Kinetik Hiring. This is in direct connection with raising a round of additional growth capital following more than two years' successful trading as a profitable business.  Whilst both appointments will be continuing with their existing professional commitments, we are very happy to be formalising their roles as proactive members of the Kinetik board.

Oli brings a wealth of experience as a business owner and entrepreneur himself, having launched his own firm, Iban Asia, 10 years ago, providing niche executive search level services, mainly to the consulting, financial services, and technology transformation sectors across APAC. As such, we are delighted to bring the benefit of Oli’s fantastic network and sheer weight of recruitment experience on board with us.

Ian brings a multifaceted skillset on board, as a qualified accountant and ex recruiter across the Asia region. Since then Ian has launched, led, and supported the sale of one high profile HRtech company and has since launched his latest venture, Orgtomic, an SAAS business that seeks to disrupt the HR skills analysis space.

With their respective, complimentary skills and experience, we see this onboarding as being of significant strategic impact to Kinetik both in terms of operational capability and depth, as well as broadening our network as we seek to develop new market opportunities across Southeast Asia. We are very confident in the value they can bring and look forward to a fantastic working partnership from here. 

Looking forward to 2023, we have to accept there will likely be certain headwinds in the market around availability of funding for early stage startups.

At the same time, businesses are still looking to grow headcount, so will be seeking more cost effective ways to do so. For our early stage, venture backed partners, who are more cost sensitive, we are able to provide a fractional solution, whereby we can deploy experienced TA capability for a % of their time on a pro rata basis. This suits situations where volumes of hires may not warrant a full time resource, though through our engagement, we can help startups get off the ground with their formative critical hires.

So, whether you are a startup digital brand looking to rapidly upscale or a larger corporate managing a spike in hiring, we can help you. Come and speak to us about your hiring needs in digital and technology!

Kinetik brings an entirely fresh approach to the existing challenge of rapid up-scaling of digital teams and departments on a completely scalable basis across the ASEAN region. Its unique hiring-on-demand model provides outsourced talent acquisition, specifically for the digital sector. Its consultants provide a high touch solution that reduces friction associated with conventional approaches to hiring, which also improves candidate process visibility and candidate experience. It has a team of highly experienced and capable talent acquisition professionals 'on-demand’, to complement existing TA teams where extra resources are needed, or to bring fresh capacity to more start-up environments.

If you’re ready to explore new capabilities in talent acquisition, write to the team at hello@letsgokinetik.com.

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