Revolutionizing Job Recruitment with Gamification and People-Centric Approach

Eric (00:02.029)
Mihály buny-zí-wá. Welcome to Innovators Can Laugh.

Mihai Cepoi (00:05.938)
Hey Eric, thank you for having me.

Eric (00:08.365)
Hey, my pleasure. Let me give a background. So the audience understands a little bit about you. Mihai is an entrepreneur with a sales background. He was a Forbes Romania 30 under 30 and an SAP MVP for HR sales at SAP. That's correct. Right Mihai? All right. He's also a technology addict and a passionate about gamification and people processes.

Mihai Cepoi (00:26.335)
Yeah, yeah, that's correct.

Eric (00:34.365)
And he's the founder of JobFool.io. It's a job recruiting platform that utilizes a people-centric approach. Can't wait to get into all this, but first we have some fill in the blank questions for you, Mihai. Give me the first answer that pops into your head. You ready? Okay. All right. When you were a kid, you wanted to be blank.

Mihai Cepoi (00:49.888)
Yeah, yeah, I have.

Mihai Cepoi (00:56.527)
a football player.

Eric (00:59.312)
Who's your favorite football player now?

Mihai Cepoi (01:02.482)
Right now I'd say Holland.

Eric (01:04.785)
Okay, all right. My son's always talking about Messi's the greatest, Messi this, Messi that. And you know, I'm American, so I didn't grow up watching football. And I'm telling him like, hey, there's other players that were pretty great, you know, like Pelé. And then he's like, oh, I've never heard of Pelé. And I'm like, well, yeah, he did. Of course he never heard of Pelé, but. Okay, other question for you. Blank is an unusual food I enjoy.

Mihai Cepoi (01:21.218)
Hahaha

Mihai Cepoi (01:33.835)
mmm it's a pizza with mushrooms

Eric (01:40.481)
Okay, good. I thought you were going to say pizza with guacamole. I think I saw that on some sign in city center, like Mexican pizza. And I was just like shaking my head. And I'm like nowhere else in the world are you going to see pizza with guacamole? But of course in Bucharest there's.

Mihai Cepoi (01:56.441)
Yeah, I agree. I might change my answer after I try it out.

Eric (02:01.289)
This sounds disgusting! No, you don't put guacamole on pizza! No, no! Okay.

Mihai Cepoi (02:08.04)
I get what you mean but guacamole is amazing, pizza is amazing so it's worth a try.

Eric (02:15.233)
No, Mihai, no, no. All right, next question for you. The best advice your mom or dad ever gave you.

Mihai Cepoi (02:23.804)
I think it came from my mom and it was to also rely on myself and on my beliefs rather than being influenced by the outside world.

Eric (02:36.081)
Good, good advice, good advice. Next question, craziest thing you ever did to make or save money?

Mihai Cepoi (02:45.356)
During my university years, I was teaching first graders informatics.

Eric (02:54.461)
Okay, very, very cool. Very cool. All right, last question for you. The most interesting thing you did in the last 26 days.

Mihai Cepoi (02:55.786)
Yeah.

Mihai Cepoi (03:04.618)
in the last 26 days. I think... I'm not sure where to start. I think an overnight getaway with my girlfriend towards a random place. We didn't know where to go, so we just jumped on a train. And the first train that we got, and we got somewhere around Romania to spend the night.

Eric (03:33.317)
All right, where was it at? Do you remember where you went?

Mihai Cepoi (03:36.55)
It was near Krajova actually. Very random, not appealing, but it was a good trip.

Eric (03:43.653)
Very cool. This reminds me of back in the day, I used to work for an airline, and I could travel for virtually free, and me and my friend would go to the airport and look at the screen and just figure out what flights were next and just try to get on the flight. And so sometimes we'd end up like in Mexico or Canada, we had no idea we were going that weekend, but the flight was open, so we would just hop on. Yeah, yeah. This is back when, this is pre-kids, man, you know, when I had no responsibility, you know?

Mihai Cepoi (04:07.012)
Nice

Mihai Cepoi (04:13.006)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Eric (04:16.073)
Sometimes they would upgrade us to first class and we'd be drinking champagne and eating lobster but that night we'd be staying at this cheap ass hostel eating. It was just weird.

Mihai Cepoi (04:28.626)
Still, lobster at first glance doesn't sound bad at all.

