Aptitude Research
Schedule a Briefing

Tag: talent acquisition

Categories
Blog

Countdown to the HR Technology Conference: Skills-Based Hiring

It is hard to believe that the HR Technology Conference is only 8 weeks away. I love this conference and the opportunity to reconnect with friends and learn about new (and old) technology providers. I am thrilled to be presenting new research at the event and I will be posting a series of blogs leading up to September on TA tech trends.

This first post will focus on a topic that is gaining momentum in talent acquisition… skills-based hiring. Every provider seems to be using skills in their marketing messaging, but few providers have invested in a robust skills ontology and capabilities to improve both the employer and candidate experiences.

Skills are quickly becoming the currency for the future of work. A skills-based approach can help connect talent to the right opportunities, personalize the experience, and provide more visibility into the capabilities of the workforce. Employers benefit from improved efficiency and stronger talent pools, while individuals benefit from greater opportunities to control their career paths. Skills provide a roadmap for the future and a bridge between talent acquisition and talent management.

We published a study (in partnership with Beamery) and found that companies that invest in skills development are:

  • Twice as likely to improve retention
  • Thirty-four percent (34%) more likely to improve quality of hire
  • Twenty-eight percent (28%) more likely to improve DEI initiatives

Skills level the playing field for both internal and external talent. Evaluating skills means looking      beyond what is found on a resume or employee profile to get deeper insights about the individual. But, many companies are not always clear where to start with skills development. Lack of ownership and confusion around how technology fits in have added to this uncertainty. Talent marketplaces are gaining momentum as the vehicle to deliver a skills-based approach, yet not every company understands the impact of these solutions. For companies to compete for talent and provide fair and equitable experiences, skills must be part of the equation.

Here are some of the key findings from our research…

The Demand for Skills Is Being Driven From the Top: The focus on skills development is being driven by executives and CHROs. According to this study, 65% of CHROs say that upskilling and reskilling is the most important priority for 2022. CHROs are two times more likely to be involved in technology decisions that focus on skills than other areas of TA technology and 75% are interested in talent marketplaces to deliver on a skills strategy. CHROs are setting the course but oftentimes, talent acquisition and talent management must execute the strategy. Realistic expectations and clear communication will help these leaders achieve results and provide a more successful approach to skills.

Skills Unify a Talent Strategy: With equal pressure to recruit and retain, talent acquisition and talent management often still operate in silos with competing interests. A skills-based approach helps unify talent acquisition and talent management initiatives – providing consistency in data and experiences. Companies must empower their talent teams with a focus on skills. According to this study, companies with a skills-based approach see greater collaboration between talent acquisition and talent management.

Not All Providers Are Approaching Skills the Same Way: Technology allows companies to scale their approach to skills, provide opportunities and personalization to every individual, and leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to draw deeper insights. Most importantly, it provides context to skills by inferring insights about the individual and employer. Although several technology solutions are aiming to address skills today, not every solution provides value. A successful skills-based approach requires a commitment from a solution provider to build a skills ontology, invest in talent intelligence, and apply AI inference so that skills are dynamic and personalized. With companies increasing their investment in skills, they must carefully consider providers that demonstrate expertise.

A Skills-Based Approach Benefits Employers and Individuals: Skills are not just a benefit to an organization. They give employees the resources they need to manage their careers and provide more opportunities for personalization and inclusivity. To truly understand an individual, however, companies should not stop with skills. They should consider the qualities that will make someone successful and happy in the work they are doing.

Skills Can Greatly Impact Internal Mobility Efforts:  The most obvious use case for a skills-based approach is internal mobility. Companies are looking for better ways to promote and develop their workforce while supporting talent acquisition initiatives. With 70% of companies increasing their investment in internal mobility efforts, many are just promoting jobs or leveraging internal career sites. Skills offer a more substantial approach to internal mobility by providing employers with a deeper understanding of their workforce and empowering individuals with the tools they need to be successful.

