Q: CAN YOU TELL EVERYONE ABOUT YOURSELF, AND WHAT YOU DO? 

A: Hi I’m one of Keeyora’s Co-founders. I originally grew up in New Zealand and moved to Canada in 2008. I’m a proud father of an amazing 9 year old daughter and I’m a recruitment geek at heart. I love to experience British Columbia’s great outdoors and my favourite activities involve snowboarding, hiking, cycling, and chilling on a beach with a cold beer.

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Q: NOW CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF, ONLY USING EMOJIS?

A:

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Q: SO FAR, WHAT’S YOUR PROUDEST MOMENT  WITH KEEYORA?

A: I’m proud of each milestone that we’ve hit so far but if I was to pick one I’d say it was when we launched our BETA version during the StaffingTec 2019 conference in Nashville.

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Q: WHAT MAKES YOU THE MOST EXCITED ABOUT THE FUTURE OF KEEYORA?

A: I’m excited about the future growth of our company. Our mission is to democratize text recruiting for our industry because we genuinely believe that it’s become a critical tool for all recruitment teams and its not fair that only large teams with big budgets have access to it. The more customers we have, the better we are serving our industry.

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Q:  IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND DO ONE THING DIFFERENTLY WITH KEEYORA, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

A: I’d choose a different co-founder (JK!). But on a serious note, there’s not much I’d do differently because every mistake we’ve made has resulted in important learnings. If I had to choose one thing, I’d say we should have initially gone with AWS instead of Azure as our cloud platform as it’s more affordable. But you live and you learn, right?

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Q: WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING OR PODCASTS ARE YOU LISTENING TO THESE DAYS?

A: I’m currently reading ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ by Mark Manson and I’ve also been reading The Economist. I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts but when i do it’s always the Chad & Cheese Podcast!

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Q: IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO GET A START-UP GOING, ANY SHOUTOUTS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE HELPED?

A: My brother Rick Thompson is the first name that comes to mind. He’s been instrumental in helping us get the business setup and has always given us great advice for strategic decisions. It’s awesome to have someone so knowledgeable and experienced in your own family!

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Q: ANY PREDICTIONS FOR THE RECRUITMENT INDUSTRY, OR RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS?

A: There’s a lot of fanfare and hype around artificial intelligence and while I believe that we’ll see more AI in our tech stacks, the majority of the work that we do as recruiters will still need to be ‘manual’. I’m concerned that if we remove too much of the human element from recruitment then candidate and hiring manager experience will suffer as candidates will be numbers instead of people. One really interesting space to watch is technology that solves to remove unconscious biases from the hiring process - I’m a big fan of this!

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Q: SAY A SMALL STAFFING AGENCY/ RECRUITMENT FIRM ASKS YOU TO DESIGN THEIR TECH STACK, WHAT WOULD YOU USE?

A: Good question! I’d recommend leveraging as much of the Google stack as possible (gmail, docs, sheets etc). For an ATS I’d recommend taking a good look at JobAdder and of course, integrating Keeyora with it.

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Q: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE NEW STARTUPS IN THE HR/ RECRUITMENT TECHNOLOGY SPACE?

A: It may sound cheesy but make sure you have a well-defined mission about what impact you’re wanting to make on our industry and always be yourself. I’ve learned that customers often choose our software over our competitors because they like the fact that Brad & I are open and transparent about our mission, who we are, and who we are not.

Q: WHAT ARE THREE THINGS PEOPLE WOULDN’T KNOW ABOUT YOU?

A: I come from a big family of 4 sisters and 1 brother. I geek out on classic Japanese cars. I like to hike the Grouse Grind weekly - I find it meditating for some reason!

Q: ANY NEW SKILLS OR HOBBIES YOU’VE PICKED UP IN COVID ISOLATION?

A: I’ve developed a green thumb and now have a fully functioning vegetable garden! We’ve also adopted a kitten so now I’m learning how to take care of a baby cat!

Q: WHAT IS YOUR SUMMER BEER OF CHOICE?

‍A: Anything that you could describe as ‘camping beer’ - it’s a toss-up between PBR and Old Milwaukee.

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Q: WHEN THINGS NORMALIZE, WHERE IS THE NEXT PLACE YOU WANT TO TRAVEL?

A: I’d love to head back to New Zealand to spend time with my family and reconnect with my kiwi roots.

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Q: WHEN YOU’RE SWAMPED WITH WORK, WHAT’S YOUR GO-TO SONG/PLAYLIST?

A: I usually throw 102.7 The Peak radio station or anything by Katchafire or L.A.B (reggae bands from New Zealand)

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Q: WHATS THE BEST WAY FOR SOMEONE TO GET IN TOUCH WITH YOU?‍

A: Well - technically SMS text is best right? :P - but let’s start with an email: brian@rectxt.com

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