Eric (04:33.994)
Okay, let's talk about JobFull. When did you launch JobFull and what is your current revenue projection for 2024? If you don't mind sharing that.

Mihai Cepoi (04:44.206)
Sure, sure. So we started working on the project in 2017. The first launch was in May 2018. And for 2024, we're targeting 1 million in annual recurring revenue.

Eric (04:59.556)
Now, what made you decide to launch this?

Mihai Cepoi (05:02.346)
Well, it was actually a learning group in an alternative education organization. And in that learning group, we started learning about gamification. So for me as a background, I love games. I love playing more than I love games. And the idea of implementing game techniques on what at that time I consider very serious.

processes like people processes for corporates It just blew my mind. So I really wanted to see how we can make Workplace more fun through gamification. Yeah

Eric (05:43.789)
Yeah, now this was at SAP when you were thinking about this concept.

Mihai Cepoi (05:48.698)
I was, it's actually before SAP and before Microsoft. So just as a short story, my very first job after university, I was a product manager in an IT agency where delivering IT projects for different customers. After two years, I said, I'm out, I really want to start my own company. That's when we started that learning group and I started the company.

One month later, Microsoft came and said, well, we really want you to join the enterprise sales team here in Romania. I said at that time I was 23, I think. I said, no way, I'm working on my dream, leave me alone. But a very good lesson that I got at that moment of time from the recruiter, I'll remember her forever. She said, well, Mihai, you can't say no to an opportunity without understanding it. Go find out and then say no, not a problem.

So I went, I loved the manager. Everything I was passionate about in terms of sales without being able to define it as sales, actually. It was state of the art and it is in Microsoft. In my opinion, Microsoft is not a technology company. It's a full commercial company. What they do best is selling. So I told the manager I really want to be mentored by him.

And then the recruiter said, well, now it's even tougher. We really, really want you to join Microsoft. So I said, no, I'm working on my dreams. But I was 23 and the question was, is there an amount for which your answer would be different? Being 23, the answer was, of course. Two weeks later, I started with Microsoft. So the very first part.

Eric (07:36.331)
Yeah.

Eric (07:40.418)
Okay, okay.

Mihai Cepoi (07:42.91)
of Joful as a story. It's actually spending nights and weekends working on this project that I really wanted to get to the market.

Eric (07:53.381)
Okay, now you were MVP also in sales at SAP, and what were some of the strategies that you used to, I guess, be a good salesman?

Mihai Cepoi (08:03.182)
Yeah, I think my answer might be a bit strange as a heads up, meaning that in general sales reps and I was once again I was 25 at that time I think, but the sellers in general they push and push in order to close the contract and then they disappear because they are running for the next contract. I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing here in Romania or in Southeast Europe.

But the fact that I was committed to staying next to them after we signed the papers, making sure that we find the right partners or the right resources in order to have successful projects, I think that was a key differentiator with my customers. So they were trusting SAP as a solution, but they were trusting me as a person who works for SAP and is really willing to...

do the work in order to get them everything they need for the project.

Eric (09:04.093)
Okay, and so just being alongside them and being available all the time. Is that one of the things that you focused on?

Mihai Cepoi (09:11.894)
and being constructive on things that were not on my plate. So these should have been with the partner or with someone from professional services, but in general, it's tougher for them from external just to connect with specific relevant people. And me facilitating this was a great advantage that was very appreciated.

Eric (09:35.993)
Was this something you got from your mentor at Microsoft or what else did you learn from him that you didn't already know me hi.

Mihai Cepoi (09:44.378)
Also, my mentor criticized me for staying with the customer after we signed. The message was, well, you signed the contract, you need the next contract, why are you still there? And to some degree, I understand the perspective. I don't resonate with the idea of convincing someone to buy something and then letting them figure it out themselves. So it was at my end the way I prefer to work with people.

from Katalin as a mentor. I think I learned how to how to look at my career in many ways because when SAP came and they came with another offer I couldn't refuse I went back to Katalin and said well Microsoft has been taking really good care of me and I feel like I would

Mihai Cepoi (10:43.722)
And the message was brilliant. He told me, Microsoft, just think of this Mihai, for Microsoft you're a line in a spreadsheet of another spreadsheet that no one cares about. This fidelity with the employer, this goes only one way. So just take care of you, do what's best for you because Microsoft will do the same, trust me on this.

