The Problem
For the first eight years, the co-founders acted as recruiters, employing various strategies to attract quality talent. They posted in startup founder groups, leveraged their networks, and advertised on job boards like LinkedIn.
While well-regarded within the Advertising Technology industry, AlikeAudience was still lesser known and still building their brand as an employer outside of their niche industry. As they grew their business, the young AdTech startup began to face significant challenges in attracting quality candidates and hiring individuals with relevant skills and experience. The earlier recruitment methods heavily relied on the three co-founders' spending time to reach out and meet with potential recruits in their networks. Despite their best attempts to promote job advertisements on popular job boards, the quality of the applicants were not able to meet the expectations.
The time it took for the founders to reach out to their network, and the results meant that they were not able to always find the right candidate at the right time for the business, and it became apparent that this method of recruitment could not keep pace with the company's evolving needs. As AlikeAudience matured and sought candidates with niche experience, these approaches fell short in terms of success and efficiency. Hiring became a source of frustration for the co-founders, impeding team growth and negatively impacting their product roadmap, revenue, and employer brand.
“Hiring the right candidates with international exposure, the right ‘startup’ mentality in Hong Kong is a challenge.” — Bosco, CEO & Co-Founder
These challenges manifested in various ways. When posting job advertisements on platforms like LinkedIn, they received few applications. The applicants they did attract often lacked the relevant skills, experience, and knowledge required for the job. As a result, AlikeAudience found themselves wasting valuable time screening CVs and interviewing candidates who couldn't help them reach their business goals.
The Solution
In late 2022, AlikeAudience's co-founders realized they needed to enhance their recruitment strategy to meet growing business demands. They turned to us—a recruitment agency specializing in technology and startup companies in Hong Kong. This marked AlikeAudience's first collaboration with a recruitment agency.
In early 2023, they approached us with an urgent need to hire and onboard key personnel across four departments: Product, Marketing, HR and Sales, all within a few months’ time.
Within five days of receiving the job brief for a newly created Product position, we presented a candidate with a strong profile matching their key requirements: AdTech industry experience and specialized skills in Product GTM strategy. We ultimately found such an excellent fit that we assisted the candidate in relocating from overseas to Hong Kong and facilitated their onboarding to the company. This swift success showcased our agency's deep knowledge and strong connections with quality talent in the market.
Over the next few months, our Technology Recruitment and Commercial Recruitment teams collaborated to enhance our search accuracy. As a result, we successfully identified strong candidates who met the hiring manager's requirements for key positions in Marketing, HR, and Sales.
“Since nahc.io has been in the recruitment industry for a while already, they are able to provide prompt responses and quick turnaround with candidate that they would like to propose.” — Joyce, Chief of Staff and People & Culture Lead
AlikeAudience valued our genuine understanding of their hiring requirements and unique culture as an international startup. Our people-first approach to recruitment and emphasis on quality over quantity perfectly aligned with AlikeAudience's ethos.
The Process
AlikeAudience has built an impressive brand in the AdTech industry but struggled to attract candidates from outside their niche. As recruiters experienced in working with technology startups in Asia for the last 5 years, we understood their hiring challenges and used our market knowledge and insights into candidate behavior to position AlikeAudience effectively, attracting the right talent.
From the initial consultation, AlikeAudience was transparent about their desire to work with recruitment agencies in Hong Kong that could thoroughly screen and vet candidates, presenting only the best fits rather than sending numerous irrelevant CVs.
“When I was working with them, they usually just sent us two or three resumes that are highly related to what we're looking for. We just save a lot of time into interviewing, screenings CVs, that are not at all relevant, not at the right quality. So efficiency is what nahc.io is good at.” — Joyce, Chief of Staff and People & Culture Lead
Our seamless collaboration with AlikeAudience stems from their ability to articulate clearly the type of candidates they seek. This enables us to conduct highly targeted searches and comprehensive vetting of each potential candidate, ensuring they possess the required skills, experience, and cultural fit before shortlisting them for AlikeAudience.
Throughout the recruitment process, we not only worked closely with AlikeAudience to gather feedback and refine our search but also built strong relationships with shortlisted candidates.
“nahc.io checked in with me regularly, even twice a week sometimes, to make sure I know what I am getting myself into in the next interviews.” — Felice, Platform Partnerships
As a recruitment agency prioritizing quality service, we actively facilitated interviews to address any misunderstandings or information gaps promptly, ensuring an efficient and smooth recruitment experience for all parties involved.
“nahc.io played a big role in me landing this job. They were very open to the communication, they guided me through each interview, they gave me tips on what to expect, and they did check-ins after those interviews.” — Jan, PR & Online Marketing Specialist
The Results
We successfully helped AlikeAudience hire and onboard five key personnel across HR, Product, Sales, Marketing, and Account Management within their target timeframe. For each role, we shortlisted 2-4 highly qualified applicants who met the requirements and were a good cultural fit. We even facilitated the relocation of an overseas candidate from the US to join their Hong Kong office.
AlikeAudience saved the founders hundreds of hours in screening and vetting irrelevant CVs, significantly improving their recruitment efficiency. Out targeted search and rigorous process meant that for each job opening, they were able to meet with the best candidates in the market for them; up to 5 shortlisted candidates that all met their hiring requirements, were all interested to join their company, and were the best fit from the market.
In addition with our recruitment efforts, we were able to help strengthen AlikeAudience’s employer brand and position them competitively in the market.
“I would definitely recommend nahc.io to other companies, especially for tech companies that have international exposure that help us to recruit a diverse team like we are today.” — Bosco, CEO and Co-Founder
As AlikeAudience continues to grow, we support them through each stage of their expansion in hiring and recruitment, enabling them to advance to new levels of success.We are a full-service recruitment agency offering talent acquisition and HR solutions across Asia. Our belief is simple: every business deserves tailored solutions that effectively address its unique needs, challenges, and objectives. Our recruitment services span all essential job positions and functions, with core specialties in Sales, Marketing, Information Technology, Human Resources, Strategy & Operations, Finance, and Web3.
Reach out to our Talent Advisors to discuss your recruitment and HR needs. Let us help you build a strong team and establish yourself as a standout employer in the market.
