MAKING THE STEP TOWARDS AΝ INCLUSIVE LABOUR MARKET

A seed was sown during an interview in 2011 in Sweden’s largest circulation morning newspaper. Eleven years later in 2022, Poyan Sandnell established the staffing company, Catch Me. In January 2024, an inclusive service was launched with fully automatic matching, setting an entirely new standard for finding personnel or securing a job.

Poyan sitter i en soffa med växter i bakgrunden

In 1987, four-year-old Poyan Asghari and his family moved to Sweden as a consequence of the Iranian Revolution. They were warmly welcomed by host families in their new hometown of Katrineholm. The Asghari family was introduced to the community, learned a new language, and celebrated both Christmas and Midsummer with their new friends. Poyan also followed his father’s advice to make Swedish friends to ease integration into the community in their new homeland. Poyan quickly adapted to his new surroundings and was never bothered or harassed because of his background.

But as the years passed and Poyan grew older, he encountered more obstacles. For instance, before the summer vacation of 1999, sixteen-year-old Poyan and his classmates looked forward to getting summer jobs in Katrineholm. Everyone got a job except Poyan and another student. But Poyan was determined that he would have a summer job, so he cycled around, leafleting letterboxes in the town’s residential areas. He offered his gardening services, and the jobs quickly started pouring in. In true entrepreneurial spirit, he also erected signs where he had carried out work – he had seen construction companies do this – and his good reputation spread quickly. Poyan worked the hardest and earned more than anyone else in the class of the summer of 1999.

His schoolwork was excellent. He landed good jobs, and later, he started his own businesses. But something bothered him during the first few years after school. He reckoned that he should have been invited to attend more job interviews, considering his grades and qualifications. Thus, in 2004, he registered the surname Sandnell with the Swedish Patent and Registration Office. Poyan did this partly because he felt Swedish and wanted a Swedish name, but deep down, he also hoped it would open doors to future employers.

In 2011, Poyan was interviewed in the Swedish daily newspaper DN regarding the name change he had made seven years previously, and it was at this point that the idea of helping others experiencing difficulties entering the job market was born. Poyan was well aware that many were suffering even greater frustrations than he himself. The question was just how to tackle this issue. Numerous ideas arose in his mind over the intervening years, but it was not until 2022 that the pieces really started to fall into place. Poyan had sold his company and was considering what to do next.

The idea of a digital staffing company began to take shape and contained two important parameters; the matching would be fully automatic, and the service would be inclusive. Qualifications should determine who gets a job, not age, gender, name, or appearance. Later that year, Poyan went from thought to action, and he registered Catch Me AB (publ).

In early January 2024, Catch Me’s inclusive service was launched on the Swedish market.

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