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Author: Madeline Laurano

Madeline Laurano is the founder and chief analyst of Aptitude Research. For over 18 years, Madeline’s primary focus has been on the HCM market, specializing in talent acquisition and employee experience. Her work helps companies both validate and re-evaluate their strategies and understand the role technology can play in driving business outcomes. She has watched HCM transform from a back-office function to a strategic company initiative with a focus on partnerships, experience and efficiency.

Before founding Aptitude Research, Madeline held research roles at Aberdeen, Bersin by Deloitte, ERE Media and Brandon Hall Group. She is the co-author of Best Practices in Leading a Global Workforce and is often quoted in leading business publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Yahoo News, The New York Times and The Financial Times. She is a frequent presenter at industry conferences including the HR Technology Conference and Exposition, SHRM, IHRIM, HCI’s Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference, Unleash, GDS International’s HCM Summit, and HRO Today.

In her spare time, she is a runner, an avid sports fan and juggles a house full of boys (where a spontaneous indoor hockey game is not unheard of!).

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

Marketing Automation and CRM: Understanding the Difference in Talent Acquisition

Marketing Automation and CRM: Understanding the Difference in Talent Acquisition
Marketing Automation and CRM: Understanding the Difference in Talent Acquisition

We are starting to conduct demos and interviews for our Recruitment Marketing Platform/CRM Index report publishing this fall. Last week, someone asked me if the greatest challenge is the lack of adoption from employers or the lack of capabilities from providers.

The answer is both.

Companies that invest in recruitment marketing and CRM do not always have the expertise or change management needed for these systems to be effective. Aptitude Research found that only 2% of companies use all the functionality in the CRM. Not an ideal situation when over 60% of companies spend more on their CRM than on their ATS.

But adoption is not the only frustration in recruitment marketing technology. Most providers offer CRM and career sites but lack marketing automation. CRM and marketing automation serves two distinct purposes in helping companies nurture and engage with talent before applying for a job.  In consumer marketing, companies may commonly invest in both Salesforce and Marketo (now part of Adobe). In addition, they may use Hubspot (which offers both). But, the value and difference between the two are clear. Many companies are not clear about what marketing automation does and what providers to consider in talent acquisition.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation helps companies better engage and nurture talent by automating marketing tasks and letting companies know which candidates are cold, warm, and “ready-now.” It sits at the top of the funnel and manages all interactions with talent, including when they visit a career site, open an email, open a job advertisement, etc. It solves what the ATS, LinkedIn, and CRM cannot do – informing recruiters when someone is ready to be hired and engaging that individual in a meaningful way. Integrating CRM and marketing automation software can increase a company’s recruitment marketing capabilities and improve the experience.

How Does it Help?

Marketing automation helps companies understand the talent they are attracting, manage talent pipelines more effectively, and provide a better experience to both recruiters and candidates. Some of the use cases include:

  • Lead Nurturing: As today’s companies face challenges attracting talent and managing applicant volume, they need to nurture their candidate relationships over time. Candidates are not always ready to apply for a job with their first engagement. With marketing automation, companies can check in with candidates, create more meaningful relationships, and track engagement levels to know when candidates are “ready now.”
  • Target Audience: With marketing automation, companies can better understand their target talent and track who is interested and engaged. It uses a multi-channel approach to understand what content individuals are interested in, how they want to receive that content and then serves up relevant information. In addition, it provides visibility into the marketing activities to see what activities are working and what needs to change.
  • Analytics: Once a campaign has ended, the system generates analytics showing how successful the campaign was and what may need to change for the future. Analytics provide insights into candidates that are cold, warm, and ready now.

Who are the Providers?

Companies have multiple options for marketing automation in marketing, including providers like MailChimp, Keap, and Constant Contact. And, many providers have been acquired over the past few years, including Pardot by Salesforce, Eloqua by Oracle, and Marketo by Adobe. As a result, marketing automation is a critical area of investment for the modern marketing professional. But, in talent acquisition, this category has not taken off in the same way.

