Catawiki is a leading marketplace for special objects. Every week, over 100,000 artworks, classic cards, collectibles, and more are reviewed and sold via the site. As a tech-enabled, growing company, Catawiki hires in locations around the world. Before using Metaview, its Amsterdam-based recruiting team had issues finding the right fit between candidate, salary, and working conditions. 

Accurate market insights from real conversations

Catawiki opened a Lisbon office to access the city’s well-known customer service talent. But the recruiting team, based in Amsterdam, lacked experience with Lisbon’s tech scene and hiring norms.

They had a limited understanding of salary expectations, work location preferences (remote, hybrid, on-site), and candidate motivations.

Thanks to Metaview’s AI Reports, the team could instantly analyze candidate responses about salary expectations, work location preferences, and openness to relocation. With no manual effort, Catawiki built a detailed knowledge of the local market. 

Lead tech recruiter Justin den Hamer describes one simple, but hugely valuable insight. “A lot of candidates are used to full remote work in Lisbon. For 20 candidates we spoke to, maybe 15 wanted fully remote or hybrid.”

The team could see this trend immediately, and re-evaluate the expectations and hiring approach. 

Precise salary expectations based on data

Catawiki had informal ideas about salary benchmarks and work preferences in Lisbon. But without data, it was hard to guide hiring managers with confidence.

Thanks to automated reporting and analysis of the entire conversation pool, salary expectations were easy to ascertain. 

“We had some ideas about what we should be offering,” says Justin. “But actually talking to candidates and running reports really helped. If we spoke to 20 backend engineers, we could just ask the AI assistant to build a report based on the average salary expectations discussed in those calls.”

This process can easily be done by city, by role, or by level of seniority. And without any extra work from Justin’s team. 

Data-based decisions in record time

Without the right tools, analyzing trends is time-consuming. Gathering market insights from candidate conversations required manually reviewing notes and scorecards.

Most teams either have to spend significant time collecting and formatting data, or simply go without. 

But because Metaview records, structures, and analyzes every conversation automatically, that additional work vanishes. The data is always available when you need it. 

For example, Catawiki had a hard time hiring engineering talent in Lisbon, and wanted to understand why. “You can easily ask Metaview, over the last 30 backend engineers we interviewed, what were the main reasons for rejection? Was it practical stuff like wanting to work hybrid, or hard or soft skills?

“It’s still a process, but it’s really helped us define our offer. And we can flag early if people don’t want the hybrid environment we have.”

In the past, the level of reporting and insights above might have taken Justin’s team weeks to achieve. “We had a manual process going through 20 candidate scorecards and extracting that data to an Excel sheet. So it was possible.”

Better relationships with hiring managers

Another major benefit for Catawiki has been a transformed hiring process for stakeholders. The recruiting team can now easily equip hiring managers with the information they need, and help guide them towards the right hire for the role and market. 

“They like to see data,” says Justin. “That's what always resonates most with hiring managers I know.”

Metaview’s AI-powered insights and reporting put Catawiki’s recruiting team in a position of strength. They go into hiring meetings and candidate debriefs as experts, and can lead their colleagues towards the smartest possible choices.