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Team Hello Amsterdam. Let to right: Quincy Dalh, Joeri van der Wees, Marta Gómez-Navarro, Giovanni Trova, Eline Stapel

You’ve probably heard something like this before: Amsterdam’s tech industry is growing so fast it can’t find enough talent to keep it going. Quincy Dalh begs to differ. He just sees a mismatch between what everyone is looking for. Not one to let a problem rest, Dalh started Hello Amsterdam. ‘The most inclusive hiring event’ to connect tech talent with potential employers.

Searching in the wrong spots

“I really think there is enough talent to power the growth”, says Dalh. He also thinks both talent and startups are searching for each other in the wrong spots. “Tech students or young talent don’t look for jobs at startups and scaleups.” An important reason is, they’ve likely never heard of the next big thing.

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“Students would rather join Adyen or Picnic,” Dalh explains. “Something they’ve heard of, something they already know. Or they are being headhunted by a company. They don’t need to look very hard for a job to find one.” It’s not only the students taking a more passive approach to starting their career. Their schools do so as well. “I often see no urgency to give them career guidance. Their schools also think ‘they’ll find a job easy enough’.”

Lack of tech talent?

In the meantime, many startups can’t find skilled tech workers, because they are not looking in the right places like schools, colleges and universities. As with many things, COVID plays a role, making it harder to go out and meet people. Dalh: “There were no opportunities for guest lectures where companies could meet students. Many startups and scaleups simply don’t have a network at the universities.”

Dalh has been working on bridging that gap for a while now. He founded Hello Mentor, which offers four-month-long mentorship programmes to students and graduates to connect them to top technology-driven employers. His latest endeavour is Hello Amsterdam, in collaboration with StartupAmsterdam, ASIF Ventures, Welkom.video and StartupVillage. Hello Amsterdam is a two-day hiring event for Amsterdam’s startup scene, with a focus on meaningful connections between young companies and young talent.

‘Little fish in the shark tank’

“Normally during these hiring events, I noticed it was hard for students and startups to find each other. You’d have one big floor with different stands, and recruiters pouncing on graduates that passed by. It felt students were little fish in a tank full of shark. We wanted to do it differently.”

Hello Amsterdam instead does a lot of the matching for students and startups. Students are encouraged to complete a test to determine their skill set, which matches them to relevant companies hosting an ‘ehouse event’. During the entire event, there’s ample opportunity to network.

Hello Amsterdam makes ‘city a playground’ 

During the first day, there’s also an online company exploration, in which students can meet participating companies. “Our inspiration was the Amsterdam Museum Night”, says Dalh. At this yearly event, museums in Amsterdam open their doors during the night, drawing a more diverse crowd than usual, hopping across the city to attend multiple venues. “We wanted something decentralised. Not just sitting on one event but set your own goals, explore your own interests. The city is your playground.”

Drawing inspiration from AR games like Ingress or Pokemon Go, Dalh’s looking for new ways to discover Amsterdam-based startups. For this first edition, he had to stick to an online playground for talent and startups to meet. There’s no need for a degree, there’s room for everyone no matter their background, says Dalh: “we’re only looking at what someone can do, what their skills are.”

The event brings the talent together with several startups. For avid SiliconCanals readers, names like Kaizo, VirtuaGym and Lalaland.ai may sound familiar. For the average tech-student, they do not, which is the whole point. Dalh: “They might have seen Lalaland in the news, as they are doing a great job of drawing press lately.” 

Fix the talent pipeline

For now, Dalh is aiming to connect local talent to one of the 20 participating startups and get them a job. The overarching goal is to fix the pipeline of junior tech talent towards the Amsterdam tech scene. “Many companies want to grow fast, but there is a mismatch in finding the right people. Famous companies can get talent, no problem. But companies that are not yet a unicorn struggle. Especially in AI, e-commerce and cybersecurity, talent is lacking. They need to invest in making themselves more visible among young talent.”

It’s not just local talent they can look for. Amsterdam attracts many students from abroad. But Dalh sees many of them leaving after not finding an attractive job. “I recently met a guy from South Africa. Incredibly talented in AI, was building really cool stuff. But he didn’t have his bachelor degree or anything. He couldn’t find a fitting job and had to return.”

“The Netherlands is very attractive for foreign students”, Dalh continues. Students from outside the EU have one year after graduating to look for a job to retain their residence permit: the so-called ‘search year’. Dalh: “We need to utilise this search year better, provide better guidance. There are so many opportunities here. The ‘search year’ needs to become the ‘find year’.” 

Rewards for working for a startup

Dalh says that people looking for a career in tech can still apply for Hello Amsterdam, which will be held on July 22nd and 23rd. He stresses that finding a job at a fast-growing startup has its own reward for people looking for a career in the Amsterdam tech sector. You’re almost guaranteed not to end up in a cubicle.

“When you work for a young startup, you can pick up so many different tasks. Every month is different, there’s always a new skill to develop. There’s a lot to learn, and you need to be able to deal with that. But it is the best way to keep developing yourself.”