Some sourcing providers like Entelo have tried to transform marketing automation and build a category but faced internal challenges. Some CRM providers have tried to improve talent pipelines and candidate nurturing but still fall short. A few providers are bringing more awareness to marketing automation and gaining traction, including Candidate.ID and Herefish by Bullhorn. Candidate.ID is one provider that stands out for its commitment to marketing automation, ease of use, and ability to help companies attract in-demand talent. Herefish by Bullhorn enables companies to automate workflows, processes, and communication to accelerate staffing firm’s growth. With these providers, recruiters receive notifications when candidates are interested, and their profiles are updated in real-time, reducing time-to-fill, improving candidate engagement, and increasing conversion rates.

As we get closer to publishing our recruitment marketing/CRM index reports, marketing automation will be a theme we cover. It provides companies with a better way to engage and nurture talent where a traditional CRM falls short.

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

SmartRecruiters: The Next TA Tech Unicorn

SmartRecruiters: The Next TA Tech Unicorn
SmartRecruiters: The Next TA Tech Unicorn

In 2008, Jerome Ternynck announced the launch of a new ATS, SmartRecruiters. He shared his vision for the next era of talent acquisition technology and best-of-breed ATS providers. And, people were interested (including me). Jerome’s last company, Mr. Ted, was a leading ATS acquired by Stepstone, and Jerome was a well-loved expert with a strong reputation in TA tech.

Thirteen years later, Jerome has remained committed to this vision. SmartRecruiters pivoted from an SMB provider to a global enterprise provider (no small task- ask any of its competitors) with over 4,000 customers and 33 languages. And, yesterday, SmartRecruiters announced $110M in Series E with a $1.5B valuation.

What a journey.

We profiled SmartRecruiters in our latest Talent Acquisition Index report and included this analysis:

SmartRecruiters is a product company with strong services and deep domain expertise across all areas of talent acquisition. It has remained steadfast in its vision and commitment to improve talent acquisition and define hiring success for companies even during times of uncertainty and change. It has experienced significant growth over the past year with over 200 new customers, 100 new employees, and 150      new product features launched. SmartRecruiters is a provider that competes comfortably in the enterprise and global enterprise markets today. APAC is becoming a growing market for SmartRecruiters.

Several differentiators for SmartRecruiters includes candidate communication, AI matching, and advertising. Its SmartMessage solution includes WhatsApp integration and a unified inbox, while SmartPal (through the Jobpal acquisition) includes conversational AI and integration with WhatsApp and WeChat. SmartRecruiters offers programmatic advertising through SmartJobs to help streamline advertising and reduce costs. It has gone deeper in internal mobility this year to include a better employee experience and redeployment capabilities.

SmartRecruiters is one of the few best-of-breed providers to hire a Chief Diversity Officer this year. It has made diversity a commitment in its leadership team, product capabilities and roadmap, and services. Its Diversity Hiring Toolkit includes a diversity and inclusion maturity model, success pillars, and diversity hiring assessment. SmartRecruiters is focused on customer partnership. It has responded and met 1800 user requests this year. It follows what its customers want and focuses on developing solutions for a more modern talent acquisition function. It is a company that is not afraid to take risks, but it still maintains a strong commitment to customer success and product development.

SmartRecruiters is an impressive company by any measure. Here are a few thoughts on this recent announcement.

  • Product: SmartRecruiters has been expanding its product suite over the past two years, including programmatic capabilities, conversational AI (through Jobpal acquisition), and matching. One area that SmartRecruiters is lacking is onboarding. This recent round will likely focus on filling some gaps that may include onboarding and sourcing. I expect we will see an acquisition or two as well.
  • Internal Mobility: SmartRecruiters has invested in internal mobility through product capabilities, research/content, and industry recognition through its awards. My guess is that SmartRecruiters will continue to strengthen its internal mobility capabilities focusing on employee experience.
  • Partnerships: This announcement presents new opportunities for partnerships and SmartRecruiters’ marketplace. I think we can expect to see more partnerships, integration, and a new approach to its ecosystem of providers.

Congrats to SmartRecruiters and Jerome. More to come as the investment in all things TA tech continues.

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

Yello and WayUp Merger: A New Look at Early Talent

Yello and WayUp Merger: A New Look at Early Talent
Yello and WayUp Merger: A New Look at Early Talent

Yesterday, Yello and WayUp announced a merger to strengthen their early talent and campus recruiting capabilities. Early talent programs have experienced tremendous change and transformation over the past year. Companies have faced new pressures with moving to virtual events, limited student engagement, disparate systems, and a lack of data and insights. Additionally, DEI is a priority for companies and requires a more focused and targeted approach involving the right schools and student communities. Technology plays a critical role in helping companies prepare for the future of their early talent programs.

