How it started
A711 started as a talent acquisition consultancy, working with in-house TA teams and recruitment agencies to improve efficiency and get more successful hires.
Whilst working on process, I started building a tool in Python. It took a job spec and searched internal profiles, using the database most organisations already have but don't make the most of. The cost of going to market, advertising and sourcing could be cut significantly just by using the information that's already there.
It was a cost-saving tool.
As I developed it, now in development as A3SOP by A711, I realised that with a bit of tweaking it could show something else... where candidates were missing out on opportunities because of their CV, not their experience.
What I kept seeing
I've worked in IT recruitment for a long time, and I read CVs every day. Over and over I'd see the same thing, someone with exactly the experience a role needed, but you had to dig for it, because their CV was written for a different job, or for no job in particular.
Candidates get told to "tailor your CV" for every application. Hardly anyone shows them how, and paying a CV writer can easily cost £100 or more, every time you change direction.
Then there's the stuff nobody tells you. If you've spent years contracting and you're going for a permanent role, a hiring manager might wonder whether you'll stick around... and your CV needs to answer that before they ask.
So the question became:
Why not give that same matching to the candidate?
Why Unearth
That's Unearth. You paste in the job spec, upload your CV, and in a couple of minutes you see what the role is really asking for, what your CV already shows, and what to change. The core check is free.
Two rules were non-negotiable from day one. It never makes things up; if a skill isn't on your CV, it won't pretend it is. And it doesn't keep your CV; it's used to give you your results and then it's gone.
Unearth is the first A711 tool. There are more on the way, built the same way, by people who know how hiring really works.