Eric (10:56.614)
Ha ha!

Eric (11:03.153)
Yeah.

Eric (11:08.733)
Okay, now when you say an offer you can't refuse, I'm thinking of the Godfather movie where there was, you know, they chopped off that horse's head and it was in the bed and that changed that guy's mind. Now I don't think that happened to you and of course the compensation was pretty good but was there another perk or benefit that was really attractive?

Mihai Cepoi (11:29.006)
So I was at the time 25, I was really arrogant, not as a person with my friends, but in terms of my professional development. And the country manager came to me from SAP and said, well, I have a position that it's amazing. It's business case, so you don't have legacy. It's HR sales and I know you have a startup in HR.

You take care of the full process, not only pre-sales or first party or taking care of everything. It's on you to build the entire line of business here in Romania. So I was in my arrogance, I was laid back and saying, well, don't worry, Microsoft is taking care of me. And he insisted, tell you what does that mean. And when I told him, the very first answer was, well, I can double that. So my reaction was, well...

Where can I start?

Eric (12:23.062)
Wow. I mean at the age of 25 for that kind of lucrative salary I'm imagining, that must have been pretty awesome.

Mihai Cepoi (12:30.918)
Yes, it was awesome when I was going to different customers. Everyone was asking me if it's the car of the GM or it's my car, because I had from the company an Audi A5, from that specific year, a 50K car, black car that I was driving around. So I was looking like a country manager coming into the car. And it was part of the strategy.

I was told that when you come into the customer with a really expensive car, they know that the discussion will be also about very expensive stuff. You put them in the right mindset.

Eric (13:00.285)
Yeah.

Eric (13:14.286)
Whereas I'm riding around in a lime scooter over here in Bucharest going to meetings. I need to change my strategy, Mihai. Okay, quick question. How did you even get into the discussion of working at Microsoft as an employee but in sales? I mean, that's a pretty, I would imagine, hard gig to get.

Mihai Cepoi (13:19.006)
Yeah, yeah, same here.

Mihai Cepoi (13:38.886)
Yes, I totally agree, but I didn't realize at that time. I was contacted on LinkedIn by a recruiter in the UK, telling me about the position, but at that point of time my background was in... I graduated computer science and I worked as project manager for almost two years in an agency, an IT agency, software development. So I have no idea why they targeted me, why I was relevant or attractive profile. To be honest, I don't know.

today how I got in front of their recruitment efforts. But I'm happy that I did. Most of the funding that Jofful got in first year was from my job at Microsoft or SAP. So it was good that it happened.

Eric (14:13.809)
Hehehe Hehehehe

Eric (14:27.993)
Yeah, okay. Let's transition to that. So I guess you got job for off the ground and it was mostly bootstrap. You funded it yourself.

Mihai Cepoi (14:35.946)
Yeah, yeah, at the very beginning for the first two years, yeah.

Eric (14:39.969)
Okay, so you're working at night and on the weekends on this project and you said that it launched in 2018. Is that correct? Did you stop working at SAP at that time or were you doing both?

Mihai Cepoi (14:47.031)
Yes.

Mihai Cepoi (14:52.603)
I was doing boat for another year and a half.

Eric (14:57.433)
Okay, can you describe the platform? I mean, what makes it different than other job platforms out there?

Mihai Cepoi (15:05.602)
So I will start with the other platforms that are out there. Right now, everything works on this industrial model, where what we're doing in terms of innovation is just building a better Replicant Tracking System, just a bit more better interface, more AI, something more productive to do over there, but it has its ceiling. So you can do interface and process optimization up to a point.

The thesis where we started and gamification is often misunderstood because it's a buzzword is just out there. It sounds sexy, but what is it actually? The best definition is human centered design. So it's a way of looking at the individual and his or her motivators and adding game techniques in order to tap into that motivators. The best comparison is with consumer apps. If you look at Facebook or Instagram or TikTok.

all of them have a gamification framework, a way of engaging you and keeping you engaged through game techniques. And just a couple of other examples, when you get the fifth coffee for free because you have a coupon, that's a gamification implementation. Or Black Friday, you have limited time, limited offer, only then top products and so on. That's a gamification implementation actually. So the differentiator that...

when we started and still deliver, it's this people-centric approach. And the thesis behind goes something like this. Today, top professionals are interviewing employers, not the other way around. So for the top professionals, when they go to interview, they don't answer questions, they ask questions. Why would I work here? You tell me.

