Talentu Training and career development for blue collar jobs

We understand that Latam blue-collar job seekers have low opportunities of growing into different positions because they do not have the skills required for higher position jobs. Additionally, they usually do not have the resources to get those skills.

Talentu is platform that integrates recruiting and e-learning. With the use of A.I. and other several technologies we are able to understand data, identify needs and match candidates with job offers and give candidates new and better skills.

In our platform, we help candidates find a job. Furthermore, we provide free online training to help them develop new skills, envision a career and create a life plan. So not only can they get a better chance to get a job, they can also access better opportunities for them and their families.

The average unemployment in South America in 2019 was 7.53%. In 2020 there will be more than 25 million people unemployed. The current COVID-19 pandemic impact in the economy could worsen this. If we go deeper we can see that 9 out of 10 unemployed people do not have a higher education. Manpower asserts that 40% of companies can not find the workers they need due to skills shortages.

People want to work but unfortunately, they were born in a system that does not give them opportunities and also, they do not have the resources to access opportunities to get those skills.

Furthermore, many people have to stay in the same job for years because they can not access the necessary training to develop a career. Companies in the technology an eLearning space are focused in high skilled jobs.

Finally, the government tries to provide alternatives but their system is often rigid to innovate, communicate and to create opportunities for people.

We serve Blue collar job seekers and workers in LATAM who have difficulties accessing education. Mainly people who have a hard time in job markets and are unable to succeed. People who are forced to be part of subemployment and may not able to apply for better job opportunities. 

We are integrating the recruitment process of companies with a skilling and reskilling training, shifting the focus to the candidate.

• We start by asking them what they like to do, what they imagine in their future.

• We recollect better data to use it in our algorithms and eliminate bias. 

• We do an online skilling process for free that could be as simple as how to elaborate a resume, present an interview, how to be a better leader or a better customer service agent.

• Finally, we are planning not only to teach hard skills but soft skills as well, such as communication, empathy, among others.

• We also work with the other end (companies who are recruiting) in order to understand what skills they need and provide companies with a system that uses data to improve.

Our products provide an end to end service for blue collar jobs workers and companies in the category:

 - Skills development: We train candidates free of charge in different areas with the use of technology and based on the skills that companies need. We work in a platform that allows candidates and workers to train in different areas such as: customer service, sales, soft skills, leadership, among others. This training helps them to develop new skills and improve themselves through different platforms and formats. 

We have learned how adaptive learning can help people to retain 50% more information that an average classroom lesson. We achieve this through the use of different type of content that is dynamic, involving and fun. We develop courses with several allies which gives us specialty in different subjects. We also develop courses with our eLearning and creative team.

According to the data that we gathered through our different processes and platforms, we analyze what type of content we need to create so we can give people skills that the market is needing in order to be more competitive.

 - Automated recruiting for companies: We use different technologies to address the following processes:

Get CV's from third parties, filter CV's, data enrichment and job matching, performance prediction through analytics and predictive models, short listing with online assessments, multichannel scheduling interviews (emails, SMS, whatsapp, call bot) and last but not least training in specific skills through different platforms.

In summary, our online platform is where unskilled job-seekers and companies looking for candidates get together; job-seekers will get access to a variety of unskilled job positions directly from the companies that are hiring and they will be able to have training on the field they are applying for. On the other hand, companies will optimize their recruitment process through our platform that automates several parts of that process where humans do not add value. Our platform not only helps companies to identify and match candidates with their open positions in a faster way. We also increase the abilities of candidates with online training during the hiring process. As a result, both sides will have a better experience that will empower people to grow and thrive in the jobs they are acquiring.

Our main differential factor is that we integrate skill development and recruiting in just one platform. This allows us to use the data to improve the process and the results for companies (hire better candidates) and candidates (get better jobs and more opportunities).

We provide an AIO platform that helps companies reduce almost 50% of the hiring time and costs, increases matching quality between skills and job opportunities and improve skills through online training, delivering a better user experience and creating more opportunities for both parties.

The solution we provide combines an automated matching between people and companies in a platform that address the following benefits:

1. Improve skills and reskilling:

-A.I. and data analytics to identify and define skill gaps .

-Online training with videos, role playing, monthly courses and tools.

 2- Reduce time and costs to companies:

-Analyze C.V. with an algorithm and job matching: skills and vacancies.

-Data enrichment with and online bot.

-Online assessments and Video interviews.

-Schedule interviews.

