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Talent Acquisition Technology: Innovation from Ireland

Last summer, I was invited by Enterprise Ireland to attend an event in Dublin and learn about some of the leading technology companies in talent acquisition and talent management. Enterprise Ireland is the Government agency in Ireland responsible for supporting Irish businesses in the manufacturing and internationally traded service sectors. Eight hundred Irish owned companies operate across all 50 US states and Enterprise Ireland supports many of these providers. Not surprising, talent and HR is a growing area of investment. Enterprise Ireland helps these businesses to start-up, innovate and ultimately, to achieve global success. It gives them the support and guidance that many stat-ups in the United States lack.

The companies that I met in Ireland were professional and had a clear understanding of their differentiators, goals and target customers.

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, I want to highlight a few of the leading talent acquisition technology companies headquartered in Ireland.

Sonru: With over 500 customers all over the world, Sonru (which means “stand out”) is a global video interviewing provider that supports companies such as Pepsico and Volvo.

Clinch: In the competitive recruitment marketing industry, Clinch differentiates itself with strong customer support and an innovative product. Over the past year, Clinch has added internal mobility capabilities, SMS and communication, and focused on helping companies stay GDPR compliant.

HireUp: HireUp is a referral app that was designed for employees. It allows employees to share jobs through any channel they want and provides communication and notifications about the status of a candidate to the individual that provided the referral.

Jobbio: with over 6,000 SMB customers, Jobbio is an employer branding company that focuses on helping companies with recruitment marketing, job distribution and the candidate experience.

These companies represent just a handful of innovative providers coming out of Ireland. Other areas of growth include learning, communication, and engagement. The support these providers get from Enterprise Ireland helps them make better decisions around their roadmaps, partnerships, and global expansion.

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Aptitude Weekly Update: Jobvite, TMP, Yello, Google and IBM

It is the end of another exciting week in HCM technology with some major acquisitions, product announcements, and new partnerships. The recruitment marketing landscape is changing while AI continues to define technology decisions in 2019.

Below are some of the highlights from this week:

–        K1 Investment Management (a private equity firm based out of Los Angeles) invested over $200 million in Jobvite. This funding will be used to acquire three distinct (and notably different) talent acquisition providers: Talemetry (Recruitment Marketing Platform), Rolepoint (Employee Referrals), and Canvas (Candidate Communication and Text). Each provider offers a unique set of products and capabilities that when (and if) integrated will provide one of the most robust talent acquisition suites available in the market. You can read my thoughts from Monday’s blog.

–          TMP Acquires CKR Interactive. TMP Worldwide also announced the acquisition of CKR Interactive, an employer branding and recruitment marketing firm founded in 2001. This acquisition expands TMP’s market share in the recruitment marketing space and gives CKR Interactive access to more creative services and technology (through the TalentBrew platform).

–          Yello Launches a New Interview Scheduling Product. Scheduling interviews is one of the greatest challenges facing talent acquisition professionals today. Ineffective scheduling can negatively impact recruiter productivity and the candidate experience. According to our recently survey, over 60% of companies have dedicated schedulers on their talent acquisition teams. Yello is helping companies manage the way interviews are scheduled with a new product that is powered by AI and can match and manage complicated schedules in one system.

–          Hire by Google Expands in the US and Canada: In 2017, Google launched its Hire product in the US and began to expand its products in the talent acquisition market. This week it announced expansion in Canada and the UK. I am guessing we will continue to see global expansion and a possible move up market in the next year or two.

–       IBM Announces Partnerships with Skillsoft and ServiceNow: I was at the IBM Think conference this week to learn more about AI, blockchain, automation and talent. I will post more from this event on Monday but two major announcements were IBM’s partnerships with ServiceNow and SkillSoft. These partnerships represent IBM’s commitment to areas like internal mobility and succession planning.

Have a great weekend!

