Pics from HR Tech Expo

Last week HR Tech happened in Chicago. Here are my pics from the week.

October RecTech Insider

Here's a roundup of recruitment technology that has made news in the past 30 days.

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NEW LAUNCHES

Facebook at Work set to launch. Like an Intranet for your business.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/27/facebook-for-work/

Impraise: New NYC startup lets you give your coworkers anonymous feedback

http://www.builtinnyc.com/2016/09/20/impraise-tech-modern-performance-review

TILR: Cincinnati startup launched a new app over Labor Day weekend designed to connect business owners with on-demand employees and circumvent the lengthy recruitment process. The way it works is rather than having a company or employer post a job, review resumes, screen potential temporary employees by phone, interview them in-person, make a hiring selection and then onboard them, the employer tells Tilr what it needs and the app will find the right person for the job.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/09/06/cincinnati-startup-launches-the-match-com-of.html

HiringSolved will soon unveil what it considers “Siri for recruiting,” an artificial intelligence assistant for recruiters. His name will be RAI, pronounced like the name Ray, and standing for “Recruiting Artificial Intelligence.” The company has been working on it for five years, and is still perfecting it. The gist of it is you’d ask recruiting questions to a Chatbot-like system. So, instead of checking off a bunch of boxes, you’d type something like, “I need to find 10 female developers with experience using WordPress, within 10 miles of Milwaukee.” 

http://www.eremedia.com/ere/a-cousin-of-siri-is-coming-to-the-recruiting-field/

LinkedIn has given a facelift to its desktop publishing platform to encourage more post engagement from its professional user base.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/linkedin-unveils-its-new-blogging-platform/

LinkedIn: A year and a half ago, LinkedIn plunked down $1.5 billion for Lynda.com, the huge online learning site. Today, at an event in its San Francisco office, the company introduced LinkedIn Learning, a set of new features that incorporate Lynda.com courses into LinkedIn itself, so that members can find and take courses, see which ones their connections are taking, and otherwise learn skills that are useful to their careers, all within the context of LinkedIn. They're available starting today.

https://news.fastcompany.com/linkedin-rolls-learning-into-its-network-continues-to-dream-big-4019822

Joberate releases tool that indicates job search activity.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/09/06/this-software-startup-can-tell-your-boss-if-youre-looking-for-a-job-2/

Indeed is taking aim at Southern California's high tech market, with the launch of its Indeed Prime in the market. According to Indeed, the service--specifically targeted at technology talent--will give employers access to a "curated pool" of people, based on coding skills, education, and work experience. The Indeed Prime service--unlike a typical job board or resume bank--specifically screens and prequalifies professionals with technical skills, such as software engineers, developers, UI/UX designers, and product managers. Indeed said it specifically launched the service in Los Angeles due to the high demand for techical professionals in the market.

http://www.socaltech.com/indeed_targets_tech_talent_in_los_angeles/s-0067041.html

CKR Interactive, a leader in recruitment marketing and communications, aims to reinvent the way employers engage talent with a newly launched visual job description service. In an increasingly competitive recruitment landscape, it is imperative for organizations to continue exploring new and innovative ways to attract top talent. As candidates job search preferences and needs evolve, so must the strategy to engage them. Visual.jobs

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ACQUISITIONS

CareerBuilder is up for sale according to TEGNA, its owner. Speculation is that another staffing firm will buy it.

http://www.eremedia.com/ere/careerbuilder-put-in-play-by-its-broadcast-owner/

Glassdoor Acquires Brazil’s Love Mondays to Expand Into Latin America: Earlier this year, Glassdoor raised $40 million at a $1 billion valuation; and now it is putting some of that investment to use to grow internationally. The employee review and job-search platform has acquired Love Mondays, a startup based out of Sao Paulo that also lets workers post reviews of their workplaces. It’s even been described as “the Glassdoor of Latin America”

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/08/glassdoor-acquires-brazils-love-mondays-to-expand-into-latin-america/

Shiftgig, the mobile on-demand job marketplace has acquired BookedOut, a Chicago-based start-up that matches workers with hourly gigs. The acquisition adds 10,000 more vetted workers to Shiftgig’s network and should help the company as it competes nationally.

https://www.aimgroup.com/2016/09/21/shiftgig-buys-bookedout/ 

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NEW FUNDING

Jobbio, a career marketplace out of Ireland Raises $5.6 Million to Connect Employers with Jobseekers: Jobbio, a careers marketplace that connects employers with jobseekers, has raised €5 million ($5.6 million) in a series A round

http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/07/careers-marketplace-jobbio-raises-5-6-million-to-connect-employers-with-jobseekers/

Portfolium a site where college students create profiles has raised $6.6 million to help students get jobs.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/12/portfolium-raises-6-2-million-to-get-college-students-into-jobs-where-theyll-kick-butt/

Stella, a New York-based personal job recruitment platform, has raised just over $10 million in new VC and debt funding, according to a regulatory filing. Backers include CRV. www.stella.ai

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MISC

Jobcase is now claiming 50 million members nationwide and brings in about 1 million new visitors a month. They are being billed as the 'linked for those not on linked".