This merger combines WayUp’s diversity sourcing with Yello’s robust early talent capabilities, including CRM, events, scheduling, and communication. Yello will now be able to integrate its enterprise platform with WayUp’s diverse database of over 6 million candidates.

Chad Sowash and I interviewed Liz Wessel, Founder of WayUp, and Corey Ferengul, CEO of Yello, to discuss:

  • Why this merger and why now? What does this mean for companies?
  • How will these companies go to market?
  • What are some of the challenges in early talent and campus recruiting, and how will they address them?
  • How does Yello now compete with Handshake, if at all?
  • What is the plan for the future?

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

Eightfold AI: What’s Next?

Eightfold AI: What’s Next?
Eightfold AI: What’s Next?

Yesterday, Eightfold AI announced a $220M Series E funding doubling its valuation to over $2B. This Series E funding round is led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and includes investors from previous rounds, including General Catalyst, Capital One Ventures, Foundation Capital, IVP, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Total funding raised to date by Eightfold AI is more than $410M, with more than $350M coming in the last several months.

A provider that most people didn’t know existed a few years ago is now the one we can’t stop talking about in the market. All eyes are on Eightfold to see where it is going and who it will compete with next year.

Eightfold is a talent intelligence platform that offers a comprehensive suite of talent acquisition, talent management, and talent analytics solutions. As companies look at skilling and upskilling their workforce, Eightfold provides deep insights across all talent includes employees, contingent workers, and candidates. It has expanded from an AI matching solution to an end-to-end talent platform in a short period. As a result, any conversation around HR technology today involves Eightfold in some way.

I have a few early thoughts on the recent announcement and Eightfold’s growing presence:

What does this mean for the market?

A New Look at Integrated Talent Management: Integrated Talent Management or ITM makes me cringe a little. As an analyst, I spent nearly a decade covering ITM and the benefits it brings to companies. While the idea makes sense, the reality is that most providers could not make this happen. Most providers fell short with numerous acquisitions (that were never integrated) and attempt to offer recruitment, performance management, succession planning, compensation, and learning. Eightfold’s approach is different. It is looking at using an AI-driven platform to help companies recruit, engage, and retain talent in a way that solves for what they need rather than check a box. In addition, having one provider for both pre-hire and post-hire solutions will look different under Eightfold.

TA Tech is Growing: It is a good time to be in TA Technology. This sentiment is the theme of this year. We found that 1 in 4 companies are increasing their investment in technology, and 34% of enterprise companies are using some AI matching capabilities. As companies increase their investment in technology, they will build out tech stacks that can improve efficiency, reduce bias, and enable better decision-making. And, they want to invest in one provider to do most of the work, which makes Eightfold an appealing option.

Talent Intelligence Is a Growing Category: Eightfold is helping to bring awareness to a newer area of HR technology- talent intelligence platforms. This latest round will create more visibility around what these solutions can do and how companies use them today. Eightfold’s position here will also help many of its competitors gain traction in the market.

What this means for the future of Eightfold?

Expanding Partnerships: This latest round of investment will help fuel research and development as well as partnerships with third-party providers. The ecosystem is complex, and many ATS providers have built out marketplaces to support clients. Eightfold is likely to move in a similar direction.

Moving into Contingent Workforce: One of Eightfold’s differentiators supports all talent, including contingent workers. As 1 in 2 companies look to replace their VMS and explore better options, doubling down on contingent workforce capabilities may prove to be a smart decision for Eightfold.

Replacing the ATS: I don’t think most companies aspire to be ATS providers, but with the valuation and investment, Eightfold will likely move in this direction to become the end-to-end recruitment platform and compete (and replace) many ATS providers. I don’t see this happening this year, but I think the ATS providers know this is possible in 2022. Eightfold already appears in many of the competitive CRM deals today.

It is unclear what Eightfold’s plans are for this latest round, but we can expect more research and development and possibly an acquisition or two. A $2B valuation puts tremendous pressure on this provider to acquire new customers and fulfill its product roadmap. Time will tell. I will post an update on any new developments in the next few weeks.

