The fight for equal opportunities in the hiring processes of companies has been overlooked for a long time. Rhett Lindsey witnessed this problem and wanted to create a solution to tackle the biases he saw in the hiring processes at top organizations in the United States. He launched Siimee, a recruitment platform with its own website and mobile application to eradicate the various biases when it comes to hiring the right talent.
Rhett Lindsey is a 32-year-old black queer male and the CEO of Siimee. Before this position, he used to be an employee at various organizations including Facebook and Tinder. He worked for Facebook as a recruiter for engineers. He wanted to work at Facebook and got his role in his third attempt applying for it. The job he once dreamed of getting wasn’t very much what he thought it would be when he came across the biases in the hiring process.
Eight months after he was appointed as a recruiter professional, a virtual meeting was held to talk about hiring more black engineers. When the session convened, a song by Drake that had lots of N-word was being played in the background by his white coworker. Rhett was disheartened by this behavior and decided to leave his six-figure salaried position at Facebook.
He has long recognized the suffering of people of color and underrepresented groups when it came to the hiring process. Most companies don’t prioritize and not even consider inclusivity and diversity in their workplace. This leads to unequal job opportunities caused by racial biases. The main goal of Siimee, the new recruitment platform, is to eradicate these prejudices and focus more on the job seeker’s essential qualifications.
The problem with large companies is that they often hire people based on certain characteristics and not so much based on the skills needed for the job. This issue is addressed by Siimee. It is specifically designed to highlight the substantial experiences, special interests, and aspirations of job seekers. This approach removes the racial biases when it comes to hiring people.
Rhett and his team designed this startup with unique features. One characteristic of the Siimee app is for the job applicants to withhold showing their pictures before they share their resumes. Another feature that Siimee has is the capability of the employers to swipe left if they want to ignore a candidate profile, or swipe right if they are interested in the job seeker.
The app is friendly to use for both job seekers and employers. Rhett wants employers and job applicants to have a one-on-one matching experience through the app. If both parties match, that means they share the same interests and are compatible in building a meaningful connection.
The staff at Siimee will oversee all the interactions to ensure their authenticity. They will monitor if companies display racial biases and not consider suitable candidates for roles in the company. Job seekers have free access to the app. There are subscriptions of up to three levels for employers who want to use the app to hire talent based on skill and aspirations, and not on other biases.
This progressive approach in providing equal opportunities for every job seeker. Rhett wants to influence other recruitment platforms to make these factors their utmost priority when connecting job seekers and employers.
VK Weekly 