Internet startup firm helping people find the right jobs

MANILA, Philippines - It was an ambitious goal to build a company that would help the nation.

But this was exactly what led some Filipinos, most of them women, to join an Internet startup in the country that is backed by a Silicon Valley firm.

Kalibrr is an assessment, training and hiring platform that helps people get the right job by assessing and developing their skills until they qualify for a position in its partner companies, which include Globe Telecom.

Its main service is to transform the recruitment of business process outsourcing (BPO) companies through an online assessment system of their applicants.

The startup company is supported by Y-Combinator, named in 2012 as a top startup incubator and accelerator by Forbes magazine, the same venture firm that supported file hosting service Dropbox, online library Scribd and social media site 9gag.

Joan Magno, an Ateneo de Manila University summa cum laude graduate, said she saw Kalibrr as a “fledgling company (becoming) a well-oiled machine that not only did business right but also created an environment that shared the same values.”

Magno, who is now the company’s product manager, saw Kalibrr as a platform to bring her dream of building a company that helped the nation.

In a blog post published in the company’s official website, Magno said she keeps staying in a small company like Kalibrr because they are able “to get to help people build a livelihood.”

The reward she gets from her job is “creating something that you know helps other people.”

Magno added that Kalibrr also helps provide people who dream of building their own startups “an advantage of learning and opportunities at networking.”

She has learned in Kalibrr “three key characteristics” in building a company – “reading between the lines, hustling and being absolutely charming.”

“First, I now take the extra step to understand where each person is coming from… Secondly, taking the initiative to lead and getting things done fast means my team hustles too. Lastly, building a company requires charm,” she explained.

Likewise, Roxi Lim, Kalibrr associate marketing manager, said that while her friends were vying for positions in large corporations, she wanted to work with a company “that was innovative and driven by so much more than just profit.”

Lim had lived in Korea and the Netherlands before she was offered an internship for six months at Carmudi Philippines, an online car dealer.

“In that internship, I would be one of the managers of Carmudi Philippines, a vehicle marketplace. The idea sounded a bit absurd. I was 23, young, with not much experience, and they wanted me to run the entire company next in line to the managing director (who was 24, by the way),” she said.

Upon learning about Kalibrr, Lim said she sent Paul Rivera, its co-founder and chief executive officer, an e-mail.

She said joining the company allowed her “to learn everything about digital to design, strategy to acquisition.”

 “I’m learning from the best entrepreneurs in the Philippines and this will be the start of my very own entrepreneurial story,” she added.

For his part, Rivera said he is proud that while some companies are being criticized for their seeming lack of gender diversity, Kalibrr is one to recognize female talent in leadership.

He noted that what women have in common is the “drive to succeed and an almost intuitive sense of recognizing potential and the spirit of innovation.”

But he pointed out that nurturing the desire to make a difference is just as important.