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

It is a Good Time to Be in TA Tech: Investments, Acquisitions, and Conversational AI

Since we last published the Aptitude Talent Acquisition Index Report last month, providers have taken more investment from venture capital and private equity firms, increased partnerships and alliances, and acquired smaller providers. If you are interested in TA tech, make sure to follow George LaRocque and WorkTech for all of the latest news on investment in this space. Investment increased significantly in 2020 and continues to be a focus in 2021. Unicorns no longer look like unicorns since these mega-rounds of investment have become the norm.

But, how important is investment to buyers? Should it be? According to Aptitude Research, only 13% of companies identified the amount of money a provider has raised as key criteria in decision-making. We think companies should consider a provider’s investment history for the following reasons:

  • It may impact leadership and retention for the provider.
  • Providers may be able to execute on their product roadmaps, or they may change their product roadmaps based on the investor.
  • Customers may experience some growing pains that will impact product, culture, and support.

Investment is not the only big topic in TA tech. Mergers and acquisitions have also increased in the past year. Providers are looking for partners to help expand their global footprint, customer base, or product portfolio. Conversational AI, analytics, video, and branding were driving many of these decisions. ATS providers are looking for opportunities to provide customers with better experiences and more capabilities. A few of the acquisitions included:

Some ecosystem providers and Core HR providers are laser-focused on conversational AI this year. Ceridian announced the acquisition of Ideal. Stepstone announced the acquisition of Mya. And Pandologic announced the acquisition of Wade and Wendy. Pre-pandemic, HireVue acquired AllyO and AMS acquired Karen. Conversational AI is clearly becoming the future of TA tech, and we found that companies that invest in these providers improve efficiency, experience, and quality. The beauty of conversational AI is that it starts working for companies on Day 1, and companies are expanding the use cases into onboarding and employee experience.

We have been busy working on new research on conversational AI, so these acquisitions are top of mind, and I have a few early thoughts…

  1. Chatbot vs. Conversational AI: Many of the misperceptions around conversational AI stem from the belief that it is simply a chatbot. Chatbots are transactional. They provide value in giving responses to candidates in real-time. These responses are typically canned answers to basic questions delivered through text. Conversational AI offers a more sophisticated and more personalized solution to engage candidates through multiple forms of communication. Conversational AI gets smarter through use and connects recruiters and candidates in a more meaningful way. 39% of companies using conversational AI state that the most significant benefit is improving the candidate experience (Aptitude Research). Companies must be careful to recognize the difference between providers offering canned communication and transactional TA and those that are truly conversational and engaging.
  3. Market Potential: Conversational AI is still a growing market. The demand has increased, but companies are still figuring out what they need and what problems these solutions can help solve. The potential is there. Acquisitions (done right) can help some providers reach that potential by empowering them with more resources and expertise to build solutions that companies need. Acquisitions (gone wrong) can have the opposite impact. They can negatively impact potential, create obstacles, and make it difficult for providers to grow. Companies should carefully consider what these acquisitions will mean for existing customers and prospects.
  5. ATS Providers: While many ATS providers have made acquisitions over the past year, few have invested in conversational AI. SmartRecruiters is one exception with the acquisition of Jobpal. It will be interesting to see how the ATS providers respond to these recent acquisitions and look at a build, buy, or borrow strategy for conversational AI moving forward.

We will share our latest recent on conversational AI in the next few weeks, but these recent announcements have given me a lot to consider, and I am looking forward to following this market this year.

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

New Research: Exceptional Experiences in Talent Acquisition

Global TA Day: A Love Letter to Recruiters
Global TA Day: A Love Letter to Recruiters

Experiences define and shape our economy. Consumers are more likely to make additional purchases, refer friends, and remain loyal to a brand when they have an exceptional experience – and a negative experience can wreak havoc on a brand. According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs study, a dissatisfied customer will tell nine to fifteen people about their poor experience, and approximately 13% of your dissatisfied customers will tell more than 20 people. Companies realize the impact that a positive or negative experience can have on their brand and business success, and have invested in dedicated roles, resources, and technology to help improve customer experiences.

