From 50 initial competitors, five of the most innovative recruiting startups in the world were chosen to pitch it out on the main stage of Hiring Success. Watch now!

The first annual Recruiting Startup of the Year competition from Smartrecruiters saw fledgling recruiting companies from Germany to Washington State battle it out on social media to see who could leverage their networks for the most votes, to be one of five finalists to make their pitch to the 1,000+ TA leaders and executives at Hiring Success 18.

The campaigning was fierce, but from 50 initial contestants, JobPal, Recruitsy, Talent Savant, and Recruiterly distinguished themselves as especially promising in their field and flew to San Francisco to make their case for first place at the third annual #hire18.

Before they took the stage, the startups had to meet their “Shark Tank”, aka the six judges who would determine the winner: Matt Gallo, partner at Insight Ventures; Ted Wilson, partner at Silicon Valley Bank; Tejas Maniar, Partner at Mayfield; Jeff Diana, Investor and high-growth consultant; and Rebecca Carr, Smartrecruiters’ VP of product .

The Prize was $10,000 in media spend from HR.com, an article by Talent Tech Labs’ executive Director Jonathan Kestenbaum, and a gold level sponsorship to next year’s Hiring Success Conference.

First up, JobPal. A builder of recruiting chatbots with a custom language processor built especially for recruiting. They leverage messaging applications like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger to make the candidate experience smoother and save recruiters time.

Judge Jeff Diana said he was impressed by the 15 percent conversion rate these bots get on average, but cautioned against losing focus. “They scared me a little when they talked about moving into the broader employee experience. My advice is to go crush the recruiting market first.”

Up next we had Recruitsy. It’s Yelp meets recruiting: a public rating system of recruiters and recruitment agencies. Candidates can see reviews for individual recruiters as well as agencies, and agencies can use the platform to build their brand, target problem areas, and reach out to candidates.

Of Recruitsy, Judge Matt Gallo was convinced of the need, his only question was how they would gain critical mass?  “In these reviewer marketplaces, it tends to be a winner take all or winner take most. How will you grow quickly enough to put out competitors?”

Following these recruiter focused tools we take a look at Honeypot.io, the job board for developers and other computer engineers that turns the application process upside down by making the employers apply to candidates who are vetted by the site. Established in October 2016, this platform already has over 50,000 candidates (all of which are only on the site if they are actively seeking work) with 1,000 more signup weekly.

Honeypot.io presented an interesting conundrum to Judge Ted Wilson. “I think the approach of candidate first is unique and clearly developers are willing to sign up,” said Wilson, “but usually we talk about passive candidates as the best candidates. How do we change the narrative and convince employers that the candidates who are raising their hands for jobs are really the ones to look at?”

Recruiterly is a brand-building and social network tool for recruiters and recruiting agencies, so employers come to them. The goal is to change the perception of the recruiting industry and allow recruiters to showcase their skills.

Judge Tejas Maniar was on board for the product but he wanted to see more passion. “Recruiterly established the need superbly but I want to see a double-click on the enthusiasm and excitement.”

To wrap up we had a presentation from Talent Savant, a mission-based recruiting agency that answers staffing needs without the hard sell, outrageous prices, or irrelevant resumes. The goal is simple, get people jobs and get employers the workers they need – it’s called ‘pro-human hiring!’

Talent Savant was the only no-tech startup pitching for Recruiting Startup of the Year, but judge Rebecca Carr felt they held their own. “I think it’s great how this startup puts forth its personality,” she said. “Their brand of mission-driven recruiting gives them a unique flair and cuts through the noise.”

(Talent Savant presenting with the Recruiting Fairy)

After the presentations, the judges deliberated live on stage. The startups were appraised on the criterion of vision, do they have a mission that people can get behind? –  influence, is their idea innovative enough to break through? – and presentation, can they make people believe in their company in just five minutes?

In the end, Honeypot was awarded first place! The judges were impressed by how this job board has been able to turn candidates into active players in the employment search and want to see how the platform grows.

“In the world of startups,” says CEO and founder of SmartRecruiters, Jerome Ternynck in his closing remarks “there are no winners or losers, only hustlers working to change their world, creating and grabbing opportunities, embracing effort, and learning from every failure as well as every success – that’s really what it’s all about.

