When I started Micro-Cap Solutions, the focus was on building an all-in-one talent solutions platform designed to help small to medium sized businesses find and hire the talent they need.
That started with a heavy focus on executive search across C-level leaders, VPs, and other key hires.
But after a while something interesting started happening. Clients kept asking the same question: “Can you help with hiring for hourly roles too?”
At first, I said no. That wasn’t something we were set up to support. But the question kept coming up, so I started paying closer attention to why they were asking.
What I Kept Seeing
As I looked closer, a pattern became clear.
Most of these companies didn’t really have a recruiting function. Sometimes there was an HR person, but they were already buried in payroll, benefits, onboarding, and compliance. Recruiting was something they tried to squeeze in when they had time. Other times it fell directly on the owner or a department manager.
I remember talking to one manufacturing owner who told me he was spending two or three hours every night reviewing resumes. He laughed and said, “I feel like I accidentally gave myself a second job.”
Even with all that effort, they were still short staffed..
The Job Board Spiral
At the same time, another pattern kept showing up.
Almost every company was following the same hiring approach. They would post a job on Indeed or a similar job board, sponsor it, and wait for applicants.
At first it worked. Then the volume started. Hundreds of resumes would come in, most of them not even close to qualified.
Managers would start reviewing applications, get overwhelmed by the volume, and eventually stop looking altogether.
Now they were spending hundreds to thousands a month and still didn’t have a real process. And the cycle kept repeating itself.
The Advice That Doesn’t Work
When companies complain about hiring, the typical advice is simple: “Just hire a recruiter.”
On the surface, that sounds reasonable.
But that rarely works for a 60-person manufacturer or a growing services company. A full-time recruiter is real overhead, and traditional agencies charging large placement fees for hourly or entry level roles usually does not make much sense either.
So, companies end up stuck in the middle. They are too big to ignore hiring, but too small to build a recruiting department.
And that middle ground is where most frustration lives.
The Real Difference
That is when something else became obvious.
I started noticing something across a lot of these companies. The issue wasn’t talent. The issue was ownership.
Hiring was happening, but no one was truly responsible for it day to day. Resumes came in, interviews happened when someone had time, and the process moved in fits and starts.
But once someone actually owns recruiting, the entire process changes.
Communication improves. Candidates move through the funnel faster. Hiring becomes predictable again.
Where the Idea for Skillya Came From
Around that same time, Jacob and I had caught up. We have been good friends for a long time, and I had been watching what he was building with DuckWorks.
They built something really interesting in the millwork world. Instead of companies struggling to hire drafting engineers locally, DuckWorks provides dedicated drafting support that plugs directly into their teams.
It solves a real bottleneck without forcing companies to build an entire department internally.
That idea stuck with me. What if recruiting worked the same way? What if companies could have real recruiting infrastructure without having to hire a full-time recruiter?
That question is what eventually led to Skillya.
The Bigger Lesson
After working with a lot of growing companies, I have realized recruiting usually is not broken because companies do not care. It is broken because no one owns it.
And when no one owns something, or knows how to, it almost always becomes a bottleneck.
That is the problem Skillya was built to solve.
When I started Micro-Cap Solutions, the focus was on building an all-in-one talent solutions platform designed to help small to medium sized businesses find and hire the talent they need.
That started with a heavy focus on executive search across C-level leaders, VPs, and other key hires.
But after a while something interesting started happening. Clients kept asking the same question: “Can you help with hiring for hourly roles too?”
At first, I said no. That wasn’t something we were set up to support. But the question kept coming up, so I started paying closer attention to why they were asking.
What I Kept Seeing
As I looked closer, a pattern became clear.
Most of these companies didn’t really have a recruiting function. Sometimes there was an HR person, but they were already buried in payroll, benefits, onboarding, and compliance. Recruiting was something they tried to squeeze in when they had time. Other times it fell directly on the owner or a department manager.
I remember talking to one manufacturing owner who told me he was spending two or three hours every night reviewing resumes. He laughed and said, “I feel like I accidentally gave myself a second job.”
Even with all that effort, they were still short staffed..
The Job Board Spiral
At the same time, another pattern kept showing up.
Almost every company was following the same hiring approach. They would post a job on Indeed or a similar job board, sponsor it, and wait for applicants.
At first it worked. Then the volume started. Hundreds of resumes would come in, most of them not even close to qualified.
Managers would start reviewing applications, get overwhelmed by the volume, and eventually stop looking altogether.
Now they were spending hundreds to thousands a month and still didn’t have a real process. And the cycle kept repeating itself.
The Advice That Doesn’t Work
When companies complain about hiring, the typical advice is simple: “Just hire a recruiter.”
On the surface, that sounds reasonable.
But that rarely works for a 60-person manufacturer or a growing services company. A full-time recruiter is real overhead, and traditional agencies charging large placement fees for hourly or entry level roles usually does not make much sense either.
So, companies end up stuck in the middle. They are too big to ignore hiring, but too small to build a recruiting department.
And that middle ground is where most frustration lives.
The Real Difference
That is when something else became obvious.
I started noticing something across a lot of these companies. The issue wasn’t talent. The issue was ownership.
Hiring was happening, but no one was truly responsible for it day to day. Resumes came in, interviews happened when someone had time, and the process moved in fits and starts.
But once someone actually owns recruiting, the entire process changes.
Communication improves. Candidates move through the funnel faster. Hiring becomes predictable again.
Where the Idea for Skillya Came From
Around that same time, Jacob and I had caught up. We have been good friends for a long time, and I had been watching what he was building with DuckWorks.
They built something really interesting in the millwork world. Instead of companies struggling to hire drafting engineers locally, DuckWorks provides dedicated drafting support that plugs directly into their teams.
It solves a real bottleneck without forcing companies to build an entire department internally.
That idea stuck with me. What if recruiting worked the same way? What if companies could have real recruiting infrastructure without having to hire a full-time recruiter?
That question is what eventually led to Skillya.
The Bigger Lesson
After working with a lot of growing companies, I have realized recruiting usually is not broken because companies do not care. It is broken because no one owns it.
And when no one owns something, or knows how to, it almost always becomes a bottleneck.
That is the problem Skillya was built to solve.