Rectech: The Recruiting Technology Podcast

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 lifecyc

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.

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 revea

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? M

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

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

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 benef

Looking to up your recruitment marketing game in order to stand out in a crowded job market? Well this one hour webinar is here to help! Chris Russell, Jodi Brandstetter and the crowd go over nearly two dozen ways to make your job ads stand out. Audio from Webinar Replay. Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp7uZRZwdDU&t=409s

INDIANAPOLIS — An on-demand screening platform called Qualifi which allows recruiting teams to phone interview 100s of candidates in minutes, has raised a $600,000 pre-seed investment.   The Qualifi platform enables recruiters to create seamless one-way interview experiences using audio and voice that candidates respond to over a standard phone call, eliminating back-and-forth scheduling, reducing communication times with candidates, and capturing better data to help recruiters scale screening efforts. Recruiters using Qualifi shave one week off their time-to-hire average.  “We’ve been recruiters ourselves and we spend so much time listening to our customers to understand the challenges they face, that we know exactly what they need from us,” said Darrian Mikell, CEO and co-founder of Qualifi. “This cash injection will allow us to build functionality into the platform much faster, expanding our capabilities to meet the specific needs of our customers in verticals like healthcare, call centers, and other fa

The CEO of chatter.ai stops by to talk about current state of retail/restaurant hiring and demo their hiring software tool.

DENVER interviewIA — a technology platform that manages all aspects of the job interview workflow to enable the coexistence of equitable and efficient hiring — has raised $2 Million in its seed round to fund strategic hires and product development as well as growth initiatives.  This Series Seed round was led by The Colorado Impact Fund, with participation from several investors. interviewIA fills an urgent need to help all interviewers deliver a consistent, non-biased experience driven by structure and real-time analytics to hire a diverse, qualified workforce. interviewIA’s founding team established and validated this unique methodology while working together over the last several years on the front lines of innovative talent strategies. Three years ago they built the first version of this interview platform and began to iterate on the value that this could bring to the market.   “We are excited to partner with the interviewIA team to help scale their uniquely positioned technology platform,” says Ryan

Attracting, engaging, and hiring the right candidate starts the moment a job seeker lands on your career site.  As the digital window into your company culture, employers must leverage their career site to convey a strong brand, quick and easy access to jobs, and information that helps talent make an informed decision about whether your company is right for them. Now as organizations prepare for a post-pandemic workforce and a new era of HR, delivering an incredible candidate experience is the only way to gain a competitive edge and win over talent. Phenom, provider of the Talent experience management platform recently released results from their survey titled State of the Candidate experience that details how fortune 500 companies rank when it comes to attracting, engaging and converting talent. Joining me to discuss the report is Jonathan Dale, VP of marketing at Phenom. LINK: https://www.phenom.com/state-of-candidate-experience-benchmark-report

Ceridian a global leader in human capital management (HCM) technology, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ideal, a leading talent intelligence software provider based in Toronto, Ontario. This acquisition is anticipated to optimize Ceridian’s talent management offering once Ideal’s capabilities are integrated into the Dayforce platform.  The acquisition is expected to close on April 30, 2021  Ideal’s talent intelligence products enhance recruiting processes, including screening, shortlisting, and matching top candidates. Dayforce customers will also have access to Ideal’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) intelligence system, enabling employers to meet diversity head-on by ensuring that objectivity and inclusion happen up-front in the talent acquisition and management processes. https://hrtechfeed.com/ceridian-to-acquire-ideal/ CareRev, a labor marketplace platform that connects hospitals and health systems with local healthcare professionals on demand, today announced th

Last friday Ziprecruiter announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed public direct listing of its Class A common stock. ZipRecruiter intends to list its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ZIP. Here to discuss the filing with me is Peter Zollman the publisher and editor of the AIM group which covers the recruitment/classified marketplace industry. LINK: https://aimgroup.com/2021/04/25/ziprecruiter-files-for-direct-listing-on-nyse-revenue-fell-3-in-2020-but-it-was-profitable/

Helskini-based Jobilla has raised €2.16 million. Founded in 2015, Jobilla is aiming to stake its claim in a €450 billion industry, often plagued by complicated and/or not-so-user-friendly software packages. The funding round was led by Trind VC, and €700,000 of the investment arrives via loans and government grants. Jobilla is reporting that the funding will be used to further develop its recruiting software as well as drive expansion efforts into Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, and scale up operations in the U.S. They do offer a free version which looks like it has a ton of features so check it out at jobilla.com https://hrtechfeed.com/jobilla-raises-funding/   Infinite Computer Solutions, a global technology company, has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire IBM’s Talent Acquisition Suite. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close later this year were not disclosed.  Infinite is acquiring IBM Lead Manager, BrassRing, and Onboard. BrassRing supports more than 20 langua

Luma is a new interview intelligence platform, which recently launched to help businesses run more intentional interviews and make better hiring decisions. Joining me to discuss the platform is their CEO Grace Tyson Lumateams.com

Upskilling platform Degreed has raised $153 million in Series D funding. The investment, which was co-led by Sapphire Ventures and Riverwood Capital, values the company at $1.4 billion. Dan Levin, former COO of Box will succeed Chris McCarthy as CEO of Degreed.  The funding will be used to accelerate product development, enhance data infrastructure, fuel global expansion, and pursue strategic acquisitions. Technology enhancements will focus on upgrading Degreed’s reporting and analytics, ensuring best in class security, and enhancing integrations that take Degreed deeper into users’ daily workflow. “Investing in skills, culture, and career growth has become a critical differentiator for employers,” said Jeff Parks, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Riverwood Capital. “Under Chris’ leadership, Degreed has transformed the learning experience and upskilling conversation. We are thrilled to build on that vision in partnership with Dan and this incredible team, and are focused on the next phase of their scalabi

Angelo Pancho oversees Recruiting Tech Innovation and International Strategic Talent Sourcing for Rockwell International and today we’ll talk about the technology he uses to hire talent. Describe your current role for the audience Do you have a fav sourcing story as a recruiter? Whats the pitch to come join Rockwell? benefits? What are the recruiting tech tools in place at Rockwell? (current ATS etc) Paid ads whats working best? Are you planning new ones? If so please describe…Altru Last tool you demoed? draup.com Diversity efforts at Rockwell?  Are you hiring on the talent team? How many contractors...do you foresee growing contract/freelance help?

Recruiting Technology Headlines This week in Rec Tech: Phenom hits the mother load, Workshop gets funded, Talroo unifies its product suite, Dice adds features and Recruiter.com makes another acquisition. This episode is sponsored by HR Lancers, the freelance marketplace for recruiters and HR pros. Does your company need help with HR or recruiting? Post a project, or contractor role today for free and target ver 5,000 freelancers looking for work right now. HRlancers.com On to the news... Phenom, the world’s most widely used AI-powered talent experience platform, today announced a $100 million Series D round. B Capital Group led the round, among other investors….The capital will let Phenom remain focused on fulfilling its purpose — to help a billion people find the right job - the company is now valued at 1.3 billion and one of their investors was quoted saying they will go public in the near future. With new funding, Phenom continues to innovate its Talent Experience Management (TXM) platform for organ

Industry meeting with some industry peeps including the co-founder of Datapeople.io who just received $8 million in VC funds for its talent analytics platform. Sponsored by Brazen.com the virtual job fair platform.