The Hiring Success 18 countdown is getting to the point that someone, if so inclined, could start counting down in days instead of weeks. And as we approach finality on our speakers-and-sessions roster, we managed to steal some time from Marlina Kinnersley, the CEO and co-founder of Fortay.ai, a machine-learning-based cultural alignment platform.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Your vote determines which six will be flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders, putting them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

Marlina Kinnersley will be bringing her wares to San Francisco March 12-14 as part of the Recruiting Startup of the Year contest. And she and her team have a pretty good shot. Used by leaders to obtain actionable insights resulting in an 80% improvement in recruiting efficiency, Fortay.ai also improved employee engagement and productivity.

Marlina also founded Culture Labx Toronto, which brings together founders, C-suiters, and culture practitioners. Marlina has over 10 years’ experience in building engaged teams across small and large sized companies, but the most relevant question to ask her today is:

What exactly does Fortay.ai do?

Ninety percent of leaders believe that culture is important, yet 70 percent of employees are disengaged, a statistic that has not changed in decades! Fortay.ai helps companies scale culture alongside their growth, using a data-driven approach to hire and retain high-performing, as well as diverse, teams. Candidates are ranked based on value-fit for true cultural alignment, and on culture-add for optimal efficiency, resulting in speed and accuracy for both companies and candidates. Increasing hiring efficiency by up to 80 percent, our analytics platform helps companies nurture and fortify their culture with actionable insights, as they continue to grow.

What gave you the idea for your startup?

It was a personal experience in a toxic culture, where leadership was not aligned, employees were not engaged, and there was a significant lack of trust across the organization. Their turnover was over 25 percent, and was 100 percent due to cultural misalignment. If I’d known what the culture was really like I wouldn’t have accepted the offer. That was my Eureka moment.

Of all industries to tackle, why recruiting?

With my personal experience being echoed over and over again, knowing that culture mismatch is very prevalent in today’s workforce – and also seeing a huge market opportunity – it was a perfect time to apply new technology and methodology to the problem.

How do you envision your idea changing the talent acquisition landscape?

Our mission is to inspire companies to attract, retain and build happy, diverse, and high-performing teams. We aim to be the leading platform in regards to workplace culture. To achieve this, we first need to arm recruiters with an effective way to capture their company’s cultural fingerprint. Then they can baseline candidates against workplace values, beliefs, and perspective at the beginning of the recruiting process.

What does ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

When you have diverse, high-performing teams, only then have you achieved hiring success. When teams are aligned, effective, collaborative, the proof is in the retention metrics.

What’s the true role of technology in hiring?

Technology is there to improve our lives, reduce bias while optimizing our recruiting process, and most importantly, to deliver a positive experience for our candidates. With our subsequent efficiency, we can invest our time in building meaningful relationships with talent, and spend more time in high-value work.

Dutch startup Wonderkind has created an innovative job advertising technology that reaches both active and passive job seekers on media channels they use daily, like social media, websites and apps. This helps corporates and staffing agencies to create and execute the perfect recruitment marketing campaign, thus attract high-quality and happy talent.  

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

Before bringing his innovative wares from the Lowlands to the Bay Area for Hiring Success 18, CEO Lars Wetemans lets us in on the thought process behind his wonder-product.

What’s your company’s elevator pitch?

Eighty-one percent of all job seekers are passive, so why do we only target active job seekers in advertising? Wonderkind has built world’s first automated technology that advertises jobs anywhere on the internet. In apps like Tinder, Google or on social media. We reach 90+% of all internet users with the right ad, on the right channel at the right time.

What gave you the idea for your startup?

Before Wonderkind, my partner and I both had a social media agency. Nowadays, people spend an insane number of hours on their mobile and especially on social media. We found it strange that no one was recruiting where talent is actually active, especially because those channels have really advanced targeting options. We can target ads on demographics, geolocation, online behavior and interests. Sourcing is time-consuming and repetitive. What we do is automated sourcing through targeted advertising anywhere on the internet. Goodbye post & pray!

How do you envision your idea changing the talent acquisition landscape?

I am very confident that targeting, A/B testing and advertising on non-job platforms (like apps, social or any other site) is a logical next step in job advertising, and will set the new standard. Besides that, I believe that job advertising alone will not suffice when you want to attract passive talent. You need to tell them first about your company values (employer branding) before you can talk about the jobs at that company. We think a full-funnel approach is the only way forward when you want to win the war for talent. Automation is another necessity for scaling your recruiting efforts. Automated sourcing through programmatic and targeted job advertising is, therefore, the future.