But, this level of attention is not given to the candidate experience. According to recent studies by Aptitude Research and Talent Board:

  • Fifty-eight percent (58%) of applicants who are screened out never receive a response (Aptitude Research)
  • One in three recruiters are feeling more burned out this year than ever before (Aptitude Research)
  • From job applicants who had applied over two months ago, 61% had not heard back from the employers (2020 Talent Board Candidate Experience Benchmark Research)

Although the talent acquisition experience has improved over the past few years, it still creates frustration and inefficiencies for both candidates and employers. And while 68% of companies are committed to improving these experiences in 2021, they often fall short.

So what exactly is an exceptional experience in talent acquisition? How can companies create experiences that feel meaningful and personal for candidates through every stage of their journey? Aptitude Research and The Talent Board partnered with Symphony Talent on new research to help define exceptional experience, understand gaps in expectations, and the impact of technology. Below are some of the key findings:

Sustaining an Exceptional Experience Takes Work: Over 1,000 companies have participated in the Talent Board Candidate Experience Benchmark Research Program to date, but only five companies have won CandE Awards eight-to-nine times out of the 10 years since the program was founded — four North American companies (AT&T, Colorado Springs Utilities, Deluxe, and Lockheed Martin), and one in EMEA (Intel). In 2020 alone, employers had to navigate a series of external challenges including COVID-19, while also dealing with a cascade of resulting internal hurdles (budget cuts, reduced recruiting plans and talent investments, and shifts in business).

Companies Should Start With the Employer Experience: Candidates will not have a positive experience if recruiters are unhappy and disengaged. If hiring teams are overworked and overwhelmed, the candidate experience will be negatively impacted. Today’s recruiting and hiring teams are facing an experience crisis and remote work has created additional stress. According to Aptitude Research, recruiters spend up to 16 hours per week scheduling calls and 10 hours looking for candidates in their ATS. Additionally, 32% of recruiters surveyed are looking for other career opportunities. Companies that want to improve their external experiences need to look internally first.

Communication Is the Biggest Missed Opportunity: Candidates want to understand their progress and know where they stand. Companies need to better communicate with candidates earlier in the process when they are first researching the organization, provide a process indicator during the application process, and communicate next steps post-application. Currently, 58% of candidates do not receive any response (Aptitude Research).

 Exceptional Experiences Directly Impact the Bottom Line: A poor candidate experience impacts business performance, including brand and customer retention. Organizations that have improved talent acquisition experiences over the past year have seen improvements to NPS scores, customer retention, and employer brand. Companies that provide a more engaging and human experience see a direct impact on business performance, including a two times improvement on NPS scores.

Companies Are Increasing Their Investment in Automation: Automation can help improve experiences for both employers and candidates. While not new to recruiting, automated processes continued to increase this year to support leaner recruiting teams and more applications, especially with machine learning and other smart technologies. The reality is that most candidates who are interested in a job will research and apply, but never move forward. Most will have little to no human interaction and will be dispositioned automatically. Automation can help provide a fair and equitable experience, and allow companies to provide consistent communications to every candidate.

 

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

Ethical AI: What TA Leaders Need to Know

positive feedback, writing online review with 5 five star rating, reputation management concept

It’s hard to find a conversation in TA tech that does not include AI matching. ATS providers are enhancing their capabilities to connect jobs to candidates and candidates to jobs. Providers like HiredScore and Eightfold have gained momentum in the past year and sourcing providers are going to market more aggressively as matching providers. In our latest TA study, 34% of companies stated that they are using some type of matching, and they are two times more likely to improve diverse sources and three times more likely to improve quality of hire.

Although companies understand the value of AI matching, they do not always know where to go to find a technology partner. Companies and buyers that are committed to ethical AI are looking at stand-alone providers, while companies focused on efficiency AI are looking at their ATS providers. Companies must consider what data they are using to match, the providers’ approach to ethical AI, and what skills are available on candidate profiles.

Last week, I joined Tim Sackett and Tyler Weeks to talk about the growth of AI matching, the importance of ethical AI, and what companies should consider. Here are a few of the questions we discussed:

  • Do TA leaders care about ethical AI? Why should they?
  • What should companies think about when evaluating ethical AI providers?
  • Is it technology providers’ role to bring ethics to TA?
  • What impact will the AI regulations in Europe have on TA tech?

