Rec Tech: the Recruiting Technology Podcast

Diversity technology platforms are starting to spring up and get funding. The latest entrant into this market is Canvas formerly known as Jumpstart they recently raised a $20 million dollar funding round and we’ll get into that with our guest. TOPICS I want to get into the rebranding story but First of all what is canvas…? Describe what your platform does Tell us about the origins of business Rebranding, how do you arrive at the new name? How easy was it to get the domain? DRP….Explain the product/user experience Any success stories ? Plans for the new round of funding? Tips for diversity recruiting? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. Supreme Court has given LinkedIn another chance in its legal fight to stop HR technology firm HiQ Labs from scraping LinkedIn user data against the company’s demands.  The nation’s highest court this week issued a writ of certiorari, noting it may hear the case, but telling the appeals court to first redo its earlier decision in favor of HiQ. The court told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to retry the case in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling in a similar case. HiQ Labs, founded in 2012 in Silicon Valley, scrapes publicly available data, including LinkedIn member updates, and analyzes it to predict when workers are likely to quit their jobs. It then sells its conclusions to employers.  https://aimgroup.com/2021/06/15/top-court-gives-linkedin-another-chance-in-hiq-scraping-case/  Beamery is the latest company to enter the HR tech arms race, the company which calls itself a “talent operating system” that helps companies attract, engage and retain top talent, has announced US$138m in Series C funding led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers’), through its Teachers’ Innovation Platform (TIP).  The round follows a record year for the company, which finished with 337% annual revenue growth in Q4, and surpassed one million roles filled on its platform during 2020.  This new investment will fuel extensive product development, accelerate commercial growth in existing and new geographies, double its rapidly growing employee base, and solidify Beamery’s leadership position in the talent space. https://hrtechfeed.com/beamery-raises-138m-hr-tech-arms-race-continues/ Gloat, pioneers of the Talent Marketplace platform that is reinventing work and careers in global enterprises, announced a $57M Series C funding round led by Accel, with participation from existing investors Eight Roads Ventures, Intel Capital, Magma Venture Partners, and PICO Partners.  With total funding of $92M, the company will accelerate product innovation and market expansion as it aims to bring workforce agility to every enterprise and more dynamic careers to every individual. https://hrtechfeed.com/gloat-raises-57m-for-internal-mobility-platform/ Candidate.co, a new way for people to connect their personal and professional networks with great jobs while earning money launches out of beta today. For “superconnectors” — people with networks of talented friends and peers — Candidate.co offers the best way to connect them with the right job, and pays between $2,400 – $6,000 for each successful match. For employers, Candidate.co helps them build a network of referrers outside of their own employees and alumni, increasing their reach and gaining access to new pools of talent.  The startup has secured $4M in seed funding from prominent investors and offers remote positions nationwide and in-office roles in Seattle, San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles https://hrtechfeed.com/referral-platform-candidate-co-raises-4-million-in-funding/  Sense, the AI-driven talent engagement and communication platform solutions for recruiting, today announced $16 million in Series C funding. Bringing the total funding amount to $40 million to date, this latest round will accelerate innovation and development of the company’s AI-powered talent communication and engagement suite.  Sense offers a singular engagement platform powered by AI and machine learning. It enables personalized communication across the entire talent lifecycle at scale, and also automates manual tasks for recruiters. Through this personalized approach, Sense customers experience on average; a 263% increase in candidates screened compared to a manual approach, reduced time to fill by 30-81% and up to 800 hours of recruiter time saved. https://hrtechfeed.com/sense-secures-16-million-for-talent-engagement-platform/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While traditionally leading the recovery following recessions, experts predict five million Americans will need to find new employment coming out of the COVID recovery. But how can staffing companies put these folks back to work amid the shifts of business and services?  Well, According to Aaron Elder CEO of software company Crelate, a platform for staffing and recruiting firms, you do that with what he calls ‘transferable velocity”, meaning looking for skills that are applicable and movable from industry to industry in order to bridge the divide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eightfold is at it again. After raising a $125 million dollar round round last they just announced a $220 million dollar series E round. Wow. They are now valued at 2.1 billin dollars.   The funds will be used to continue the growth and development of Eightfold’s AI-powered Talent Intelligence Platform and expand its growing partner ecosystem.   