SEATTLE — Candidate.co, a new way for people to connect their personal and professional networks with great jobs while earning money launches out of beta today. For “superconnectors” — people with networks of talented friends and peers — Candidate.co offers the best way to connect them with the right job, and pays between $2,400 – $6,000 for each successful match.
For employers, Candidate.co helps them build a network of referrers outside of their own employees and alumni, increasing their reach and gaining access to new pools of talent.
Candidate.co has secured $4M in seed funding from prominent investors and offers remote positions nationwide and in-office roles in Seattle, San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles. The seed round was led by Voyager Capital with participation from Positive Sum, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Ascend, BAM Ventures and Vulcan.
“Candidate.co was founded with a simple vision: connect employers and potential employees by tapping into powerful relationships,” said Candidate.co CEO Ryan Agresta. “The COVID pandemic has exacerbated hiring challenges, with 42 percent of employers having job openings that could not be filled – a record high. Candidate.co brings more tools to the recruiting toolbox to supercharge existing hiring programs.”
Despite the emergence of major hiring platforms and technologies, recruiters and hiring managers are bogged down trying to source potential employees. Research shows that 60 percent of jobs are filled via networking, but there is no platform to facilitate this, limiting access for those without an extensive network.
Candidate.co provides the necessary information and requirements for Referrers to understand the role and identify who in their network fits the ideal candidate profile or the job opportunity. When their referrals get hired, they receive a significant cash bonus of $2400 – $6000 depending on the role.
“As we’ve scaled from startup, Candidate.co has been an ideal partner for not only helping us find top talent, but also manage growing recruiting fees that are becoming a large budget item,” said Rob Porcarelli, COO at Syndio, a leading pay equity software provider. “Candidate.co is a low-risk, high reward solution: we only pay when we hire, candidates are professionally vetted, and fees are considerably lower than traditional recruiters.”
Candidate.co is launching with a focus on non-technical jobs in the tech startup space with plans to expand the portfolio of roles including software engineering, product and design in the coming months. The company is committed to helping employers build diverse teams by challenging the status quo of tech hiring, and expects to announce a diversity advisory board in the coming months, and further details in the future.
About Candidate.co
Candidate.co is a digital platform for employment recruiting that unlocks the power of personal referral networks by connecting companies that are ready to scale with the best talent available. With a commitment to helping employers build diverse teams, Candidate.co believes that companies are strong when their employees have different perspectives and experiences. Refer your network, they get hired, you get rewarded.
