Yogen Philosophy

What is Yogen?

Yogen are 2 headed birds in Japanese mythology. These ancient creatures were said to offer a prediction or premonition for villagers.

Not only is this a cool word, but it's symbolic to our philosophy and our purpose, to help make hiring predictable and to offer insights in advance if things aren't going to go well, so that way we can gently nudge hiring teams to change for best practices.

Why does your software look so weird/different/funky?

No one likes using HR software. No one. Why does HR software need to be so corporate? Why can't software that we use be fun and interesting?

So we created software that we wanted to use ourselves, first of all. Sky was the limit, and we wanted to use colors and a UI not typically seen in other software made for companies. We knew if we made something we wanted to use, others would like it too.

We also know that changing behavior is an uphill battle. We couldn't just create an AI intake form and expect people to use it. We needed to show and teach our users in order to help them.

Then we researched extensively into how we can get people to complete the difficult task of answering questions about their current and planned hiring needs. And we came across this article about the Kawaii effect.

If you create fun, engaging, and even cute software it helps people to focus their attention, which is needed for our users to gain the most value out of the insights we provide. Win-win.

Why does your software provide so much transparency?

Our goal is to make an amazing process. But this comes from both ends, from the perspective of the company and from the candidate.

Candidate Experience

The candidate needs transparency in the process, the company, and the team to know what they are investing hours, sometimes days, into preparing for, and potentially changing their life for. A new job is a life altering experience, and yet it's a black box for most candidates. So we wanted to provide complete transparency to the candidate to ensure it's what they need to be successful.

Company Experience

Hiring is incredibly expensive and time consuming. We thought deeply about transparency into these costs and time commitments, while de-risking the company from a hire that doesn't work out. We needed to make sure that these aspects are transparent so that our software can nudge them towards better and better hiring practices.

Sometimes this will be a little controversial. Sometimes the questions we require from our users will be a little bit uncomfortable. But in turn that leads to new growth. And likewise, every question you complete is transparent about why that information is needed and how it will be used, so you can rest assured that every step is important so you can hire with the top talent you require as quickly as possible.

When people are open and transparent from day 1, it builds a strong foundation for the years of working ahead together.