Relode offers recruiting with a bigger mission in mind

Like many in the business world, Matthew Tant chose not to talk about his religion at work and kept it separate from his professional duties.

But as he began developing Relode — his startup aimed at streamlining the recruiting industry — Tant decided he could put his Christian faith at the core of it. As part of the growing “business as mission” movement, Tant designed the business to empower individuals around the world through recruiting — seeking to make a difference in global issues while addressing a business need.

“We want to build profitable, scalable products so we can help others, “said Tant, CEO of Relode.

Business as mission is a concept that brings God into the workplace and uses business solutions to help communities in need all over the world and to address social justice issues. The approach is similar to that of social enterprises, but encompasses a Christian focus and stems from business leaders’ desire to direct their professional skills at efforts supported by their faith.

For Tant, those skills were in staff recruiting and in creating new companies. Before launching health-care recruiting firm HCTec Partners in Franklin, Tant was an agent at Florida-based CSI Companies staffing company. He recognized inefficiencies within the industry that could be remedied with technology and began working with Relode co-founder Joe Christopher, a former director of software development at HealthStream. They developed an online marketplace — an Uber for recruiting, Tant says — that connects companies directly to recruiters and trims hiring costs by cutting out the role of an agency.

Under a typical recruitment model, companies find new hires through a job posting site charging upward of $500 a month or through an equally expensive resume database . Meanwhile, recruiting agencies often charge 20 to 30 percent of a new hire’s salary, fueling a more than $125 billion industry nationally, according to Staffing Industry Analysts.

The reason recruiting agencies charge so much is because they cover overhead costs — office space, search tools, health benefits for agents — and because they only get paid for the hires they land. A large company looking for new employees could be working with a handful of agents, but the agent that finds the actual hire is the one paid, with the majority of the fees going to the recruiting firm.

With Relode, a company can choose from a pool of recruiters based on their industry expertise, price or ratings from others. A recruiter is ensured payment and companies pay a smaller fee per job candidate — closer to $250 than $20,000, Tant said. The hiring companies can pay for candidate leads, qualified resumes or more advanced candidate research, with Relode taking between 15 and 30 percent of the fee.

Relode is self-funded and has 11 employees. The team, based in Brentwood, is talking to experienced recruiters in cities across the U.S. and in several industries to build its base of independent contractors. The model allows individuals to work remotely as well as determine the amount of hours they are interested in.

Here’s where the business as mission comes in: Tant envisions a process where an individual supporting a cause can build expertise as a recruiter, taking jobs as time permits to supplement their income. The model could help a college graduate seeking to build a social enterprise overseas or missionaries who needs a revenue stream to fund their work. Or, it could help those recruiters living in high-poverty regions find employment by working for Relode, with contractors already set up in Honduras and in the Phillipines taking on search jobs.

For every recruiter that is working to support another social mission, Relode will donate 10 percent of the recruiter’s price to support their work.

“Our ultimate goal would be to revive communities and lives of people around the world by creating income opportunities for them right where they are,” Tant said. By training someone helping other communities, “we have a multiplier effect.”

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.