One year since Flint was launched. Time flies, very (too) fast 😅. What conclusions, what trajectory, what lessons?
1. French IT-services firms really need a kick in the 🍑…
One of the observations that led to launching Flint was the near-total absence of any real corporate project in the French IT-services (ESN) industry. That observation only got stronger over the past year. The candidates we met, the consultants we hired: they all agree that too many ESNs have lost sight of their craft and resort to practices that are at best questionable, at worst unacceptable.
One consultant even confided that he developed an anxiety disorder and a complete loss of self-confidence when his ESN positioned him as a C# expert in front of the client when he was a Java J2EE developer 😤.
We didn't capture everything, but many of the criticisms are entirely justified. On top of dubious practices, what gets criticised most often is the total absence of company culture, support, and regard for the consultant.
All these accounts let us refine, through successive iterations, what consultants actually wanted. Starting from the principle that everything could be heard, everything should be studied.
Our goal wasn't to do or redo, but to innovate: rebuild from scratch, no taboos. Trying, at our scale, to make the best ESN possible.
2. The main criticisms aimed at ESNs
From candidates and consultants first. They ask for more respect, for instance when their CV doesn't appeal to a client. They simply ask not to be forgotten, to be given feedback. They were all stunned that we got back to them. Is it complicated? I don't think so.
The lack of transparency and honesty. Ha… when it comes to money, ESNs are always there with an opacity that no longer fits the times. It doesn't work anymore. You just can't, you mustn't, do it anymore - and good riddance.
From the ESN that raises its day-rate at the client without passing any of the increase to the consultant, to the ESN making an astronomical margin while praying the consultant never finds out…
So we decided to hide nothing. Nothing. Total transparency. No taboos.
We don't hide our day-rates from our consultants, we don't hide our consultants' salaries or day-rates from our clients. We have nothing to hide at Flint. That lets us focus on what actually matters: the human and craft sides.
We also give systematic feedback to candidates and consultants, because they need it to improve, to understand, and to trust their ESN.
3. Fed up with mass "SPAM-style" messages on LinkedIn
They're tired of being contacted on keyword "matching" (and I get it - I still regularly get contacted to develop PHP 😱 😡, even though everyone who knows me knows I hate PHP).
So we send no mass messages, every profile goes under the microscope. We read, re-read, interpret, try to understand, go look at the GitHub projects… in short, we do our actual job as recruiters. Every message is thought through and "crafted" (by HR people who are far more than mere "keyword filters"). It also makes sourcing far more enjoyable for them - done not like "machines" but with intelligence (emotional intelligence too). Far from all the classic ESN targets driven by volume and quotas.
As a result, the response rate is extremely high and cordial at the very least, more often friendly. Everyone wins when you (re)do your job properly.
4. On the client side: expertise, synergies, high value-add
Over the past year we've been supporting and guiding our clients in pulling off their tech projects. That starts with giving them a different service from the "keywords" served by "account managers" pretending to understand Tech…
More than an HR partner, we are a technology partner bringing our clients real technical expertise. Flint is tech expertise made flesh. The most demanding clients have placed their trust in us, and I thank them. We've also crossed the national borders with a successful collaboration with an American company based in New York, for which our engineers develop from Montpellier (full remote).
Conclusion
For one year now we've been focused on building a company whose values and model are authentic, and whose development is guided by one ambition: to create a place where people thrive as much as possible. I think I can say this first year is a real success and shows good signals. Every day we receive CVs from candidates, clients suggesting their contacts, engaged consultants.
It would be a shame for tech experts not to have an IT system worthy of them. That's why we built an information system that is both simple and powerful, letting us spend thirty seconds doing what others spend tens of minutes on. I won't mention the carbon footprint: we haven't printed a single page in eleven months.
I'll say it again: all this is done to focus on what truly matters: our clients, our consultants, our candidates.
Plans for the coming months:
- January 2020, Flint will have an additional office in Amsterdam, anchoring our international DNA even more.
- Continued and accelerated collaboration with the US.
- Growing our internal staff to structure the company and support its development. Above all, not to lose a single crumb of our model or our values in growth. Not to put growth at the heart of the model; it must only be a consequence of the model, not the other way round.
Finally:
More than the good numbers we hit (~180% of our forecast revenue 😊), it is the good atmosphere and the high quality of the Flint culture that make us proud to keep going down this path.
If you'd like to know more about Flint, whether as a potential client for your tech projects or to apply, don't hesitate to get in touch (email: hello@flint.sh).