Unlocking Global Opportunities: Discover 180,000 Remote Jobs with JobGether Co-founder Alex Hernandez - ep. 075

In this captivating episode, hosts Rick Haney and Kaleem Clarkson take their listeners on a journey through the dynamic realms of entrepreneurship, innovation, and the future of work with special guest, Alex Hernandez, co-founder of JobGether, who joins the conversation to offer unique insights gleaned from his entrepreneurial journey and his profound understanding of the evolving landscape of remote work.

Alex's story is nothing short of inspiring, as he recounts his bold decision to leave behind a thriving career in France to embark on a new venture, co-founding JobGether amidst the challenges of a global pandemic. Despite encountering obstacles like losing a mortgage due to lockdown restrictions, Alex's unwavering resilience and appetite for risk-taking propelled him forward.

JobGether, under Alex's leadership, has emerged as a beacon of innovation in the job-hunting sphere. Their groundbreaking approach initially involved applying algorithms to job searches to ensure anonymity and combat discrimination. This approach has since evolved, positioning JobGether as the largest job search engine for remote positions worldwide, boasting an impressive 180,000 listings and adding 15,000 to 20,000 new opportunities each week.

As the conversation unfolds, Alex delves into the profound impact of remote work, particularly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the United States leads in remote work readiness, JobGether has witnessed a surge of interest from regions like South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Alex attributes this global interest to the growing number of tech companies offering remote positions, coupled with the allure of working for international firms without the need for relocation. Amidst the insightful discussion, Alex shares lighthearted anecdotes about comical moments in remote work, highlighting the evolving dynamics of work-life balance and the increasing acceptance of remote work as the new norm.

Gain valuable insights into the global landscape of remote work, its widespread adoption, and the myriad challenges and opportunities it presents for employers and employees alike. Through Alex's compelling narrative, we're reminded of the paramount importance of resilience, adaptability, and positive thinking in the pursuit of our professional aspirations. Thank you once again for joining us, Alex!

Learn more about Alex:

• Alex’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrehernandez/
• JobGether: https://jobgether.com/

Transcript

Alex: 0:35

I'm really good kaleem. How are you?

Kaleem: 0:36

Oh, doing pretty well, man. Doing pretty well. You're looking good over there. How you feeling? How you feeling today?

Alex: 0:42

I'm good. You know, I'm good. It's the end of the week. It's already seven o'clock for us here.

Kaleem: 0:46

Okay.

Alex: 0:47

So, you know, just after the show, you know, every Friday with my daughter, we do the pizza night. So we do a pizza ourselves and, uh, and she can watch a movie and, uh, you know, she's six.

Kaleem: 0:58

Okay.

Alex: 0:59

looking, looking forward to it.

Rick: 1:01

Amazing.

Kaleem: 1:01

what type of pizza are you making for tonight? You know what I mean?

Alex: 1:04

We, Weaver normally is quite, you know, easy, standard, you know, just ham and cheese, like, not too crazy. You know, she's six, no, I'm not going too crazy with her.

Rick: 1:15

You gotta wait until she's seven to put the hot peppers and things on it,

Alex: 1:18

Yeah, Exactly, exactly.

Kaleem: 1:22

That's awesome, man.

Rick: 1:29

Welcome back to Remotely One. I am your co host, Rick Haney, joined by my very bright and alert co host, Kaleem Clarkson, who, by the way, has not blinked once. Not a single time since we started rolling about an hour ago. I don't know if you noticed that. You are looking alive today, brother. Heh.

Kaleem: 1:51

son. I'm alive.

Rick: 1:54

Heh heh. You're more than alive, you're alive. I love it. That's a magic tagline, is it not? How is that even possible?

Kaleem: 2:00

It's because I'm magic.

Rick: 2:04

Magic! Oh! Ho ho ho! Yes! You're still drinkin the magic mind, kid! Alright!

Kaleem: 2:12

do you know it,

Rick: 2:13

Oh my

Kaleem: 2:14

I got that magic on my mind. I'm trying to make that stick

Rick: 2:18

Ooh, it's like a 70's light pop hit.

Kaleem: 2:21

for real. And let me just tell you, I have just been crushing it. Honestly, I've just been crushing it every day and it just hasn't failed me yet, bro. It just

Rick: 2:28

Uh, right on, man. That's awesome. Hey, listen, I went, I went from a sea of like these little chicken scratch post it notes all around me, and I was still leaving shit off the list. You know, forgetting about stuff here and there. Everything was falling through the cracks. that to like a detailed, organized, calumny account in less than two weeks. I mean, hey, you know, there was definitely a conscious effort, but magic mind. That is what sparked it, and it's been awesome.

