CINCINNATI -- Two entrepreneurs and two different technologies could likely affect your work life.
One is an app designed to help companies find you and hire you. The other a website that will help you (and your boss) figure out how you fit in at the workplace and if you're in the right job.
Vanda comes from Adam Koehler, owner of CovWorks in Covington. He's also one of the three partners who developed and sold the Dotloop app to Zillow for $108 million. His new app is going after a new way of hiring, changing the classified ad model into a human resources one, he said.
Designed for human resources departments and managers, the mobile app will match the job description and skills needed to help find the perfect employee a job, Koehler said.
Cloverleaf is the brainchild of Darrin Murriner and partners of Newport. He's also co-owner at the Borderlands co-working space. His goal is to help people and teams succeed by using tools that assess people’s personalities and strengths as well as team culture. It could be used in a hiring process, but it's really designed to match team members for the best environment and productivity, said Murriner.
Both applications are in the beta testing stage, with plans to launch after the first of the year.
Vanda
In Vanda, job seekers in all jobs will upload their resume information and rate themselves on various job skills, Koehler said. Companies looking for a new employee will use a similar check list for the job they are filling and connect with potential employees by being matched.
Vanda will eventually have all jobs on it just like a Career Builder or a Monster site, Koehler said.
Most job sites search for keywords and send resumes to human resources departments. Vanda matches candidate qualifications to the qualifications required of the job, he said. For instance, if a secretary has some HTML training but is not a developer, that resume won't be sent to a company needing a developer.
"We've completely changed the model," Koehler said.
Vanda's pricing model is not yet in place, but Koehler said it will be based on the connections companies make.
Vanda is being beta tested at Tata Consultancy Services in Milford. Human resources director Reneta Varghese said it's been helping in finding applicants for two positions, one which the company filled.
"It's unlike anything else out there," she said. "It's helped us match to the position without going through hundreds of resumes."
Varghese said she likes that the app is on her phone. ITC does a lot of college recruiting, and she has everything with her when she's traveling.
Cloverleaf
Murriner said he and three partners started developing Cloverleaf when they realized that the culture at the business where they were then working was strong.
"We spent a lot of time talking about what made it a great place to work," Murriner said.
Cloverleaf is most functional from the team perspective, offering managers a look at individuals and whether they are the right person on that team, he said.
Individuals, however, can take their dashboard with them to their next job, which can help them in a new role.
It's also free to sign up and create a team, he said. Pricing doesn't start until a company creates more than one team.
Eventually Cloverleaf, found at Cloverleaf.me, will offer access to all types of personality tests, Murriner said. The results of personality tests usually don't change, so once someone hits 18 to 20 years old, they're pretty much set. "By in large, who you are is who you are," he said.
When it came to the culture section of the site, Murriner said, they realized there's not a good standard test on the market to talk about that.
"You could be talking about two different things," he said. For example, "one person might be talking about ping pong tables, the other about their managers."
Cloverleaf has been tested and used by the University of Cincinnati linebackers, Carabello's Coffee in Newport and Epipheo, a digital video agency in Cincinnati.
Dan Chaney, human resources manager at Epipheo, said the staff has been using Cloverleaf to build teams for a couple of months.
"I can look at a team view and see a live-action feed," he said. "It's been helpful for us to identify and clarify what works."
Epipheo was already using the Myers Briggs assessment as part of the hiring process, which factors into some positions more than others, he said.
"We know these types of profiles that are more successful in certain positions. We had come to that conclusion a few years ago. (Cloverleaf) kind of took it to the next level for us."
