Hired takes its tech talent recruitment platform beyond the U.S. and into London

Hired, the online jobs marketplace for techies formerly known as DeveloperAuction, has launched outside the U.S. for the first time, kicking off with a base in London.

Following a four-month trial phase in the U.K. capital, Hired is officially open for business, serving up a platform to connect coders, engineers, data scientists, designers, and product managers with employers. The company said it has seen a “dramatic flood of applications” in London, and in its short lifespan so far it has become one of its biggest markets outside of New York and San Francisco.

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Hired takes a topsy-turvy approach to recruitment — rather than you applying to be hired by a company, a company applies to hire you. This means that, in theory at least, you will then have to choose which of the companies you’d like to work for.

So Hired is for those who have employers lining up at the door. As such, not everybody is accepted onto Hired, as all candidates are vetted beforehand. Once accepted, their profile is revealed to employers over a single week, and interested parties send a request for interview alongside job specifics. In many ways, Hired’s original name best sums up what this platform is all about — it’s essentially an auction, where developers and technologists are the assets.

It’s a good system in many ways, one that deviates from the traditional way of working. Poaching someone from an existing job isn’t always an easy task — even if you do identify the ideal candidate, there’s no guarantee they’re looking to move. Hired guarantees employers that everyone on the platform is at least “interested,” while it gives the candidate an opportunity to maximize their bargaining power by comparing offers before committing to interview. According to Hired, half of all interview requests are accepted.

The company said that it managed to quadruple its revenue in 2014 (though no hard numbers are given), and it has facilitated more than $6 billion dollars in job offers from 2,000 companies.

A number of U.K.-based companies have used Hired during the stealth phase in London, including Lyst, Geckoboard, WorldRemit, and Qubit. “London has always had a good ecosystem for startups, but the recent rise in technology companies choosing to locate there indicates an unprecedented demand for qualified tech industry candidates,” said Matt Mickiewicz, founder and CEO of Hired.