Providers to watch (in alphabetical order): Beamery, Boostrs, Eightfold, HiredScore, Oracle, TaTio, TechWolf, Workday

Categories
Blog

New Research: Key Trends in Interviewing

For most companies, interviewing is still broken. According to our latest research report, one in three companies are not confident in their interview process today and one in two companies have lost quality hires due to a poor interview process this year. Companies face several challenges with interviews, including a lengthy process, too many interviews, inconsistency, lack of objective data, and bias. These challenges not only impact the efficiency of talent acquisition efforts but the overall candidate experience. As a result, only 24% of candidates are happy with the interview process. The challenges with interviewing are not new and the pandemic did not bring much change.

Here are some findings about what goes wrong and how technology can help.

Where Does the Interview Process Go Wrong?

Interview Process Is Too Long: The interview process can be frustrating for both employers and candidates. Companies that create lengthy interview processes do not necessarily collect data that can inform decision making. A longer interview process does not equate to more effective hiring. It puts a company at risk for losing talent. Forty percent (40%) of candidates stated that it was over two weeks since they heard anything from an employer after their first interview, and 52% of companies state that the interview process lasts four to six weeks.

Too Many Interviews: Over half of companies make candidates go through four or more interviews. For companies looking to reduce time to fill, too many interviews can impact efficiency as well as experience. Companies are at risk of losing quality talent when the interview process is delayed or too many interviewers are introduced.

Inconsistent Interviews: When companies lack a strategy for interviews, hiring managers and recruiters often go rogue and ask questions or conduct interviews with little guidance. Inconsistency in the interview process can create inequity and damage the employer brand.

Data-Driven Decisions: Organizations feel pressure to act quickly and may make decisions based on gut. Companies are not relying on data and insights to drive these decisions because they don’t have information beyond the resume, which only provides a limited, often biased view of a candidate.

Bias in the Interview: Companies must recognize and acknowledge bias in the hiring process. Only 30% of companies identified bias as a top challenge in talent acquisition, yet one in three candidates have experienced bias in the interview process. Relying only on human interviews creates inconsistent hiring standards and introduces bias. 

How Can Smart Technology and AI Help?

The right technology can help companies address the challenges they face with interviewing to:

  • Empower recruiters and hiring managers to make smarter decisions
  • Improve recruiter productivity
  • Improve hiring diversity by using blind smart interview technology from the start
  • Create consumer-grade candidate experiences through the convenience of a smart interviewer

The pandemic accelerated the investment in digital interview solutions. In February 2020, less than 60% of companies were using or planning to use video interview providers. One year later, over 80% of companies were using or planning to use a broader set of intelligent interview platforms. Video was the tool of choice at the beginning of the pandemic for asynchronous hiring. The problem was that many of these solutions merely replaced face-to-face interactions, with a less human way of interviewing. Many candidates do not feel comfortable with the format of a video interview, especially if they are timed. For many companies, abandonment rates are high on video.

Today, there are technology choices available that remove that cognitive load and deliver on candidate expectations. AI is fundamentally changing every aspect of HR and there is growing curiosity and appetite to understand it. According to Aptitude Research, 63% of companies are investing or planning to invest in AI solutions this year, compared to 42% in 2020. This study found that 39% of companies believe it brings positive benefits, and 32% of companies are starting to leverage AI in interviewing.

If you are interested in the full report (sponsored by Sapia), you can download it for free here.

Categories
Blog

iCIMS Acquires Candidate.ID and Strengthens Its Recruitment Marketing Offering

Today, iCIMS announced the acquisition of Candidate.ID, a leader in recruitment marketing automation. By adding Candidate.ID’s functionality to its Talent Cloud, iCIMS offers a powerful recruitment marketing offering with the ability to effectively engage talent. In addition, this acquisition makes iCIMS better positioned to compete against ATS providers and stand-alone CRM providers. I have been following Candidate.ID for the past few years, and I am excited about this opportunity.

