Hellowork, one of France's leading mobile-first job search platforms with 1M+ monthly active users, integrated Octopus Community to embed a career community directly inside its app — 22.5% of its users have visited the community, with a 60% return visit rate.
Why Hellowork bet on community
About Hellowork
Hellowork is France's leading mobile-first job search platform. Over one million candidates use the app each month to find opportunities, track applications, receive job alerts, and explore company profiles. Hellowork operates a dual-sided model: free for job seekers, subscription-based recruitment tools for employers.
The challenge: from search tool to career companion
Job search is episodic. Users come to the app when they need a job — then disengage once they find one, or lose motivation along the way. Hellowork wanted to change that: become the place job seekers turn to throughout their career for peer advice on interviews, salary, and next moves, and for the collective motivation to keep going. A career companion, not just a search engine.
Building this in-house was not an option: the engineering cost and time-to-market of a full social product would have consumed months of mobile roadmap.
How Hellowork launched its in-app community
Hellowork integrated Octopus Community's native SDK: a fully managed community infrastructure with SSO, AI-powered moderation, and no custom backend required. Android launched first, iOS two months later, with a progressive rollout on both platforms from 10% to 90%.
On top of standard features, Hellowork deployed:
- Notification badge on the community entry point
- Video posts
- Posts with CTA button, redirecting to a chosen URL or deeplink
- Custom moderation rules and sentiment analysis
What the community made possible
Peer advice and collective motivation to keep going
Finding a job in France takes an average of 10 months (France Travail, 2024): motivation is a real obstacle along the way. The community gives Hellowork users two things the listings can't: actionable peer advice on interviews, salary negotiation, and CVs, and the collective energy of people going through the same experience. A third of community visitors return more than four times, building a consistent habit inside the app.
A complement to the core product, not a competitor
The community is designed to work alongside Hellowork's core features, not overlap with them. Job applications and recruitment posts are banned — job seeking stays in the core product, conversation and advice happen in the community. This clear boundary keeps both surfaces focused and relevant.
Polls: the standout engagement format
With 100k+ poll answers per month, polls are the community's most engaging format — more engaging than a like. A poll asks users to take a stance and shows them immediately how their peers voted. That dynamic drives participation from users who would never write a post but will always answer a question, driving the community's top engagement rate.
Brand content, amplified inside the app
Hellowork already produces editorial content: career tips, market data, interview guides. The community gives this content a dedicated, engaged audience inside the app. Video posts — available exclusively to the brand, not to regular users — are a high-quality, attention-grabbing format for reaching users who are already in a career mindset.
AI moderation, custom rules, zero overhead
Hellowork's community handles sensitive territory: employer criticism, job loss, salary disputes. Octopus Community's AI moderation automatically flags and shadowbans harmful content. On top, Hellowork added custom rules — including prevention of CVs containing personal information via image moderation — and sentiment analysis to catch posts that are overly negative toward the brand or require customer support escalation. This gives the team time to respond before frustration compounds. In total, 18.5% of messages are flagged or moderated — with no dedicated moderation team.
From search tool to daily companion
Five months in, Hellowork's community has reached 25% of its user base — not through a separate platform, but inside the same app they already use. Users return not just to apply for jobs, but to ask questions, share experiences, and stay motivated. The community turned a transactional app into something people come back to every day.
In-app community can boost your app too
See how you can unlock the retention, engagement and monetization gains that in-app communities already deliver for leading apps.
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