The unemployment rate in Latin America reached 8.1% in 2019, that means that almost 25 million people do not have a job. Due to the lack of opportunities, most of them are young people between the ages of 18 and 24 (19,8%) and, as we mentioned before, 9 of 10 people do not have the opportunity to get better opportunities because they lack of formal education.

We can see that companies are full of CVs and information that is not being analyzed correctly and they usually fail to provide real and accurate answers to candidates.

We want to be part of the change. On the short term, we are refining our online platform where unskilled job-seeker and companies looking for candidates get together; job-seekers will get access to a variety of courses, allowing them to improve their skills and helping them apply to better jobs.

On the other hand, the companies that are hiring will optimize their recruitment process through our platform that automates parts of the process where humans do not add value. Giving recruiting personnel to focus on more important and humane tasks. 

On the long term, candidates will increase their talents by training on the field they are applying to, prior to their applications, improving their chances to get higher qualified jobs. We will gather this information with company’s data that will allow us to improve the attrition rate, promotions and KPIs.

At the moment we have trained more than 12,000 people in the last 6 months in customer service, contact center, leadership, SMART methodologies, how to create a CV, how to perform a good interview and so on. Courses that allows them to improve their ability to create a better future. 

We have 17 clients that hire more than 230.000 people per year only in Colombia.  We are currently delivering 300 people per month, and we have impacted more than 1.000 people with new jobs. In the next few months, with the orders that we already have in place, we are going to impact more than 150.000 people over the next year. With this in mind, we are going to allow people to connect with jobs according to the courses that they have taken and the skills they have gained. 

In the next five years, we will impact more than 3 million people in Latam with few opportunities to access education, giving them opportunities through technology. This will support their new learning skills and abilities that are needed by the job market, to ensure better work opportunities in their future.

We were born of a process of experimentation and discovery that helped us to understand skills gaps, experience, uncover needs and non-satisfaction goals on the jobs market and it turned out as a holistic solution to optimize the unskilled hiring market processes (where majors problems are on the jobs market in Latin America) and give opportunities to unemployment and unskilled people in these countries. 

Ensuring the best experience with the highest value, based on people's talents and skills development supported by technology, increasing access to training in specific skills based on the market necessities and where the vacancies rely, while supporting companies in recruiting the best match with candidates and developing them through e-learning to achieve their full potential.

In the following year we hope to improve our platform through the development of a broader educational marketplace, the creation of a job board, new courses that allow more than 230.000 candidates to train and change their lives and look for better job opportunities. In five years we will have a self- service platform, launch 360 model, enter Mexico’s marketplace, and the creation of a community. Our hope is that the community will support candidates and companies to create relationships that help each other understand and adapt to the reality of this segment, in order to provide meaningful courses to train and gain experience on the fields they are applying for.

We face the following barriers:

Cultural:

- Change the mindset that skills development goes beyond taken courses in universities and that people are allowed to learn through different platforms and tools. 

- Change the mindset of companies and people in regards to technology seeing it as an ally to development. 

- Companies are used to make the recruitment process manually without the help of any technological tool.

Finance:

• We need at least 450K USD in 2020 to scale our solution we already secured 350k

Market barrier

• Population connected to internet – 67% in Colombia

• Increasing competitors, including domestic and foreign suppliers, companies bringing their own devices (BYOD) policies

• Latin America are not taking advantage of digital training programs yet

• Companies lack of professional development programs

Cultural:

• Constant communication with companies. Through our platform we have been able to introduce different courses in companies so they can start to understand the importance of skills development in all type of jobs and start to invest in them

• Research aimed to analyze skills gaps with 'top of the game' companies so we can build a course together and provide it to people. This way we can have the best for our candidates and company’s employees.

• Introduction step by step of our recruitment platform so people start to think about digital transformation as a must

• Modularization of the product

• Communication and advertising oriented to get to know the benefits of the platform as a learning tool and matching jobs seekers with company’s vacancies.

Finance:

• We are looking for investment in different countries so we can launch the product on those markets and increase the team so we can have a faster response of market needs.

Market barrier

• We are creating alliances with other learning companies so we can have a broader range of courses

• Gather market data in order to create new functionalities and ways to improve people’s skills through our platforms and market researches.

Legal Barriers

• Alliances with local entities such as SENA in Colombia that can give us endorsement in terms of formal education.

We have worked for more than 93 companies in Colombia and Dominican Republic, we have trained more than 12.000 people, and have analyzed more than 230.000 candidates looking for skills gaps, therefore skills development.

Companies working with us already hire and train more than 250.000 people per year which give us a broader market to reach.