Kaleem: 2:59

It's amazing, bro. It's amazing. One more time for our listeners. Rick. How can they get some magic on their mind?

Rick: 3:06

Well, that's easy. Go to magicmind. com forward slash remotelyone. Get up to 56 percent off your the next 10 days. Or 20 percent off your one time purchase with our code remotely120. That's R E M O T E L Y O N E. 2 0. Okay? We good on that? Listen, man, I could rap about Magic Mind all day,

Kaleem: 3:36

Yes, you

Rick: 3:36

and I would happily do so, but we got a show to do, man, right?

Kaleem: 3:40

try it. That's right. Let's do it.

Rick: 3:41

Give us a tease or two about today's guest.

Kaleem: 3:43

You know, today I'm nervous again, Rick. You know, every single week we go through this, my emotions go up, my emotions go down. I start questioning who I am

Rick: 3:53

You gotta start considering medication for this. I mean, you're nervous all the time. We gotta bring you back down to earth.

Kaleem: 3:59

Nervous all the time.

Rick: 4:00

But today is justified.

Kaleem: 4:01

is it, is it really?

Rick: 4:03

It is. You know you're geeked up. I'm geeked up, too.

Kaleem: 4:07

today's guests, Rick, today's guests, they're originally from Leon France. I like, I did that on you. Like how I did that.

Rick: 4:14

Léon. Léon.

Kaleem: 4:16

Yeah. but listeN, our guests, the world travel, they lived in London for 10 years. Okay. Their currently resides in Madrid, Spain, which is Oh, the land of olive oil. If you want olive oil, you got to go to Spain, baby. Our guest has some educations some teachings. They have two degrees from the university of Leon international business. Just their masters. So, you know, global business. I'm seeing a theme here, sir.

Rick: 4:46

That's cool.

Kaleem: 4:47

Yep. Yep. He served as the country director for a company called Euro staff. Um, Rick, you know, today's guests, they are a speaker and they speak all over the place.

Rick: 5:00

Yes.

Kaleem: 5:01

what? The first time he spoke in front of a crowd, he completely froze. He completely froze. Yeah, he completely froze so much that they had to wait five minutes for him to collect himself And now our speaker has overcome that and is now a keynote speaker. So you can overcome anything, Rick.

Rick: 5:19

You see that, folks? Never give in to the fear.

Kaleem: 5:22

Don't give in

Rick: 5:23

Fear is a thief.

Kaleem: 5:24

don't give in our guest today rick the co founder of Eu for ua association which connects ukrainian refugees with european citizens providing them emergency housing and jobs So this dude, yeah, yeah just saving people just saving people

Rick: 5:41

uh huh,

Kaleem: 5:41

currently Our guest is the co founder of JobGather, which is the largest job search engine for remote jobs in the world.

Rick: 5:51

that's crazy. Ha ha ha

Kaleem: 5:52

Listeners and viewers, please give a warm welcome to Alex Hernandez!

Rick: 6:02

ha ha!

Kaleem: 6:08

Let's go!

Rick: 6:09

Alright, alright people.

Kaleem: 6:12

ooh, Settle down studio audience. Settle it down. They're a little

Rick: 6:17

This is a professional show, people. Let's go. Get it together. Thank you. Alex, welcome to the show, buddy.

Kaleem: 6:24

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Alex: 6:26

Hello, guys. Thanks a lot. I think, Kalim, you can be a speaker for, like, an NBA team, you know.

Rick: 6:32

He should be.

Alex: 6:33

You should be, yeah, you should be, yeah.

Kaleem: 6:35

You. Hear that Lakers. You hear that Lakers, you know, bring me out, bring me out.

Rick: 6:40

Oh, my gosh,

Kaleem: 6:40

Thanks for joining us, sir. Thanks for joining us.

Alex: 6:43

Thanks for having me, guys.

Rick: 6:44

Yeah, no, the pleasure is ours. I look forward to, uh, we got a lot of questions, of course. I mean, your history is very impressive. You've done a lot of different things. First off, Alex, I got to know one thing, you know, you were a superstar employee for what, nine, ten years, nine years? And one day you just realized that, man, there's something missing here, something big. So you gave it all up and you moved to Spain. Pandemic hits, you start a project with someone you'd never met before, and the only thing you knew was that you both shared this vision. What was that vision, and how did it all lead to what you're doing now?

