We are a small editorial and engineering group split between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Between us we have hired, been hired, and spent too many afternoons reading CVs that never said what the person actually wanted to work on. Talentack grew out of that frustration: a place where profiles are written by the people they describe, kept current, and read by recruiters who already know what they are looking for.
A short record of the decisions, missteps and small fixes that turned a shared spreadsheet of contacts into a working profile directory for South African teams.
March 2022
The first version was a shared sheet of Cape Town designers and Johannesburg backend developers, passed between three hiring managers. It broke the moment two people edited the same row. We started sketching a profile format instead: role focus, tools, availability, references.
September 2022
We asked candidates to write their own plain-language summary rather than paste a CV paragraph. The difference showed up fast. Recruiters in Durban and Pretoria told us they could tell within a few lines whether someone had actually described their week or just reformatted a job title.
February 2023
Hiring managers kept asking for a way to send one structured request instead of a chain of emails. We built the brief: scope, timeline, work setup, and the specific skills needed. Profiles that listed availability windows clearly got answered first. That was not a surprise, but it was a useful confirmation.
November 2023
We added a compact portfolio strip to each profile so a reader could see three or four real pieces without leaving the page. Around the same time we tightened the reference field after hearing that long lists of names were rarely checked. Three well-briefed referees, kept current, turned out to be the working number.
Mid 2024
Browsing by keyword alone was producing noise. We grouped profiles into skill clusters, added seniority bands from junior to senior, and made work setup a first-class filter for hybrid and fully remote roles. Small studios in the creative and technical fields were the first to use it properly.
Today
A profile that was accurate last year is a liability this year. We now prompt people to refresh availability, tools and references on a rolling basis, and we treat that upkeep as part of the product rather than an afterthought. The team behind it is small, spread across Gauteng and the Western Cape, and still reads the briefs that come through.
The directory did not start as a directory. It started as a shared spreadsheet between three people who kept getting asked the same question: who in South Africa actually does this work, and how do you reach them without a chain of forwarded emails.
First pass
Johannesburg, early days
The first version held forty names, a column for tools and a column for availability. It worked until two recruiters wanted the same person in the same week and neither could tell whether the entry was still accurate. That friction set the rule we still follow: a profile is only useful if the person keeps it current themselves.
Structure
Cape Town and Durban input
We sat with freelancers and studio leads across Cape Town and Durban to work out which fields earn their place. Role focus, tools in real use, project history, availability windows and references survived. Long skill lists and rewritten CV paragraphs did not. The portfolio strip came later, once it was clear that a single image or link often answers more than a paragraph.
Briefs
Pretoria hiring managers
Hiring managers in Pretoria told us the same thing: the problem was not finding people, it was the volume of unstructured messages. So we built the brief as a short, structured note that names the task, the setup and the window. Profiles that match get it directly. Everyone else keeps working.
Now
Across four cities
Profiles now span junior to senior bands, creative and technical clusters, and remote, hybrid and on-site setups. The editorial layout you are reading on is deliberate: off-white pages, deep indigo headings and amber markers, so a recruiter can scan skill tags and availability without squinting. The next step is keeping references fresh and availability honest as people move between contracts.