Good People of vitruta: Ecem Korkmaz Gelal

Welcome Ecem. Let us introduce you to those who follow Good People of Vitruta. Who is Ecem Korkmaz Gelal? What does he do, how did he start, how does he continue?

I was born and raised in Istanbul. I graduated from Boğaziçi University Mechanical Engineering. I am a mathematician, I love dealing with data. When I realized that doing engineering in Turkey would not be exactly the way I imagined, it was like I found myself in marketing. I first worked at Turkcell for 4 years, and that period of my career was an important experience in terms of getting to know a corporate structure closely and gaining business discipline.

After four years in a corporate company, I started working at Twentify and had the opportunity to get to know the startup world closely for a year. Of course, in the meantime, I had different projects. For example, Istanbul will one day be a startup hub and this
Anticipating that startups will need employees, a platform focused on this
I realized that there was no such thing, so I launched startupjobs.istanbul.

This project taught me a lot about the startup world and was very helpful in learning the recruitment processes. While I was thinking about what would be the “next thing” for me after Twentify, I realized how many software developer postings there were on star-tup jobs. Istanbul: “Everyone is looking for a software developer, but no one can find them. “There is an opening here and I can get a job targeting this place.” I thought and founded TalentGrid with my wife Erdem in 2019.

So, what is TalentGrid, which we have heard a lot about lately? Can you talk about it briefly?

TalentGrid is a platform that matches software developers with technology companies. With the increase in demand for software developers, the traditional job posting, job application and evaluation process has been completely reversed for these profiles. I can say that TalentGrid was the pioneer of this in Turkey.

The effort and time spent by companies while searching for software developers and the exposure of software developers
The primary goal of the platform is to reduce the noise they experience. The system works like this: software developers create a profile for themselves on TalentGrid. What technologies do they know, what skills do they have, and what are the ways to change jobs?
They enter their criteria into their profiles. We match software developers with companies on our platform with the matching algorithm we developed.

It has been about two years since we entered the startup world with TalentGrid. We are now a team of 3 founding partners and 18 people, and we will grow even more in the coming period. I have built my life 100% around software developers. Of course, the demand for software developers is not only in Turkey but all over the world. This year, we will focus on global/foreign companies and serve as a bridge to provide these companies with access to software developers in developing markets such as Turkey.
we want.

Then, at this point, let me build a bridge from TalentGrid to Vitruta :) As someone who has seen both the corporate and startup sides, can you tell us how your clothing habits in your daily life have changed?

Lifestyle changes a lot between these two worlds anyway. I am someone who did his compulsory internship at the factory before graduating, and then experienced corporate marketing in the Head Office environment at Turkcell. In business life, I was exposed to jacket and shirt, and I also had to wear high heels. I still have those shoes. If you ask what you are doing, when you are wearing it; I only wear it at weddings now :)

With the transition to the startup world, of course, the transition to sneakers made me incredibly happy. While there is no pressure on what hours to work due to the habit of working from home, I think it is no longer possible for companies to set a rule on what to wear.

I myself like to dress comfortably: a loose shirt, nice jeans, my favorite sneakers underneath. That's why Vitruta's brands appeal to me so much.

Where do you spend most of your time in Istanbul?

I love the Bosphorus in Istanbul. I have been living in Arnavutköy for about 9 years. When I moved to Arnavutköy, there were only fishermen; The only place that wasn't a fisherman was a place with a strange concept called Büfedebar, which was in the current location of Eylül (former Luzia) and sold toast along with cocktails. Of course, it is a very popular district now. If you ask me, the old version was much nicer, but it always has a special place in my heart because it still tries to preserve the neighborhood feeling to some extent.

The activity I have enjoyed most for a while is cycling on the Bosphorus route between Arnavutköy and Rumeli Kavağı. Erdem and I have invested a little in the cycling business, we go cycling together at least once a week.

I know cinema has a special place for you too.

One of my favorite things in life is watching movies. I especially love European, Far Eastern and Iranian cinema and follow it closely. Each film is a new door opening to a different world for me; That's why I love watching, thinking about it, reading it, and evaluating it with my friends. For example, when I first watched it, Antonioni's miscommunication trilogy (L'Avventura, La Notte, L'eclisse) had a tremendous impact on me. Modernization, city skylines, the relationship between people and their environment changing with this modernization, bilateral relations, loneliness...

As socialization and city life suddenly disappeared from our daily lives during the pandemic, these themes became something to rethink. For myself, one of the things I miss most since the beginning of the pandemic is going to the movies.
happened. Following the festivals in this season in Istanbul, reviewing the films, running around the streets of Beyoğlu according to those film sessions, having a meal at Ara Cafe, drinking a coffee at Urban... Just because of this ritual, Beyoğlu is always very valuable to me.

I also know you enjoy listening to podcasts!

Yes, absolutely! Especially on long car trips, Erdem and I have developed a great little ritual. We start the journey with podcasts that are more informative, like Fularsız Entellik. Then we switch to something lighter, like Nasıl Olunur by Nilay Örnek, with its relaxed conversations. As we get closer to our destination, we finish off with something more entertaining like Rabarba Talk. It’s become one of our favorite ways to make the travel time fly by!

Ecem's picks:

Les Benjamins T-Shirt
Reebok Sneakers
Rains Laptop Case
Fine People Community Shirt
Miklan Necklace