interviewIA Raises $2 Million for Its Digital Interview App

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interviewIA announced a @2 million Seed round of venture capital for its digital interview platform. interviewIA claims to leverage “structured data, a repeatable process, NLP, and machine learning enable us to create insights and predictors that can change hiring forever.” Not a bad mission, but the market is far along with solutions like ModernHire, HireVue, Xor, Harver, and others in market and supporting businesses of all sizes.

$1.8 billion has been invested globally in recruiting technology. Subscribe to WorkTech to get the latest updates on recruiting and HR tech trends and global work tech VC investments.

Source: interviewIA Secures $2 Million Seed Round to Expand HR Tech Product Offerings

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Sense Raises $16M for Candidate Text and Engagement App for Recruiting and New Board Member Points to Its Future as TA Platform

Sense raised a $16 million Series C round of venture capital for its candidate text app to engage candidates in recruiting. This brings its total raised to $40 million.

Will Sense be pivoting to a recruiting platform play? In its funding announcement a new board member gave the nod to a product roadmap targeting recruiting platforms.

I believe our investments in new products will allow Sense to go from a robust system of engagement to a truly distinctive network/platform play for the future.Nishant Rao, Sense Board Member

That’s a bold statement for a tech provider offering an app that is dependent on integrating into the very platforms they plan to compete with. Integration and partnership is paramount for success in the recruiting tech market.

$2.7 billion was invested globally in work tech during 2021 Q1 alone. Get WorkTech’s free report and analysis here.

Source: Sense Secures $16 Million in New Funding to Drive Talent Acquisition as Labor Market Rebounds

Candidate Raises $4 Million for Referral-based Job Board Marketplace

Candidate announced a $4 million Seed round for its job board marketplace based on connecting jobs with an approved referral network. Those familiar with Bounty Jobs in the staffing market will see the analogy to this more broad referral network. Employers post jobs with an approved referral fee, and then it’s made available to an approved referral network. While positioning quality and cost-effectiveness for employers, Candidate also positions as a money-making opportunity for those that join the referral network. Encountering approaches like this, we’ve learned that job referral products in this type of model incentivize the network member to broaden the network to compete for a referral fee. This eventually dilutes the quality of the candidate pool. Marketplaces like this normally do well when they are small and laser-focused, but as they scale, they run into this problem of diminishing returns. The more successful they are, the harder it is to provide quality.

While some will draw the analogy to employee referrals and the quality hires we see there, it doesn’t correlate as well as one would hope. Employees refer friends and colleagues that they know and respect because they want to work with them again and share with them opportunities. It just isn’t a transactional mindset. “I know so-and-so and they would be great in this role! Plus, it would be great to work with them.” That’s a different calculus than pointing your network at a job in the hopes of earning $3K.

That said, there could be some special sauce at Candidate. It just doesn’t jump out in their messaging, site, or press coverage yet.

$2.7 billion was invested globally in work tech during 2021 Q1 alone. Get WorkTech’s free report and analysis here.

Source: Rethinking referrals: Seattle startup Candidate raises more cash to help companies with hiring – GeekWire

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