Case Study
Startup and HR TEch PR

How we put a spotlight on Expertlead’s expertise and let media know how to find, asses and hire ‍the best techies

Client

Expertlead
www.expertlead.com

Project Date

July 2021 – June 2023

Services

Startup and HR Tech PR

The results

21

months

56

Clippings

69.8m

Reach

The brief

Finding good tech talent is still one of the biggest pain-points for companies. At the same time, tech professionals have unsatisfying experiences with recruiters and staffing firms, keeping them from otherwise interesting jobs and opportunities. And that’s where Expertlead comes into play. Founded by Alexander Schlomberg - van Doren and Arne Hosemann in 2018, the HR tech start-up helps companies find, assess, and hire the best-fitting tech professionals.

The company's unique selling point is its special combination of technology and community expertise, which enables it to findand hire vetted IT professional—both freelancers and permanent employees. Technical skills of IT candidates are evaluated through a special peer-to-peer interview process. Expertlead leverages the swarm intelligence of the global tech community to assess the quality of applicants across different programming languages. In combination with innovative recruiting software, Expertlead thus offers a holistic solution in tech recruiting.

Growing rapidly, the company’s customer base already includes the likes of Trade Republic, McKinsey, and Mercedes Benz. Additionally, they have founded a joint venture with VW-subsidiary Cariad, called Futurepath.

Expertlead was in need of a strong comms partner who could drive awareness and business leads alike with regular, impactful coverage in relevant HR, national, trade, and tech/start-up media in the DACH region. Expertlead was also interested in creating a strategic long-term comms plan that helps to build a lasting reputation and establish an expert voice in the market. Innovation-driven, tech-focused, and eager to build a solid reputation in the media landscape, Expertlead was a perfect fit for Laika and our mission to communicating the ideas, minds and tech of tomorrow!

The campaign

Before we started, we created a PR strategy. Since Expertlead's services are very specific to the IT sector, we decided to serve several main strands:

Establishing the company and its founder as thought leaders.
Feeding journalists with company news (investment, joint venture, etc.).
Assessing developments in the IT sector with thoughtful statements and forecasts.
Vertical B2B PR by targeting businesses cross-industry and sector by sector.
Quick wins by proactively leveraging what’s already out there.

Expertlead is very strong in the field of HR, so it seemed logical to establish their Chief People Officer, Tuba Vogel, as a spokesperson in this field—which we ultimately succeeded in doing.

When we started, Expertlead had two pieces of news to announce in quick succession—an investment and the joint venture Futurepath with the VW subsidiary Cariad—for which we were able to get first clippings in media such as EU Startups, Gründerszene, and Saatkorn within a short period of time.

In addition, bylines on thought leadership and statements about learnings in the start-up world or IT topics, including the shortage of skilled workers or automation in the markets, found resonance in media outlets such as Horizont, IT Director, IT Freelancer, and Deutsche Startups.

When we had a look at verticals, the automotive industry, logistics, and mechanical engineering were especially in focus. In the end, we could secure bylines in outlets such as the German-speaking edition of Forbes and Springer Professional. Looking at HR, we were able to secure several pieces in relevant trade journals such as HR Journal, Persoblogger, HR Today, as well as IT outlets such as IT-Daily.

In total, we have secured 56 clippings with a reach of almost 70 million within 21 months of our collaboration. And now that we have come this far, we will not stop here. The next wave of clippings is already on the horizon!