What does ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

Have a complete insight into the ROI of your recruitment strategy. From the first touch point, a candidate has with you as an employer, to how a hire is performing at your organization years later. You need to know exactly when, where and how to reach top hires.

What’s the role of technology in hiring?

It’s the combination of tech and human skills that leads to magic.

As we barrel on towards Hiring Success 18’s Recruiting Startup of the Year, we’ve been tracking down the most promising contestants, and today we managed to pin down Pedro Oliveira, co-founder of Landing.jobs, a candidate-driven platform to help tech professionals advance their careers.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Register here!  Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

Since he and his team got it off the ground in late 2013, Pedro’s moved from jack-of-all-trades to Chief Operations Officer. His background is Computer Science, but he knows a thing or two about business, processes, and people, and he had this to say about the offering he’ll be bringing to San Francisco, March 12-14.

Great to Meet you, Pedro. Quickly, what’s your company’s elevator pitch?

Landing.jobs is a European recruitment marketplace that matches tech professionals with the right jobs, using human evaluation powered by AI.

What gave you the idea for your startup?

I helped build a microscopic version of Landing.jobs when I was studying at university, where we matched our colleagues with interesting companies looking to hire them, for internships or recent-grad positions. So for my co-founder Jose Pavia and I, we were both bound to tackle this industry’s problems, we just didn’t know how or when.

How do you envision your idea changing the talent acquisition landscape?

I think Landing.jobs will change not only talent acquisition, but also the talent evaluation and engagement landscape. I mention “engagement” because we’re taking a broader strike at careers development and coaching areas. Our vision is to become the ultimate tool provider for tech professionals wanting to improve their careers, and our team works hard and smart on using AI.

Aside from the snappy name of our conference, what does Hiring Success mean to you?

Hiring success means retention on both sides of the marketplace. Candidates keep coming back when they need to shift into new roles, and companies keep renewing their partnerships with us.

What would say the role of technology is when it comes to hiring?

In one word, essential. Hiring talent can’t be done without technology anymore, the major question is how to best use technology to make recruitment a rewarding experience for everyone.

Retire ‘what’s your greatest weakness?’ from your interview repertoire, and try one of these,  fresh from the mouths of the brightest new recruiting startups.

Candidates are sick of stock questions and hiring managers are equally unenthused about cookie-cutter answers.  We turned to some of our Recruiting Startups of the Year nominees to help you if you’re in an interview-question rut.

We selected 10 of the 50 recruiting startups vying for first place at  Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14 to give us their favorite interview questions – the ones that really help you get to know how someone thinks.

Once you’re done reading, cast your RSOTY ballot here before March 1st. Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

Relocate.me is a job relocation platform for software developers seeking long-term employment opportunities abroad.

Founder and CEO, Andrew Stetsenko

One of my most beloved interview questions is, ‘what’s your favorite book and what are you reading now?’

I always try to ask questions that go beyond a someone’s professional traits. It’s always interesting to find out what they do outside of work –  do they play sports, do they volunteer, do they like to travel? These questions give me a sense of a candidate as a whole person beyond just checking off skills. 

HeyJobs is a candidate sourcing platform for high-volume hiring demands. Through tech – and data- enable performance marketing for jobs and a modern application solution, HeyJobs delivers significantly more quality candidates for clients than their existing solutions.

Founder and CEO  Marius Luther 

“Tell me about the topic you are most passionate about in life. In 3 minutes, help me become an expert in that topic by explaining it.”

I love this question because it helps me find out a) how passionate/driven the person is, b) how logical he can explain, c) whether he is an exciting personality. Also, this way I learn about a new topic every interview. 

GoodTime.io is the first Talent Operations Platform that provides intelligent interview scheduling for recruiting teams. We seamlessly schedule high-volume phone interviews and complex onsite interviews, allowing companies to scale efficiently while focusing on higher value talent acquisition activities.

CEO, Ahryun Moon

“What kind of advice would you give to your current manager to help them grow into a better manager?”

Recruitsy is the smartest way to connect candidates and hiring managers with the best recruiters. We bring the candidate experience to the forefront with the first-to-market public rating and review platform built exclusively for the staffing and recruiting industry that features over 30,000+ recruiting agencies.