Since the announcement of Eightfold AI’s Series D funding round in October of 2020, the valuation of the organization has more than doubled. This is a direct result of the significant momentum achieved by customers and partners in the public and private sector. The innovation delivered through a single Talent Intelligence Platform is the foundation for leading global organizations as they prepare for the acceleration of changes in jobs, demand of evolving skills demand and other post-pandemic shifts in the workforce.  “Powered by AI and machine learning, Eightfold’s platform provides global enterprises with a single solution for managing the entire talent lifecycle, including hiring, retaining, and growing a diverse global workforce,” said Deep Nishar, Senior Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “We are pleased to partner with Ashutosh and the Eightfold team to support their ambition of transforming how enterprises manage talent and how people build their careers.”  https://hrtechfeed.com/eightfold-ai-raises-220m-series-e/   Talent Inc. the company that operates TopResume and TopCV, announced the acquisition of Imkey Holding, a global subscription-based platform for online resume-building. Based in the Netherlands, Imkey helps job seekers create job-winning resumes and CVs online through their builder platform on its global property, Resume.io, as well as its 10 additional localized sites. Since launching in 2012, Imkey has helped build more than 7 million resumes and CVs in over 100 countries.  “While most job seekers find tremendous success when working one-on-one with a professional resume writer, we also recognize that others may not be ready to make such an investment in their careers,” said Byron Matthews, Chief Executive Officer of Talent, which adds Resume.io to its suite of professional career-services brands that include TopResume, TopCV, and TopInterview.  “By acquiring a resume-building property such as Imkey’s Resume.io, we can strategically expand our service offerings to help those job seekers who either are creating a resume for the first time or who aren’t interested in working with a professional writer right now. In addition, Imkey’s extensive international presence will allow our organization to continue expanding its global footprint and empowering more professionals to take control of their careers and land the right job, sooner.”  https://hrtechfeed.com/talent-inc-acquires-another-resume-service-provider/   Loophire a startup out of nebraska has raised $300k seed round. Loophire’s technology solution combines algorithms that automate the initial match before giving each party the choice to pursue one another if the opportunity is right. For employers, Loophire goes beyond resumes to provide candidate assessments for skills, culture, and long-term fit, preliminary screening interviews, and customized services at performance-based pricing.  For job applicants, Loophire provides career coaching, timeline and career growth transparency, and regular communication throughout the hiring process. The result is a high-touch, curated experience for both companies and candidates.   Loophire says they address the critical gap in the hiring process — applicant experience. With more than two-thirds of job applicants reporting they have been turned off by a bad interview experience, companies cannot afford to be disengaged or unresponsive in a competitive jobs market. Loophire increases the probability of hire by 65% from “Introduction” to “Accepted Offer” through their streamlined approach. Because they deliver results at a fraction of the traditional cost, even smaller businesses and the qualified candidates they hire can access a superior hiring experience.---loophire.com https://hrtechfeed.com/silicon-prairie-startup-loophire-gets-300k-seed-round-for-assessment-tech/ Stoke, which operates in the freelance management system space, announced a $15.5 million Series A funding round. This was led by Battery Ventures, with participation from all previous investors and angels... To date, the company has raised $20 million. The investment allows Stoke to drive expansion and meet the rapidly growing demand from U.S. companies seeking to work more effectively in the changing workforce which includes both freelancers and full-time employees. Stoke was founded with the mission to help companies harness the power of the freelance revolution by simplifying the way they collaborate with the non-payroll workforce, which includes freelancers, contractors, consultants, agencies and gig workers.  Features all-in-one platform that enables companies to hire top talents quickly, set up automated onboarding workflows aligned with government guidelines, pay multiple invoices across 190 countries, all while ensuring management, finance and human resources teams have full visibility and control over budgets, in addition to automatic legal and tax compliance. https://hrtechfeed.com/freelance-management-system-stoke-raises-15-5-million/   ChartHop, the people analytics platform, has raised $35 million in Series B financing led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and other investors. The company previously raised $14 million in summer 2020.  ChartHop has seen exponential growth since 2019, going from a one-person company to a team of 75. During the same time period, ChartHop built a customer base of over 130 corporate customers and increased month-over-month revenue by 17% for the past 12 months. “ChartHop’s visual approach to people analytics allows leaders to make organizational planning and strategy decisions with confidence,” said Ulevitch. “We’re thrilled to lead ChartHop’s Series B because of their impressive growth, the company’s vision, and the terrific, mission-oriented team they’ve assembled.”   