Strateos: Engineering Digital Recruitment

Alexandre Roy, CEO at Strateos tells us about digital recruitment.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? 

Alexandre Roy: Well, as with any other abrupt shift, the beginning is always hard. We had to adapt our behavior and habits to live in this new context. After some time and effort, we eventually managed to integrate those new constraints in our daily lives, such as the wear of masks or using the gel every now and then. It is also a fact that we pay more attention to protecting our family. As of now, my family and I are doing well, and I think we got used to this new paradigm.

Tell us about you, your career, and how you joined Strateos.

Alexandre Roy: I studied in an engineering school and graduated in 2010. I then started to work as a business manager in an engineering consulting firm named Abylsen where I earned my first strips in the recruitment market. This experience allowed me to learn more about this market: it is urgent to dust it off and to adopt an “engineer-centric” approach. Not convinced by the way things were done there, I launched my own company based on this “engineer-centric” approach.

This is what Strateos is about. We are bringing an exhaustive, simple, and ROI-oriented solution to the market and our customers in order to recruit engineers through and for innovation.

How does Strateos innovate? 

Alexandre Roy: The innovation in our company occurs at three levels:

• Breakthrough: unify and simplify three rather complex services through a unique interface
• Usage: digitalization and automation of many processes
• Technology: AI-powered solutions for faster and more accurate solutions

How does the coronavirus pandemic affect your business, and how are you coping with it?

Alexandre Roy: The crisis has affected us. That’s undeniable. From an economic point of view, a decline in the volume of business affairs has been observed since March. From a social standpoint, our teams have also been affected. The lockdown incurred a loss of social connection and decreased motivation. To cope with it, from now on, we manage our treasury department more thoroughly, and we evaluate every action taken under the microscope thanks to the implementation of accurate KPIs and a more data-centric approach. On the social aspect, we believe in our internal communication investments: several remote onboarding actions, the strengthening of the company culture, a rewarding program. We encourage our teams almost every day to get to share and gather.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what lessons have you learned?

Alexandre Roy: Fortunately, we did not have to part with a collaborator. We favored employment even if economically, it was not the most reasonable choice.

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

Alexandre Roy: Like many people today, we are using videoconferencing, and we are dematerializing what was not yet dematerialized. We use several tools such as Teams, Payfit, Upflow, or Agicap. On the management side, I indeed became a “Wartime CEO.” I got close with the teams, and I sped up the decision-making process in every area (product, business). This is also the reason why we made internal communication investments: not to lose vision despite my role change during these troubled times.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Alexandre Roy: We are facing engineering consulting firms, recruitment agencies, and job boards.

To “stay in the game,” we stay focused on our two main points of differentiation:

• We keep improving our innovations to be even more efficient and relevant.
• We rely on our commercial staff composed of experts who keep strengthening commercial relations and have one goal: commercial excellence.

Your final thoughts?

Alexandre Roy: We received a great lesson of humility from Covid-19.

I like to compare it to Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea: we are nothing compared to the power of nature. It does bring us to question the condition of the entrepreneur, of the decision-makers in general, but also the human condition.

Your website?

https://www.strateos.io/