Founder and CEO, Kurt Smith

What is your ‘why to buy message’?  Which translates into their elevator pitch and 30 second sale for why I should hire them. Our personal/career brand is everything and we should be prepared to quickly describe our value proposition. I’m looking for what makes this person unique relative to their peers. It’s also a question that they typically haven’t rehearsed coming into the interview.

Are you an experienced recruiter looking for a great employer? Are you a great employer looking for an experienced recruiter? In either case, Recruiterly could be the one-stop platform for you.

 Cofounder, Jamie Robshaw

A favourite ‘type’ of question is one that challenges the industry without bias and is asked with the entire purpose of working towards a better solution. One question we recently asked a series of some of the top global recruitment industry influencers was to call ‘bullshit’ on one myth in recruitment. That evoked some great responses and lead to some very interesting discussions. There are so many strong feelings about the misconceptions in the industry…on both sides of the fence! 

JobPal builds chatbots for the recruiting context and industry with a strong focus on user experience.

Founder, Luc Dudler

As a first question I always ask: ‘Regardless of this conversation, our company and your current job what do you want to do professionally as a next step?’ You can get a lot from it. 

Ratedly monitors anonymous employee review websites and sends you alerts when new ones are posted online.

Founder, Joel Cheesman 

“If you’re in here a year from now resigning, what would be the likely reason?” I love this question because it throws candidates for a loop, forcing them to think on their feet, and gives employers real insight into how to retain that candidate. 

ROIKOI surfaces candidates who are diverse and pre-screened for talent, fit, and likelihood to join a company. ROIKOI customers make 1 hire by contacting just 25 passive candidates in the platform, save $10K per hire, and most notably, improve employee diversity.

CRO, Houston Perry

favorite interview question is: “Do you have any questions for us?” It gives the candidate an opportunity to showcase their knowledge and passion for the company they want to join. 

Journey is a game based interactive simulation which allows companies to quickly screen candidates by assessing skills such as communication, collaboration, leadership, influencing, and emotional intelligence.

CEO, Rajiv Roopan

“Tell me about an interesting problem that you came across and how you went about solving it?” 

Botmatic automates the process from candidates application to employees on-boarding with chatbots.

CEO, Arthur Boivin

My favorite question interview is “Do you have a motto?” Well, one for hiring is “Go to bed with a dream, wake up with a purpose.” Hiring is all about finding purpose between a company and a candidate. 

SmartDreamers is a social media and job marketing platform that helps companies reach the candidates that don’t spend time on classical recruitment platforms.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Register here!  Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

Founded by Adrian Cernat, this is an app that has already helped companies like Uber, Vodafone, Siemens, Orange, and IBM to smartly recruit talent. Before Adrian brings his tech-baby to Hiring Success 18, we caught up with him to see what brought him to this point on his way to Recruiting Startup of the Year.

Hi Adrian, great to meet you. What’s your company’s elevator pitch?

Integrated with the biggest ATS’s, SmartDreamers fits perfectly in the company’s recruitment software ecosystem and becomes the command center for recruitment marketing. Fortune 500 companies like Deutsche Bank, Amazon, Honeywell and many others use our product to streamline recruitment marketing.

What gave you the idea for your startup?

I was part of another startup, in the HR sector, where I was in contact with recruitment managers. They were all complaining about classical job portals, so I told myself there must be a better solution to reach candidates.

Of all industries to tackle, why recruiting?

It has the perfect mix for startups: a large market with big problems.

Fair enough. How do you envision your idea changing the talent acquisition landscape?

Companies will have to treat recruitment like they treat sales. Although an approach like this does lead to a complex process. It is not that easy to advertise across the web, for example. We can see a growing market for automation of other types, and we see a growing market for recruitment marketing automation as well.

What does ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

Setting right the recruitment funnel: from first contact, to retention, to word of mouth and employer branding.

What’s the main role of technology in hiring?

Increased efficiency and a better experience in the recruitment process, both for recruiters and candidates.

What do you get when artificial intelligence meets human intelligence in a space where intelligence is meant to be quantifiably evaluated? This plucky startup may have the answer.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Register here!  Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

In 2014, Andrew Buhrmann, an experienced product strategist and serial entrepreneur, founded this groundbreaking startup, with the goal of using artificial intelligence to augment human intelligence in the talent evaluation space. The result? Employers being able to automatically research and discover correlations between every job description and inbound applicant, in order to accelerate the candidate selection process.

Leading up to Vettd’s candidacy for our Recruiting Startup of the Year contest, we caught up with the University of Washington graduate to better gauge what we can expect to learn from Vettd at Hiring Success 18, March 12-14, San Francisco.

Hi Andrew, thanks for being with us. Real quick, what’s your company’s elevator pitch?

Vettd is an Intelligent Data Science platform designed to help enterprises develop and implement AI strategies to better understand the world of business and talent. Specializing in natural language processing, Vettd is able to combine disparate data into one universe where artificially intelligent agents work together to solve problems that were never thought possible.

I’m not sure if I’ll remember any of that. Anyway. What gave you the idea for your startup?

As a recruiter, back in 2008, the need to be educated objectively about why candidates did or didn’t matter became increasingly necessary to gain a competitive edge internally and against outside players. If something was able to normalize information in a way that I could better understand, it would have transformed my ability to perform at an even higher level on any position I worked on. Given that this technology could then be applied to multiple cases, it only increased its attractiveness to build and felt like a worthwhile goal.

Of all industries to tackle, why recruiting?

Everyone can benefit from a better understanding of how to maximize their professional opportunities, whether they are able to do that themselves, or have someone do it for them.

How do you envision your idea changing the talent acquisition landscape?

Recruiters and analysts will be able to create AI in their own image to solve problems or gain insights into areas they deem valuable and won’t have to succumb to the limitations of big box solutions or a lack of coding abilities.

What does ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

That a person has a choice in where they work and that both employee and employer are honest about their opportunities with each other.

In this new digital world, what’s the main role of technology in hiring?

The role of technology in hiring is that it needs to educate and enlighten. Automating tasks is helpful, but it doesn’t make us better. There will never be an easy button in hiring and people need to understand that AI won’t 3D print their dream candidate.

Having trouble finding all the staff you need? Perhaps it’s time you started treating candidates like customers? HeyJobs can help you with that.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Register here!  Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

To give us a better idea about his vision, HeyJobs CEO and founder Marius Luther answered our questions about his startup and how it came to fruition.

What’s your company’s elevator pitch?

HeyJobs is a cutting-edge marketing solution that brings the best candidates to companies. In a challenging and changing job market, HeyJobs partners with you to make recruiting successful again.

What gave you the idea for your startup? Is there a particular experience you could point to?

In our previous company, Memorado, we were always faced with not being able to hire fast enough. We tried all available means: jobboards, agencies and came up short. In the end, we started applying exactly the same logic and methods we used to acquire customers: data-driven online marketing on all available channels, highly converting landing pages and a lean funnel. The result was that more than 90% of our hires in that year came through our own “talent acquisition machine”. So we took the idea, “productized” it and now more than 500 organizations recruit with the HeyJobs recruiting solution.

Of all industries to tackle, why recruiting?

We believe connecting the right talent with the right opportunities helps people live a fulfilling live. Employment has a very positive impact on wealth, peace, security and health of any society and we are proud to make an impact in this way.

How do you envision your idea changing the talent acquisition landscape?

In the same way, Google and online marketing changed the “customer acquisition” landscape. Recruiters and organizations will abandon the previous world of gut-feel based selection of jobboards, paying for listings and not being able to measure results. “Talent Acquisition” teams will form and use technology and data to maximize ROI on recruiting spend, measure results and create predictable success. HeyJobs serves as a “Google Adwords for Recruiters” which enables recruiters to steer their whole recruitment marketing from one place, rely on our machine learning technology to increase efficiency and use our software products to increase conversion rates.

What does ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

The ultimate success is hiring people who will do a much better job than you could ever do it yourself. Finding, attracting and developing talent to become the next generation of leaders and ultimately be good enough to make your own job redundant.

What is your favorite interview question and why?

“Tell me about the topic you are most passionate about in life. In 3 minutes, help me become an expert in that topic by explaining it.”

I love this question because it helps me find out a) how passionate/driven the person is, b) how logical he can explain, c) whether he is an exciting personality. Also, this way I learn about a new topic every interview.

What’s the role of technology in hiring?

I see technology as an “enabler” to help me do things I always wanted to do but never had the time to do. Post hundreds of jobs automatically to 100+ channels and adjust budgets daily based on how many candidates each channel delivers? What would take days to do manually, can now be done in seconds. Schedule interviews in seconds instead of writing forth-and-back a hundred times?  I am very critical of technology “replacing” human analysis and intuition in individual cases. For example interviewing is already such an individual and difficult task for humans that computers and machine learning will come up very short in this area.

