Everyone knows the HR Technology conference is a whirlwind of activity with numerous traditional and emerging solution providers showcasing their solutions to HR Professionals. This year’s conference in Chicago was no different. Providers outdid themselves with extensive booths, presentations, and strategy. 
As the principal analyst for talent acquisition for Brandon Hall Group, I get a unique perspective of what is going on in this market. I had 30-minute sessions with 32 solution providers in the media room, plus, when I could pull myself away from the media room, I had the opportunity to speak with others in the Expo Hall.
Here is a brief sampling of what I learned during my sessions.
- Lots of new mobile applications: Finally, providers are realizing the importance of making their solutions mobile and intuitive. SmartRecruiters conducted demos of its Hiring App for Android, which enables recruiters and hiring managers to collaborate with each other, review and rate candidates based on their resumes, and engage with candidates in real time. SmartRecruiters also spoke about a new Field Recruiting App, which helps recruiters and hiring managers capture resumes/applications at events/in store/in campus. Both mobile apps are integrated into the applicant tracking platform. Other providers speaking about their hiring manager apps include Jobvite, iCIMS, and Greenhouse.
- Research galore: Lever has just released their “Little Grey Book of Recruiting Benchmarks” which contains insights based on data across millions of candidates considered by 1,000 Lever customers. Here are just a few of their data points: the median time-to-hire for engineering is 38 days; for customer service it is 27 days. Additional metrics include average number of interviews, average interview time, and more.
Glassdoor’s chief economist, Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, just published research on interviewing difficulty and found that the more difficult job interviews are “statistically linked to higher employee satisfaction across six countries: U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and France.” One possible explanation, per Glassdoor, is that one interview may not be sufficient to screen and qualify the candidate.
- Great sourcing information: Smashfly provides clients with source of influence data to help them understand the influence of all their investments that touch candidates, and not just the last touch point that leads the candidate to the online application.
Entelo Stack uses algorithms to rank resumes based on parameters set by the organization. Newly introduced, Entelo Stack Mobile enables recruiters and hiring managers to either approve or reject candidates with a swipe on the mobile phone (similar to Tinder). Entelo also has a unique name anonymization feature to reduce unconscious bias.
- Talent acquisition solutions for niche markets: Several organizations I spoke to do a great job on providing talent acquisition solutions for niche markets; Hireology and BirdDogHR are two of those companies. Hireology focuses on the franchise market and helps ustomers with predictive analytics to recruit, interview, assess, and hire the right candidate. BirdDogHR focuses on skilled trade across a variety of industries (construction, government, engineering, etc.), and provides them with quite a few solutions from an applicant tracking system to onboarding to learning and performance management. BirdDogHR even provides outsourcing solutions for this market.
It is great to see so much innovation in talent acquisition!
–Daria Friedman, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
