Some history - I wrote and launched the first version of my HR startup back in late 2015. Early going was slow, but promising. In early 2017, we enhanced our offering by adding on a recruitment and applicant tracking system to help our small, but dedicated customer base.

Then, our of seemingly nowhere, in July 2017, Google announced Google Hire, a recruitment and applicant tracking platform for small to medium businesses. I’ll be honest here, it was a bit of a gut punch. How could we, a small 2 person startup based in a country town in Northern Australia, compete with one of the biggest giants in the online world?

Colleagues, customers and friends would all regularly give me a sympathetic look and a figurative pat on the shoulder when they heard the news. “Oh, well, at least you tried…” was the unspoken words behind their eyes.

Yes, I did consider just throwing in the towel during that time, but I still had a spark within me that was fanned by those early customers and their positive feedback on what we were building, so I decided to ignore the ‘big G’ and persevere.

Then, in late 2019, Google suddenly announced that they were shutting down Google Hire. On 1st September this year, the service was turned off.

Ours is still running, and growing stronger every day. We have over 500+ job listings open on our public facing job boards today by over 1500+ customers, and we have processed nearly 40,000 applicants through our system. Still tiny by most standards, but we outlasted Google.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.