 

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Talent Acquisition: The Next Wave of Acquisitions

Today, K1 Investment Management (a private equity firm based out of Los Angeles) invested over $200 million in Jobvite. This funding will be used to acquire three distinct (and notably different) talent acquisition providers: Talemetry (Recruitment Marketing Platform), Rolepoint (Employee Referrals), and Canvas (Candidate Communication and Text). Each provider offers a unique set of products and capabilities that when (and if) integrated will provide one of the most robust talent acquisition suites available in the market.

Without diminishing the value of Rolepoint and Canvas, this acquisition is significant for two main reasons:

–          Jobvite: Jobvite is here to stay. This announcement puts to rest any rumors about the future of Jobvite as an ATS and its’ staying power in a competitive market. Jobvite’s customers can expect more products, services, and support over the next few years.

–          Talemetry: This acquisition is the first significant announcement in the recruitment marketing landscape and it will not be the last. With many of these providers looking for an exit, is the future of recruitment marketing in a stand-alone solution or an integrated suite (ATS and Recruitment Marketing)? My bet is on the latter.

The ATS market is no stranger to acquisitions. In fact, it has gone through two major waves of acquisitions in the past 15 years. The first in 2005-2006 with acquisitions that included Virtual Edge by ADP and BrassRing by Kenexa. These providers were looking to complete a broader vision of their talent management suites. Smaller companies such as Cytiva (by Taleo) and HodesiQ (by Technomedia) followed suit a few years later. The second wave was in 2012 with the acquisitions of Taleo by Oracle, SuccessFactors by SAP, and Kenexa by IBM. These larger ERP companies were looking to check a box for recruitment technology. What followed was a de-prioritization of talent acquisition and very little innovation or product development.

This most recent announcement could spark the third-wave and possibly, the most significant. In this case, talent acquisition is not a piece of the puzzle. It is not an extra module that is getting acquired to fill some larger HCM story. In the case of this acquisition, talent acquisition IS the story.

Below are my early thoughts on what we know at this point, what we don’t know, and what this means for the market.

What We Know

–          Integration: In the short-term, K1 plans to keep the four providers separate with their own product, sales, and marketing teams. Each of these entities will roll-up under Jobvite with Dan Finnigan as the CEO. The goal in the long-term is to have an integrated platform.

–          Enterprise: Talemetry has been very successful at serving the global enterprise market through strong leadership and a product that was originally built for integration with Oracle customers. It is the unsung hero of the recruitment marketing world with high utilization and 70% year over year growth. It is the provider that can help support enterprise growth.

–          Services: Jobvite has strengthened its’ services and customer support over the past few years. Ultimately, services will be under one shared entity but it will take time and a commitment to the customer.

What We Don’t Know

–          Oracle Integration: Questions may arise around the future of Talemetry’s close partnership with Oracle. Overall, it should not have a major impact since Talemetry integrates with many of the ATS providers including Workday, iCIMS, and PeopleFluent. And ultimately, customer requests tend to drive partnerships more than providers’ decisions.

–          Timeframe: Acquisitions take time. As a result, delays can impact product strategies, support, and resources. Customers will not know the long-term goals until some of the short-term objectives have been met.

–          Target Customer: These providers serve different markets. Although there is some overlap, only time will tell where this new entity will thrive. What we do know is that the emphasis will be expanding in the enterprise market.

What It Means

This acquisition has the potential to change the talent acquisition landscape for a few reasons:

–          It will put pressure on other stand-alone recruitment marketing providers that are looking to get acquired or fearful that they won’t be able to compete against a larger firm. We can expect to see more acquisitions over the next year in recruitment marketing.

–          Providers that play in the larger ecosystem (such as Rolepoint and Canvas) may also get acquired by ATS companies or talent acquisition suite companies. These types of acquisitions can leave customers feeling uncertain about future investments in third-party providers.

–          ATS companies will need to enhance their capabilities. Most of these providers have some type of lightweight CRM in place. They will need to enhance these products or make future acquisitions. Expect more and ask for more from your existing providers.

It is an exciting time to be in talent acquisition. It is no longer a piece of the HCM puzzle. Solution providers feel pressure to do more and talent acquisition leaders are in a unique position to ask for more. We look forward to what the next few months will bring.

