Tälist 2024 Impact Report: Advancing Animal Welfare with Careers in Alternative Proteins

By PV @ 2025-02-11T09:19 (+15)

TL;DR: Tälist connects talent with impactful roles in the Alternative Proteins sector that reduce environmental harm and farmed animal suffering. In 2024, we posted over 17,800 job listings and facilitated over 16,700 applications, resulting in approximately 210 meaningful career placements, 30+ of which could be counterfactual. Despite challenges in scaling and resource limitations, we're committed to refining our impact measurement and expanding services, with plans to onboard 100 new clients in 2025. We’re focused on helping employers fill roles faster and providing candidates with the tools they need to succeed in the industry that potentially has a great impact on sustainability and animal welfare.

1. Data and Limitations

Tälist derives its impact data from a combination of platform metrics, third-party data, and direct surveys:

• Platform Metrics: As most of our services are platform-based, we can track quantitative data such as the number of job postings, user registrations, clicks on "apply," event registrations, career coaching bookings, and more.
• Career Tracking: We analyzed the career changes of 858 logged-in users based on updates shown on their LinkedIn profiles.
• Surveys: On November 4, 2024, we conducted a follow-up survey, inviting 2,826 recipients to share their career outcomes and feedback. We received 237 complete responses (~8.4%).

Data Analysis and Extrapolation

The collected data was used to analyze and extrapolate outcomes across the broader user base, providing insights into platform impact and user behavior.

Risks and Limitations

• Extrapolation Risks: Extrapolating results from survey respondents or subsets of the user base assumes that these groups are representative of all platform users. However, self-selection bias may influence outcomes—for example, those who responded might feel more strongly (positively or negatively) toward Tälist compared to non-respondents.
• Sample Size: With 237 survey respondents out of a broader user base, the sample size may limit the statistical robustness of the extrapolated results.
• Causality Limitations: While we track quantitative data, e.g., clicks on "apply," we cannot systematically track every single action and its outcome in terms of job placements. This limits our ability to draw definitive cause-and-effect conclusions about Tälist’s impact on career outcomes.

We are committed to continually improving our methodology to enhance accuracy and transparency in reporting our impact. If you have any questions about the report or methodology, please feel free to contact us at info@talist.org.

2. Our programs and services 

Alt. Protein Job Board

Tälist offers over 3,000 job listings monthly in the Alternative Protein sector, more than any comparable platform we’ve analyzed. These listings cover a wide range of roles, from sales to food science, and seniority levels from internships to executive positions. Compared to other job boards, we also offer features such as the impact calculator, which highlights the real-world impact of various roles, such as the number of animal lives saved or CO2 emissions reduced.

Alt. Protein Talent Pool

With a rapidly growing talent pool of 4,000+ registered candidates and 16,000 applications, Tälist attracted talent from across the globe in 2024. The majority of users came from the United States (37%), followed by strong engagement in the United Kingdom (12%) and Germany (11%). Other active regions included the Netherlands, Singapore, India, and Australia, highlighting our global reach.

Our platform attracts diverse talent: 20% of applications were for senior roles, 6% for executive-level positions, and 62% were split evenly between entry- and mid-level roles. Internships made up 8% of applications.

Plant-based roles dominated applications (49%), followed by cultivated proteins (12%), precision fermentation (8%), and emerging technologies like biomass fermentation.

AI-Powered Job Matchmaking

Launched in May 2024, our AI matchmaking tool ensures candidates and employers find the best match faster and with greater accuracy. Since the launch, over 8,600 matches with a score of 9 or higher (out of 10) and 270,000+ matches with a score of 7 or higher were found.

Career Resources

With our resources, we help professionals succeed and find the right job for them. Our services include:

• Masterclass in Alternative Protein Careers: Our first cohort had 34 participants, with a 94% completion rate. These participants are now equipped with the knowledge to advance in their Alternative Protein careers. Another 34 participants completed our updated second cohort, a six-week online course.
• Career Events: In six online events, 284 active participants connected with industry professionals in the Alt. Protein sector. Events like “A Day in the Life of …” with guest speakers from the industry and our “Fireside Chats” with Tälist’s CEO, Pia Voltz, had up to 300 registrations per event.
• Career Coaching: Our website booked 193 first consultation sessions, which provide candidates with personalized one-on-one sessions to help them find the right roles.
• Impact Benchmark: This tool informs candidates about the impact of their roles in tangible metrics, such as CO2 emissions saved or animal lives impacted.