Alex: 7:23

it's actually a funny story. Since, you know, I'm young, I've always been the sort of guy, if I'm not 100 percent passionate about something, I just can't do it, you know. and I've always also like, taken risks, you know, when I was 18. Went to Barcelona one day, with no connection, no flat, no job, didn't speak a word of Spanish or even English. Um, you know, moved to London, without anything, never thought flat without jobs. And at the time, so yeah, as you say, nine years in the business, country director, I had a really good team. In France, the business was working really well. But I was missing something. I was bored. I was not liking living in Paris even though I'm French, but for me that was not a good place to live. I was thirty four and I was like, You know, I've got two options. Option one, like unfortunately, most of the people I've got a good job, good salary. I just shut up. And stay where I am, which is, you know, nice and cozy, but I didn't want to be the sort of guy at 60 years old looking back and like, look, I've been just bored for the last 30 years of my life. Option two, just, you know, try something, do something. So it was a bit, it was funny because it was a bit like in the movies, in the morning I woke up, I didn't really know I would quit, but I was like, yeah, let's quit. So just call my boss. He was in Germany. Yeah, I'm quitting today. And they actually put me on leave on garden leave. So same day I just left the company I was in for nine years. What's funny now, but it was not really funny at a time is a week later COVID arrived and lockdown arrived. So I was in Paris. At a time we, with my ex wife, she also quit the same day as me. So both without jobs, our daughter was two years old, something, I had already mortgages and we were already in the project of buying a house in Spain. So new mortgage coming up. And, uh, I was like, fuck, maybe I, you know, I should have waited a bit,

Kaleem: 9:27

Oh, fuck. What am I gonna do? All

Alex: 9:30

I was, I was not that scared. I think I'm a really positive person and I always believe things will work out. And I think that's probably why things actually work out. You know,

Kaleem: 9:42

You're an

Alex: 9:43

I don't, I don't think that things will not work out

Kaleem: 9:48

Okay.

Alex: 9:48

I was like, yeah, fine, let's see, you know, and we didn't know what would happen to the world, you know, lockdown, people dying. And to make it a bit funny, a couple of weeks later, someone introduced me to a guy called Juan. Juan is Belgian, ex financial director, who was just coming back from Colombia. He was working and living in Colombia for one of the biggest French company. And same age as me, same situation. He also had a daughter with same age, and just quit his job. And he was like, look, Alex, I want to start a company. I don't want to be alone in the company and I've got a vision. And, his vision was, you know, today, most people are not really happy with their job.

Kaleem: 10:33

Right.

Alex: 10:33

However, they don't do anything sometimes because they don't have the network for it. They just don't know how to find a job because they are scared. There are many reasons. But most, you know, the fact is most people are not happy at the job. We need to build something to help people to find more meaningful job. And I was like, that's exactly what I think. I love it. I wanted to build something. I didn't want to be alone. And I was like, look, I just quit my job. I don't know if the world's going to end in two months.

Kaleem: 11:01

Right.

Alex: 11:02

Let's try, you know, And what worst case scenario, I'm going to have a bit of fun. So that's how JobGather actually started, you know, and as you can imagine, everyone around me was like, but you're crazy. Starting a company is hard. You need to do it with someone you know, someone you trust. No, that's fine. I just had two zoom calls with him. That's fine. I'm going to start a company with him. And that's how it started.

Kaleem: 11:25

Two zoom calls and a company is started. I mean, I love

Rick: 11:28

I mean, that's how you know a message is resonating, when you jump off the cliff before you look.

Kaleem: 11:34

doubt. So you actually moved to Spain with this new company or what did you specifically do kind of to, get yourself there? Like you were still planning on moving to Spain. What ended up

Alex: 11:46

yeah, I mean, we, at the time, we, my ex wife, we are buying the house and we had to sign before the 15th of April. I know that because it's my birthday. I remember this date. But of course, lockdown. So we were just stuck in Paris. We just couldn't get on a plane. We just couldn't get there to sign the papers. And again, to make it a bit more fun, we lost the mortgage because you know, when you get a mortgage, you need to sign before a certain date and that date expired.

Kaleem: 12:17

Wow.