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Recruitment Marketing: Four Trends to Consider When Evaluating Providers

compass with the arrow pointing towards the word talent

In a few weeks, we are publishing an updated Recruitment Marketing Index. It is a project I started a year ago and this market continues to surprise me. Although, it is one of the most exciting areas of talent acquisition technology, evaluating these providers is not always easy. Organizations are looking at these solutions from very different perspectives and based on very different needs. Some companies want support with career sites. Some companies want a true CRM. And, some companies are not even sure what they want. Unlike the ATS market, recruitment marketing can feel like apples and oranges.

Over the past year, many of the providers in our report have enhanced their capabilities, secured investment, created service offerings, and acquired large global customers. It has certainly been a year of change but some of the confusion around what these solutions do and what value they bring has remained the same. The goal of this research is to help provide clarity on a complex market and highlight the key differentiators in this space. With over 70% of enterprise companies investing or planning to invest in these solutions this year, we want to share some of the latest trends.

Below are a few of the key takeaways from the report:

Replacement: It is amazing to see how many second and third generation buyers exist in a market that is still immature. Recruitment marketing is the top area of replacement in the next year above ATS, assessments and background screening. Organizations looking to replace these solutions cited capabilities, price and customer support as the top reasons. The providers that succeed in this market are not those that have secured the most investment but those that are committed to building products that their customers want to use.

Adoption: Adoption continues to be one of the greatest challenges with recruitment marketing. Only 2% of companies are using all of the functionality in their recruitment marketing solutions. The problem is two-fold: many companies do not have the resources in place to support implementation and adoption and many of these providers are not making products that are simple enough to get adopted. These solutions provide great value but only if they are getting used.

Buyer: The recruitment marketing buyer is different for every company and it is not always the head of talent acquisition that is the key decision maker. At many companies, recruitment operations professionals are responsible for evaluating providers and talent acquisition teams with candidate experience roles, campus recruiting roles and employer brand specialists are having influence as well.

Events Management: One of the key drivers for investing in recruitment marketing is the ability to create, track and manage all events. It is surprising that many of the providers in this market are still lacking some robust capabilities in events management. This is one area that is becoming increasingly important especially with the demand for more campus recruiting solutions.

The Recruitment Marketing Index report profiles eight of the leading providers in the space and will look at differentiators, product roadmap, investment, and capabilities. We are looking forward to sharing this research with you!

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2018 HR Technology Conference: Bridging the Past and the Future

The energy at this year’s HR Technology Conference is hard to describe. This is an industry that thrives on connections. And there was no shortage of connections at this year’s event. Customers built closer relationships with solution providers. Partnerships were established. And even competitors explored opportunities with each other. This is an industry willing to share and an industry willing to learn. We have a unique opportunity to stay connected as vendors, practitioners, and thought leaders and something we should never take for granted. It is a great time to be in HR Technology.

I am still processing much of what I learned over the past week but some of the obvious themes include next generation assessments, communication solutions (yes, chatbots), employee experience solutions, and talent acquisition. Several years ago, startups were driving this market. Today, the focus has been on traditional providers that are setting the pace for innovation through enhanced products and partnerships.

Here are some of my observations and some providers worth checking out:

Assessments: Companies are increasing their investment in pre-hire assessments this year. In fact, according to Aptitude Research Partners’ 2018 Assessment study, 71% of companies are leveraging at least one assessment provider and 57% of these companies are using two or more providers. Until very recently, assessments have been a very stagnant market with little innovation. In fact, only 25% of companies in Aptitude’s 2018 Hire, Engage, Retain study are considering a mobile assessment solution. The good news is that we are now seeing tremendous innovation in the assessment space from both startups and traditional assessment providers. As my friend Jonathan Kestenbaum at Talent Tech Labs says: “Assessments are back in style”. This market has reinvented itself to be more predictive and candidate friendly. Below are some providers that impressed us last week:

–          Infor: Infor’s Talent Science is embedded into its talent suite- making assessments the framework of every talent solution. The candidate experience has been a priority over the past year and the assessments are mobile optimized. Infor has been successful at reducing the time to complete an assessment by 40% and at making assessments more predictive through the use of machine learning.

