Nigerian startup Dropque claims to cut the time an employer spends on recruiting by 50 per cent via its one-way video interviewing platform that allows interviews to be conducted anywhere, at any time.
Launched last year at the Ghana-based Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), and backed financially by MEST in January, Dropque allows companies to create video interviews and invite candidates to respond to them with timed responses.
Co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Opeyemi Akinwoleola told Disrupt Africa the startup’s team called them “selfie interviews”.
All employers need to do is use Dropque’s intuitive interface to create video, text or file based interviews, and send them to their prospective candidates. Its contact import feature makes sending to a large group easy.
Candidates respond to the interview, with these responses immediately available for assessment on the dashboard. Video recording and uploading is deliberately designed to support slow internet speeds. Employers can then collaboratively assess, rate and shortlist candidates with other members of their recruitment team.
The startup claims it cuts recruitment time by 50 per cent by reducing the time it takes to schedule and conduct face-to-face meetings.
“One way video interviews have improved how the world’s largest companies recruit, but it’s a technology yet to be deployed by African companies,” Akinwoleola said.
“We realised that even though access to the internet and the creation and consumption large volumes of video data has been on the increase, few African companies were tapping into the convenience and ease one way video interviewing brought to the process.”
Dropque aims to change that, and has already signed up well over 100 companies onto the platform.
“For any “new entrant technology” that requires even a slight change in behaviour or process, adoption will initially be slow, but pick up as market education increases. We are watching this happen with Dropque as we grow,” said Akinwoleola.
“One of the initial difficulties we faced from recruiters was the thought that candidates would never take an interview like this. We have not seen that yet from the candidate side as candidates gladly take the interviews and avoid long commutes, while actually being able to show their capabilities and skills as well as share their unique stories.”
So pleased is the startup – which charges recruiters a small subscription fee to access its services – with adoption that it is already looking at expanding outside of Nigeria at some point this year.
“We are looking towards the West African region first and hope to scale across Africa from there,” Akinwoleola said.
