Henri Nordström, CEO of Jobilla, is best described as ‘selfless and a real leader’ for his exemplary leadership skills

“Jobilla was founded to match the right people with the right business opportunities fast and easily.”

The job market has changed permanently. The digitalisation of work and society, the changed values and behaviour of people, demographic change, global workforce, remote work, etc. are a few of the reasons responsible for this perpetual change. Many of these phenomena were only reinforced and speeded up by the pandemic.

That said, we’re thrilled to present Jobilla — a digital recruiting solution that helps to find the right candidates in less time.

The Silicon Review selects Henri Nordström, CEO of Jobilla, as the ‘30 Most Inspiring Leaders to Watch 2022’, and to learn more about him, we contacted Pekka Nebelung, who serves as the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Here’s what he said about the company and Mr. Nordström.

Interview Highlights

Q. Henri Nordström, CEO of Jobilla, is the design and creative force behind the company’s products and services. Kindly discuss some of his qualities that have transformed the company.

Henri is one of the most outstanding business leaders I know and I greatly respect him. I feel privileged to work with him in the same management team.

As a leader, Henri is best described through his actions. During the early years of Jobilla, he saved the company several times by putting his own funds into the company. These kinds of actions define a leader, and Henri really is not just a CEO, but a real leader whom people want to follow.

Q. Who is Henri’s role model and how has the individual inspired him to culminate into an inspiring leader?

Henri has been inspired by Jeff Bezos and his mentality of "Day 1” at Amazon. Mr. Bezos and the team have been able to think like a start-up and scale like an enterprise. As a result, Amazon becomes one of the largest tech companies in the world.

Q. Why was Jobilla born? What are the market pain points you wanted to address through the inception of the company?

Jobilla was born when young entrepreneurs realised that recruitment was one of the biggest obstacles to their business. All the people they wanted to hire were already working, and finding skillful people was time-consuming and manual work. They noticed there were no cost-efficient, reliable solutions available in the recruitment market; all the services were offering the same slow, inefficient results. Therefore, they began to solve it in a new, digital way that would be easier, faster, and affordable.

That said, the traditional recruitment process is too cumbersome for today's workforce to apply for a job. They use cell phones instead of computers, and therefore, don't hang out on job boards, but on social media. However, many recruitment processes are not cell phone friendly at all. They are also not designed for passive candidates, who are not actively looking for a job. With all the registering and signing in, filling in application forms, and updating the CV, the traditional recruitment process itself is the reason why candidates don’t apply for a job.

Q. Setbacks are a part of every growing business. Tell us about a few roadblocks and learning lessons that helped you and the company grow through the years.

One example is the Covid-19 pandemic. What happens to a recruitment company when the whole world shuts down? Recruitment is the first thing people leave out. What happened at Jobilla? Instead of going bankrupt, Jobilla doubled its revenue in 2020. This is impossible without an extraordinary CEO in charge, especially in the recruitment market.

When the pandemic started, Henri called everybody at Jobilla personally and said that the company is not going to fall and he is personally going to work without a salary to make that happen. After hearing that people voluntarily all reduced their salaries for some time to get through the difficult times together.

Q. As a journalist, I find Jobilla quite striking. From the emotional branding standpoint, it has that appeal. How did you come up with the brand name? And please brief us about the history so far.

Jobilla was founded to match the right people with the right business opportunities fast and easily. We all want to feel appreciated for something we can do; it is a very humane need. Finding work that makes us happy shouldn't be made hard for us. Work means so much more than just money; it gives a sense of belonging and purpose in society.

The truly amazing thing about Jobilla is that there has been the courage and the vision to go for a unique solution. This is one significant part of our success: the Jobilla recruitment process is completely candidate-driven, and the process is made easy for the recruiter too. The company has been able to achieve that recruitment is as easy as anything else we do online. We get spouses and mortgages with our cell phones, so why not a job? With Jobilla, a new job can be just a few clicks away.

Jobilla was founded in 2015 and it quickly became a success story. The company revenue has doubled every year since Henri’s arrival and today we are recruiting in 56 countries around the world.

The company name comes from the word ‘Job’ combined with a Finnish word, which means ‘at’. So the name can freely be translated—‘at work’.

Q. Will Jobilla be expanding, bringing on any new services that we should be aware of?

Jobilla is constantly developing new ways to help our customers to treat their candidates better.

About | Henri Nordström

Henri Nordström, Co-founder, is known as a warm-hearted and determined CEO. Despite his young age, 33, he is an experienced investor and an entrepreneur by lifestyle, having previously been involved in the insurance business. During his time as the CEO, Jobilla’s revenue has more than doubled every year.

“Our revenue has doubled every year since Henri’s arrival and today we are recruiting in 56 countries around the world.”