Interview with Job Search Start-Up Talentous’ Alvaro Sastre

Talentous is a Spanish start-up that will help their clients find jobs that are more compatible with their competencies, attitudes, and personality, using a competency test and social networking. In the words of Talentous’ Álvaro Sastre, “[Talentous] is the first network of professionals that makes you visible to businesses based on your talents.”

Talentous’ vision is to “Discover the talent of all the professionals in the world and promote it.” Talentous seeks to create “a tool to promote one’s personal brand” in an environment of transparency and objectivity that professionals can use to find job opportunities that are the most compatible with their strong points.

The Talentous program has four steps:

1. Discover: Clients complete a competency test to learn about their strengths and weaknesses.
2. Connect: Clients build a social network and receive anonymous evaluations from professionals they have worked with.
3. Prepare: Through professional coaching and training, Talentous offers the opportunity to improve the talents necessary for reaching your goals.
4. Promote: The professionals using Talentous will not have to worry about finding job opportunities, businesses will already be searching for them.

The competency test is based on a group of 24 traits that together are believed to compose talent. These traits have been identified by specialists such as Richard Boyatzis, Daniel Goleman, and David McClellan. The current test measures six of the 24 competencies, which have to do with the professional world. Talentous plans on expanding their test to include personality traits. In order to verify the validity and feasibility of the test, Talentous completed a psychometric study with the support of the Complutense University of Madrid that utilized another well-respected test that is currently on the market.

When Sastre was asked about what the most difficult challenge Talentous faces was, he responded “We are the first business that uses this model. I think that our biggest challenge is obtaining notoriety in a market where (even through we do differ) there are so many competitors.” Some examples of their competitors are LinkedIn, InfoJobs, and Monster. Sastre however added “Nevertheless, we are a team of ambitious young people, motivated and excited about this project, and will overcome whatever obstacle is put in front of us.”

Microsoft, through their BizSpark program, is financing part of the cloud services that Talentous is using to launch their platform. Other companies, business schools, and public organizations have also shown Talentous generous support from the beginning.

Currently, Talentous is still in a growth phase. They have spent the past year working with experts in human resources and psychology, studying how to measure professional competencies objectively using statistical formulas. Even though Talentous was only launched a month ago in January of 2012, they have already obtained 1000 users solely through word of mouth.

Going forward, Sastre says Talentous will primarily focus on attracting professionals who “[have] at least two or three years of experience, believe in their personal branding and are open to improving themselves and growing in order to achieve their goals.”

Byrd can be reached at byrd.bannick(at)gmail.com