–          HireVue: Through the acquisition of MindX and its own product development, HireVue has established itself as a strong contender in the assessment space. Its’ focus is on game-based assessments that are predictive and ensure that candidates are more engaged in the process.

–          Shaker: If you are familiar with the assessment market, you probably know Shaker’s Virtual Job Tryout. It is a leader in game-based assessments. Shaker has made significant changes in the past year with a new leadership team (industry experts), global growth, and product innovation. It is focusing on areas such as internal mobility, predictive assessments, and mobile solutions.

–          SHL: Since going independent six months ago, SHL has moved away from a traditional assessment business and is focused on helping companies transform their workforce capabilities. It does this through the combination of science, technology, and data. It offers both pre-hire and post-hire assessments (talent acceleration) and focuses on the context of the work environment.

 

Candidate Communication: Today’s candidates are making smarter decisions about what they want from an employer. They are diving deeper into job sites, career sites, and social media to get a clear picture of an organization before making a connection. They want to understand if the skills they have are the skills needed for the job. Employers are finding better ways to communicate with candidates but they less than 40% companies provide relevant information to help candidates make better decisions. Companies want to do better and they are looking to providers to help improve communication (often through chatbots). Below are some companies improving candidate communication:

–          AllyO: There was no shortage of chatbots at this year’s conference. But AllyO stood out from others because of its accelerated automation and benefits to the candidate. It requires no registration or friction and no risk to candidates.

–          Brazen: One of the first chat and online communication solutions in recruitment, Brazen is now including its’ chat functionality on career sites and job pages.

–          IBM: Let’s be honest, most talent acquisition providers in AI are not really AI. Craig Fisher of Allegis Group calls it “Augmented Intelligence”. But there are a few exceptions, and Watson is one of them. Watson Candidate Assistant provides both employers and candidates with the insights they need to make better decisions and personalize the recruitment process. It is now available in more languages including French and also, available to Greenhouse customers through a new strategic partnership.

–          Montage: With a recent acquisition (GreenJobs Interview), momentum in several industries including Financial Services, and a strong year of growth, Montage has had an exciting year. Although its roots are in the video interviewing space, over half of its’ clients are using communication solutions that are not related to video including text, scheduling, and a recruiter assistant.

–          Monster: Monster is making improvements to the candidate journey and looking beyond pre-applicant. It offers authentic videos through Monster Studios to give candidates a better sense of an employer and connect employees and candidates.

–          Yello: Yello has made significant enhancements to its product over the past year including candidate engagement and communication. Through text messaging capabilities, Yello can provide keywords to candidates so they can be directed to career pages and can easily connect with employers.

Talent Acquisition Trifecta Providers: The Talent Acquisition Trifecta is the core areas of talent acquisition: recruitment marketing, ATS, and onboarding. Companies, regardless of size, need solutions to handle all three of these areas in order to be effective. While recruitment marketing has seen a great deal of innovation over the past year (we are publishing the recruitment marketing index in October so keep an eye out for providers in that space), ATS and Onboarding providers are enhancing their solutions as well. Below are some leading talent acquisition providers:

–          Clickboarding: Onboarding is one of the most important areas of talent acquisition that impacts productivity, retention, and performance. While so many solutions focus on the candidate experience, the new hire experience often gets ignored. Clickboarding is one of the most impressive solutions in onboarding today and provides both the compliance to employers and the positive experience that new hires expect.

–          Greenhouse: Greenhouse is continuing to move up market and has made a strategic partnership with IBM to use its Watson Candidate Assistant (see above).

–          Jobvite: Although many of the ATS providers now offer recruitment marketing capabilities, Jobvite has differentiated itself by selling the product as a stand-alone and investing in strong capabilities that go beyond just checking the box for a CRM.