Eric (16:48.517)
Mm-hmm.

Eric (16:54.317)
Yeah, yeah, like you did when you were back in there when you were younger.

Mihai Cepoi (16:57.642)
Exactly, exactly. I'm a strong believer that it's just a matter of time until this applies for everyone. I think as a society the consciousness is increasing and when we look at work it's not... the first option is not selling my time for some money anymore. It's about what it means, it's about the organization and its culture, it's about impact.

it's about my journey as a professional, there's a lot more over there. So the thesis is if we manage to make the professionals happy and the employment process is built around the professional motivators, the candidates, instead of the business process, the outcome is better. And six years later, we realize that the outcome is not marginally better.

There's a huge difference in terms of employer branding, how candidates interact, how happy they are, how you can engage with top professionals. So part of the solution is just solving challenges to show how smart you are on different topics or getting different awards for bringing your friends to the platform, all sorts of game techniques that we have over there.

Eric (18:17.329)
OK, so from the user experience perspective, it sounds like they're just not going up there, entering the platform and uploading the resume. They're really engaged with the platform, so to speak. Can you just walk us through what the average user and their experience looks like? If they're applying for a job or they're interested, yeah, walk us through that, Mihai.

Mihai Cepoi (18:39.795)
Yeah.

Mihai Cepoi (18:43.222)
So one of the pain points that we addressed head first was the fact that you needed to complete another profile, spend half an hour, nobody wants to do that anymore. Yeah, yeah, it's awful. So what we did over there is just built a CV parser. You just click three times and add your email address. And in 30 seconds, you apply for the job and your profile is completed.

Eric (18:52.601)
I hate that, yeah.

Mihai Cepoi (19:07.018)
That was the very first pain point because you don't want, it's hard to do engagement when people have to complete forms. Now, secondly, when we looked at the candidate experience, we said, well, right now it's apply and wait. There is not much action you can do. You apply and you wait with your fingers crossed. Let's see how we can complete this experience to make them the most active ones and most engaging ones, to make them more relevant for the

Eric (19:26.169)
Yeah.

Mihai Cepoi (19:37.01)
employer. So they are able to do challenges to prove their skills. They are able to go through courses and learn new things to demonstrate this growth mindset or the idea that they want to grow in terms of competencies. They can go to the shop area and over there they can buy vouchers to Amazon or books or different other experiences. In order to buy them, they need points.

So they get back to solving challenges, to doing courses, to the experience. Now we just added the concept of job journey. So employers can say, well, in order to apply for this job, first answer me this question, then upload this document that I need from your site, then tell me if you're willing to relocate, then you can apply for the job and post the requisites. This is how you can.

demonstrate that out of all the applications, you're the best one. These are different steps that you can do. So it's a way of empowering professionals, telling them, well, you're not only a couple of data in a CV, you're a lot more than that. Show to the employer why you're the best pick.

Eric (20:50.925)
Yeah, I love this man. I love this. There's been, there's been so much, you know, uh, work on how to format your resume, the different words you need to use, the structure, the layout, all that BS, whereas this, it actually identifies the people that are very interested, that are very, you know, determined and really want to work at that company by giving them these little gamification type activities and over, I guess over time, when I guess over a week or whatever.

Mihai Cepoi (20:53.701)
Yeah, I think.

Eric (21:20.441)
You have like, okay, what's the point tally? Oh, this guy just uploaded his resume. You know, he's only got 10 points or whatever, but this other person, they uploaded their resume and they did X, Y, and Z and they've got, you know, trip with the amount of points that's the candidate that we should probably, you know, interview, this is great.

Mihai Cepoi (21:36.102)
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And unfortunately, the most of the solutions in the market and where we started with the applicant tracking systems, that there's something really bad happening over there, at least in my perspective. And that would be they are looking at people as data. So for the applicant tracking system, how to best crunch the data, it's a solution.

Eric (21:58.202)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mihai Cepoi (22:02.334)
And that puts the professional in a very bad situation where they can't do anything about it. I'm just some strings, some data and someone else, usually an AI first, but someone else, it's saying if I'm good enough or I'm not good enough, but I'm a lot more than a CV. And that's the idea that we're distributing in the market, so to say, communicate.