https://hrtechfeed.com/charthop-announces-35m-series-b-funding/   Theres a new tech talent platform….Commit announces its emergence from private-beta with an oversubscribed funding round to future-proof the careers of Canada’s best Startup Engineers. This first-of-its-kind professional network is designed to support developers who are passionate about building early-stage software, but who have been constrained by geography.  The platform uniquely provides peer-to-peer support and career development resources, and erases the friction between talent and opportunity by hiring engineers and then matching them with world-changing startups, regardless of location. The launch is fueled by an over-subscribed $6M seed round which was uniquely preempted by Commit’s own customers–the majority of whom are Canadian technical founders. The company already boasts a roster of 50+ high-profile startups that want to work with Commit Engineers. The funds will be used to 10x the number of Engineers on the platform in the next 12 months, and continue to build and invest in the programs that reach and support the best talent in this space. Interested Engineers can join the waitlist at Commit.dev today. The company is based in canada. https://hrtechfeed.com/commit-raises-6-million-for-canadian-software-engineer-community/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcasts are mainstream now so when I saw the news about Spokn, a startup which helps companies create their own audio I wanted to hear about what they are up to.  Spokn’s customers create podcasts for employee engagement; onboarding; diversity, initiatives; and learning & development. Joining me to discuss the company is one of their co-founders, Mariel Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eightfold AI, the provider of the Talent Intelligence Platform™, today announced its integration partnership with Greenhouse, the hiring software company, and availability of the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Suite for all Greenhouse customers.  https://hrtechfeed.com/eightfold-talent-intelligence-suite-now-available-on-greenhouse/ Pathrise, the leading online mentorship and job placement platform for tech professionals, announced today that it has secured $9 million in Series A Funding — including $5.5 million in new equity capital and $3.5 million in venture debt. https://hrtechfeed.com/tech-job-placement-platform-lands-9m/ Another niche gig marketplace has launched….YellowBird, a nationwide gig economy marketplace that matches vetted Risk and Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Professionals with businesses on-demand, has announced its raised $1.7 million in seed capital.  https://hrtechfeed.com/ehs-gig-marketplace-raises-1-7m/ Cadient Talent, a human resources software company, today revealed its latest technology, which infuses machine learning and augmented intelligence (AI) to help organizations identify and hire employees more efficiently and increase quality of hire. Cadient Decision PointTM is a recommendation engine that works with any applicant tracking system (ATS) to instantly analyze all applicants and present hiring managers with a short list of top candidates from which to choose.  https://hrtechfeed.com/cadient-talent-unveils-new-machine-learning-technology-to-redefine-how-companies-find-and-hire-hourly-workers/ Hibob, the HCM platform bob, announced its acquisition of Cassiopeia, a startup that developed AI-based workplace relationship analytics technology to help teams improve communication, collaboration, and work-life balance through advanced communication pattern analysis.  https://hrtechfeed.com/hibob-continues-acquires-workplace-relationships-analytics-startup-cassiopeia/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conversational Ai ---aka recruitment chatbots are being acquired at a record pace, last week Stepstone, a job board company bought Mya and PandoLogic acquired Wade&wendy. These deals make a lot of sense because each is working to drive traffic to jobs and the conversational AI helps to qualify and screen those candidates. Explain the problem you are trying to solve with this kind of acquisition? Explain what what and wendy does for a company (user experience) You ran some pilots with Wade&Wendy what were those results like? Challenges in hiring right now...What kind of application rates are you seeing on your clients jobs these days...its tough to hire right now? Will all your customer get this tech? Or will it be an Add on? Rename it? How will you be explaining what you are going forward? Are you now a “sourcing and screening” tech platform? Whats the future of programmatic and how do you see conversational AI evolving on next few years… Any new product announcements? More potential acquisitions? Making plans for hr tech this year? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congrats to Ziprecruiter is in order their stock debuted on the NYSE yesterday and closed the first day up 17%...it opened at 18 and closed at just over 21 bucks per share.  