Meet the founders. 🤓
Antonio Panta, Marcel Michalik, Nicolas Tozzoli
"Don’t fall in love with an idea, focus on the solution."
Mission: We are ensuring companies are hiring the best entry-level candidates, while saving time and improving the quality of their hiring process.
We saw that there is a clear asymmetry between the real skills of a candidate and what his/her CV is telling to the recruiters. According to multiple studies* c.50% of HR managers admitted that bias affects their candidate choice, and we are convinced that with our software we can revolutionize the recruiting process towards merit-based hiring.
🔝 Name up to 3 of your greatest achievements to date.
Selectic comes as the second founded venture for Marcel Michalik, following the successful outcome of his recently launched coffee brand on the German market.
🚗 What drives you?
We are driven by the passion of creating something impactful, by participating in the disruption of the HR industry and create mor fair and equal opportunities for entry-level candidates.
💡 The most important lesson you have learned so far?
Don’t fall in love with an idea, focus on the solution. Even when sounding less exciting, we learned that real solutions do not have to be over-engineered, especially in the beginning. Patience is the key, step by step the initial vision will come to life.
Being able to found a startup during our Master studies was definitely the biggest challenge so far. Managing the time to ensure we dedicate enough time to make the best out of our studies and to ensure the progress of Selectic has been challenging, but has also helped us gain a better understanding about prioritization, time management and teamwork, which is paramount to the success of a project.
🎉 What was the best part of founding a startup for you?
The opportunity to bring into life something that for us three was only a vision, an idea for a better and more fair recruiting process for entry-level candidates, is definitely an amazing feeling. This sensation is what is driving us to further developments for Selectic, and it is amazing to wake up in the morning, and to be able to contribute to something that might actually have a great impact on the success of companies.
📚 Is there any advice you can give to other founders?
Do not rush the process, patience is key. Formulate your ideas, frame them into a vision and most importantly set the highest possible goal, as if there is no ceiling to what your team can achieve. If you try to reach for something that sounds impossible, the worst that can happen if your plan is not working will always be better than 99.9% of what everyone else envisioned.
We were first intrigued by the possibility to have guidance from renowned professionals in the HR world, as it represented the most sensed option for our vision. However, the second impression, which is the emotional and operative support that we received from everyone involved in allygatr so far, was the most important factor which led us to join the allyance.
🐊 What has been your experience with allygatr?
From the first meetings until today we have always felt an amazing support. allygatr has not only supported Selectic from a financial standpoint so far, but most importantly it is thanks to the operative support in every aspect of founding an early stage venture that we are having a great experience. Our first months in the development of Selectic have proved us that joining allygatr was indeed a great choice.
📣 How did you hear about allygatr?
We were selected among the participants for a startup pitch competition back in the beginning of the year, and following the event we came in contact with allygatr through one of the organizers of the event.
🌴 You are a very international team: What is your fvorite place in Europe and why?
Having two out of three founders coming from Italy, the answer is clearly leaning towards “Il Bel Paese”. However, we (Antonio and Nicolas) are confident to soon turn Marcel into “Marcello” and influence his mind over answering “Italy” the next time without having to force him.
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