This week South Africa’s unemployment rate soared to 44.4% over the second quarter, the highest on a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg. Now, a new video-interview platform Wamly aims to play its part in tackling the country’s growing unemployment rate.
The disruptive one-way video software platform has recently been joined by South African serial entrepreneur Marnus Broodryk. He believes that the time is right for investment in innovative thinking that takes advantage of modern technology to replace outdated processes and costly, time-wasting procedures.
“We need to be thinking differently and to use innovation to solve the country’s issues in new ways. We can’t continue to do the same things and expect different results. It takes an average of 52 days to fill a position in South Africa, and most of that time is wasted on inefficient interviews. Our country does not have the luxury of letting jobs sit vacant just as a result of long and outdated hiring processes,” says Broodryk, who is known for being the youngest investor on M-Net’s Shark Tank South Africa.
The Wamly software promises to simplify the recruitment process, ultimately allowing companies to fill more positions at a faster rate, which means that people are unemployed for less time.
Wamly’s solution allows businesses to create interview questions within an online portal, which are then sent to multiple potential candidates via a link. The applicant can complete a one-way video interview by recording their answers to each question in real-time, giving them seconds to prepare, allowing for honest interactions. The system also forces concise answers with time limits allocated to each question.
Once an interview has been completed the employer will receive an alert, after which they can scan through the videos and identify the top applications to proceed to in-person interviews. Other team members can be invited to rate candidates and make comments, all ratings are then available for admin to make the final decision.
Companies can now screen 30 candidates at the same time it takes to conduct one Zoom interview. Unsuccessful applications can be saved and visited at a later stage should another opportunity come up.
Broodryk was introduced to Wamly in 2018 when he started using the software at his accounting firm, The Beancounter.
“I immediately knew it was a game-changer, and that is why I want to share the technology with other businesses. We were able to cut down the hiring process from three months to two weeks,” he says.
With a growing number of corporate clients, including Momentum and Distell, Wamly is already facilitating thousands of interviews each week. The company is now shifting its focus to help small businesses by offering them access to the one-way video interview software free of charge.
“We all have a responsibility to help solve our unemployment issue, and if we can help small businesses hire better and faster, then we must do whatever we can to achieve that,” Broodryk concludes.
