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TA Tech Business NewZ

The Latest from the Talent Tech Industry

April 26-May 2, 2021: Industry analyst George LaRocque reports that VC investments in job sites surged 400% to $451M USD during Q1 2021; Flexjobs survey finds 58% of those WFH would quit if forced to return to the office; ZipRecruiter files to go public through direct listing on NYSE; Qualtrics launches a new solution called Candidate Experience to improve what happens to job seekers during the recruiting process; HR automation is increasingly accomplished with “citizen developers” or individuals without formal training as a programmer in a process called No Code; InterviewIA grabs $2M in funding to provide a consistent, unbiased interview experience for job seekers; and Federal contractors are now required to pay $15/hour minimum wage putting pressure on non-contractor employers that compete for the same workers; PLUS NewZ Makers: @AdamFeigenbaum, @ElvisHa, @CodyHarker

Global investments in job sites surge fourfold

Global investment in job boards and recruitment marketplaces climbed nearly fourfold to $451 million U.S. during the first quarter of 2021, industry analyst George LaRocque at WorkTech reported. Job boards and recruitment marketplaces received $105 million U.S. from VC firms during the corresponding quarter a year earlier. LaRocque suggested that the turnaround was a rekindling of VC’s “love affair with marketplace/job boards, perhaps in anticipation of hiring level increases as optimism returns to the conversation about the economy.”

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FlexJobs Survey Finds 58% of People Working Remotely Would Quit Their Jobs If Required to Return to Office

According to a FlexJobs survey of more than 2,100 people who have been working remotely during the pandemic, 58 percent say they would absolutely look for a new job if they weren't allowed to continue working remotely in their current position. 31 percent weren't sure what they would do and only 11 percent said not being able to continue working remotely was not a big deal to them. 65 percent would prefer to work remotely full-time post-pandemic, while 33 percent would like a combination of remote and in-office work (hybrid work arrangement). Just 2 percent would prefer to return to the traditional office on a full-time basis. While workers are most concerned about COVID-19 exposure/infection (49%), having less work flexibility (46%) and less work-life balance (43%) were other key apprehension points in returning to traditional workplaces.

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Job portal ZipRecruiter files to go public via direct listing

Online job marketplace ZipRecruiter Inc has filed to go public through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, the company said on Friday. Founded in 2010, it is a developer of an online marketplace for employers and job seekers and competes with Indeed and Microsoft-owned LinkedIn. The listing plan will look to cash in on the booming market for new offerings as seen by the robust debuts of gaming firm Roblox Corp (RBLX.N) and South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang Inc . ZipRecruiter had hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) in December to lead preparations for an IPO.

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Qualtrics Launches Candidate Experience to Help Organizations More Effectively Recruit Top Talent

Qualtrics (Nasdaq: XM), the world's No. 1 Experience Management (XM) provider and creator of the XM category, today announced a new solution that helps organizations create a better candidate experience for potential employees. With Qualtrics Candidate Experience, organizations can improve the way they attract, recruit, and hire by acting on feedback directly from the candidate at multiple touch points throughout the process. A positive employee experience starts even before a person's first day on the job—it begins during the hiring process. The experience becomes even more important when considering a majority of the workforce is now working remotely. Recent studies show that 49% of job seekers say they've turned down an offer because of a bad experience during the recruitment process. In contrast, candidates who've had a positive experience are 38% more likely to accept job offers and more than twice as likely to become customers.

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Is No-Code the Next Big Thing in HR Tech?

The latest advance in HR automation is called a “No Code” development platform. The idea of No Code software is that you don’t need to hire a programmer to automate a task — the work can be done by what’s called a “citizen developer.” A citizen developer is just an analytically minded HR professional who has taken the time to learn the No Code software. The easiest analogy is with Excel. Learning to use Excel takes some time and some aptitude, but you don’t need any formal training in programming. It’s the kind of thing you learn on the job over the course of a few weeks. It’s the same with No Code software. Automation is important, of course, because even with modern HR technologies, HR pros end up having to do a lot of repetitive tasks. The traditional solution to this — other than just putting up with it — has been robotic process automation (RPA). RPA does a good job of automating tasks, but it requires hiring a programmer and that gets expensive. It also means that if there is some change to the task, then you need to bring in the programmer again to update the system. No Code software, on the other hand, offers the promise of doing the automation and updating the automation yourself.

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

interviewIA — a technology platform that manages all aspects of the job interview workflow to enable the coexistence of equitable and efficient hiring — has raised $2 Million in its seed round to fund strategic hires and product development as well as growth initiatives. This Series Seed round was led by The Colorado Impact Fund, with participation from FirstMile Ventures, Rockies Venture Club, Outbound Capital, Dasein Capital, Stout Street Capital, and Service Provider Capital. interviewIA fills an urgent need to help all interviewers deliver a consistent, non-biased experience driven by structure and real-time analytics to hire a diverse, qualified workforce. interviewIA's founding team established and validated this unique methodology while working together over the last several years on the front lines of innovative talent strategies. Three years ago they built the first version of this interview platform and began to iterate on the value that this could bring to the market.

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Biden to Raise Federal Contractors’ Minimum Wage, Putting Pressure on Private Sector Employers

President Joe Biden's imminent executive order requiring federal contractors to pay a $15 hourly minimum wage could put pressure on private sector employers to raise low-income workers' pay. According to a White House statement, the executive order hiking the wages of hundreds of thousands of employees who are working on federal contracts "will have impacts beyond federal contracting, as competitors in the same labor markets as federal contractors may increase wages, too, as they seek to compete for workers." The White House added, "Employers may seek to raise wages for workers earning above $15 as they try to recruit and retain talent." The executive order will require all federal agencies to incorporate a $15 minimum wage into new contract solicitations by January 2022 and into newly signed contracts by March 2022, the White House announced. The minimum hourly rate will then rise annually to keep pace with inflation.

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NewZ Makers

Adam Feigenbaum has joined the Bayard Advertising Board of Directors. His most recent role in the industry was Chief Customer Officer of iCIMS.

Elvis Ha was appointed Vice President of Product Management at Paradox.ai. Prior to taking on this role, he was Senior Director of Product Management at Cornerstone On Demand.

Cody Harker has joined Bayard Advertising as Senior Director of Insights and Strategy. He previously served as the Head of Recruitment Marketing for Thruline Marketing.