Alex: 12:18

we're stuck in Paris. I was starting a new project, obviously no salary, of course. We both quit our jobs and we didn't have the mortgage anymore.

Kaleem: 12:28

Right. Right.

Alex: 12:30

So yeah, luckily we did a bit. I hope the banker will not listen, but basically with the last pay slip, we ask a new mortgage. Luckily they gave it to us so we could buy the house and the lockdown in France finished on the 11th of May. On the 12th, we took a plane. It was a nightmare because it was only like two planes a day. They were asking you a million questions. We don't remember now, but he was like hell, you know, at the time.

Kaleem: 12:56

Yeah. Yes. It seems like it was four years ago. If you think about it, four years ago, it was just kind of went by like that. So you kind of meet your new partner.

Alex: 13:06

I actually met him in July 2021. So 16 months later for the first 16 months, we never met like

Kaleem: 13:16

Only on in person. You mean only on person? Yeah. So let me ask you this. So start a company without meeting your co founder in person.

Alex: 13:26

yeah.

Kaleem: 13:26

that's fascinating. I mean, you want to talk about the power of remote work. There it is right there. You start a company with someone you never meet in person. What was it about, you know, there are a lot of job boards out there. More and more remote work job boards started popping up, obviously. So what was it? that kinda mage, your idea, unique with your partner. What was it that made, job gather, unique in your eyes, to fill a void that, you know, there's a good amount of people that were doing that indeed started adding remote jobs. And again, I'm being U S centric of course, but, um, yeah. What were your thoughts? What was the unique piece?

Alex: 14:01

So actually the first product we launch was not what we do today. We did a big pivot after two years. The first product was so we developed an algorithm which was applying on your behalf anonymously. Because, what I said to you, our vision to help people find more meaningful job. A lot of people, when they're working, they don't have the time to actually apply to jobs. They just don't know how to do it. So we thought, let's build the algorithm. You were just filling out a profile on JobGather. And as soon as your profile was matching with a job offer, we had like 84 criteria, the algorithm was applying on your behalf. Anonymously. Yeah. So you didn't even know you were applying and, you know, in, let's say most countries, they are like a big problem of discrimination. So we were just hiding anything that could discriminate your profile. So the company we're seeing. Your application, but not if you were like, a man or woman, like your skin color, like your religion, like, you know, your age, anything that could discriminate you was not visible to the company and based on everything else, they were deciding, I want to interview that person or not. And if the company wanted to interview you, they were just sending you a request and then you were receiving an email saying, hi, Kaleem X company X for that role. Want to have an interview and you just had the choice to say yes or no.

15:36

We'll be right back after these words. 2020 was no joke. It changed the game for everyone. Workplace flexibility is no longer a perk, but an expectation. In fact, a recent study showed that a flexible schedule is more important than salary. Yeah, you heard that right? Employees want choices over cash. If you're a startup or a small business that doesn't have a remote work strategy, stop what you're doing right now and complete our free tree assessment at blendmeinc. com. Since 2013, blendmeinc. com has been helping small businesses improve the remote employee experience. Let's stay local, but compete global. Visit us at blendmeinc. com. That's blendmeinc. com. Ever wonder how certain ads catch your attention or get stuck in your head? It's because the person voicing it knows how to tell the story. Maybe they're telling you to STUMBLE OVER TO SULLIVAN ST. PATRICK'S DAY FOR GREEN BEERS, IRISH CAR BOMBS, AND CON BEEF ALL FREAKIN DAY! Don't miss the deal of a lifetime this President's Day at Callahan Ford. Savings like these should be unconstitutional. Or maybe Or, here at Brooks Brothers Mortuary, we put the fun in funeral. Everyone is just dying to join us. All right, well that's a bit much, but for you, I'll do it. I'm Rick Haney, and if you're a business owner looking for a creative voice in your marketing, look no further. I'll tell your story the way you want it told. Follow along at RemotelyWeAreOne or visit my website at rickhaney. me for more information. And now, back to the show.

Kaleem: 17:44

Interesting. So the first product, the very first product, if I'm understanding this correctly, the version one was, job gather would actually apply to these jobs for people. And I'm assuming if you got a denial, the person didn't get a denial.

Alex: 18:00

They never knew. who you were.