–          SmartRecruiters: In addition to recent product announcements including SmartJobs, and SmartAssistant, SmartRecruiters has also been focused on its CRM product. It is ensuring that companies can easily create campaigns and make better decisions around engaging talent.

Employee Experience: Companies recognize the impact of experience on their growth and profitability and are making changes to how they communicate with, engage, and support their customers. But, creating an engaging experience does not and should not end with the customer. It must extend into our workforce. Just as companies are prioritizing customers, they must also focus on solutions that improve the employee experience. Below are some of the solution providers leading the way in employee experience.

–          Globoforce: Globoforce is continuing to improve the employee experience through its recognition software and conversations solution, which allows employees to receive ongoing feedback on performance.

–          Limeade: If you think about a modern employee experience model, wellness is the foundation. If employees are not well, productivity and performance are in jeopardy. Limeade provides solutions that promote wellness and mindfulness to benefit not only organizational goals but the overall employee experience. It also announced the acquisition of Sitrion, an employee communication tool, to further its commitment to the employee experience.

–          meQuilibrium: If you haven’t heard of MeQuilibrium, it’s because this provider spent over two years developing its interactive solution before going to market. MeQuilibrium focuses on measuring resiliency and collecting data on how thoughts and feelings impact employee performance.

–          Willis Towers Watson: The HR portal software is not a traditional HR Portal- it is a solution to employee communication and experience. This solution is personalized and branded to reflect company goals and objectives and includes case management, total rewards dashboards, and analytics.  One financial services client with over 80,000 employees invested in the HR portal to increase employee participation in total rewards programs and showcase the company brand.

It is a good time to be in HR Technology. With providers looking to help solve business challenges and improve the experience of the individual, this market has come along way. This blog is just a snapshot of some of the announcements from last week. We would love to hear what interested you.

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Six Strategies for Improving Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment marketing is one of the fastest growing areas of HR technology with nearly 70% of enterprise companies investing in some capabilities. It is a popular topic and one that tends to focus on some obvious trends CRM, career sites, and analytics. Companies want solutions that will help them attract talent before they apply for a job.

The challenge is that most companies have very little understanding of what recruitment marketing is and how to evaluate and select a partner. Building a business case can be a challenge when companies feel overwhelmed with a lot of product and a lot of use cases. Some companies need to start out small and consider strategies that can help to bring immediate benefits to recruitment marketing initiatives. These strategies may not be the most obvious but they are simple to adopt.

Today, I am presenting on a webinar with Stephen Schwander, Director of Client Solutions at Talemetry, to address six innovative trends in recruitment marketing that are practical and easy to implement including:

• Communication: How texting directly with candidates optimizes response rates
• Personalization: How personalized content empowers the candidate journey and builds ongoing relationships
• Feedback: How sharing and reviewing feedback earlier on prospective talent provides an expedited and higher quality recruitment process
• Insights: How gaining insight and visibility into career site visitor behavior can empower recruiting teams to segment candidates and nurture the most engaged talent
• Machine Learning: How Google machine learning can maximize career site traffic and engagement to increase candidate conversion
• Candidate Conversion: How improving candidate conversion on Indeed can increase overall application volume

Recruitment marketing doesn’t have to be a future goal. It can be an immediate goal and something your company can start working on today.

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New Research: The Informed Candidate

Today’s candidates are making smarter decisions about what they want from an employer. They are diving deeper into job sites, career sites, and social media to get a clear picture of an organization before making a connection. They want to understand if the skills they have are the skills needed for the job. This more “informed candidate” brings significant benefits to organizations by improving efficiency and helping companies stay more strategic in the hiring process. And it is becoming clear that companies that want to successfully compete for talent need to embrace the informed candidate and manage their online brand to provide the most accurate and relevant information.

