Curated Intel from the Talent Tech Industry
July 10-16, 2023:
• Expanding its recruitment marketing chops: Programmatic provider Appcast buys Bayard;
• Advancing a single source solution: AI platform RecruitBot raises $8.2M to fuel growth;
• Probing risk to personal reputations & data: US FTC opens investigation of Microsoft’s OpenAI;
• Showing durable optimism: CompTIA survey finds job seekers still upbeat about job prospects;
• Navigating a “gray to green” shift: Aerospace & Defense firms confront demographic challenges.
PLUS
Stepping outside your industry niche and connecting with other technology companies in the recruitment space is now essential to bottom-line success. And, there’s no better place to forge those inclusive connections than at TAtech Europe & The EMEA Job Board Forum, coming up in London on December 4-6. It is the only conference in Europe and the rest of the EMEA region that is designed for job board and talent technology company CEOs, their direct reports and rising stars and totally focused on advancing the growth of their enterprises. So, don’t delay; register today to take advantage of Early Bird Discounts.
Axel Springer subsidiary Appcast acquires Bayard Advertising in the U.S
Appcast, the global leader in programmatic recruitment advertising technology and services, and its parent company The Stepstone Group announced today their acquisition of recruitment marketing pioneer, Bayard Advertising. This strategic acquisition combines Appcast’s award-winning programmatic technology with Bayard’s full-service recruitment marketing capabilities, significantly expanding Appcast’s offerings to optimize companies’ entire recruitment marketing processes. With the addition of Bayard, The Stepstone Group reinforces its position in the world’s largest recruiting market. The combined company will serve more than 2,000 customers with hiring needs across the U.S. and 10 major international markets.
RecruitBot Lands Additional $8.2 Million Investment to Reshape Recruitment with AI
RecruitBot, the powerful hiring platform that transforms the entire recruiting experience, has raised $8.2 million in additional seed funding to fuel growth of its AI-powered software. The investment was led by Slow Ventures with participation from OCA, Freestyle, Parade, and Kevin Mahaffey. With RecruitBot, recruiters get access to modern sales and marketing technologies, built for their specific recruiting activities. Instead of old-school recruiting funnels where each job is filled by starting from scratch each time, RecruitBot provides a Recruiting Flywheel that improves over time. RecruitBot leverages AI and machine learning to understand recruiter preferences and ensure increasingly-relevant candidates from a qualified database of 600M appear in search results. Then, RecruitBot enables personalized, automated email campaigns to candidates on behalf of hiring managers. An end-to-end sourcing solution, RecruitBot replaces three tools with a single product: a database of candidates, an outreach tool, and a recruiting CRM, all bundled in an intuitive interface. With advanced power filters including those to help support DEI initiatives, combined with machine learning algorithms, RecruitBot serves up candidates best suited for a role within minutes, not weeks. A CRM for personalized, automated email outreach sequences then ensures much higher candidate engagement.
US FTC opens investigation into OpenAI over misleading statements
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI on claims it has run afoul of consumer protection laws by putting personal reputations and data at risk, the strongest regulatory threat to the Microsoft-backed startup yet. The FTC this week sent a 20-page demand for records about how OpenAI — the maker of generative artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT — addresses risks tied to its AI models. The agency is probing if OpenAI engaged in unfair practices that resulted in "reputational harm" to consumers. The investigation marks another high-profile effort to rein in technology companies by the FTC's progressive chair, Lina Khan, days after the agency suffered a big loss in court in its fight to stop Microsoft (MSFT.O) from buying Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O). The FTC said it would appeal the court decision. One of the questions FTC has asked OpenAI pertains to steps the company has taken to address its products' potential to "generate statements about real individuals that are false, misleading, or disparaging."
CompTIA research finds job seekers remain optimistic about employment opportunities
CompTIA’s Job Seeker Trends provides insights into the desired career pathways of job seekers and the strategies they use to advance to the next stage of their career journey. This wave of research was conducted during May-June 2023. A total of 1,000 U.S. job seekers participated in the study. Across the U.S. labor market, approximately 27% – representing more than 40 million workers, engaged in some type of job seeking activity during the past 90 days. This rate remains consistent with prior waves of the research. Many job seekers considered opportunities in the same field where they currently work and in different fields that will entail a career change. Despite the ups and down of news headlines, job seekers remain generally optimistic about employment prospects. There was a slight pullback in certain career pursuits, but all things considered, the data suggests job seekers believe the labor market remains on solid footing.
Navigating the gray-to-green transition in aerospace and defense
Aerospace and defense (A&D) players have faced increasing competition for the best talent, including from tech companies and start-ups that offer a compelling value proposition. While the situation is dynamic, especially in light of recent moves by some tech companies to slow hiring, competition for talent will remain hot, notably in high-demand roles where there is a shortage of talent. From skilled trades to traditional engineers and software engineers, labor challenges have proved to be a persistent rate limiter to growth and performance. In response, the A&D industry should take radical action. That will mean more effectively showcasing its advantages, developing and continuously reskilling talent at scale, and establishing mechanisms that foster long-term employee stickiness. McKinsey research on the health and trajectory of the A&D labor market confirms the realization playing out across the sector; namely, that the industry faces headwinds as it increasingly navigates from a “gray” to “green” workforce. 1 One well-documented driver is demographic; 2: a wave of retirements are on the horizon, reflecting the fact that about a third of industry employees are aged 55 or older. And there are other factors at play, including a widely discussed shift in preferences for different types of career and work conditions. 3 This cuts across age segments, but it is especially true among younger cohorts.
TAtech Europe: Forge Inclusive Connections for Bottom-Line Success
Stepping outside your industry niche and connecting with other technology companies in the recruitment space is now essential to bottom-line success. And, there’s no better place to forge those inclusive connections than at TAtech Europe & The EMEA Job Board Forum, coming up in London on December 4-6. It is the only conference in Europe and the rest of the EMEA region that is designed for job board and talent technology company CEOs, their direct reports and rising stars and totally focused on advancing the growth of their enterprises. Whether your company is a niche or general job board, aggregator, talent marketplace, online classifieds business, programmatic platform, conversational AI solution, chatbot, ATS, recruitment marketing solution, CRM platform, interviewing or assessment system or talent technology consultancy, this event will supercharge your sales and your profits. So, don’t delay; register today to take advantage of Early Bird Discounts.