Making people a priority Babbel & Oakwell Hampton

How we helped Babbel replace key team members fast.

About Babbel

Babbel is a subscription-based, language learning app, developed by over 150 language experts.

Founded in 2007, it was the first app of its kind and today covers more than 10,000 hours of content in 14 different languages including Spanish, German, Indonesian and Swedish.

Babbel empowers its millions of active subscribers to speak confidently and correctly through The Babbel Method, a world-class didactic method that utilises real-life dialogues with native speakers and effective retention techniques.

73% of its subscribers are able to have short and simple conversations in their new language within just five hours of getting started.

The Challenge

Babbel was experiencing a high level of recruitment in differing departments across the company. After their current CRM Director decided to leave, the team needed to find a suitable replacement that was both experienced and a good fit for Babbel’s values, culture and chemistry.

With little time to find a replacement and so much hiring already taking place across the company, their internal recruitment team was stretched to its limit and unable to provide the support needed to find a replacement quickly.

Babbel required a new CRM Director and were specific about the type of candidate they were looking for.

Not only would they need to have a keen technical understanding of how to take their sophisticated platform and help it become state of the art, but they would also need to have a strong focus on CRM revenue and engagement.

Top
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Watch the interview

Our consultant Kosara Yankova talks to Babbel’s Deepa Miglani to discuss the hiring challenges Babbel was facing and how Oakwell Hampton were able to help Babbel refine its hiring process and recruit key personnel fast.

THE SOLUTION

Having worked with Babbel on a previous project, they reached out to us again to provide additional support in filling this unique and highly specific role.

We worked closely with the team to gain a clearer understanding of exactly what they were looking for and provided a shortlist of suitable prospective candidates from our network of CRM professionals in a short timeframe.

After realising that their interview process for senior roles was becoming overly complicated, the team asked us for support in removing any unnecessary steps in the process and to help them create a more positive and flexible interview experience for their candidates.

We also helped the team to overhaul their current scorecard methodology for interviews, which evaluates the candidate’s values, knowledge and experience, after receiving feedback that it was making the evaluation process challenging and more time-consuming.

In a collaborative effort, we were able to develop a new scorecard system in just 24 hours that focused on the outcomes that were required for the role, not just attributes of the candidates. This ensured that fair and unbiased evaluations could be made for each candidate at each stage of the process, while also making the process quicker and more objective.

Provided a shortlist of candidates.

Streamlined the interview process.

Improved candidate evaluation.

The Results

With continued communication and collaboration throughout the hiring process, we were able to help Babbel find a CRM Director that possessed all of the attributes that the team were looking for and within their strict timeframe.

Thanks to the good relationship we have with our network of CRM professionals and our ability to get to the heart of what our clients are looking for, we were able to find suitable candidates quickly and efficiently. This took a lot of strain off the Babbel team during this challenging period.

After the success of the streamlined interview process and re-imagined scorecard methodology in narrowing down prospective candidates more effectively, Babbel have said they fully intend to continue using these methods and will work with us on future projects.

Oakwell quickly got to the essence of what I was looking for from a candidate, as well as offering speed of delivery and intellectual and instinctive alignment. We hit it off immediately and working with them was probably one of the best decisions I made in terms of recruitment in the past year.

Like the sound of it?

This is just one example of how we can help you find key staff and improve your hiring process. If you've got some upcoming projects that you need extra help with, why not reach out to us?

Our consultant Kosara helped Babbel replace their CRM Director and was instrumental in streamlining their interview process.

She's always available to help with your hiring needs, so get in touch with her if you need a hand.

Drop her an email at k.yankova@oakwellhampton.com or give her a call on +49 152 0251 8378.