In today’s episode, we’ve invited Alexander Kragh, CMO at Ofir.dk, in for a chat about entrepreneurship and the future of recruitment.
Alexander set a new standard in 2016 when he founded the recruitment agency Statum. With a digital recruitment process, Statum took the market by storm and rethought recruitment. But despite the strong start, Statum had to file for bankruptcy in 2020, when yet another lockdown hit Denmark.
Alexander takes us through Statum’s journey: from a brilliant start, Løvens Hule (the Danish Dragons’ Den) and fighting spirit to an empty war chest, layoffs and facing reality.
Today, Alexander Kragh is CMO at Ofir.dk, Denmark’s oldest job portal.
We ask the question: why Ofir, and not a new startup? Alexander talks about his choice and the things he weighed up when moving away from the startup world and into a well-established company.
We talk about what the job market looks like for companies today, when a strong employer brand is crucial to attracting new employees. Alexander talks about recruitment and targeted marketing, and about why hiring someone is a tough marketing discipline when demand for labour is greater than supply.
We get into the differences and similarities between being an employee and being an entrepreneur, and Alexander explains that Ofir.dk, despite being Denmark’s oldest job portal, still has an entrepreneurial culture and is still on a growth journey.
Alexander Kragh joined Ofir.dk as CMO with the task of redefining what people believed, thought and felt about Ofir. His time as head of marketing at Statum had taught him a fair bit, and yet he expected that changing Ofir’s image would be a hard job. Because when you have no formal education behind you, taking over the marketing at a well-established company can be a lot to take on.
We hear Alexander’s thoughts on education, and what you actually do when your plans fall apart because you’re rejected from your dream degree programme. Would Alexander have done it differently, or is he glad he didn’t get in back then?
As a regular feature, we look at the other side of the coin and hear about Alexander’s experience of a challenging attempt to set a new standard in the world of recruitment.