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Improving the Employee Experience through Corporate Social Responsibility

I recently shared new research on how companies can improve the employee experience with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is the policies and practices that organizations put in place to impact the world positively. It can include volunteering, activism, philanthropy, and donations. After the events of 2020, people want to give back, and they are looking at their employers to help.

Some companies have responded in a big way:

  • Salesforce: Salesforce helped to ship PPE around the country to health care workers. It also donated $200 million and 1 million hours of volunteer time to support racial equality.
  • DoorDash: In partnership with the United Way, DoorDash donated 1 million pounds of groceries to people in need.
  • New Balance: The retailer shifted its model from shoes to masks to support healthcare workers during the pandemic.
  • Deluxe: Deluxe shifted to virtual volunteer events and raised $235,000 in two weeks.

CSR is a critical part of the employee experience and can help companies recruit, engage, and retain talent. Although 1 in 3 companies are increasing their investment in CSR this year, most programs fall short. Companies are not always sure how to operationalize CSR and engage employees in a meaningful way. They often include CSR messaging on their career sites or employee portals but do not take a strategic approach to communicate opportunities. Only 13% of companies share volunteering opportunities regularly.

For companies prioritizing activism, CSR, and volunteering, below are a few recommendations:

  • Establish Shared Responsibility: For 42% of companies, HR is the primary owner of CSR. The approach is a top-down approach, and most HR professionals do not receive the support, tools, or resources to execute these strategies. Companies serious about CSR should operationalize their model and include champions, employees, and executives to create their programs.
  • Improve Communication: Most companies rely on email to communicate volunteering opportunities. Yet, 61% of companies have not asked employees about volunteering in the past year. Companies need to be transparent about their CSR efforts. They should track engagement and communicate with employees consistently. They should explore video, text, surveys, and dedicated sites as options.
  • Invest in Technology: Only 1 in 5 companies are investing in solutions for CSR or philanthropy today. Technology can help share information on volunteering and giving, track employee engagement, enable Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), identify opportunities, and automate payroll deductions.

A strategic approach to CSR can help create more meaningful experiences for employees and ensure they feel connected and engaged during a year of uncertainty. Companies that want to make a real impact will do more than make statements about philanthropy and start to make commitments.

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

Talent Analytics Part 2: Efficiency

Today, I am joining Eric Sydell, EVP of Innovation at Modern Hire, on a webinar to discuss our latest research on talent analytics. We will be sharing the challenges with data and how companies can use a framework to turn goals and metrics into actions.

One of the topics we will cover is efficiency. Sixty-two percent (62%) of companies state that they are facing pressure to fill positions quickly. Talent acquisition professionals are recruiting, but with limited resources and, in many cases, limited staff. Forty-six (46%) of companies are experiencing layoffs within their talent acquisition teams. Some companies have eliminated specialist roles that may include candidate experience managers and data scientists, while others have reduced the number of coordinators to help with administrative tasks.

Goals

Talent acquisition professionals are under pressure to balance a heavy workload without support, and they must remain flexible. One in four companies stated that it still takes over three months to fill positions.

Metrics

Efficiency metrics are the most common and straightforward metrics that organizations track. Yet, they can vary greatly throughout the organization. Some metrics include:

  • Time to apply: The time it takes from when candidates learn about an opportunity to when they apply for a job.
  • Time to interview: The time it takes from when candidates apply to when they get interviewed.
  • Time to fill: The time it takes from when a job is posted to when it is filled by a candidate.
  • Conversion rates: The rate at which candidates convert from different stages in talent acquisition, from learning about a company to applying for a job, scheduling an interview, and accepting an offer.
  • Recruiter Productivity: The productivity of recruiting teams and time spent on administrative tasks, including finding candidates and scheduling calls and interviews.

Insights

Once companies collect metrics on efficiency, they must understand what impact this has on talent acquisition efforts and why efficiency is a challenge. Below are some considerations to gain better insights on efficiency gaps.

  • Identifying where talent acquisition slows down: Companies should look closely at where inefficiencies occur and if hiring managers or other key stakeholders are involved. Are there delays with scheduling calls and interviews or with communication between recruiters and hiring managers? Understanding where and why talent acquisition is slowing down can help companies improve efficiency.
  • Understanding decision-making: Talent decisions are made differently at every organization. Companies should look at the data they have on hiring decisions and determine how these decisions are made and based on intuition or accurate data.
  • Communicating with candidates more effectively: Inefficiency is often the result of poor communication with candidates. By improving candidate engagement and outreach throughout the process, companies can shorten hiring times.