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/jobcase-linkedin-people-not-on-linkedin.aspx

New Client: Jobs2Careers

I am pleased to welcome Jobs2Careers to the RecTech Media stable of clients. The popular job search engine will be sponsoring our recruiter related brands and emails including RecruitingHeadlines.com.

I'll also be blogging for them twice per week about HR & Recruiting related topics. You can read my first post here. It's entitled Content Marketing for Employers.

Cheers.

~CR

RecTech Insider - New Tools, New Funding and Acquistion Roundup

Looking for HR technology news? Each month we scour the headlines to bring you the latest launches, new rounds of funding, acquisition and other interesting news for the recruiting technology industry. Subscribe here for early access.

New Funding

• Yello raises $4. million more for its talent acquisition software. They claim 70+ Fortune 500 companies as clients. Company had already raised $5 million a few years ago. [LINK]
• Glint, an employee engagement platform has raised $27M Series C led by Meritech and Bessemer; regularly surveys employees and provides real-time data; offers dashboard, analytics and action plans; raised $43M. [LINK]
• Genesys Talent raises 2.1 million for its talent community technology. [LINK]
• EmployUs is a new mobile referral tool: EmployUs rewards well-connected professionals by connecting employers and job seekers through trusted referrals. Anyone can connect people they trust to awesome jobs and get rewarded up to $10,000 when their referral gets hired. Company is based in North Carolina. [LINK]
• Vettery raises 9 million for its hiring marketplace which pairs potential job-seekers with a “talent executive” who helps them through the process of creating a profile and looking over interview requests from employers. If they accept a job, Vettery will give them a $1,000 signing bonus. [LINK]
• Brandyourself just raised $2 million to help people manage their online reputation. Company also hiring in Pennsylvania. [LINK]
• Homebase is a new startup that has raised $6 million to make hourly work much easier to manage for every small businesses….it helps them set a schedule for employees, automatically remind employees when they have an upcoming shift with a text alert, track whether employees are taking the breaks they’re entitled to throughout their shifts or whether they logged overtime hours. [LINK]
• Viridis has just raised a new $3.2 million. The site is a skills matching platform for vets and others without four-year college degrees. platform built especially for two-year students to showcase their skills and qualifications to local employers who are hiring. The goal is to match “skilled acquired” by students to “skilled required” by employers. [LINK]

Acquisitions

• CareerBuilder acquires Workterra to provide post hire support. [LINK]

More on Monster

• Monster Returns to its Cave. John Sumser wrote a post full of truth. [LINK]
• Job boards gets boost with sales of Monster. Chris Russell's take on the job board industry . [LINK]
• Rise and fall of Monster from the team at ERE Media. [LINK]
• Why Monster had to sell itself to Randstad for $429 million. [LINK]

Interesting Tools in the News

• Joberate wants to signal your boss if you are looking for a job. [LINK]
• Apps for the gig economy via Bloomberg. [LINk]
• Tour Linkedin Profinder for freelancers. Yep, you can now hire freelancers there. [LINK]

New Launches

• BossFinder.com, a unique new personalized job exploration service that connects candidates directly to company decision makers, today announced its national launch. [LINK]
• WebClipDrop Introduces Automated Sourcing Feature [LINK]
• LinkedIn is taking the wraps off a new feature that it hopes will get more of its 433 million users moving — literally and figuratively — when it comes to engaging with the site: today, LinkedIn is taking its first foray into video content, created by users and hosted by LinkedIn itself. [LINK]
• PurpleSquirrel.io hooks up job seekers with an insider at companies. [LINK]
• GradsLikeMe launches for Canadian campus recruiting. [LINK]
• Ramp up for hiring nurses [LINK]

Got interesting news of your own to share? Contact me.

Messaging - What HR Wants to Hear from Vendors

The following is an excerpt from my latest ebook entitled the Essential Marketing Guide for HR Tech Vendors and Startups.

Recruiters and HR people are arguably the busiest people at any company today. They are managing multiple reqs or putting out fire after fire while trying to please management.

I think the four messages that resonate most with them in general are;

• Save me time

• Save me money

• Make my job easier

• Get me quality applicants

Be sure your messaging has elements of some or all of these. Integration with other technologies like an applicant tracking systems is also a key feature request from HR. If your product doesn’t play nice, that’s a hurdle you need to be aware of. Expect questions about possible integrations when demo’ing your tool.