Kaleem: 18:01

Right, right. But I mean, I'm talking about the applicant, like the applicant didn't get an email that said, Oh, shucks, you got a denial, which, you know, from what I understand, when you're applying for lots of jobs, if a lot of colleagues are doing this, they're like, yo, those denial emails, they start wearing you down. You know, every denial email at first, you're like, Oh, no big deal. No big deal. But then after a while, you're You know, those denial emails start wearing you down. Was that kind of like the idea behind having an AI or I shouldn't say AI, but a company kind of doing the applying for you. Was that some of the thought

Alex: 18:39

It was one of the aspect of the product but you know, most importantly, people don't know how to apply, don't know where to apply, don't have the time to apply. So we're like, okay, that the machine will do it for you. And we try to reduce discrimination, which was a big topic for us. but the thing is, so we had that product for two years. We had clients with making revenue. However, we made probably all the mistakes you can make as a first time entrepreneur. We learned a lot. Of course we, so we built the company fully remote. We had developers in South America, so I was in Spain, Juan in Belgium, we had people in India, we had people in Madagascar, so fully remote. And we also met two more co founders during these two years. Alexis, who is the CTO, he's from Venezuela, lives in Bogota. And Arnaud, also French, also lives in Spain. And after two years, we had, like most companies, you know, like four months of cash. And like, okay, guys, what do we do? Do we stick for this four months with this product? But most likely we will die or let's try something. And so we all met up and in probably five minutes, we killed two years of business. We killed the company and we were saying like remote work was becoming more and more important. We were talking to talents all the time and they were telling us, you know, during COVID I moved to the countryside. I don't want to go back to the big cities, but I'm struggling to find a remote job. And when we looked at a market most remote job platforms were US-based only because that's even today the biggest market for remote jobs So if you were not american just forget about it, you know You will just you really had nowhere to find like truly remote jobs And the big players the linkedin the indeed

Kaleem: 20:34

Right.

Alex: 20:35

they're not made for remote jobs. So it's not you know, made properly. If you are, I don't know, Spanish, for example, and you type remote from Spain, you will only see Spanish companies. Today, what's stopping you from being in Spain and working remotely for a Canadian company? Nothing. Mm. So, we thought, okay, something's missing. And We basically, in a way, copy the way Indeed is doing, but Indeed is doing all the jobs in the world and they are fragmented per country. You have Indeed. com for the US, Indeed. co. uk for

Kaleem: 21:12

Mm hmm.

Alex: 21:13

So we're like, we're gonna be global from day one, but we will do aggregation. So we will just, you know, look for who's actually hiring remotely and get all the remote offers on our website. That's why today we have around 180, 000. Our competitors have 20, 000.

Kaleem: 21:31

Did you just say you have a hundred and eighty thousand remote jobs on your website?

Alex: 21:36

yes, yes. We are adding between 15 to 20, 000 a week.

Rick: 21:42

Geez,

Alex: 21:44

we also deleting, of course, every

Kaleem: 21:47

yeah, because because you're deleting jobs that are filled or no longer available,

Alex: 21:51

Exactly, Exactly, But to give you an idea, our biggest competitor, you know, 17 years old, they have 25, 000, and mostly US. So today, if you are basing I don't know, Nigeria or Switzerland or wherever. And you type that you want a remote job from the country where you live. You will have results.

Kaleem: 22:10

I get it. So are you also making it so that the jobs you're looking to see whether the company would be willing to hire someone from

Alex: 22:21

Exactly. So that's a big part of the job, which is the moderation part. At the beginning it was purely manual. We had people reading all job postings. Of course now we automate a lot. We have like a bot reading the full job description. And if the company is, I don't know, American, but they are able to hire from LATAM, we would put on JobGather remote from LATAM and not remote from America.

Kaleem: 22:47

Hmm.

Alex: 22:48

we had a really good quality of, you know, the way we actually display the job postings.

Kaleem: 22:54

Well, congratulations.

Rick: 22:56

That's great. Fantastic work. I, uh, had a quick question, Alex, about, uh, shifting gears, actually switching sides completely, and looking from an employer's perspective. You know, these days, more and more people are quitting, because they're forced to come back to an office that they don't want to be in. What are your thoughts, you know, if managers were forced to measure the cost of replacing those people? Instead of allowing them to work from home, what are the major things that they would find?

Alex: 23:25

I think that no one actually calculate the cost of replacing someone. Otherwise, they will not just, you know, let them go because they're forcing them to go back to the office. So, I think that's something that only few companies actually measure. I always say, you know. COVID didn't change, you know, the course of history. I think it just accelerated it. Us as human, we would go to a more flexible world anyway. COVID,

Kaleem: 23:52

Yeah.

