5 HR startups that are tapping advanced tech to help companies onboard top talent
Sourcing and acquiring top talent has always been of utmost priority for companies. As technology is helping recruiters make better hiring decisions, we list five HR firms that are on a mission to solve the talent mismatch.
According to the ‘State of Talent Acquisition in India’ report by HR tech firm Mettl, 85.7 percent organisations surveyed cited acquiring good talent as one of the top three challenges. The report also stated that 87.6 percent of these organisations were willing to raise their hiring budget substantially in 2018, an increase by 67.8 percent from last year. In addition, 89.4 percent of the organisations surveyed revealed there was a massive shortage of high-skilled, mid-level talent in metro and Tier 1 cities.
In this digital era, as technologies disrupt most industries, hiring is also on the path of transformation. Several startups are now using technologies like Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and analytics to address the recruitment needs of companies.
Here are a few HR tech startups easing out the hiring process and helping companies address the talent mismatch.
Belong: Launched in 2014 by BITS Pilani alumnus Vijay Sharma, Belong is a predictive hiring platform to discover and engage high-impact talent through data science and predictive analytics. Currently, Belong works with Amazon, Reliance Jio, Cisco, and ThoughtWorks. Belong’s machine learning algorithms help businesses discover and target high-fit talent, engage candidates through personalised interactions, and accelerate hiring cycles at scale. Last year, the firm raised Series B funding of $10 million led by Sequoia Capital and its client portfolio includes Ola, InMobi, Myntra, and many others.
Darwinbox: Established in 2015 by Jayant Paleti, Chaitanya Peddi, and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox is a cloud-based HR solutions firm. An end-to-end HR platform, Darwinbox offers solutions for recruitment, core HR processes, employee engagement, performance management, employee movement, and others. The platform’s AI engine allows a recruiter to analyse a job description and employee profile, and picks keywords to arrive at a certain ranking metric. So, if there are 400 applicants for a job, the system will shortlist about 10-15 applicants for the recruiter to talk to, which saves time, increases productivity, reduces costs, and results in better talent acquisition. The three-year-old firm serves over 100 clients, including Paytm, ekart, Spencer’s, Delhivery, and others.
EdGE Networks: Started in 2012 by Arjun Pratap, EdGE Networks provides a suite of AI-powered products that not only auto-source, auto-screen and auto-engage the best candidates and employees for a role, but also recommend the best career path and draw up a personalised learning path for each employee. Over six years, the team at EdGE Networks has developed productivity tools that leverage AI to help businesses address challenges in the areas of talent acquisition, workforce optimisation, talent transformation, and workforce planning. The company has three enterprise solutions –Talent Analytics, Workforce Optimisation, and HIREalchemy – that cover a gamut of HR requirements.
Monjin: Launched in 2014 by Abhijit Kashyape, Monjin is an on-demand interview platform that uses digital and video assessment to let candidates showcase their skills and personality, and help corporations find the right hire. On Monjin, assessments are not done by technology; senior industry individuals review prospective employees for a company. The interviewers and candidates are matched on the Monjin engine through AI for an interview. The clients have access to a video interview where they see the interviewer and the candidate both in the frame; the interview is indexed, rated, tagged by skill, and subskills, by behaviour and by competency. There is also a summary video as a part of an assessment, which is delivered by the expert.
Mettl: Mettl’s journey began in 2009 when Co-founders Ketan Kapoor and Tonmoy Shingal came together with a common vision: leveraging technology for hiring practices in Indian and global companies. Mettl offers recruitment assessment, programming tests, psychometric tests, aptitude tests, pre-built test library of 200-plus tests, an interview app, vocational skills assessment, remote proctoring, deep analytics in performance management, and certification platform, among others. With a presence across 100 countries, the Gurugram-based HR tech firm has over 1,800 clients across the world.