Curated Intel from the Talent Tech Industry
February 19-25, 2024:
• Unmasking employer reviewers: German court rules kununu must provide users' real names;
• Taking on the 800 lb. guerilla: ViewJobs launches in Australia to provide an alternative to SEEK;
• Seeing a lot of interest but not much cash: AI investments halved in UK despite ChatGPT boom;
• Getting it wrong in so many ways: Google apologizes after Gemini AI generates racist images;
• Closing the college-to-career gap: Podium Education Acquires Early Career Platform Untapped.
PLUS
Early Bird Discounts end in less than 1 week for the LIMITED SEATING TAtech North America & The World Job Board Forum. Avoid FOMO, register right now for the only conference in the North American market that is specifically designed both for job board and talent technology company CEOs, their direct reports and rising stars and to accelerate the bottom-line growth of their enterprises. Why the rush? Because the conference will be held June 4-6, 2024 at The International Spy Museum which has a limited seating capacity and Early Bird Discounts on registration are due to expire shortly. So, register today and accelerate the success your company achieves, today, tomorrow and into the future!
Debate: Does kununu have to give users' real names?
An employer had questioned the authenticity of reviews and asked kununu to delete them. Kununu did not. The case went to the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg. Users rate an employer anonymously. This is the concept of the online platform kununu. But this now seems to be in danger after a ruling by the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg. The court ruled: If a rated company doubts whether the user behind a negative review is genuine and really in contact with him, kununu must either give out the user's real name or delete the post. It seems questionable whether people still criticize an employer with their real name in public. Above all, since this could potentially have negative consequences for evaluators for their further professional careers. Whether kununu will then be able to continue to enjoy around 1,000 new reviews of around 500 employers on its own platform every day seems unlikely at first.
Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz take on Seek in regional Australia
Former Domain chief executive Antony Catalano and billionaire Alex Waislitz have tapped Lewis Romano, the founder of SpotJobs and ASX-listed Credit Clear, to build out a regional competitor to $9 billion listed jobs giant Seek. Due to launch in early March, ViewJobs will be heavily promoted by the 75-odd publications in Mr Catalano and Mr Waislitz’ Australian Community Media empire. There is a clear gap in the regional market, Mr Romano and Mr Catalano say. “There’s no mainstream, dedicated platform for the regional employment market. The existing solutions don’t necessarily cater to the requirements of regional and rural employers,” Mr Romano said. “That’s been amplified in recent months – we’ve seen a 5 per cent increase in regional job ads and 10 per cent decline in metro job ads.”
AI funding halved in UK despite ChatGPT boom
Overall investment into UK-based AI companies almost halved in 2023 compared with the year prior despite the technology dominating the zeitgeist, according to new research. Last year, 291 UK AI companies raised £1.4bn across 311 announced funding rounds, compared with the £2.9bn raised in 2022, according to an annual private equity report from Beauhurst. The research examined equity deals for private companies in the UK from January to December 2023. The launch of ChatGPT from OpenAI at the end of 2022 caused a surge in interest in AI technology, with many investors throwing billions at Silicon Valley’s AI giants. The UK’s AI sector, while one of the world’s largest, still saw a drop-off in funding last year. This was due, in part, to a broader downturn in deals stemming from a challenging macroeconomic environment and rising interest rates.
Google apologises after Gemini AI generates images of Nazis as people of colour
Google has paused its Gemini AI tool (formerly Bard)'s ability to generate images of people. The company also issued an apology after the tool was found to be generating historically inaccurate illustrations, including depictions of Nazi soldiers as people of colour. As reported by The Verge, a number of different prompts led to the bot responding with historical inaccuracies. People of colour were reportedly shown in illustrations offered for queries about German soldiers in 1943, as well as requests to show U.S. Senators in the 1800s. "We're already working to address recent issues with Gemini's image generation feature," said Google on X. "While we do this, we're going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon."
Podium Education Acquires Untapped, The Early Career Talent Platform For Top Companies, To Close The College-to-Career Gap
Podium Education (Podium), the nation's fastest-growing experiential education company for universities, has acquired Untapped, the all-in-one early career talent platform that connects students with top companies. The acquisition, which comes off the back of a record growth year for Podium, will link over 1 million undergraduate students from Podium's 60+ partner universities - including Arizona State University, University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Miami - with early career job and internship opportunities on the Untapped platform. Untapped works with hundreds of the world's leading companies - including JP Morgan, Stripe and Twitch - and will accelerate Podium's mission to supercharge the undergraduate degree by providing all students with real-world experience before graduation. Untapped's employer partners will have the opportunity to engage with Podium students as soon as Summer 2024.
Early Bird Discounts for TAtech North America Are About to Disappear
Early Bird Discounts end in less than 1 week for the LIMITED SEATING TAtech North America & The World Job Board Forum. Avoid FOMO, register right now for the only conference in the North American market that is specifically designed both for job board and talent technology company CEOs, their direct reports and rising stars and to accelerate the bottom-line growth of their enterprises. Why the rush? Because the conference will be held June 4-6, 2024 at The International Spy Museum which has a limited seating capacity and Early Bird Discounts on registration are due to expire shortly. Whether your company is a niche or general job board, aggregator, talent marketplace, online classifieds business, programmatic platform, chatbot, conversational AI solution, ATS, recruitment marketing solution, CRM platform, interviewing or assessment system or talent technology consultancy, this event will supercharge your sales and your profits. So, register today and accelerate the success your company achieves, today, tomorrow and into the future!