Built for career moves that need more than a CV.
After hiring around 200 people, I built PivotDesk to help strong candidates reach relevant people before an application filter decides they do not fit.
The application process leaves little room for context
A popular role can attract hundreds of applications. Hiring teams have little time to decide which resume/CVs deserve a closer look.
A move into a new role, industry or country can look risky in those few seconds. PivotDesk gives experienced professionals another route: choose suitable companies, find relevant people inside them and explain the move in a real conversation.
The experience behind PivotDesk
I'm Jeff McClelland. I was early at Skype and Wise, where I hired across product, analytics and People/HR as the teams grew.
I later co-founded Salv. Over seven years, my co-founders and I interviewed every hire: roughly 140 people across engineering, product, sales, marketing, legal, finance, compliance, customer success and operations.
Across these companies, I hired around 200 people and sat on the hiring side of well over 1,000 interviews.
I know the candidate side too. I have found jobs twice in countries where I had no network. Landing my first role in the Netherlands from Canada took 172 applications and eight months.
Hiring showed me why capable people get overlooked. Going through it myself showed me how little practical help exists for finding another way into the right companies.
I also write at Jeff's Working Theory and on LinkedIn.
What the hiring side made clear
Good candidates are easy to miss
When the title, industry or country looks unfamiliar, a fast application review may never reach the useful part of the story.
Most people are left to guess
Job seekers are rarely taught how to choose companies, contact people or prepare for useful career conversations.
A serious search needs a process
Clear targets, messages written for one person, respectful follow-up and preparation make the work easier to repeat.
Why PivotDesk focuses on the first message
In the early pilot, people often agreed with the strategy and still stopped at the first message. A list and a template were not enough. They needed to know why the person was right, why the request was fair and what to do if the answer was silence.
That changed the product. PivotDesk now helps users research the person, draft a short message and run an AI review against clear rules before they send. The user approves every word and sends it from their own account.
PivotDesk will never make it easier to send a bad message at scale. It does make it easier to send one good message, learn from what happens and repeat the process without becoming pushy.
What early users have done
- Built focused lists of companies and contacts
- Sent tailored messages because they knew what to say
- Received useful replies, warm introductions and meetings at target companies
A small company, built close to its users
PivotDesk is a founder-led product. Feedback from real searches is used to improve the guidance and make unfamiliar work easier to complete.
The packages do not include guaranteed individual access to me. The method is built into the product so users can run the search themselves.
Legal entity: Whimsy OÜ, registered in Estonia. PivotDesk is its first product.
Location: Tallinn, Estonia.
Founder: Jeff McClelland, LinkedIn.
Unsure whether PivotDesk fits your situation? Email [email protected].