Eric (22:26.526)
This is fantastic, Mihai. How did you get your first client, your first customer?

Mihai Cepoi (22:31.018)
Well, we were incredibly successful from the beginning. And the story goes something like this. We launched in 2018. We won a couple of awards. We actually signed two contracts for piloting in 2017. So some of the money came from me. Some of the money came from customers who want to buy in advance. And these would be the largest bank, Banca Transilvania, here in Romania, and Microsoft.

And when we piloted initially, they were already there. When we started winning all sorts of awards for startups, everyone was learning about us. So it was a snowball effect that was created. From 2018 to 2020, I think we were on top of the world. Early stage, but on top of the world. Everyone was recognizing the idea, the direction, the business, even though.

HR tech is not the most appealing, generally speaking, as a type of startup. But when the pandemic hit, everything froze. We were in a situation with 14 people in the team spending 40K every month, and our pipeline froze. That's when we had to pivot from 14 people. Two years later, we were three.

up until January, we're now 14 again, we're 15 actually right now, but it was from the top of the world, very rock bottom. I don't know how to put this, we had at least two years and a half in which every single month we were thinking, can we survive this for another month? And the answer was maybe every single time. But we're here. It wasn't easy,

Eric (24:14.747)
Yeah.

Eric (24:18.545)
Yeah.

Mihai Cepoi (24:22.486)
You feel fully abandoned when customers say, well, we're not hiring. We're actually getting rid of some people when investors start saying, well, I actually want to take my money out because it's bad times. So I prefer the liquidity. It's tough and it's fair, I think, to some degree, because you're trying to build something from scratch, something that didn't exist before. I think it's part of the journey. And for us, it was part of.

Eric (24:29.052)
Yeah.

Eric (24:38.267)
Yeah.

Mihai Cepoi (24:52.498)
a very accelerated maturing process for our business.

Eric (24:57.61)
Yeah. You know, what I love about you is that you're going through this difficult time. Obviously, every month, month to month, you're not even sure if you're still going to last or be around. And it felt like everybody had been abandoning you. But from the moment that we started, you know, chatting, you're like this very positive person. And I think one of the reasons being is that when people ask me like, who are the most successful entrepreneurs you've interviewed? And...

Mihai Cepoi (25:13.879)
Hehehehehe

Eric (25:22.769)
For me, I've always felt like it's the one who understand that this is sort of like a game. Their business is sort of like a game. And there's going to be moments where you win and times where you lose, but it's just a game. And don't let that get to you. A couple other questions before we wrap this up, Mihai. What are you most excited about in the next 12 months for Jobful?

Mihai Cepoi (25:46.534)
Well, I'm super excited because from the very beginning, I didn't have a target of unicorn or whatever. I had a target of having a happy team who's building an amazing business and it's having an impact. I'm super happy that our platform works for a lot of Ukrainian refugees. We'll start working quite soon for people with disabilities that we have. The way we look at

putting this solution into the market is not for the rich, is not for the super big employers and organizations. It's actually for people. And when you're people-centric, you start thinking of, well, is it for top professionals who already have everything that they want? Or is it for everyone? Is it for people who might not be so literate in terms of digital skills?

might not have access to education in the past, might not have the privileges that I had or other people have in general. So I'm super excited because we're constantly working on how to make this solution as relevant as possible for everyone, not for the ones that already have a couple of solutions for them.

Eric (27:00.857)
Love it, love it. And were you currently live? I mean, is it just in Romania? Are you guys gonna expand?

Mihai Cepoi (27:06.976)
We already started expanding. We're now implementing a project for 500 hotels in the entire EMEA. We have another project for startup refugees in Finland. So we didn't plan, but we're already expanding outside Romania.

Eric (27:25.693)
That's great, Mihai. All right, Mihai, thank you so much for coming on Innovators Can Laugh.

Mihai Cepoi (27:30.738)
Yeah, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Eric (27:33.145)
Yeah pleasure to for everybody listening. This is a Mihaly Chipoy from JobFool.io I will put links in the show notes to the website and Mihaly's LinkedIn Profile and I'll be back next week interviewing another fascinating European startup founder If you enjoyed this, feel free to share it with friends and subscribe. Alright. Thanks everyone

Okay, I'm stopping now.