This startup wants Indonesian tech companies to bid on talent

As Jakarta’s tech startup scene gets larger, so does its demand for top-notch skills in a market where talent bottlenecks already exist. While some startups may not care to admit it, new companies must often look at their competitors when scouting potential employees. Whether you’re looking to poach someone or simply network for the future, it’s all fair game these days. Kevin Kang, founder of GetHunted, wants to formalize the headhunting process in Indonesia.

Kevin calls GetHunted Indonesia’s online auction showcase for recruiting technical talents. “In short, we could say that we flip the recruitment process. Normally, a company will post some job advertisements and wait for a candidate to apply,” explains Kevin. “Instead, we post the talented candidate to our site and invite companies to actively ‘hunt’ for them.”

GetHunted curates all the individuals on its site in a two-step process, the first being a general screening of the applicant, and the second being a more in-depth test of their tech skills and knowledge. Kevin says that not all of GetHunted’s participants are actively seeking work, but many of them are what he calls “passive candidates,” meaning they’re already employed but still open to new opportunities.

This is not Kevin’s first go at the employment sector in Indonesia. He previously co-founded JobNext, an online recruitment agency that now serves more than 150 international employers on a pay-per-hire basis. The company liases with a list of high-profile tech employers including Line, Baidu, LG Electronics, and Dentsu. It also serves non-tech clients.

Kevin Kang (left), founder and CEO of GetHunted

Kevin claims that he went out on his own and launched GetHunted in November because he wanted to exclusively focus on the archipelago’s tech recruitment vertical. “Indonesia’s IT industry is the second biggest sector after oil and gas where the demand for employees is still high because companies still find it difficult to find good local talent,” explains Kevin.

See: This new startup wants to be both Indonesia’s LinkedIn and JobsDB

Poaching passive talent

GetHunted generates revenue through a freemium model in which users pay to gain access into the auction. It also plans to monetize on a pay-per-hire basis should a company successfully find the right candidate on GetHunted. Kevin did not reveal the amount he plans to charge companies for these services.

67 percent of skilled professionals in Indonesia were headhunted for their current position, found a recent survey from the Monroe Consulting Group, and 93 percent claim to have received headhunting calls in the past six months. This information is encouraging to Kevin, who believes there is money to be made in Indonesia’s passive job market.