The ticker symbol is ZIP in case you want to look it up. ---- Spokn, the podcasting platform for work, announced that it has closed a $4M Seed round with funding from NEA, Y Combinator, along with several other investors The financing will support further market expansion and enable Spokn to enhance the platform for content creators. Spokn was founded by Fawzy Abu Seif, Mariel Davis and Mohammed Galal and launched as an internal communications platform in November 2020. Since that time, Spokn has grown rapidly, attracting customers such as ServiceNow, Podium, Udemy, and others. Beyond internal communications, Spokn’s customers create podcasts for more effective employee engagement; onboarding; diversity, equity and inclusion; and learning & development. “Employees do their best work when they trust their leadership, are connected to their colleagues, understand their company’s direction, and feel motivated to contribute” said Fawzy Abu Seif, CEO and Co-founder of Spokn. “But existing tools weren’t designed to be the cultural connective tissue that remote or hybrid teams need. Podcasting is the perfect fit for reaching employees in the format they love – whether for messages from executives, staff spotlights, or stories on company history and values. Spokn is the only part of a company’s workstack that keeps employees connected while giving them a break from their screen.”   Stay tuned to the pod because I’ll be interviewing Mariel Davis in a few weeks. As a podcaster I am very intrigued by what spokn is up to hear. https://hrtechfeed.com/podcasting-for-work-spokn-gets-4-million/ Workrise, (formely known as Rigup)  the leading workforce management platform for the skilled trades, has raised a $300 million Series E round  Workrise connects skilled laborers with infrastructure and energy companies looking to staff and manage projects efficiently. The company’s online platform matches workers with more than 500 companies in its network, manages payroll and benefits, and provides access to training. Founded in 2014 as a platform to match skilled laborers with companies in the oil and gas industry, Workrise has since broadened its business to serve companies and trade workers in the solar, wind, commercial construction, and defense industries. The company will use the latest investment to continue to expand into new markets served by its platform. https://hrtechfeed.com/workrise-gets-300m-series-e/ DailyPay, the on-demand pay solutions for enterprises, announced it has secured $500 million of capital. The company is announcing a $175 million Series D equity round led by Carrick Capital Partners with participation from existing investors. In addition, the company is announcing it has raised $325 million of credit capital from various sources.  The Company intends to invest its newly raised capital in new market opportunities for its technology platform, in addition to extending its market leadership position in on-demand pay among the largest employers in the world. “This financing package creates a fortress balance sheet that we can deploy on behalf of employers and their employees,” said Scot Parnell, Chief Financial Officer at DailyPay. “The on-demand pay industry requires an exceptionally well-capitalized balance sheet to ensure the highest degree of service delivery, reliability and trust.” https://hrtechfeed.com/dailypay-raises-500-million-for-its-on-demand-pay-solution/ Jumpstart, a Diversity Recruitment Platform (DRP) who’s mission is to make the world more equitable, is rebranding as Canvas. The startup also announced $20 million in new funding. The company currently has 70 employees and expects to have 100 by the end of 2021.  The Canvas Diversity Recruiting Platform is a fully virtual recruiting platform that is based on self-reported data. Unlike other solutions that might utilize inferred data that could be inaccurate or illegal, Canvas helps create a more accurate data set to identify diverse candidates, helping to solve the core problem of talent discovery. In fact, 56% of all hires on the Canvas platform are made from Under represented Groups (URGs), and the platform helps employers achieve a 30% reduction in time to hire.  NOTE: the new name is the same as the text recruiting company acquired by Jobvite. That name appears to have been now sunsetted. The new Canvas has acquired the canvas.com domain.  https://hrtechfeed.com/diversity-recruiting-platform-raises-20m/ BrightHire, the leading interview intelligence platform designed to empower companies with the unprecedented insight they need to make the best hiring decisions easily, today announced $12.5M in new funding. The raise will further the company’s investment in next-level analytics for measuring the quality, effectiveness and equity of interviews. The company also revealed the results of a new research study that shines light on bias in the interview process and demonstrates the power of analytics for improving the way companies hire. Built with seamless integrations into Zoom and leading Applicant Tracking Systems, BrightHire helps teams run a consistent and evidence-based hiring process. The platform guides, captures and analyzes and easily shares interviews equipping hiring managers to make fair and fully informed hiring decisions. The demand for BrightHire’s new approach and shift to remote-first hiring have fueled the company’s 70x year-over-year revenue growth. https://hrtechfeed.com/interview-intelligence-platform-brighthire-raises-12-5m/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pete Lamson, former CEO of JazzHR now heads up the trio of Jobvite, JazzHR and NXTThing RPO. This merger is a big bet on the long term horizon for recruiting. Pete discusses the news in this 26 minute audio. Sponsored by Brazen.com/RT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

