nicksbg

To make a preface first: I am currently located in Belgrade, Serbia and I am trying to see where I could find potential investor for the project I am working on.

I know the places such as OpenVC https://www.openvc.app/, but I do not know anyone that had any experience with it. I am really not sure if anyone has invested in projects from Serbia outside ElevenFund, SouthCentral Ventures and few more.

For someone wondering why not to look for local investments: Aside from the current political turmoil, the investment here is not that encouraging - you give away a large percent of equity for the investment that is not enough to cover yearly costs in some cases.

About the project: I come from the HR field, and in current climate finding job is really hard. A lot of candidates apply, and at the same time a lot of positions are saturated with applications, that most of the time are not even viewed. This in turn makes finding job even harder.

The traditional ATS model feels like black hole where you just throw your resume and hope for the best. With the addition of AI to analyze and pick resumes it gets even worse. Additionally, a lot of them are saturated with features which most people either don't use or know how to use at all.

Getting rejected from one company shouldn't be the end of the road when searching for job, it should be just the start until it is finished and concludes with hiring somewhere.

The idea itself is to connect applicants (with their consent) that have been rejected, with other companies that are looking for same profiles. This cuts Time To Hire saving the costs for company on the one side, and at the same time it cuts the time for people to find a job, since the system matches them with potential companies in a similar way like dating apps. It can also reduce reliance on hiring agencies as time goes by.

As more people use the ATS the database will get bigger, thus the quality of the matches will get better. The AI here can be used for better matchmaking and building better recommendation system, while making sure that there is human behind the feels to check every match, resume and so on.

I have already built an MVP that shows how it would function, and am currently in the process of working out with friend in making it to be in usable state for others. I've researched PMF (Product Market Fit) and how it fits in current market. As for the monetization I have additional ideas aside for the typical subscription payed per seat/package.

The product itself is B2B oriented with both the individuals and companies being the beneficiaries of it.

I am open to hearing more on how should I proceed in this regards and where to go next really because finding investment from Serbia seems like looking to find a needle in a haystack.

One of the things that I have noticed in my career as a Legal Specialist HR, is how HR has become useless to the company. It is sad to see that a lot of people are chasing this job out of illusion of easy job and money. This in turn makes the HR hated across industries.

First, a lot of HR personnel is hired not because of a merit, but on a whim of a manager. There are some golden exceptions where HR is really good, and the hiring was done in accordance to what the company needs, but they are just that - exceptions.

Second - The education is simply lacking when you have the HRM, HRS coming from majors such as Literature, or even in some cases Biology. In reality, regardless of country, they do not know anything about procedures, CoC, contracts, salary calculations, personal dev etc. A lot of these are handled by different types of HR focused on Economy, Psychology, Law and Management. People with majors in other fields are simply not capable to handle it, without any training or complementary HR education.

This leads to education based discrimination, where in some cases candidates for HR positions are discriminated by HRM with less or no required education to be an HR. To talk about gender based discrimination would be rather pointless since we can see that the ration is 80/20 when it comes to female to male comparison.

The less knowledge HR has, the less power it has, and it is in the hands of the management to with them as they want.

In lot of cases we hear that HR is there to protect the company. However, HR is there to protect itself. HR will pick less qualified HR to become part of their team, to be sure she/he is not endangered with potentially better candidate, especially if other candidate is better fit than HR Manager. How can someone that does not know the intricate workings of the company protect it? HR should be there to be a middle man to find solution that does not screw the employee and protects the corporate image.

When this happens, companies start losing money because they are potential not hiring best engineers, administration staff, due to HR not realizing what the company needs. Both the candidates and the companies lose in the end.

Due to sheer incompetency, it is not rare case in my country to see HR related jobs outsourced to law firm. This is a travesty in itself, since outsourcing the HR makes it harder for employee to connect with someone to discuss his problems and resolve it. Law firms should be used to handle stuff such as acquisitions, lawsuits, drafting of highly specialized contracts etc.

Personality tests are given by non-psychologists or themselves are non viable to be used. In a lot of countries, this is a breach of law and ethical norms. You can't write contracts as legal specialist and give tests to candidates. This is plainly illegal.

Third - Disinterest in what the company is doing - It is sad to have HR that does not know what the company they are employed at does. In tech companies, this is especially the case where they are disinterested in learning to understand either tech or the sector that company belongs to.

There is a a lot of buzz about employer branding. It should be a job where marketing collaborates with HR on how best to promote the company and its activities, benefits, making sure that employees are happy with employer and their ambassadors in outside world and not a separate position.

Fourth - Expensive ATS systems are being unused - BreezyHR, Workday or any other are used and integrated into websites. At the same time, a lot of the candidates never hear back from the companies. Rejection emails are the norm today because they are a way for HR to shield from counterfeedback, and liability. There is no excuse on not sending even those templates since they can automated. Why waste money on something that someone does not want or does not know how to use? You would be surprised on how much ATS and other modules are unused.