At Sprint CV, we focus on revolutionizing the way companies manage CVs and streamline their recruitment processes. We have been empowering thriving companies to save time, enhance productivity, and establish consistent and efficient processes.

In this interview, we had the pleasure of speaking with José Padre Eterno, CEO and the visionary entrepreneur behind InnoTech. This is their experience embracing Sprint CV’s CV management software to tackle these challenges head-on.

InnoTech is a Portuguese IT consulting company founded in early 2020 and in a 100% remote work context. InnoTech ranks #5 on LinkedIn’s Top Startups 2022 and earns recognition as a Great Place to Work. Within just three years, InnoTech has rapidly grown into a thriving company with 150 employees.

Building a Thriving Company Amidst Challenges

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: Personally, I admire you a lot. We met in Brussels when you were working for another company. Then you decided to leave the big corporate and launch InnoTech. After only three years, InnoTech is already employing 150 people. How has this adventure been?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: It has been an adventure indeed. Setting up a company at a pandemic time, the time of greatest ignorance of the virus, had the logical challenges of the time. There was market insecurity, contraction of the economy, reticence about contracting new services, among others. On the other hand, I would say that we have been able to read the economy and seize the opportunity. While our competitors naturally had to cut costs, make staff cuts, lost accounts, and customers, we optimized our business plan, worked under our communication and the offer we would present to the market, once we didn’t have a large cost structure yet. This well-thought-out and executed start has brought us this far: 150 people in 3 years of activity. 

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: I know some people that have worked with you, and they all admire the energy you bring to the team and the culture you promote. Can you tell us more about the culture at InnoTech?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: The start-up environment, compared to other companies I’ve been around in the past, is quite distinctive. The teams are predominantly younger. The talent asks for dynamism, they’re not looking for the same job every day. The working space itself and the way of being is and must be energetic. There is a company to be created from scratch, and “energy” is the keyword. 

Our Lisbon office is divided into two main areas. The workspace, where we have adopted a professional yet relaxed attitude. And another area of fun and leisure, just as important as the first.

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: Growing at a fast pace in three years puts a lot of pressure on HR, recruitment, management, and CV-related processes. How have you managed to foster a consistent process, culture, and such a close relationship with the team?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: Growing up fast causes bone pain. We all know that. In the business world, it can happen just the same. This is precisely why strategic thinking, planning, anticipating scenarios, and responding quickly to unexpected situations is so crucial. In these three years of activity in the IT sector, we have interviewed more than 15,000 candidates. Thousands of people are interested and available to embrace new projects, and, for the most part, felt they could do it at InnoTech. There were many CVs we had to draft, putting them in the image of the company, with a uniform visual and communication, and complying with GDPR laws. This work, with quality and speed, is due to the engaged teams we have with us.

Embracing Efficiency with Sprint CV

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: Being an early adopter and someone who always seeks improvement, you contacted Sprint CV in order to help with CV preparation and management. How did the team react to the idea of using software to enhance their work efficiency?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: We soon realized that the time invested in the elaboration of the CVs was too much. We had several professionals from the scouting team focused on that task.  In fact, it’s not an intellectually demanding function. It’s something that we can perfectly “put the machine to do it for us”. The Sprint CV solution, at first sight, seemed ambitious. But it could meet what we wanted: to gain time – working hours that we could direct to other tasks.  From this moment the teams were motivated, they felt it would be a change for themselves, for their productivity. There was identification with the “why”.

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: How has been the experience with Sprint CV after implementing the recent change to your CV template?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: Considering all our candidates’ CVs were done manually, although each one was still done individually by the scouting team members, with SprintCV we managed to cut the time in about half. Also, although there was a template that should be followed by everyone, the fact that it was done manually meant that there were inevitable changes from one CV to the other and even between the people doing them. With SprintCV we were able to ensure that the output of the CVs, regardless of the information to be incorporated in it, is the same. Also, the fact that the data is independent of the output makes our work much easier. We can make all the changes and customizations possible without consuming time. Overall, the experience has been very positive.

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: What were some of the key considerations and goals you had in mind when designing your CV template for InnoTech? How did you ensure it reflected the desired image, color, and format of the company?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: In the initial phase, our template changed little from what we already had in use. When we created the company in 2020, one of the initial focuses was precisely thinking about communication, and how we would present ourselves to the market. The design of our CV template was part of that process.  We wanted to be different, direct, and precise. We designed a CV template with only 1 page. Naturally, we mirrored the most relevant of the candidate and, in particular, for the project under analysis. As a complement, it is a document that preserves well our image, color, and format.

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: One of Sprint CV’s advantages is its ability to separate data from layout, enabling convenient storage of all consultants’ information in a database and facilitating export to various formats at any given time. Can you recall your experience with the manual migration of 150 CVs to a new format?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: When we adopted SprintCV, we were still experimenting and understanding how it could be useful to us and how we could leverage its functions. We quickly realized that one of our main objectives had been met – to do more in less time since a lot of information was automated. Given this automation capability, as the previous CV already has a similar structure to the new output originated by SprintCV, this transformation from one template to the other through the tool is very simple and fast, so the migration of CVs is done on the moment, saving time of elaboration, not having been necessary to migrate all the elaborator CVs previously, because the tool allows it.

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: How has the feedback been from the team, management, and consultants? Are there specific areas where we could improve?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: Our motto for our CVs has always been to highlight the most relevant information about the experience of our candidates and consultants, keeping all the information on a single page. In addition, we try to make a brief technical summary that allows, in essence, several types of analysis of the CVs.
These components are valued by the different stakeholders who contact with our CVs, so these are features that we intend to always maintain. Still, although the candidates pay more attention to the CV’s content than to its structure, some elements that were more difficult to read were pointed out. So, we collected different feedback to improve the template itself to satisfy the needs of our clients regarding the template structure and colors. Based on these insights collected, we elaborated a new template that was very quickly and easily migrated to the tool by the SprintCV team.

Career Opportunities at InnoTech

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: Are you currently hiring? If yes, what kind of professionals are you looking for to join InnoTech?

José Padre Eterno, InnoTech: For this year we plan to hire more than 70 and surpass the milestone of 200 employees in just three years of life. This is in line with the growth of the business and the needs of customers – reference players in banking, insurance, retail, industry, and technology.

Job opportunities at InnoTech are in the areas of Management & People and IT Consulting. Namely software development, quality assurance, and project and product management, among others.

Marco Pincho, Sprint CV: Awesome. 2023 is on a good track to be a great year! Thank you so much for your feedback and your time here.

To know more about InnoTech, you can visit their website and social media channels:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Do you want the same experience for your company? Let’s jump on a call for a free demo

Now that is clear that spending hours managing CVs is totally avoidable, it’s time to boost your company’s operations. Automating your company’s CV management processes allows you to be even more competitive in the recruitment market – just like InnoTech.

We are here to help you with this transition and ensure it’s as smooth as possible for you and for your team. Let’s do it? Request a 30-day free trial or reach out to our founder on Linkedin or via e-mail at hello@sprintcv.com to schedule your demo.

See you soon!