Members of the Jobbatical team in Malaysia
Raising a round worth more than a million euros always draws a lot of attention in the local media, but the news about Jobbatical was all over international tech media outlets such as TechCrunch, Forbes and Business Insider. Jobbatical has also been endorsed by Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas and President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on Twitter and Facebook, in this way reaching their 100 000 combined followers. ‘I guess when President Ilves is sharing our news then we are officially considered to be in the #estonianmafia? Made me proud!’ Karoli tweeted in return. This is an obvious understatement since, besides getting the limelight on both old and new media while attending globally influential events like the Lean In conference at Google Asia, the word ‘jobbatical’ has already made it to Merriam Webster dictionary being defined as ‘a short-term post when between jobs in one’s career’ (‘our lawyers suggested getting it removed from the dictionary,’ Karoli comments) and has recently also made it to the pages of an international best-seller. ‘One of the first people I met was Karoli Hindriks, the CEO of Jobbatical, a company that blends the concept of a job and a sabbatical, matching employers and talent for short-term jobs that might involve sending a software developer from Sweden to Thailand for a threemonth “jobbatical”,’ Alec Ross, the former head of office for Hillary Clinton, writes in his new book, ‘The Industries of the Future’. ‘I asked Karoli why she and everybody else on the street was wearing reflective clothing, and she told me that when it gets dark, it is
Estonian law that all pedestrians wear some form of reflective clothing for safety,’ Ross continues in Chapter Six of his book. ‘She smiled and told me that she became an inventor at age 16, creating pedestrian reflectors that could be used as a part of clothing and jewelry, and she now holds several patents and international trademarks for her designs. This was very representative of what I have seen during all of my time in Estonia: extreme order combined with invention and design.’ Karoli herself did not have to worry about wearing reflective clothing in order to be visible in the slushy winter of Estonia this year since, living the life she preaches, she was on a jobbatical in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ‘Malaysia and Singapore are the fastest growing markets for us as there are many great global companies emerging and there is not enough talent locally so we need to import it,’ she tells me over Skype. She is sitting in the shade of a tropical tree by a pool that’s teeming with little turtles, in a spacious courtyard of the house that operates as both an office and living quarters for her team. The team at Jobbatical consists of people from all over the world – Estonia, Italy, the USA, Korea, Hong Kong… ‘Almost half of the team has been found through the platform itself, I’ve hired six people before actually meeting them.’ It seems the future of the job market that Alec Ross pinpoints in his book, is already here.
SPRING 2016
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LIFE IN ESTONIA #41
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