StepStone, one of the world’s leading online job marketplaces, has acquired the San Francisco based, Mya, a conversational AI (artificial intelligence) technology. The company will embed Mya’s technology into its online job search. StepStone says they will fundamentally change the way it engages with job seekers, nurture candidates, and match them to right job opportunities. On top of just searching for jobs, StepStone will interact with its users conversationally through new channels to discover more about job seeker preferences, skills, and interests and increase the number and quality of matching job applications. The new technology will become part of StepStone’s Autonomous Matchingtm platform. Based on machine learning, conversational AI will enable job seekers to find matching job opportunities even without actively searching for them. The technology draws conclusions from talking to the candidate and then suggests suitable jobs via text message, WhatsApp or onsite chat. StepStone customers will benefit from improved matching and higher quality of hiring. Engaging with job seekers based on conversational AI will first be integrated in StepStone’s job marketplaces in English and German language. https://hrtechfeed.com/stepstone-acquires-mya-conversational-ai-software/ ZipRecruiter®, announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2021. Quarterly revenue increased to $125 million, up 11% y/y In April, ZipRecruiter filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a direct listing of its common stock. The Company’s registration statement was declared effective on May 14th, and its Class A common stock is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ZIP” on May 26, 2021. “In our first public earnings report, ZipRecruiter delivered record revenue in Q1. We are issuing guidance for the year that maps to the strong signs of recovery in the U.S. hiring market. We believe that we are in the early stages of a significant resurgence of job growth during the once-in-a-lifetime reopening of the economy after the pandemic. We are well-positioned to take advantage of this moment as we continue to actively connect people to their next great opportunity.” said Ian Siegel, CEO of ZipRecruiter. https://hrtechfeed.com/ziprecruiter-announces-first-quarter-2021-results-and-2021-guidance/ Phenom announced the launch of Phenom Hiring Manager, a powerful set of hiring tools that redesigns hiring, management and collaboration with recruiters.  Phenom Hiring Manager is enabling managers to overcome these challenges and improve collaboration with recruiters to fill roles faster. The experience is tailored to their needs, and designed to reduce feedback loops that delay hiring, create poor candidate experiences and interfere with managers’ other responsibilities.  Its functionality includes Discover and review candidate profiles Progress or reject candidates and provide feedback Initiate, automate and manage interview scheduling Access and evaluate on-demand video assessments Record a personalized video to share on job description pages Leverage Phenom AI’s fit scoring, intelligent matching and insights Thats it for this week... for all  these stories vist hr tech feed dot com or look for the links in our podcast notes. -----   Upwork (Nasdaq: UPWK), has announced the launch of Talent Scout™, a recruiting solution that connects companies with pre-vetted expert talent selected from the Upwork platform by specialized Upwork recruiters.  Talent Scout represents an additional way to access and engage talent and is part of Upwork’s ongoing focus on offering a dynamic, one-stop online talent solution serving customers’ full spectrum of talent needs. Talent Scout is currently available for clients located in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Israel. It will be available to additional countries soon. https://hrtechfeed.com/upwork-now-helps-you-find-pre-vetted-remote-freelancers/ Stoke Talent is launching customizable and automated Workflows for Onboarding and Offboarding non-payroll workers – such as freelancers, contractors, consultants and agencies – to make this process easier and risk-free for companies. Whenever a contractor is being onboarded to a company, they need to sign legal documents, provide payment information and tax documentation. The company should then run Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering (KYC/AML) checks before payments, document any system or data access provided to the contractor, and track hardware equipment provided, such as laptops and company badges. Today, most of these activities are done by email and tracked through spreadsheets, making this problematic and creating potential significant risks to the company. Stoke Talent’s automated Onboarding and Offboarding Workflows automates all of the above processes. It enables legal, finance, and IT teams to set up policies that are enforced throughout the entire company. https://hrtechfeed.com/new-stoke-adds-onboarding-tools-for-freelancers/ PandoLogic has acquired conversational chatbot Wade&Wendy to help their customers convert more applicants to the traffic they are buying.  From their announcement… Over the last two years, PandoLogic has been growing significantly in the Programmatic Job Advertising space. One common barrier to continued market adoption, however, is an assumption that Programmatic delivers large volumes of candidates but at low quality.  Coupling Wade & Wendy’s uniquely engaging and personal conversational AI technology with Programmatic will help increase conversion rates while reducing the strain on recruiters by doing the first level qualification screening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices