Somewhere - Stop looking, start attracting!

I’ve discovered Somewhere’s interesting recruiting approach through a TV program few weeks ago. I’ve been following your companies’ progress ever since and I’m excited to have your confirmation for a talk at the HR Innovation Day 2013! Today I’m interviewing Nina Buschle, who’s in charge of Company Partnerships at Somewhere in Berlin.

Wald: First of all, thank you very much for this short-notice interview and your confirmation to the HR Innovation Day 2013! It’d be very interesting to know how you came up with the idea of bringing people and companies together through the display of images.
Buschle: Thank you very much for your interest and for inviting us to your event! The whole idea behind showcasing companies with ‘sparks’ (the visual snippets into companies’ cultures) arised from the central problem of how recruitment is done today. We think that merely matching a CV with a job description won’t solve companies ‘ recruiting problems (misfits, high turnover rates, etc.). There are so many factors that are decisive about an actual person-company fit. A CV doesn’t say much about personality, motivation and actual experiences, as well as a job description won’t give many insights on a companies’ culture and how the daily work life will actually be. We also believe that many people today don’t look for a job anymore; we want to spend our long working life doing something that matters. Everyone is motivated by different factors and should be able to find the right place to work.

Wald: Thank you. And how does the recruiting process proceed?
Buschle: It’s important to know that we’re neutral on the process itself – we help companies show and share their culture in a genuine way, and we help people discover interesting work places. After that, we enable people and companies to start conversations and develop sustainable relationships – we see finding the right people to work with as a long-oriented process. The way a hiring process is effectively done is different in every company.

Wald: What has been your experience with people and companies so far? Do people have a lot of questions or does Somewhere work rather intuitively for them?
Buschle: Like with every innovative service or product, there are always early adopters who validate the approach and love helping us improve in what we do. We’re so happy to meet many enthusiastic people and companies who see Somewhere as some kind of movement within the world of work.
At the same time, it is a totally new concept of doing ‘slow recruitment’, and sometimes recruiters need to adapt to building a talent pool before they’re desperately searching for a new employee.

Wald: Your target group seems to be based mainly within the creative scene according to the TV program. Can you imagine expanding to other target groups or do you want to stay in the creative environment?
Buschle: It was a rather natural process for Somewhere. I believe this happened for many reasons, but: creatives are quite a hybrid group of people and fit our approach, but we do work with companies from different sectors, such as tolina or codecentric. Our partner companies are progressive in the way they value people and see work as something personal.

Wald: I have the impression that Somewhere has a strong internationalization strategy and is already present in many European cities. What’s your opinion about it?
Buschle: We’re thrilled with every company who wants to join and do recruiting in a sustainable and truly human way, irrespective of the city they’re based in. I’m glad to see there are pioneers pretty much everywhere in the world.

Wald: One final question: why are you joining the HR Innovation Day?
Buschle: To be honest, I didn’t know this event before. I worked as a recruitment consultant and decided to do my Master studies in HR because I wanted to find out how to change recruitment. And there are many other exciting HR related topics that can and should be improved from the ground up. I’m glad we got in touch and I’m looking forward to exchanging ideas with curious and enthusiastic people!

Wald: Thank you very much for this interview, Mrs Buschle! I’m looking forward in hearing your talk at the HR Innovation Day 2013!

Nina Buschle

Nina Buschle is the Company Partnerships Director at Somewhere and loves topics related to the future of world of work. She joined Somewhere because she wants to help fix recruitment from the ground up. You can contact her via Mail (nina@somewherehq.com) or Twitter (@NinaBuschle).

Somewhere means: Find Somewhere you fit. Somewhere helps companies show their culture. Somewhere equip them to create and share meaningful insights into their work, beliefs, people and practices. This enables companies to find and hire the right people who want to join their work journey.