Below are a few of my initial thoughts:

What is Candidate.ID?

Companies are facing pressure to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of talent acquisition efforts. Candidate.ID helps companies solve this challenge by identifying, nurturing, and engaging ready-now talent. 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. As a result, 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.

One key differentiator is that Candidate.ID focuses on In-Demand talent, helping companies build pipelines for critical roles that are hard to fill, including healthcare professionals, engineers, scientists, and enterprise sales. Its scoring capabilities allow companies to filter candidates by engagement scores and match them against job descriptions.

What Do We Know About This Acquisition?

Before joining iCIMS, Steve Lucas was the CEO of Marketo, a marketing automation provider. Given his background, It is no surprise that he was impressed by Candidate.ID and the potential to enhance Talent Cloud with these capabilities. Here are a few things that we know about the acquisition so far.

  • Brand: Immediately following the acquisition, Candidate.ID will be referred to as “Candidate.ID, an iCIMS company.” A brand transition may occur in 2023.
    • Flexibility: iCIMS is taking a flexible approach to selling and packaging Candidate.ID. It will be offered to existing customers, sold as a stand-alone, and sold to RPOs.
  • Integration: In the near-term, Candidate.ID’s solutions will be integrated into iCIMS CRM and iCIMS ATS. The product integration will continue to roll out in phases across data, user experience, and workflows across the entire Talent Cloud, including unique use cases in the areas of internal mobility.

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 the talent they target 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. It provides visibility into the marketing activities so that companies can 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 in the future. Analytics provide insights into cold, warm, and ready candidates.

I am excited to share any updates on this acquisition over the next few months and include Candidate.ID in our Recruitment Marketing Index report.

Categories
Blog Talent Acquisition Technology

A Week in Review: Acquisitions, Jobs Report, and Rebrands

Last week, someone asked me if the momentum and investment in TA tech and HR tech will continue in 2022. And, the answer seems to be YES. This week included acquisitions, investment announcements, and even a rebranding. It is an exciting time to be in this market for providers, buyers, and even analysts. We found that over 60% of companies are increasing their investment in TA tech this year, and buyers are looking closely at what solutions will help them attract, recruit, and hire talent.

A few of the big announcements include:

SmartRecruiters Acquires Attrax: A career site can make or break a company’s ability to attract and convert talent. And, not all career sites are designed the same. ATS providers have invested in career sites over the past few years, but most enterprise companies still need to look at third-party options to build dynamic and engaging career sites. This acquisition of Attrax, a leading career site provider, further strengthens SmartRecruiters’ recruitment marketing capabilities with personalized and engaging career sites.

Phenom Acquires Tandemploy: Phenom has expanded beyond talent acquisition and offers an experience platform for the entire employee lifecycle. Tandemploy is a Berlin-based HR tech company focused on solving key problems associated with employee experiences. This addition enhances the capabilities of Phenom’s AI-powered Talent Experience Management (TXM) platform and grows the company’s presence in Europe.

Hiretual Rebrands to HireEZ: This week, Hiretual rebranded to HireEZ and hosted an analyst day to announce this news and $26M of investment. HireEZ’s vision is to create a new category around Outbound Recruiting. Some of my brilliant analyst friends (George LaRocque, Trish McFarlane and Steve Boese, Tim Sackett) did great covering this announcement.

January Jobs Report: The January Jobs Report came out today, and Andrew Flowers, Chief Economist of Appcast, did a great job covering this news and its implications on the labor market. With 467,000 jobs added and unemployment holding steady at 4%, the job growth trajectory is looking up. Despite 15 million people with COVID, the labor market is not slowing down. According to the report:

Retail accelerating thru January

Restaurants & bars not as affected by Omicron as they were by Delta

 Healthcare, transportation & warehousing are steady

Manufacturing slowing

2022 is off to a busy start, and looking forward to what this year brings. We are about to publish two new studies on humanity in the workforce and data-driven hiring. Stay tuned!