Alex: 23:52

probably made us, you know, win 20 years or 30 years. And, of course, a big change like this, you know, it's been, what, four years, really? It's really short for such a big change because remote work is not just affecting the way we work, it's affecting the way we live. Because work is, you know, we spend, well, seven, eight, nine, 10 hours a day at work. We sleep for eight hours. So, it's a big part of, you know, our awake day and it's having a massive impact, you know? And I think to come back to your question, most companies who allowed remote work were tech companies, and still today, you know, the bank and insurance, they're not there yet. So it's mostly tech companies for a year and a half, you both know, we all know that the tech industry is not doing well, there's no money anymore like you used to have before a lot of layoffs, you know, it's complicated for tech companies. And I strongly believe that remote work was the perfect excuse. We are not selling enough because people are working remotely. We are not doing this enough because people are remote. So I think it's a perfect excuse. And so now what we see is managers, you know, what do manager know? The office, you know, I work in an office for 10 years and I've been working for 14 years. So most of my working life Has been in an office, you know, being there at 8, lunch from 12 to 1. So, okay, things are not working, things are changing, we're not going to blame a bad management, of course, because we're not going to blame ourselves, so we're just going to blame remote, so let's go back to what we know, the office. The thing is, people have changed the way they live. People have moved away from the big cities. People have finally found that, you know, yeah, it's fun, to have time with the kids. It's fun to see, my partner more often. And I like that, so I don't want to lose that now. If you ask me now, would you just sacrifice taking my daughter to school in the morning? No way. I'd rather get a 30 percent pay cut, but I will Not have that anymore. So you have two different, like managers trying to save what they can say let's go back to what we know. And then on the other side, you have talents. Like, no, work is not my life anymore. And I don't know, America never lived or worked there, but what I read a lot is the the place of work in America is really, probably much bigger than Europe, for example, but people don't want that anymore. People want to have a life. People want to spend time with the kids, with the friends, with the family. So, of course, it's like a big war happening and today people quit because they don't want to go back to the office.

Kaleem: 26:34

Yeah, let me ask you a question about region and location because you said something that was kind of interesting as far as, you know, you reading about people in the U. S. And then you also said that, most, a lot of the remote jobs are in the U. S. And there's been a good amount of statistics that show like who's going back to the office first from a country perspective. And it seems like most of the world has went back to the office sooner, lower percentage of people working remotely around the rest of the world compared to the U S. So, you talked a little bit about from the employer perspective, what is kind of the tone of employees around the globe outside of the U S what is their tone as far as their desire to work remotely? And then, And on top of that, do you think it's even more competitive, you know, job gather, it's a great resource, but do you think it's extremely competitive because of the desire for people to work remotely outside of the U S is, you know, might still be high, but the supply of remote jobs is lower. So can you just talk about like what that relationships like with, uh, employers wanting to work remotely employees, excuse me, wanting to work remotely. And then what are employers doing outside of the U S to offer those jobs?

Alex: 27:54

Yeah, I think. I would say, and that's my opinion, I would say, because in the U. S., remote work has been, I would say, more established, you know, compared to the rest of the world, people are more prepared for remote work. They know what it is. They probably have the setup at home. So they are really asking for more remote. So they're just more prepared. And I would say, for my European view, I America is usually always ahead of us for many things and remote being just, one of them. And they've been working remote yet for some years so. A lot of, I mean, in the U. S., I think the prices of living in the big cities in New York and in, in San Francisco is absolutely insane, you know? And that much different. We don't have that in Europe, for example. So people during COVID moved away from these big hubs. And just on a financial point of view, it just makes absolutely zero sense to just spend probably not even 100%, maybe 120 percent of the salary on just living in these hubs. What we also see is, you know, today we have 1 million visitors on a website, on Jobgether. They come from 120 countries. So remote work is not just a U. S. thing, the U. S. visitors are the second country for us,

Kaleem: 29:17

Oh, really?

Alex: 29:18

but you know, we have people, South America, massive, a lot of people from South America are looking for remote work, especially because a lot of American companies now they are hiring people remotely from LATAM, LATAM same time zone, you know, Probably a fifth of the salary and people in Latam now speak good English and they are really good profiles.

Kaleem: 29:40

Yes.