NOTE: Josh Bersin, the HR Tech analyst calls it “integrated talent management”.

When it comes to HR software there is a big push from employers to have  integrated suites that do everything. We are seeing a big push from vendors who offer well rounded set of features.

Take Snagajob for instance, the job board company just bought PeopleMatter a HR system for managing hourly workers. For years, CareerBuilder was just a job board. But even they have broadened their offerings. Now they serve employers needs from soup to nuts.

Because of this if your product does not integrate well into these new and powerful HR systems your product may struggle to gain acceptance until you do.

Tout your numbers if you have them. I was speaking to an exec at an entry level job site recently who asked what he should lead with as far as wording on his marketing and landing pages. “What are your numbers?”, I asked. “2.5 million profiles of college students and recent grads”, he replied. “Lead with that”, I said. Those are the kinds of things recruiters like to hear.

New Ebook! The Essential HR Tech Marketing Guide

I've just put the finishing touches on my first ebook for HR Tech vendors and startups. In it I teach and inform you on how to market your product to HR professionals and recruiters. With more than 40 pages on content that cover everything from messaging to social media it's a must have for any startup or veteran marketer.

Buy it here.

Here's whats in it...

1. Introduction
2. Messaging - What HR Wants to Hear from Vendors
3. When to Approach - Best times of day/week to make your pitch
4. Tools, Tactics & Channels
5. Content Marketing - what to create and how to do it
6. Social Media - how to leverage these channels for free traffic and brand awareness
7. Guest posting - my list of favorites sites to get published in
8. Conferences - the blisg list of events to attend throughout the year
9. Prospecting - tips for email/phone
10. Webinars - best practices
11. Advertising - where to advertise your message including my list of industry related sites
12. Your Website - tips to maximize your own site
13. Influencers - my list of the best industry pros to engage if you want help marketing your product

PODCAST: How WorkHere is Changing the Mobile Job Search Landscape

The goal of the RecTech Podcast is to highlight innovative and interesting recruitment technology vendors along with trends shaping the world of online recruitment.

Mike Seidle is the Cofounder and COO of WorkHere a new mobile job search company based in Indiana. Mike is Past Director of Development at DirectEmployers and a former board member on the HR Open Standards Consortium.

Topics and questions from today's show include;

• What is WorkHere and Why did you build it

• Your app works in the browser and on mobile. What do users use more?

• What is the difference in how people look for work between professionals and workers?

• What makes WorkHere different than a traditional job board?

• Describe the user experience for a seeker and employer?

• What's the value proposition for recruiters and employers?

• What have you learned so far about the building apps...any takeaways? How many iterations?

• Funded? Whats Go to market strategy - rest of country?

• Costs?

RecTech Headlines for August

Here's your summer fix for all thats new in recruiting technology land.

Upsider is a new sales rep matching tool for employers and candidates. Link via ERE.

FOR SALE:  Profitable Midwest based local job board is up for sale. View details.

HourlyNerd, the Boston-based online freelancer marketplace startup that recently landed $22 million in venture funding from investors including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, announced that it has rebranded to “Catalant.” The name is a combination of the words “catalyst,” “brilliant,” and “talent,” according to a release. Link.

Workday acquires Platfora to help it improv its analytics. Link.

Drafted launched the second version of its app earlier this year, letting people browse through job listings, see if they have any mutual connections to a job they want and request an intro to the hiring manager through any mutual connections. Sources say they are planning to open it up to more companies outside of Massachusetts this fall.

The startup has raised $2.5 million so far from several investors, including General Catalyst Partners, Accel Partners, Paul English’s Blade startup accelerator and Boston Syndicates. It has six employees. Link.

Mya, an AI platform from FirstJob, aims to make sure no applicant goes into the void—and no recruiter has to wade through a sea of resumes. Interesting to see how these guys have pivoted and are trying to take advantage of the “chatbot gold rush” Link.

Snagajob says they are looking for more stuff to acquire. If your tool targets hourly employees you might want to give them a call. Link.

Company in Denmark creates a Job title extractor. Check it out https://goodwin.relinklabs.com

Indeed launches JobSpotter app for retail businesses. Designed for people to take pics of we’re hiring signs in store windows. Link.

AfterCollege buys Cross-Post and is making it part of Recruitology, a service that launched for employers earlier in the year. Here is a link to the press release:http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/07/prweb13533921.htm

Bumble Bizz app: the popular swipe-based dating app understands this, so is launching a feature to help users temporarily set aside dreams of love so they can match with someone who may help them advance their career. Link.

CornerJob only closed its $10 million Series A in February. But the Barcelona-based jobs marketplace, one of several which focuses on low-skill, high-turnover recruitment via a smartphone messaging app, is now announcing a $25 million Series B funding round — meaning it’s already raised a total of $35M in less than a year. Link.