Meaningful Roles

• We posted over 17,800 job openings this year and facilitated over 16,700 applications for roles that make a difference.
• We enabled approximately 210+ impactful career placements, of which 30+ could be categorized as counterfactual (= they might not have happened without Tälist).
• With up to 30,000+ page views per month, an average of 4 minutes on the platform (for candidates who accepted cookies), and email open rates of up to 65%, we see significant interest in working in the Alternative Protein sector and highlight the demand for the platform and services Tälist provides.

Feedback

To complement the above-mentioned figures and facts, here is some ‘anecdotal evidence’ from candidates, showcasing how Tälist has positively impacted their career journeys and supported their professional development:

• “You had relevant job offers that I haven't seen elsewhere”
• “Impact Career Coaching helped me create a roadmap for transitioning my decades-long career to a new purposeful sector.”
• “After the Masterclass, I was able to approach some companies and already have an interview scheduled to discuss work opportunities.”

3. Challenges and Lessons Learned

While Tälist has achieved significant milestones, our journey has not been without challenges and setbacks. Acknowledging these setbacks is essential for providing a balanced perspective and highlighting our commitment to continuous improvement.

Partnerships That Evolved or Ended

While many partnerships have flourished, some have come to a natural conclusion. For example, the closure of valued collaborators such as Alt_Collective and Blue Horizon highlights the volatility of the Alternative Protein space. While this represents a setback to our mission, it also creates space for new collaborations and partnerships that align with our strategy.

Resource Limitations

We have been fortunate to receive grants and support, but resource limitations – both in funding and human capital – have influenced the pace of platform development and the rollout of new features. Constant reprioritization and adaptability have been critical to navigating these constraints, allowing us to focus on delivering value despite limited resources.

Delays in Execution

Although it was a strategic decision to first build up the candidate side and establish a fully functioning AI platform, we experienced unplanned delays in customer acquisition on the employer side. These delays were compounded by personal health challenges and difficulties with past collaborations. Additionally, our initial projections for candidate placements and employer acquisition were overly optimistic, leading us to adopt an approach that didn’t deliver the anticipated results. Initially, we over-relied on marketing for employer acquisition and underestimated the need for trust-building and education in selling a new service. We’ve since corrected this by adopting a sales-driven strategy supported by professional sales coaching.

Refining Measurement and Evaluation (M&E)

One of our key priorities for the future is refining our M&E system. We aim to gather more concrete data, moving away from extrapolation and relying on more direct tracking mechanisms. As we continue to engage more employers, we anticipate that tracking the impact of our efforts will become easier. This will help us better quantify the long-term success of our matchmaking platform and its impact on the Alternative Protein sector.

4. 2025 Goals

Expanding B2B Services

One of our primary goals for 2025 is to expand our B2B services, which will help us further scale our impact. Our target for 2025 is to onboard 100 new clients, including a mix of established companies and high-growth startups within the Alternative Protein sector. We aim to reduce hiring times for these clients by up to one month than industry averages. Specifically, we plan to achieve this by:

• Introducing a premium service: Within 48 hours, employers will be connected with pre-selected, mission-aligned candidates that they can directly interview.
• Further collaborations: We’ll expand our network of industry partners to provide additional value to clients through joint initiatives, thought leadership, and collaborative research projects.
• A new event series: AI in Hiring is designed to educate and connect employers with effective hiring strategies to stay competitive in today’s labor market.

Growing Collaborations

Our partnerships remain key to our mission, and we are deeply grateful for the support we’ve received from formal and informal advisors and mentors, incubation and acceleration programs, funders and grant-makers, and our strategic partners. These include non-profits, industry associations, investors, media companies, podcasts, and coaches. Rather than naming every contributor, we have listed the organizations and individuals who have supported us here.

These collaborations have helped us to:

• Offer our services to more candidates & companies within the movement.
• Refine our platform and strategy with insights from experienced advisors.
• Connect candidates with valuable resources and expertise, complementing rather than duplicating the efforts of industry stakeholders. We would like to give special recognition to Alt_Collective and Blue Horizon, which have closed their businesses.

Technology and Platform Enhancements

Based on user feedback and data, we will continue to enhance the technology behind our platform, ensuring it remains the most advanced solution for matching talent with transformative roles in the food tech and alternative protein space.

Impact Measurement

In addition to expanding our services, we are committed to refining how we measure and communicate the impact of our work. Our focus is on providing a comprehensive understanding of the real-world effects of our platform on candidates and employers. This includes refining how we track success metrics such as job placements, hiring times, and career advancements.

If you have any questions or comments, if you’re interested in exploring a partnership, or want to learn more about our services for candidates and employers in the Alt. Protein industry, please contact us at info@talist.org.