Curated Intel from the Talent Tech Industry
May 6-12, 2024:
• Working around the career site: SonicJobs brings hosted apply to OfferUp local job marketplace;
• Bringing AI to school recruitment: Socially Recruited acquires TJS Education with its 2500 clients;
• Moving past “infatuation: Deloitte survey finds employers already pushing workplace adoption;
• Discovering the grass isn’t greener: Job seekers can’t find jobs that give them a bump up in pay;
• Building its own model: Microsoft fields a LLM to compete with those from Google and OpenAI.
PLUS
Don’t be conspicuous by your absence at TAtech North America & The World Job Board Forum. Avoid FOMO and 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. So, register today and accelerate the success your company achieves, today, tomorrow and into the future!
OfferUp Partners with SonicJobs to Enable Hosted Apply
AI-Agent platform SonicJobs has partnered with OfferUp, the largest local marketplace in the U.S., to enable SonicJobs clients access to OfferUp’s growing local jobs marketplace. Through this partnership, users applying to SonicJobs postings on OfferUp will go through a seamless Hosted Apply experience powered by SonicJobs. One of the biggest challenges for employers is the low conversion rate of candidates who begin an application on a job platform compared to those who finish it on the career site. In fact, according to Appcast Recruitment Advertising Benchmark Report 2024, only 5% of candidates who start a job application finish it*. SonicJobs’ integrated Hosted Apply technology eliminates the need for candidates to be redirected to the employer’s career site to complete their application. Candidates can now seamlessly begin the application process after discovering a job on OfferUp, significantly improving the jobseeker experience and number of applications. This partnership enables a hosted application flow for SonicJobs’ clients advertising jobs on OfferUp.
Socially Recruited Acquires TJS Education to Enhance School Hiring
The TJS Education proactive approach, which has supported over 2,500 schools and educational institutions since the founding year of 2015, will be added to support the currently possible TJS Education consultancy in education recruitment, purchased by the AI-driven recruitment platform Socially Recruited, to support schools with modern AI technology in recruitment and staffing. TJS Education has a track record of providing ease to the job of recruitment at educational institutions. Clients can find qualified personnel easily and in a cost-effective manner without advertising on job boards and educational publications through proactive recruitment on social media. Now, TJS Education clients will be able to leverage the power of Socially Recruited’s machine learning, which analyzes millions of data points to match candidates with specific roles automatically. This might make schools better placed for an exact and effective hiring process with such comprehensive analysis.
No longer mere ‘infatuation’: Generative AI interest now shapes talent strategy, employers say
Many AI-savvy companies are moving past the Generative AI infatuation stage and beginning to make serious changes to turn workplace adoption into a reality, according to an April 29 report from Deloitte’s AI Institute. The report, based on a survey of nearly 2,000 director to C-suite leaders who are directly involved in piloting or implementing AI at their organizations, found that three-quarters of leaders said they’re looking to change their talent strategies in the next two years due to generative AI, particularly with a focus on work processes and upskilling or reskilling employees. “As we move from possibilities to practicalities in enterprise Generative AI adoption, scaling up and skilling up go hand in hand,” Deborshi Dutt, artificial intelligence strategic growth offering lead and principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, said in a statement. “Organizations are hiring new talent and training their workforce, with both technical and human-centered skills remaining valuable to successful deployment,” Dutt said. “To help stay competitive in an ever-evolving market, it is crucial for leaders to foster trust and remain focused on AI fluency when evolving their workforce to meet this moment of transformation.” Only 37% of respondents said their organizations were slightly or not at all prepared to address talent concerns related to generative AI adoption. In addition, 39% said they plan to increase head count during the next 12 months due to generative AI initiatives.
Same job, $16 less per hour: Frustrated job hunters can’t find roles that pay as well as their old ones
California fast-food workers started earning $20 an hour this year, and throughout the U.S., low-wage workers overall have seen their pay rise faster than any other group since 2019. But some white-collar workers say the current job market is the most difficult they’ve ever experienced. For jobs in industries like mortgage lending, marketing and human resources, some companies are offering salaries that are lower than what new hires had been making at their previous jobs, often for the same type of role — and especially for those in midlevel to senior-level roles. Some job seekers say they’ve had to accept that lower pay or leave their field entirely. What’s going on? After a hiring spree in 2021 and 2022, when some companies had to offer higher salaries to fill roles for which workers were in high demand, many of those same companies are now trimming the pay they offer new hires, said Paaras Parker, chief human-resources officer at the human-capital-management platform Paycor. “The math would tell you, then, they would have to pay less for other types of roles,” Parker said. “Because there’s just not more money available.” For most of 2023, the average new hire across the board in the U.S. was paid less than the average new hire in 2022, according to data provided by Gusto, a payroll platform for mostly small and medium-size businesses.
Microsoft Readies New AI Model to Compete With Google, OpenAI, the Information Reports
Microsoft is training a new, in-house AI language model large enough to compete with those from Alphabet's Google and OpenAI, the Information reported on Monday. The new model, internally referred to as MAI-1, is being overseen by recently hired Mustafa Suleyman, the Google DeepMind co-founder and former CEO of AI startup Inflection, the report said, citing two Microsoft employees with knowledge of the effort. The exact purpose of the model has not been determined yet and will depend on how well it performs. Microsoft could preview the new model as soon as its Build developer conference later this month, the report said. MAI-1 will be "far larger" than the previous smaller, open source models Microsoft had previously trained which means it will be more expensive, according to the report. Microsoft last month launched a smaller artificial intelligence model called Phi-3-mini as it looks to attract a wider client base with cost-effective options. The company has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and deployed the ChatGPT maker's technology across its suite of productivity software, allowing it to take an early lead in the generative AI race.
TAtech North America is one conference you cannot afford to miss!
Don’t be conspicuous by your absence at TAtech North America & The World Job Board Forum. Avoid FOMO and 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. 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!