What began as a start-up connecting South Africans to tech jobs has evolved into a talent intelligence platform aimed at tackling the hiring paradox locking young professionals out of the workforce.
Credipple was founded in 2017 as a digital marketplace linking local tech talent with local and international employment opportunities. It has now developed into a platform that uses work-based simulations to verify real-world skills, helping young professionals build skills and experience that employers are looking for.
Co-founder and CEO Kgololo Lekoma said Credipple’s evolution into a talent intelligence platform is driven by a vision to mobilise African talent to help build the continent.
He said the goal is to help young people understand where they currently are in terms of their skills, identify their skills gaps, close those gaps, and ultimately contribute more effectively to the job market.
“One of the biggest challenges we’ve seen is that young people don’t have access to work-integrated learning,” said Lekoma, who wants to facilitate graduates’ transition from learning to earning.
He noted that internships, boot camps and graduate programmes are often out of reach for young professionals, particularly for those living outside major cities, where most job opportunities are concentrated.
The shelf life of skills is decreasing. Skills are losing their market value a lot quicker. You have to invest in your upskilling and reskilling if you’re going to continue to stay relevant in the job market
— Kgololo Lekoma, Credipple co-founder and CEO
“Most job advertisements you’ll see online always list a minimum years of experience, but that’s a chicken-and-egg situation,” Lekoma said, adding that if entry-level positions require increasingly more work experience, graduates often have no way to gain that experience, creating a paradox for early talent trying to break into the job market.
Credipple aims to address this gap through its work-integrated simulations and marketplace. Those who pass the assessments have their profiles made available to employers and recruiters on the Credipple marketplace.
Credipple’s approach to building simulations is demand-led. “We try to build simulations where there is demand for specific skills in the market,” Lekoma said. To ensure relevance, Credipple engages with subject-matter experts, industry associations and employers to understand exactly what they are looking for in talent.
“We are more focused on skills than job roles,” Lekoma said, noting that one of the biggest shifts in the labour market is toward skills-based hiring, with employers increasingly looking for demonstrated capability.
“The shelf life of skills is decreasing. Skills are losing their market value a lot quicker. You have to invest in your upskilling and reskilling if you’re going to continue to stay relevant in the job market.”
Credipple simulations enable young professionals to provide tangible proof of their talents, which Lekoma said has become increasingly important with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in both hiring and job-seeking processes.
“Everybody is using AI. Employers are using AI to screen CVs, but at the same time, talent is using AI to improve their CVs. This is effectively creating a trust deficit in the hiring process.”
In the next three years, we’re looking to become Africa’s leading talent intelligence platform. For us, a country is its people. So if we’re going to build our country and our continent, you need the right people
— Kgololo Lekoma
Credipple does not issue accreditations for its simulations. Lekoma said this is a deliberate choice, given how quickly the market is evolving. He explained that the process of formally accrediting courses or assessments can be slow, and by the time it is completed, “product updates have rolled out and the market has shifted”.
Instead, Credipple aligns its simulations to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), a globally recognised framework that defines skills and competencies for digital, data and technology careers. This allows the platform to benchmark skills against international standards without being slowed down by formal accreditation processes.
This week, Credipple also expanded its offering with the launch of its Digital Skills League (DSL), where professionals complete simulations and subsequently compete on leaderboards to unlock opportunities with hiring companies.
Currently in the pilot phase with multiple education partners such as the University of the Western Cape, IMM Graduate School, and TVET colleges in Vhembe and Ekurhuleni East, the DSL also serves as a feeder into Credipple’s broader marketplace.
“Young people are trained very well, but they don’t really understand that the job market is a competitive environment,” Lekoma said, adding that the platform is designed to help young people better understand how to position themselves for employment.
Credipple has a team of about nine people, mostly focused on tech and experience design, to build its simulations, along with a small business development function and a marketing team.
“In the next three years, we’re looking to become Africa’s leading talent intelligence platform,” Lekoma said, adding that Credipple aims to power the continent’s talent ecosystem. “For us, a country is its people. So if we’re going to build our country and our continent, you need the right people.”
He added that one of the company’s key goals is to get the DSL operating in at least eight African territories within the same time frame.
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