Derek Toh, CEO of WOBB has announced that the company will be rebranding to Hiredly, taking what was initially its headhunting arm’s brand. The latter is now known as Hiredly X.
WOBB was short for “Working on Bean Bags”, as Derek explained, “While we always knew that culture was much more than just having bean bags, we thought it was a fun, slightly silly name that gave us a lighter personality.”
Since 2014, their goal has been to help employers showcase their work culture on the site and hire Gen Y talents. But they’re now starting to realise one thing—no generation stays young forever. Currently, the oldest of Gen Y is already hitting 39 this year.
“However many people, when they hear ‘Gen Y’, they automatically assume this platform is for finding junior talent,” Derek explained, and believes that the bean bags bit in WOBB reinforced that picture in one’s head.
What’s tricky about this is that some experienced job-seekers and employers might take WOBB as a platform only for fresh graduates or junior-level talents, and assume that they’d find more experienced talents elsewhere.
Therefore, this rebranding would represent their growth and maturity as a company and open employers up to a pool of more experienced job seekers.
A smooth transition for users
As Hiredly, there will be both a brand new job seeker website plus a revamped Employer Dashboard.
Employers that subscribe to Hiredly will get access to the platform’s built-in tools that help save time on attracting and pre-screening talents such as company profiles, a chatbot interviewer, and video cover letters.
What’s fairly new to their platform is the integration of AI for their headhunting service, Hiredly X, and their job portal database for a faster and more affordable headhunting service.
“For example, if a software developer applies to many startups but rejects many large corporations, we know that the job seeker is interested to work in a startup. Therefore, our headhunting team will immediately know to approach this candidate first if they are helping a startup recruit a software developer,” Derek explained how it works.
“Another possible scenario is if a job seeker is interested in both sales and marketing positions, and an employer is recruiting for an all-round talent that can handle both sales and marketing, the AI can also help identify this person as someone who would be happy to get a call from them.”
On the user’s end, existing purchases and subscriptions will remain. For the most part, existing users don’t need to do anything or transfer any data to the new platform.
Developing a more mature image
With Hiredly as the new face and brand of the company, they intend for this platform to be known as a job portal for professional junior to mid-management talents.
The new Hiredly logo is also meant to reflect the maturity and simplicity that the brand intends to grow into. A royal purple base paired with a blue gradient will be replacing the bright colours with a red foundation they previously used for WOBB.
“There were many instances when a potential client would be very happy with our features and stats but seemed hesitant as well because of the young and colourful brand (note that these were not the exact words that they used). So we believe this new brand will help us secure larger corporate clients with a more serious brand image,” Derek disclosed to Vulcan Post.
As of now, they’re prioritising working towards being the number one hiring platform in Malaysia for junior to mid-management talent in Malaysia for the next 2 years due to the pandemic.
“We are still open to regional opportunities, but will only pursue them depending on timing and situation with the pandemic,” Derek stated.
- You can learn more about Hiredly here.
- You can read more job seeker-related articles we’ve written here.
Featured Image Credit: Derek Toh, CEO and founder of Hiredly
