SaaS success story
Pracuj.nl
A full-fledged, cost-effective MVP supported by thorough conceptual work. Convenient option for releasing and verifying a product quickly and getting immediate audience feedback without significant cost.
About Pracuj.nl
Pracuj.nl is a Polish startup headquartered in the Netherlands. Following a specific market niche, its idea for business was creating an extensive employment platform associating both job agencies and workers. Although the concept was clear and the design has already been fixed – the company’s owners found it difficult to launch a satisfying and cost-efficient cooperation with a software house.
Seeking an alternative, high-quality yet a bit cheaper solution, they decided upon building their platform on WordPress. And here’s where they needed our help.
Timeline
640 working hours from the project’s launch till its final release
Development phase
November 2019 – September 2020
Project’s release
October 2020
Support and functionality expansion
October 2020 – till now
Project’s scope
Employers that search for workers in the Netherlands are usually free-standing agencies that place their job offers on several different platforms. Because the market lacked a clear-cut leader, Pracuj.nl was supposed to be a place that aggregated all the job offers and connected companies with potential candidates.
Although such robust services are not usually developed on WordPress, our client wanted to keep it both professional and affordable. That’s why we needed to rebuild the mechanics to adjust the platform to required features.
An extensive, multi-threaded search engine
A multi-stage process of adding new job offers
Online multi-stage CV generator
A dedicated system for job offers management
Candidate board and candidate base
Conceptual works
We used our experience derived from working with varied startup companies and did our best to support the client offering both technical and business expertise. We chose the most suitable tools, prepared a thorough business analysis, had dozens of meetings to polish the project till its final version, and thus came up with a well-lit vision ready for implementation.
Development
Challenges and solutions
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01.
Advanced multi-threaded search engine
An extensive, multi-threaded job search engine allows finding an interesting offer based on automatically detected location, work category, job position, agency’s name, and most frequent query. This way, a candidate is provided with an advanced yet intuitive tool which makes it easier to find a suitable offer.
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02.
Job offers system
A multi-stage process of adding new job offers by an employer and a possibility of promoting the offer at the top of the results list, as the offer of the week, on the Facebook group, as well as in the Pracuj.nl’s newsletter.
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03.
Job offers management
A dedicated system for job offers management which allows: editing the offers, promoting them, viewing their history, aggregating submitted CVs, checking the statistics, and using working mechanisms of cyclic crone actions.
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04.
Payment systems & Invoice generator
Integration with Mollie and iDeal payment systems and a custom-made mechanism of generating PDF VAT invoices – both for buyers and the platform owners.
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05.
Candidate board
Candidate board (added post-launch) – a kind of trello/kanban board with a column layout which allows employers to manage all applications sent to their offers. They can reveal the candidate’s full personal data using tokens bought in the pracuj.nl platform. The board has been equipped with many useful functions such as moving candidates from one column to another (e.g. waiting for contact, hired, waiting for employment, etc.). Apart from that there’s a possibility of ascribing one’s own notes and adding labels.
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06.
Candidate database
A tool for employers that allows them to gain access to a whole base of candidates searching for a job and registering on the platform.
Summary
Business enhancement
Meeting market’s needs
Client’s know-how combined with our thorough business expertise resulted in building a solid product that filled the market’s gap and answered its needs. The platform focused not only on employers, but also on candidates, which was its additional asset.
UX-pampered
All of the processes throughout the platform are simple and highly intuitive which makes it a pleasant tool to work with. Both an employer and a candidate uses a straightforward path to find relevant information and use provided features.
Saving time and money
Although building an employment-related platform based on WordPress hasn’t been typical for the branch, we managed to adjust the service to our client’s needs, creating new mechanisms that easily coped with all the required features. It took less time and was prized nearly 10 times lower than hiring a software house.
Idea validation
We were able to prepare an MVP+ version of the product and equip it with the core features. At this stage it was fully functional, ready to be released on the market and verified by the audience. Acquiring the first results and insights confirmed the project’s validity and allowed the company to get additional funding for its future growth.
A gist of statistics
Outcome
The code was written 100% by the Fooz team, so it’s easily expandable and flexible enough to develop the platform according to the client’s vision and wishes. Thanks to a quick release, the platform managed to build a vast community of employers and candidates, create a base of nearly 6,000 offers, and maintain organic traffic. A high quality product attracted the largest job agencies and private companies in the Netherlands being a great starting point for making profitable business contacts.
Based on a ready-made MVP, the client was able to get valuable feedback from the platform’s users, provide them with special discounts, and have constructive talks about future cooperation. We still support the client with constant assistance and new features implementation, so they don’t have to hire their own in-house developer. We offer our help even up to several dozens of hours a month being the company’s professional team extension.
