tilr CEO Stephen Shefsky
tilr is a fast-growing job services firm headquartered in Cincinnati, OH. We checked in with CEO Stephen Shefsky and Sam Amsterdam, director of marketing and communications, for a Q&A session.
How did the idea for the company come about?
In 1992, my brother and I published a newspaper in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It included classified employment advertising. We did this for about three years before going digital. We had created a resume database with keyword searching, but we were too far ahead of the market to gain sufficient traction.
How has the company changed since its beginnings?
We restarted with the launch of tilr in Cincinnati in 2015. Our experiences taught us that human resources contain the sum of all the skills within a given company. So, we asked ourselves how we could leverage this data. We determined that it was better to focus on skills than keyword searches.
Why did you choose Cincinnati?
We received incentives from the city, such as the number of placements made for people who could earn more than $45K per year. Cincinnati is our headquarters and sales hub location for the Midwest. Our original target market was an area that included Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus.
What differentiates you from other job services organizations?
We eliminate the need for resumes, cover letters, and interviews by focusing on skills matching. This removes any early bias in the hiring process. We are age, ethnicity, and race agnostic. We also provide a mechanism to help employees upskill to better paying positions.
Can you explain your business model?
We are a subscription-based service. We charge companies a flat rate for unlimited access, and it is free to job seekers. Because we are web-based, we can expand across North America and beyond. We have over 500 client companies and over 100K matched employment opportunities. We originally provided the service to part-time and gig employees but have expanded to full-time 1099 and W2 employees. We see even more opportunities to help match employers with the 30 million workers unemployed due to COVID-19.
How does the process work?
On average, it takes about 40 days to fill an open job requisition using traditional sources. With tilr, a prospective employee or employer can find a heuristic-driven AI match within seconds. These matches are then sent to subscribing companies and to prospective employees who register at our website. We enable prospective employees to create a virtual video interview, where they answer template-driven questions or those requested by a given company. All of this can be done through our mobile application on any smartphone.
What additional services do you offer employees?
We are working with major healthcare providers to provide health insurance for full-time, part-time, and gig workers. We also work with training companies to help our employees upskill. The larger our database grows, the more benefits we will be able to provide.
What happens next?
tilr version 2.0 launches in July. It will offer improved skill mapping of human resources, with a new application that allows clients to use tilr inside their intranet. This will allow them to see where skills reside within their organization and identify gaps. We are launching this for the private market and local, state, and federal governments. We plan to launch the same functionality in Canada later this summer.