Talent Acquisition News

 

FEBRUARY 2020 – Talent Acquisition News

Pardon the interruption! As many seem to agree, January was a long year. Luckily, we’re halfway into February now, and with 2020 in full swing, it’s time to look at the state of the industry, what’s happening and where things are heading.

With Velocity Career Labs, 14 industry leaders including Aon’s Assessment Solutions, Cisive, Cornerstone, HireRight, Randstad, SAP, SumTotal Systems, SHL, Ultimate Software, Unit4, Upwork, Zip Recruiter and more, have come together to create the Velocity Network Foundation. The Foundation’s purpose is “define, deploy and champion” the Velocity Network. An open-source, blockchain-enabled “Internet of Careers,” Velocity Network will give people the power to claim and manage their career credentials.

In another sign of solidarity, learning experience platform Degreed and learning management system LearnUpon are partnering to offer companies both products through a single solution. Through this unified learning experience, users and admins have the ability to search, access, and track learning with only one relationship to manage. Perhaps a sign of increased collaboration or even potential consolidation to come on the part of the technology vendor community.

LinkedIn appointed Ryan Roslansky as its new CEO, replacing current CEO Jeff Weiner as of June 1. Weiner started with the company back in 2008 as interim president, seeing LinkedIn through a series of milestones, including its IPO in 2011 and acquisition by Microsoft in 2016. Roslansky is already a LinkedIn veteran, having spent the last ten years in various leadership roles across the business, supporting the development of its popular publishing platform and acquisition of Lynda.com.

ManpowerGroup released research indicating that U.S. talent shortages have reached a ten year high, more than tripling over the last decade. The report includes responses from 2,000 employers and over 1,500 workers about what attracts them to an organization and what makes them stay – critical factors at a time when 69 percent of companies are struggling to fill positions, up from just 14 percent in 2010. The findings take different lenses to the skills gap issue, looking at what workers want by geography, gender, and generation.

The minds behind the annual HR Technology Conference have a new immersive event taking place in June, known as Select HR Tech. The agenda will feature six tracks, including Building the Business Case, Change Management, Driving Project Success, Going Global, New Technologies Impacting HR, and Workforce Transformation, all focused on helping business optimize their technology investments. Taking a hands-on approach to the topic of deployment, the first-year event will offer master classes, workshops, a Solutions Showcase and keynotes from Jason Averbook, Vinnie Mirchandani, and Brian Sommer.

Capital Investments, Mergers, & Acquisitions

  • Already a significant investor in Infor, Koch Industries will spend $13 Billion to purchase the rest of the company. Through the transaction, Koch will acquire Golden Gate Capital’s stake, and Infor will become a standalone subsidiary of Koch Industries. The news comes just a year after Infor raised $1.5 B from both Koch and Golden Gate.
  • Justworks closed a $50 Million Series E investment round, bringing the company’s total funding up to $143 M. Justworks is known for pioneering a technology-enabled version of the Professional Employer Organization model and intends to use the money to “level the playing field” for small and medium-sized companies with under 200 employees.
  • Phenom People brought in $30 M in Series C, noting an ongoing shift in HR towards AI-powered talent experiences. The company, which has grown to more than 500 employees with over 300 customers, will use the funding to further its platform development and continued company growth.
  • LumApps, a SaaS provider of enterprise communication solutions, took in $70 M in Series C, welcoming Goldman Sachs as a new investor. The intranet platform, which serves as a digital workplace, will use the fundraising to accelerate its R&D investment, product development, sales and marketing expansion, hiring, and potential M&A activity.
  • Uplevel, a startup out of Madrona Venture Labs, emerged from stealth mode with $7.5 M in seed funding. The company seeks to “disrupt what it calls the ‘software engineer status quo’ by giving leaders tools to measure how productive and happy their stables of developers are.”

Upcoming Events & Conferences

Other recent highlights:

  • Hireology introduced a new mobile app designed to simplify retail automotive hiring with improved on-the-go functionality.
  • Curo Compensation announced the general availability of its new pay equity analysis software, CURO Pay Equity.
  • Glassdoor unveiled two new tools for job seekers: Collections, to help manage the search, and Company Compare, to compare potential employers.
  • Paycom released Manager on-the-go™, a tool within its mobile app that allows for 24/7 accessibility to the manager-side functionality.
  • reacHIRE’s Aurora Platform aims to “fix the broken rung” and help companies engage and retain millennial and Gen Z women.

Got news to share with us for our next update? Contact [email protected].

 


Authors
Noel Cocca

CEO/Founder RecruitingDaily and avid skier, coach and avid father of two trying to keep up with my altruistic wife. Producing at the sweet spot talent acquisition to create great content for the living breathing human beings in recruiting and hiring. I try to ease the biggest to smallest problems from start-ups to enterprise. Founder of RecruitingDaily and our merry band of rabble-rousers.