Action Steps

Companies that gain insight into their efficiency gaps can take the following actions:

  • Invest in candidate-first solutions: Candidates want simple and intuitive solutions that provide better engagement and efficiency. Companies that consider solutions designed with the candidate in mind will see overall improvements to efficiency gaps.
  • Create a seamless experience: Companies must ensure that their hiring solutions are seamless, integrate with the ATS, and not make candidates go from place to place to click links, enter information, or re-enter information to complete stages. Companies must ask for is job-relevant or otherwise necessary and predictive of job success and provides results and recommendations to hiring teams in a cohesive, logical way.
  • Invest in scheduling: Interview scheduling takes recruiters, on average, sixteen hours a week to complete. Companies need a more strategic approach to scheduling and should consider solutions that automate the scheduling process to save time and improve recruiter productivity.

The research report covers candidate experience, DEI, efficiency, and quality of hire. I hope you can join us today!

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

New Research: TA Buyer’s Guide Top 10 Findings (Part 1)

Eightfold AI: What’s Next?
Eightfold AI: What’s Next?

I am excited to announce that we published our annual talent acquisition buyer’s guide report this week sponsored by Verified First. It serves as a resource for anyone interested in learning more about the trends impacting technology and the requirements critical to making decisions. The talent acquisition technology market is constantly changing, and staying ahead of trends is becoming more challenging. Organizations need to evaluate providers based on a new set of criteria that encourages partnership and collaboration between the business and the solutions. Trust in the company, product, and roadmap is a critical part of the buyer’s journey and a key differentiator when evaluating solutions.

Evaluating technology is not as easy as it used to be. Ten years ago, the talent acquisition technology market was comprised of multiple providers offering clear products in defined categories such as background screening, job boards, applicant tracking systems (ATS), assessments, and onboarding. Today, the market has exploded with hundreds more providers and new ones entering each month. Additionally, the lines have blurred. Many of these providers offer several solutions in talent acquisition or have created new categories of technology, making a buyer’s decision much more complicated.

Below are 5 top findings from this research:

  • Efficiency is driving decisions. Companies have stated that improving efficiency is the key driver when evaluating technology providers. Companies are looking at providers to improve time to fill, increase recruiter productivity and improve overall decision-making in talent acquisition technology. Improved efficiency benefits the candidate and the employer by helping candidates receive communication, stay informed and move through the process.
  • Talent Acquisition Technology Investment Continues to Increase. Although some technology investment has slowed down over the past year, one in four companies are increasing their TA investment, and 44% of companies invested in new technology in 2020. Companies are looking at providers to support the challenges they face but often do not consider how they will work with the existing technology infrastructure.
  • Companies need to measure ROI early. Only 1 in 2 companies measure the ROI of their technology investment. As talent acquisition is being held more accountable to the business, showing the value and the timeframe is critical. Measuring and demonstrating ROI is a crucial part of any technology decision and does not need to happen after a company makes its investment – it should actually be considered before.
  • True partnership helps to improve adoption. Adoption is a challenge in talent acquisition technology. Only 3% of companies use all the ATS functionality and only 2% in their CRMs. Companies need to look at how their provider will partner with them during implementation and how they will make that relationship stick after year one, year two, and beyond. Companies should consider their change management resources, and customer advisory boards and councils, customer feedback sessions, and “Idea Labs,” where customers are free to voice concerns and connect with other customers.
  • Companies are looking to replace solutions this year. The top areas of TA tech replacement this year include ATS, CRM, background screening, and assessments. Before evaluating technology options, organizations should conduct an internal needs analysis and be prepared to answer some questions internally. Companies need to identify and communicate expectations before evaluating solutions. Before signing on with a provider, companies should ask how confident the provider is in meeting these expectations and what plans they have in place to meet and even exceed them.

TA buyers face more difficult decisions today with new providers, new categories, and new pressures. The TA tech market changes rapidly, and companies must balance their own unique requirements with the providers that will partner with them. This report can help companies at any stage of their TA tech buyer’s journey.

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