At Manchester Digital, we regularly shine a light on our members to understand more about their roles and their work within Greater Manchester’s digital and technology community. This week, we’re speaking with Brian Whigham, CEO and Founder of hiring website platform Venn.
Brian, as CEO of Venn, what originally inspired you to create the careers platform, and how does your personal vision influence the experience you're building for both employers and candidates?
I spent almost a decade in recruitment, including time at a business that scaled from 8 recruiters to 150. That kind of growth doesn't happen passively. You're in it, feeling the pressure of hiring at pace and learning first-hand just how much the experience a company creates shapes whether the right people even consider you.
After that I moved into consumer brand and marketing, working with major B2B and B2C brands around the globe, in industries where brand experience is the product. And I started to wonder why recruitment should look and feel so different to any of this? Consumer brands earn loyalty through how they show up. They obsess over the experience they create and the image they present. Hiring teams, by and large, don't have the tools to do the same. That's the gap Venn was built to fill.
From your leadership perspective, how do you see recruitment evolving over the next few years? What do you think are the biggest challenges — and the most exciting opportunities — shaping the industry right now?
Candidates, and their expectations, have changed. Around three quarters of job seekers research an employer and form a view long before they submit an application. Social proof is a huge part of this. In the same way we check Google reviews before booking a restaurant or read what people are saying on Rotten Tomatoes before committing to a film, candidates are looking for signals about what a company is actually like to work for.
That shift has been happening for years, and a lot of employers haven't caught up. Often the challenge is that HR and Marketing both feel the pain of a poor hiring presence, but neither fully owns it. HR owns hiring, Marketing owns the brand and engagement piece. It falls between two functions and gets neglected. The companies who take ownership of their digital hiring experience are pulling ahead, building something they own, rather than renting attention through job boards and hoping for the best. That's the direction things are heading.
AI and automation are transforming recruitment rapidly. How do you believe technology can actually make hiring feel more personal and human, and what guiding principles shape how Venn approaches this?
This is something we think about a lot. The risk with any technology in hiring is that it creates more distance through faster processes, more automation, less human connection. That's not what we're about.
Our principle is simple: technology should support better decisions and stronger connections, not replace them. What that looks like in practice is giving companies the tools to show who they are - their culture, their people, their story - so a candidate can decide whether they want to be part of it. AI plays a role in things like writing job specs or helping filter applications, but it shouldn’t remove the human from the process.
The companies getting this right are using technology to create space for better conversations, not fewer of them.
What's your take on the future of job boards? Do you see them continuing to play a key role, or does a different model of talent attraction excite you more?
Job boards will continue to exist, but they'll evolve. We're already seeing a shift from flat-fee, duration-based models to performance-based, subscription, and value-added pricing. That's telling as it reflects the pressure they're under to prove their return.
The smarter shift for companies is moving from renting attention to owning it. When you pour spend into a job board, the moment you stop paying, you disappear. But when you build your own hiring presence you're building something that compounds. Something that tells your story, attracts the right people, and gives candidates a real sense of what working there is like.
How has your background and experience across the recruitment sector influenced how you support digital and tech businesses in the North West?
There's something about the North West that's always had an instinct for doing things differently. This is the region that gave the world Factory Records, shaped modern music culture, and built one of the most recognisable fashion and creative scenes in Europe. That creativity didn't disappear. You can feel it in the digital and tech community here now. Just look at what Manchester Digital has built and you’ll see it - the events, the energy, the appetite people have for connecting and pushing the industry forward.
It's a scene that wants to grow - digital and tech businesses here are ambitious. They need a hiring presence that keeps pace with that ambition - one that reflects how seriously they take their brand, their culture, and the people they're trying to bring in. We’re excited to have the opportunity to play a part in the success of the companies in this space.
In what ways are you - and Venn under your leadership - working to strengthen the North West digital and tech ecosystem? Are there particular commitments or initiatives you feel strongly about driving forward?
A big part of it is investing in building the business here. Keeping jobs in the region, and therefore investing in the people who live and contribute to the local economy and community is how we think about our responsibility to the North West ecosystem.
We're based at Alderley Park, where we’re surrounded by people who want to build something sustainable that makes a difference, and we have the same ethos. We're committed to creating an environment people want to come to work in, and to giving people in the region the opportunity to build a real career in tech - where they can grow, develop, and build something they're proud of.
Thank you Brian!
To find out more about Venn, click here.
