Posts Tagged ‘tech hiring’

JobLark, Joins the Flock of Employee Referral Tools

February 4th, 2013

JobLark joins the growing flock of employee referral management products that have landed in the market over the past 18 months. Very similar to Zao, Goood Job, Sticky, Select Minds (Oracle) and dozens more Joblark leverages social networks to enable referrers to discover and refer job applicants. And like Zao, Joblark also allows employers to track and reward all the people that help make successful hires, whether they work for the employer or not. Joblark (like Zao) makes money by charging a fee once a hire is made.

Headquartered in Utah, JobLark appears to have around twenty or so employees and claims to have taken 1 million dollars in funding with 9 million more committed by Apple Tree Capital. Not much else is known about the company, the management team or active customers.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch

The employee referral management space is white hot but the space is getting crowded. The editors here at Hiring Sciences agree that ERM is an interesting niche in the HR Tech landscape but the window may be closing quickly for small upstarts like JobLark. Competition from applicant tracking software vendors, many of which already offer integrated employee referral management modules, will force standalone solutions like JobLark to focus on smaller employers with smaller budgets. Also, user adoption will pose challenges for the likes of JobLark as employees are inundated with tools and a standalone ERM solution may not carry the weight of other more mission critical systems. Overall, we believe the ERM space is very interesting and solutions like JobLark are making great use of social networks but it’s still unclear if a majority of employers are ready to adopt these new standalone tools.

If you are interested in learning more about JobLark visit the site at https://www.joblark.com/

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Posted in Employee Referral Management, Hiring Sciences Hunch, HRTech, Human Resources Software, Just Another Recruiting Start Up, Product Reviews, Recruiting Technology, Social Media Recruiting

Tags: Corporate Hiring hiring technology recruiting advice recruiting software Recruiting Technology tech hiring Using Facebook to Hire

Bright Outlook for Technology Hiring in 2013

January 10th, 2013

Tech Hiring Trends in 2013 Technology hiring continues strong going into the New Year, according to Human Resources managers and recruiting firms, although the number of those anticipating hiring is lower than last year.

Out of more than 1,000 respondents in a recent survey, 64% plan on adding technology workers in the first half of 2013. This compares with a result of only 47% in a parallel study of those who staff all types of workers.

The Dice Report survey, completed by Dice Holdings, Inc., a leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, was prepared in mid-November 2012, just after the election. Survey respondents included Human Resources managers and recruiters, consultants and staffing firms who primarily hire technology professionals.

Surprisingly, the 64% answering that they plan to hire tech workers is significantly lower than that reported in the prior survey for the last six months of 2012, at which time 73% expected to add technology professionals. Growing concern about the uncertainty of resolving the “fiscal cliff” tax and spending issues at the time of the survey could have tempered the results, as firms held off on tech projects.

The most recent hiring survey highlights various aspects of tech hiring, including:

Regional outlook: the South and East experienced modest reductions compared to the last six months of 2012, but both the West and Midwest reduced their expectations by 20%.
Time to fill open positions: 55% of respondents reported more time required to fill technology positions; the most commonly cited reason (47%) was the inability to find qualified professionals, followed by hiring managers waiting for the perfect candidate match (33%).
Voluntary departures: Tech professionals seem content to stay where they are, as 70% of respondents reported no increase in voluntary separations during 2012.
Candidate starting salaries: not surprisingly, the majority of respondents (53%) reported candidates asking for more money.
Offer acceptances: 28% of the respondents reported that more candidates are rejecting offers compared to the last survey, with only 18% stating that more candidates are accepting them.

Alice Hill, Managing Director of Dice.com, summarizes the state of technology recruiting at the start of 2013 as “tempered optimism.” She feels the survey results point to steady growth in hiring, rather than an avalanche.

Overall, the survey results indicate modest but continuing improvement in technology hiring, along with stability of existing staffs from both employer and worker perspectives.