Alex: 29:41

We see a a lot of traffic growing from Southeast Asia, countries like the Philippines. Africa is coming fast because Africa is a really, is, is the youngest continent. You have a lot of people, now they are 18, 19, 20. They understand that they speak English, you know, half of Africa is natively like English speaker. The rest of Africa, you know, is learning English really fast. I would say before COVID, U. S. companies were hiring remote workers in the U. S. Now they don't, you know, if you take a company like Deel or GitLab, most of the jobs are open anywhere in the world. So that just gives the opportunity to these talents, to say oh I'm based in Macedonia or I'm based in Japan or wherever. I can work for deal. Four years ago, that was not possible. You had to get a green card. You had to move to the US. You have to leave your family. That was a very different story. Now they stay in their town. They stay living with the family. They can get a much better salary. They can work for an amazing American company or an amazing German company or whatever.

Kaleem: 30:43

Wherever. Yeah.

Alex: 30:45

And you know, we remote world, the world is truly becoming global. JobGather is a Belgian company. I'm French. One co founder is from Venezuela. We have people in India. We have people in Madagascar. We have people in, in Ukraine, in Israel. That's how the future of work will look like.

Kaleem: 31:03

Hmm. That's a great. That's a great. That's a great clip right there, sir. That's a great clip to lead into the question. Wow. That is what the future of work will look like. Just die. Just hit it right there. Hit it hard.

Alex: 31:19

I need the claps now.

Rick: 31:23

Where were you studio when we needed you? Where were you?

Alex: 31:29

Yes.

Rick: 31:32

Oh man, that's great. Yeah, well, Alex, Can you share with us a comical or inspiring moment you had while working remotely?

Kaleem: 31:42

Yes.

Alex: 31:44

For me, you know, you probably remember this video. Um, I don't know if the guy was actually. I think it was British, it was a journalist and he was recording like, you know, like an interview from his living room. And at some point, you see his kids coming to the room and you see the nanny crawling on the floor. You know, you see everything, the guy is becoming red, he's so embarrassed.

Kaleem: 32:07

Oh my gosh, we got to get this clip in the we got to get this clip of the show because we got to see it

Alex: 32:12

this, this clip is so funny. I really think 90 percent of the people I talk to, like on video, know my daughter. because you know, especially that we work a lot with like American and South American clients. So I do a lot of Zoom calls, in the afternoon, like in the evening. And I pick up my daughter from school at five o'clock. So anything after five, she's here, she's around. And, uh, I tell her if I'm on a video, just don't come, you know, I need to work. But she's six, and of course she's a kid. And sometimes she just wants to ask me whatever, like anything, you know. Can I go to the bathroom? I still don't know why she asked that, but, uh, two, whatever. And I always remember this guy, like, so embarrassed, and now he's just becoming normal, you know, I've got my daughter around, and I think It's really showing that, you know, we have evolved so much because now no one cares anymore and it's like a normal thing, You see people's cats walking by the screen, you see the kids, you see whatever. So for me, that's quite a funny thing, you know, I always remember this guy back in like four or five years ago so embarrassed and now it's just normal, you know.

Kaleem: 33:18

I can't wait to check that out Um, we're gonna check that out for sure. But yeah, I agree with you. The kids in the background are common. Nobody really even second guesses it. In my opinion, I think the cats walking across the screen are the weirdest, you know what I mean? You see the cat and then they turn around, you see the little, the little sphincter in the camera. You know, the cat sphincter is not, not a great look, but, um.

Rick: 33:40

starting shit with people. They cannot be trusted.

Kaleem: 33:45

I think I always start shit.

Rick: 33:48

They were like, Oh, did you want this? And they just knock it right off the counter.

Kaleem: 33:53

That's great, man.

Rick: 33:55

Alex, first of all, thank you so much for joining us. Where can our listeners find you?

Alex: 33:59

I only use one social media. It's linkedin i'm really active on linkedin. I share a lot of content and um, yeah, if you want to follow me Or connect with me send me a question. I'll always answer it could take a couple of days But yeah linkedin is just the best and it's just alex hennandez.

Kaleem: 34:15

Great.

Rick: 34:16

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for all of your insight. Congratulations on your success with job gather. It's amazing.

Kaleem: 34:24

It is amazing.

Alex: 34:26

Thank you. so much guys for having me.

Kaleem: 34:28

Yes, it's been fun, man. It's been fun for sure. So come back anytime, man. Peace.