According to Aptitude research conducted in 2018, companies define the informed candidates as having the right information for an interview, the right skills for the job, and someone who has conducted his or her own research. When candidates know what to expect, recruiters are able to better meet those expectations and provide a positive experience. Last month, we published some new research on how companies can do a better job engaging the informed candidate. Here are some of the key findings and recommendations:

• Provide Accurate Information: Only 22% of companies communicate with candidates in a timely manner and much of the information provided is not accurate. In fact, only 32% of companies are confident that they know where they are advertising jobs to candidates. Companies need to pay close attention to the information they are providing candidates whether through advertisements, career sites, or even job descriptions. The more accurate and relevant the information, the more likely the candidate will be the right fit.

• Invest in Employer Branding: Thirty-eight percent (38%) of companies say that employer branding is still a significant barrier in the hiring process. In Aptitude Research Partner’s 2018 Hire, Engage and Retain study, companies identified employer branding tools as one of the top 3 most effective sources of hire for every position from executive level roles to hourly workers. Companies that invest in employer branding efforts are empowering the informed candidate with information that can help them through their journey. It gives them information about the company as well as relevant jobs.

• Manage Online Reputation: Candidates are doing their own research and companies should be involved in that process. Eighty percent (80%) of candidates have accurate information from companies that manage their online reputation compared to only 36% of candidates from companies that do not manage their online reputation. Managing an online reputation could include employer branding efforts, social media sites, as well as employee feedback sites. Candidates are 40% more likely to apply for a job at companies where they recognize the brand.

The key to building a successful candidate experience is understanding that it begins well before an individual is actually a “candidate”. It begins during the attract phase of talent acquisition when employers leverage a variety of channels and content to engage and inform both active and passive candidates early in the process. This experience begins when a candidate starts to gather information on a job or an employer.

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Assessments: You Have Better Options

I have been covering the assessment market for the past 15 years. And to be honest…I have done a less than stellar job. Looking back on research from 2005 makes me want to cringe. We are still talking about the same trends, the same providers, and the same challenges. Companies continue to invest heavily in assessments (some close to $2 million) and assessments continue to frustrate recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates. Not much has changed. Overall, most companies feel that assessments are not short enough, not predictive enough, and not candidate-friendly enough. If you have ever taken an assessment, you get it. It is a test and most people don’t like tests.

But the conundrum that companies face is that assessments actually provide tremendous value when used correctly. In an era when everyone wants less bias and more science, assessments are a proven model. In research we conducted earlier this year, assessments are one of the top three investments for talent acquisition leaders and an investment that 30% of companies believe has the greatest impact on quality of hire. It is a market where most companies want to increase their budgets. Unfortunately, they need better options.

Last week, when most of the talent acquisition community was focused on the acquisition of Glassdoor, HireVue announced its own acquisition of MindX– a game-based assessment provider. It is not HireVue’s first acquisition but it may be the best to date. HireVue is establishing itself as a strong contender in assessments and providing companies with exactly what they need…a better option. This acquisition represents a shift in the assessment market where companies are no longer at the mercy of traditional providers.

We are publishing a major piece of research on assessments this month and some of the trends we are seeing include:

–          Experience vs. Validation: The assessment market is not a startup market. Companies need providers with validated solutions and I/Os on staff. Many times, this commitment to validation comes at the expense of a positive experience. The next generation of assessment providers will provide both a positive experience (shorter assessments that are more candidate-friendly) and trusted data and solutions.

–          Lack of Awareness: Most enterprise companies invest heavily in assessments but most have limited knowledge of the providers that play in this market. The assessment market is not small by any means but the number of providers with brand awareness are few and far between. It creates a feeling of “meh” around assessments. Companies have a hard time leaving a provider that they are not satisfied with when they do not know what options are available.

–          Increased Demand for High-Volume: Most companies are increasing their investment for assessments for high-volume positions to help them narrow the funnel and attract quality hires. This is a shift from the heavy investment in custom assessments for executive level positions of the past.

–          Game-based assessments: Companies want game-based assessments for their most critical roles and see value in a better candidate experience and the ability to predict future performance.

We will publish our latest assessment research this month. We have interviewed many talent acquisition leaders this year and feel confident that we will do a better job addressing the real challenges and opportunities in this market.

