Curated Intel from the Talent Tech Industry
November 22-28, 2021:
• Outmatch rebrands as Harver to lead digital transformation in volume hiring globally;
• Video screening platform Wedge unveils product enhancements and new mobile experience;
• Australia-based video startup VideoMyJob raises $2 million in new funding;
• Robots are on the rise in the supply chain, but won’t close the warehouse worker gap anytime soon;
• What can we learn from Amazon's HR tech disaster: a case study with universal implications.
PLUS
• A Shout Out to TA Though Leaders. We’re pleased to recognize once more some of this year’s TAtech Top 100 Most Influential Thought Leaders: @BorisRozman, @ModieraKamps, @AudraJenkins, @JoelleSmith, @CharlesHipps – thanks for your contributions to talent acquisition!
• The TAtech Learning & Certification Program in Talent Technology Implementation Management. The best way to ensure your customers onboard your products effectively, delivering the performance improvements they want and the quality reputation you deserve.
Following Acquisition, Outmatch rebrands as Harver to Lead Digital Transformation in Volume Hiring Globally
After acquiring Harver back in May, digital hiring solutions provider Outmatch rebrands to Harver and continues to develop the world’s leading volume hiring solution for hourly and professional roles. The unified Harver platform will combine the capabilities of both Outmatch and Harver, creating one powerful solution purpose-built to solve the complex volume hiring challenges organizations are facing today. Under the Harver brand, the combined organization will continue to bring innovative solutions to the market that will revolutionize the way volume hiring is done. Harver’s unique approach focuses on transforming the hiring process on four fundamental domains: matching, automation, candidate experience and business intelligence. This approach has proven to solve for the challenges attributed to volume hiring by drastically decreasing the time it takes to process candidates and offering them a fast, informative and engaging application experience at scale.
Wedge Continues Momentum, Unveils Product Enhancements and New Mobile Experience
Wedge, the modern recruiting platform turning video screening into a competitive advantage, today announced the release of the Wedge Hire mobile app and several new product features. These include: Custom Video Questions, enabling recruiters to record and upload videos to use as questions during the interview; Intros and Outros , enabling a company to offer an introduction or thank you without requiring a response; Notification Preferences, which gives everyone with a Wedge account the option to choose which notifications they receive based on specific jobs and users; Customized Invite Emails, providing new editing functionality that makes it possible to tailor the invite emails by job or candidate; Customized Prep Time, changing how long candidates get to prepare for each question; and Company Branding, making it possible to add the hiring company’s logo to each step of the interview process.
Australia-based video startup VideoMyJob raises $2 million
VideoMyJob CEO David Macciocca said on Linkedin this week that the Australian based video startup has raised $2 million in new funding. “With the new round of funding, we'll accelerate our innovations that continue to make VideoMyJob the best video solution for Talent Acquisition, Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing teams worldwide.”
Robots Won’t Close the Warehouse Worker Gap Anytime Soon
This July, Amazon showed off several new warehouse robots with names borrowed from Sesame Street that are, presumably, meant to evoke childhood wonder rather than futuristic dread. Bert, a wheeled robot about the size of a filing cabinet, navigates around a warehouse carrying products. Ernie, a large industrial robot arm, moves totes filled with packages from conveyors onto shelves. Scooter and Kermit are both intelligent forklifts, capable of pulling several carts or stacks of plastic totes from one side of a warehouse to another. The new machines demonstrate the potential for automation to creep into more areas of warehouse and package-sorting work, a critical part of the economy as ecommerce orders soar. Competitors like Walmart and FedEx are also rushing to adopt robots. It might seem that machines are poised to take over in warehouses—and help make up for a dire shortage of human workers. The transportation and warehousing industries had a record 490,000 job openings in the US in July 2021, a shortfall that will be felt especially during the ordering and fulfillment crunch of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But not so fast.
What can we learn from Amazon's HR tech disaster?
Amazon was recently exposed by the New York Times for its failure to deliver benefits and pay to some employees – which shocked many across the larger HR community. How could an organization as large and sophisticated as Amazon make a blunder like this, and not pay leave properly to its people? Doesn’t Amazon have HR technology in place to support their 1+ million employees? Unfortunately, no, they did not. This major misstep shines a much-needed spotlight on the fact that technology management mishaps can happen to anyone. The general assumption is that big companies have it “all figured out,” while small companies struggle to maintain their HR technology environment or business processes. And while this may be true in some industries, HR “overload” exists EVERYWHERE right now.
The TAtech Learning & Certification Program in Talent Technology Implementation Management
Who gets blamed when a talent technology solution doesn’t live up to customer expectations? The solution provider, of course. Yet, research shows that the vast majority of such shortcomings are caused not by the product or its developer but by inadequate implementation by the buyer. To put it bluntly, most technology consumers lack the skills and knowledge to bring such products onboard, no matter how robust the provider’s own implementation support may be. What’s the solution? Educate your customer. Position your company as an implementation partner with its customers and enroll them in the TAtech Learning & Certification Program in Talent Technology Implementation Management. Your investment will be small and the ROI will be huge, both in customer success stories and your brand’s reputation.