Passion Over Paycheck – This Startup Helps Connect S’poreans To Their Dream Jobs Based On Interest

Have you ever heard of the Confucian phrase, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life“?

But how many of us can actually say that we love our jobs, and that we sincerely enjoy going to work everyday? The problem that many face, job-wise, is that they aren’t working at a particular place because they genuinely love what they do.

And that is what Wantedly aims to solve.

Work For Passion

The Japanese startup was founded in 2010 by Akiko Naka, and is kicking off its regional expansion with Singapore as its first pit-stop.

As a social recruiting platform, Wantedly’s aim is to connect people to jobs based on passion and company culture.

If you look at the job postings – none of them state salaries.

According to the team, the platform has over 200,000 companies on board, from Airbnb, Buzzfeed and Dropbox, to local startups like Oddle and BoxGreen.

Here’s an example of a job posting on Wantedly for BoxGreen, and as you can see, there is a lot of emphasis on building a mutual interest in the company goals.

Wantedly has three aspects – the Visit, Chat and People functions.

1. Wantedly Visit

When you indicate an interest in a job posting, you can schedule a casual office to experience their culture and work ethic firsthand – no strings attached.

The Visit is not an interview, but it does also allow employers to meet and get to know the candidate in a casual setting.

2. Wantedly Chat

The Chat function serves as a secured platform for work conversations. Their Smart Search function also indexes discussions for better productivity.

3. Wantedly People

Wantedly People allows you to scan name cards into the app. The camera also automatically filters information on the card into fields such as Job Title and Address.

You do not have to be a job-seeker on Wantedly to use this app, so it’s definitely a convenient solution to name card messes.

The application is already being used by over 300,000 people and is available globally.

Re-inventing Hiring

“My motivation comes from a young age. I used to see the working adults around me, and they would look exhausted, and their eyes would be like dead fish. And I would wonder why.”

Wantedly was founded in Japan by Akiko Naka with the aim to create a world where “people are excited about their work”.

At the start, the team faced obstacles as they were perceived as “very untraditional“. Kicking off as a all-purpose recruiting service, they “gradually pivoted meet needs – which was to enable people to casually visit cool companies’ offices.”

Describe A Wantedly Visit

“The beauty of Wantedly is that you get to meet people you wouldn’t be able to in ordinary situation.”

Companies and candidates can reach each other via the platform, and the visit can vary from a company gathering to meeting over coffee. The main goal is to “help [candidates] sense the vibes of the company culture and give them clarity on their decisions.”

Naka reflects that this allows companies to reach people who would never have been interested in them, which was also how they found their CTO.

As a “super elite” from Japan’s top university and a corporate ladder climber at Goldman Sachs, he would “never have been interested in a small and shady company if the job listing was on a traditional job board. But in the end, after a casual office visit, he suddenly became interested in joining us.”