SoBes. The first Kazakhstani startup for conducting interviews without the involvement of a recruiter

Dimas Sabitov, founder of the SoBes startup, entrepreneur

SoBes is the first Kazakhstani startup for conducting interviews without the involvement of a recruiter.

SoBes is a platform where companies can conduct automated interviews without the involvement of HR and recruiters at any time convenient for the candidate. In turn, HR and recruiters only need to review the conducted interview, which takes five times less time than usual.

How the idea for developing the SoBes application originated

The idea for creating the startup belongs to me and my team. I am an entrepreneur with more than 10 years of experience, and I am also the founder of two financial companies with a team of 136 people. In 2021, during the active growth of the company, my team and I faced a problem with hiring personnel. After studying recruitment analytics, we identified a bottleneck — the low attendance rate of candidates for interviews. This is when the idea arose to create a startup where candidates would not need to spend time traveling, where candidates could take interviews at any time convenient for them and from any location. Thus, the idea for creating the SoBes application was born. The hypothesis was tested primarily within our own company in Almaty and Astana. In the first three months after launching the application, the company was able to meet its hiring needs by increasing the candidate attendance rate for interviews by 500%, which resulted in a fivefold increase in the speed of filling one vacancy.

How HR can focus on personnel development without losing effectiveness in hiring

All of this is possible with the SoBes HR application. Currently, there are many companies around the world that conduct remote interviews via video calls through Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, and so on. SoBes differs in that interviews can be conducted without the direct involvement of the HR/recruiter. Tests are prepared in advance: psychological, logical, verbal, professional, as well as interview questions. Then, the vacancy is published in the mobile application, and the candidate can take the interview from any convenient location, at any time, without leaving home.

Another advantage for HR/recruiters is the ability to choose the format of the candidate's response to a question. There are three options: audio, video response, and text format response. There is also the possibility of collective evaluation of candidate responses.

What are SoBes's ambitions?

Today, the startup is operating at the MVP stage. The application already has more than 4,000 users, and 9 companies with a workforce ranging from 30 to 1,500 employees have already connected. In the near future, SoBes plans to scale not only within Kazakhstan but also into other CIS countries.

Regarding the application's capabilities, plans include adding the ability to:

— evaluate candidate competencies

— assess job fit

— AI recognition of candidate emotions during the interview, and much more.