Categories
Blog Talent Analytics

The Future of Talent Analytics: New Research

Talent acquisition and HR leaders are reevaluating processes, technology, and analytics to prepare for the next year. And, companies must build a deeper understanding of what drives success and what candidates want in an employer. But, unfortunately, most companies are looking at analytics through one lens and collecting operational data without driving insights or action. I am excited to present new research on the future of talent analytics next week on a webinar with Jason Moreau, CEO of Survale.

As companies look to the future of talent analytics, they can no longer rely on reactionary decision-making. They need a more robust approach that harnesses the power of both experiential data (subjective) and operational data (objective) data. We need to include the experiences of candidates and employees in decision-making.

A few things we will talk about during this webinar.

  • The Issue with Data. A lack of data is not the problem for most TA functions. Companies have data, but they are not always using data to drive action. And over half of the companies still rely on resume data to make decisions. Companies must think differently about data and include insights from every aspect of talent acquisition, from recruitment marketing to offer and onboarding.
  • A Broader Look at Data. Companies must look at both operational and experiential data to create a better way to recruit candidates and develop employees. They must make use of positive experiences and collect feedback from individuals throughout the process.
  • The Impact of Experiences. Companies that measure experiences and invest in experiences see improvements in brand, NPS scores, and employee retention. We will discuss why experiences need to be a critical component of analytics for the future.
  • A New Framework. We will be sharing a new framework that looks at how companies can set goals, define metrics, gather insights, and take action. We will apply this framework to the candidate experience, employee experience, quality of hire, internal mobility, and candidate apply process.

I hope you can join us next Tuesday, 10/19, at 2 pm EST.

Categories
Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

Global TA Day: A Love Letter to Recruiters

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

It is Global TA Day and we are posting a series of blogs on all things TA. This blog focuses on the recruiter experience.

Talent acquisition is an amazing profession. The fundamental work of a recruiter is personal, meaningful, and purposeful. It enables companies to grow and expand into new markets and gives candidates new opportunities. Yet, companies do not always recognize the role of the recruiter or give TA teams the resources they need. According to Aptitude Research, only one in four companies are prioritizing recruiter turnover this year.

Companies looking to provide an exceptional employer experience to their recruiters should consider the following steps:

  • Recognize Recruiters: Companies must recognize the reality of recruiting today and the challenges recruiters face when identifying and attracting talent. Recruiters must juggle multiple roles today and companies must recognize the work they do and the impact it has on organizational performance.
  • Set Realistic Expectations: Companies must set realistic expectations of recruiting teams that can including hiring goals, diversity initiatives, and cost savings. To improve the recruiter experience, goals and expectations must be achievable.
  • Invest in Technology: Recruiting and hiring teams need the right solutions to be successful. Companies that invest in the right technology will improve efficiencies and create opportunities to engage with candidates in a more meaningful way, and at scale.

Talent acquisition professionals are under pressure to balance a heavy workload without support, and they must remain flexible. Aptitude Research found the following challenges impacting recruiting teams:

Req Workload: Thirty percent (30%) increase in requisition workload since 2020.

Doing More With Less: Limited resources on TA function with layoffs and limited budgets.

Administrative Tasks: Spending 16 hours per week scheduling and 10 hours per week finding candidates in the ATS.

The role of the recruiter has become incredibly complex, and according to Aptitude Research, 30% of recruiters are feeling burned out this year. Over the past few years, talent acquisition has been a priority for business leaders. TA has been given new responsibilities that include areas such as retention initiatives, branding, internal mobility, and contingent workforce. By adding new roles, new strategies, and new technology in a short period of time, talent acquisition at many companies has become unwieldy and difficult to manage. Talent acquisition professionals need more support in balancing multiple priorities. The recruiter experience is the most critical component of the candidate experience and companies need to recognize when recruiters feel overworked and make changes.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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?

Categories
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.

LinkedIn Twitter Email
Top
Aptitude Research