How CEIPAL is harnessing the power of AI in seeking new talent

There’s nothing like helping job seekers in finding their dream jobs and linking employers to their best-matched candidates. And harnessing the power of AI in the process is just the icing on the cake. Since 2015, the Talent acquisition management software platform, CEIPAL has been raising the bar in the HR software industry making talent acquisition a breeze with a range of advanced features.

The beginning

Sameer Penakalapati, Founder and CEO of Ceipal recalls building software as the major motivation behind taking the entrepreneurial plunge. Arriving in the USA in 1999, Sameer had spent the first 10 years of his career working for major US corporations, when in 2010 he started his technology consulting firm, based out of Rochester, New York. After spending almost more than 20 years in the USA, Sameer proudly shares his achievements of building his own technology company.

“We envisioned bringing a change in the talent acquisition space and were seeking a generic name for a start. Thus, we had Ceipal, which means cloud enterprise information portal” says Sameer.

For Ceipal, talent acquisition starts with curation, followed by the AI-based matching & ranking of the candidates that the company is seeking to fill in. This is followed by the employee engagement process through chatbots, emails, messaging, and even by traditional means like calls. “When both the parties agree, we do onboard without printing a piece of paper. Thus, this whole gamut of searching, curating, engaging, and onboarding candidates is a journey in itself where Ceipal serves as a platform for candidates and companies, making them aware of their branding and experience in going through the process while turning employees from prospective candidates,” adds Sameer.

Finding qualified talent today is the biggest challenge. And Sameer feels they happened to be in the right place and at the right time in serving as the matchmaker between employers and a suitable workforce.

A comprehensive approach using AI

Using manual labour for the hiring process was a tedious task. AI makes it easier by providing insights like how the candidates’ primary skills fit in the job profile, or whether he/she is a local recruit. Ceipal incorporates AI while going through all these fitment metrics, and helps to seek down the top five candidates within minutes, thus making the recruitment process easier and simpler.

Ceipal is also planning to build a multilingual platform, aimed at bringing customized solutions based on geographical locations, especially for countries like Japan, and South American markets.

The regional micro-events are another feather added to Ceipal’s cap. The process of engaging with prospective customers has been a long-standing practice of the company. However, making it online, Sameer feels it misses the human touch and the power of one-on-one conversation, especially while foraying into unknown territories. Thus, the idea of hosting micro-events in various regions becomes suggestive of meeting the group of customers, interacting with them, comprehending the challenges they are facing in the market, and then creating solutions to fit in the cause. There’s no shortcut to building a business, and the micro-events are like a brick that helps in the foundation.

Ceipal also introduced a technology that identifies the gender, race, ethnicity, location, and detailed background of the employees, thereby enabling companies to promote gender and ethnic diversity at the workplace. “We are probably the first one in the business to advocate for such a technology in helping the larger corporations to solve their problems,” says Sameer.

Today, Ceipal has 2,000+ SMB and enterprises using its platform. Clients have mostly benefited from technology that enables them to get the best candidates, execute their deals/projects at a rapid pace, and do more business within a short time.

Growth and revenue

A Series A funded company with almost $10 million raised so far, Ceipal is recording a growth of 70-80 percent year-on-year. With a huge clientele base of global customers, Ceipal is constantly innovating for its clients, roping in new integrations, building new technology platforms, and helping them to seek passive talents. Besides, Sameer is banking on technologies for more growth.

Even amid the pandemic, Ceipal helped its customers sail through the turbulent times in understanding their needs, aiding them to adapt to the platform so that they could do more with less. Creating customer loyalty has also helped Ceipal in its massive growth process.

“We wish and hope to be one of the finest global leaders of talent acquisition aiming to solve the problem of mapping talent. We want to capture the place where clients remember Ceipal whenever they think of talent acquisition”, conjectures Sameer.