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A Simple Way to Improve Quality in Talent Acquisition

According to our latest talent acquisition survey, forty percent of companies are increasing their headcount this year and as a result, need to think about investing in the right solutions. Many of these companies are thinking differently about some of the basic areas of talent acquisition rather than investing in what seems to be “new”. Companies want solutions that can help ensure quality of hire and provide a better candidate experience. It sounds simple but with thousands of solutions entering the market, finding providers you can trust is more valuable than bells and whistles.

Over 50% of companies said that background screening solutions have the greatest impact on quality. Screening solutions help organizations make better decisions around the talent they are bringing into the organization. Most companies are investing in criminal background checks as well as verification of employment and education. And…over 60% of companies view screening as so strategic that they are moving it up in the process.

Next week I will present on a webinar to discuss how companies are leveraging these solutions to improve both sides of quality: quality of hire and the quality of the candidate experience. Here are some of the topics we covered:

Quality of Hire: Background screening is one way organizations can improve quality of hire by providing another layer of objectivity needed to make better decisions and retain talent. When an organization is able to eliminate applicants that do not fit the position or role in the process, they can focus on the individuals that are more likely to contribute to organizational performance and growth. Organizations that are taking a more strategic approach to background screening – deeply probing into relevant information on candidates and relying on more than single errors to reject candidates – identify quality hires. Companies that invest in screening are three times more likely to track quality of hire.

Quality of the Experience: Aptitude’s research shows that investing in the right provider improves efficiency and the quality of hire and the overall candidate experience. Companies that invest in background screening solutions are viewing it as part of the process and are twice as likely to have improved their overall candidate experience in the past year. A proper and efficient screening process saves candidates the headache of getting too far along in the application process before being rejected. According to research from The Talent Board, on average, over a quarter of the employers surveyed stated that 50-75% of applicants aren’t qualified for the jobs they applied for across job classifications. Companies that invest in screening improve the candidate experience and track it so they can make changes and communicate better in the future.

Companies that invest in a strategic background screening provider are able to trust that the data about candidates is reliable. Thus, the quality of hire and the experience is improved. We hope you join us next week!

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April Acquisitions in Talent Acquisition

According to the PwC Deals report that published yesterday, 506 deals took place involving US tech companies in Q1. To put that in perspective, we are talking about $60 billion exchanged. And, no surprise, several of these deals were in HCM technology. These deal sizes and volume have remained up and the momentum has not slowed down in Q2. We saw some significant acquisitions this month in talent acquisition and talent management. Companies are looking for the right exit strategies and opportunities to expand their customer base and product suites.

Here are a few of the major announcements this month in case you missed them:

-Learning Technology Group (LTG) entered into an agreement to acquire talent management provide PeopleFluent last week. LTG has acquired several leading learning providers over the past few years including NetDimensions and the PeopleFluent acquisition allows it to expand into other areas of talent management as well as some robust solutions in the contingent workforce space. PeopeFluent is no stranger to acquisitions. After acquiring PeopleClick, Authoria was acquired by Bedford Funding which then rebranded as PeopleFluent. (It’s confusing to us too). 

-Gemspring Capital completes its acquisition of TMP. This acquisition doesn’t come as a huge surprise. TMP’s been trying to reinvent itself for the past few years – especially through its TalentBrew product. Gemspring Capital can help to accelerate its transformation into becoming more of a tech company.

–Indeed Acquires Workopolis. The biggest indicator of a provider’s decline is when it starts to acquire companies that do exactly what they do but on a smaller scale. Indeed’s recent acquisition of Canadian job board, Workopolis is a good example (Does anyone remember some of Monster’s acquisitions of several job boards before it started to decline?). Joel Cheesman provides a great overview of the acquisition on ERE.

But how do these acquisitions impact customers? Having your provider acquired is not necessarily a bad thing but there are some things to consider. What is driving the acquisition? Is the provider trying to expand its product suite? Or is this merely an attempt to stay relevant? Customers need to ask the tough questions and start to prepare for possible changes in dedicated representatives, response time, and product updates.

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