We already have 19 training courses that include: customer service, leadership, how to make a C.V, grammar, tools to help candidates in their interviews, leadership in time of crisis, contact center, SMART methodologies for contact center’ leaders.

We are planning to expand our operation to Mexico and LATAM where we can find that 60% of the population only reach secondary studies and 50% of young people that start university drop off in the first year. As result, the unbalance between the education system and job market create an oversupply of unskilled jobs, causing a higher attrition (24% average), more than +70% with minimum wages, 32 millions of informal workers, and the rise of unskilled workers by 10% last year, and unemployment rate of 4%. We believe that we can change that reality by giving people free training in order to improve their talents and skills thanks to our online platform and to match their skills with companies.

If we talk about companies the landscape is similar to Colombia, 62% companies face challenges in their recruitment processes where they can take almost 72 days in hire a candidate, and we can fix that with our technology, allowing them to reduce cost by a half, a reduce attrition by half thanks to two factors: 

1- Improving skills development in candidates and, 2- our online platform with A.I., is where unskilled job-seekers and companies looking for candidates get together. 

we are not part of a larger organization

Currently, in Talentu we are 32 people who work full-time and 11 employees as contractors to produce training content.

12 developers

2 Data scientists 

5 Sales and marketing 

7 product design and development

6 Operation Support areas 

CEO/Co- Founder: Mateo Folador / https://www.linkedin.com/in/ma...

17 years in technology, 5 ventures , he has work experience across all.

CRO/COO: Maria Fernanda Carrillo / https://www.linkedin.com/in/ma...

Maria Fernanda, 10 years of experience in sales with big corporates like Microsoft and Nokia , managing teams of more than 500 people.

CTO: Oscar Silva /  https://www.linkedin.com/in/os...

More than 20 years in development and 6 years leading top technology teams

ELEARNING LEADER/ Mauricio Valencia / https://www.linkedin.com/in/ma...

12 years of experience in call centers, has managed to train more than 1,500 people with big corporations.

SALES: Alejandra Velasquez / https://www.linkedin.com/in/al...

Experience in BPO sector and creation of strategic alliances

MARKETING LEADER: Maria Alejandra Pérez / https://www.linkedin.com/in/ma...

10 years of experience in developing marketing and communication strategies.

CPO: David Arango  https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-arango-31a27621/

Experience in marketing, consulting and products and services development. working as a VP of marketing for Sodexo. 

The rest of team have different skills in technology, analytics, communication, product development, instructional design, creativity, data and A.I which creates a team that matches perfectly with the spirit of the company. Dreamers that believe that as a company, we can change people’s future and work hard every day to develop a platform that allows us to create opportunities.

BPRO (contact centers association): We have partnered with them in order to create a job community specialized in BPO’s sector and skills development for them through an online school just for call centers and BPOs.

CLG: is one of the top companies training executives and we have partnered with them so we can train blue collar workers in leaderships skills through the creation of an academy Leadership 4.0

Gabriel Vallejo: He is the number one expert in Customer service , and we have partner with him to train blue collar jobs workers in customer service

Our business model focus in:

Blue collar jobs seekers and workers: with this segment our value proposition is skill development and we do it through two models: 1- Free training in our platform 2- companies personalized/specific training in which we create, develop, launch and monitor courses through the use of our eLearning platform. 

Companies: We focus in optimizing their recruitment processes’ so they can reduce costs and time, but more importantly match their vacancies with job seekers skills.

SaaS per module, companies pay for the modules that they use:

-C.V. Filtering and job matching 

-Data enrichment with bots

-Predictive assessments

-Specific Training

With this revenue model we are able to connect dots that allows us to create and improve courses, as well as boosting learning processes allowing people to increase their opportunities to have a better job.

the average ticket that a company pays is: $1.700 USD 

We need to get 155 recurrent clients and will be sustainable selling our services to companies, between feb and may of 2021

We are applying to the TPrize challenge for two main reasons: 

First, we believe that we have a product that can change people’s life through skills development and to match those skills with companies’ job offers. TPrize would help us make our product bigger and better through their support and mentorship. You can help us create more meaningful and more impactful courses and learning methodologies. You can help us create alliances with several entities that support the development of more courses. 

Second, the prize funding. As you can see, we require  450K USD to scale our solution and with the money we are going to be able to invest in recruiting even more qualified personnel so we can launch the product in Mexico and make faster and better improvements to our platform and services.

BID, Universities that help us create content, Goverments