Does your recruitment process always grind to a halt when it comes to the interview stage? GoodTime.io can help you reorganize your interview process and turn it into a well-oiled machine.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Register here!  Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

The CEO of GoodTime.io, Ahryun Moon, took some time with SmartRecruiters to further flesh out the concept behind her startup, as well as tell us where it all began.

What’s your company’s elevator pitch?

GoodTime.io is the industry’s first Talent Operations Platform that provides intelligent interview scheduling, interviewer training and rich metrics around the interview process. At GoodTime we believe that the hiring process can be truly scalable if the interview process works like a well-oiled machine. GoodTime has brought some of the most innovative talent operations products that are currently being used by the world’s top brands.

What gave you the idea for your startup?

Is there a particular experience you could point to? GoodTime.io was inspired by a full-cycle recruiter at a local startup in San Francisco. Over a coffee meeting we learned that she spends more than 50% of her day scheduling and rescheduling interviews instead of more strategic recruiting tasks. It boggled our minds as to how hard scheduling can really be. When we investigated further and our CEO worked as a recruiting coordinator to understand the pain points, we finally grasped the intricacy of the problem and the severity of the pain points. Our initial proof of concept was lauded by the first recruiting team we launched GoodTime at. Then the product gained popularity naturally. Now we help schedule thousands of interviews per month.

Of all industries to tackle, why recruiting?

GoodTime is revolutionizing how scheduling is done in a business setting. Interview scheduling is one of the most intricate scheduling scenarios as it is highly mission-critical and involves multiple stakeholders. It poses the greatest and most rewarding challenge as GoodTime brings more innovation to the scheduling market.  

How do you envision your idea changing the talent acquisition landscape?

GoodTime will bring much-needed innovation to Talent Operations, which is an emerging field of talent acquisition. With GoodTime’s technology, recruiting teams will be able to build a highly scalable interview process and spend less time on administrative tasks.

What does ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

If everyone that participates in the interview process can confidently answer YES to the following question, we know we are hiring successfully. “Is the new hire better than me? Is there something I can learn from the new hire?”

What is your favorite interview question and why?

“What kind of advice would you give to your current manager to help them grow into a better manager?”

What’s the role of technology in hiring?

Technology will free recruiters from repetitive tasks so they can focus on relationships and highly strategic work.

Recruiters! Recruitsy is your Online Brand Reputation management platform. With the tools and insights to proactively measure and manage your social brand you can extend your social reach to online audiences with crowd-sourced validation.

Meet the companies vying for the title of Recruiting Startup Of The Year (RSOTY) at Hiring Success 18, in San Francisco, March 12-14. Register here!  Your vote determines which six are flying to California to pitch their ideas to 1000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and puts them in the running for the grand prize.

One of these six will be selected by a group of C-Suite experts and industry analysts for the ultimate prize of a Gold Sponsorship to Hiring Success 19, worth $10,000, which includes a branded booth and dedicated demo-room for potential customers to interact with their product.

We speak with Kurt Smith, CEO and founder of Recruitsy with 15 plus years scaling startups as a technology leader. He explains how at some level we’re all involved in recruiting and how Recruitsy can improve this experience for the candidate one review at a time.

What’s your company’s elevator pitch?

Recruitsy is the first crowd-sourced rating and review site that helps people connect with the best recruiters and staffing agencies. As consumers in the digital economy, we expect access to information to make smart purchasing decisions.  If we are buying products online, we check Amazon reviews.  If we are looking for a doctor, we check HealthGrades or ZocDoc. If we are looking for a contractor,  we check Angie’s List.  If we are looking for the best local cafe, we check out Yelp!. But where do we go to find the best recruiter? Recruitsy!

What gave you the idea for your startup?

I was inspired to create Recruitsy after layoffs with a former employer. A few of my prior employees asked for some advice on which recruiters they should connect with to assist with their job search. I had established relationships with several recruiters in the market, so I could easily point them in the right direction.

That was really the “Aha! light bulb” moment. I recognized that the average job seeker was lacking access to this information and there wasn’t a “Yelp! For recruiters” app to voice their feedback on their recruiter interactions.

How do you envision the idea changing the landscape?

The consumerization of reviews in the staffing/recruiting industry will put more focus on human interactions, relationships, and candidate/client satisfaction.  Recruitsy empowers candidates to publicly rate their experiences which democratizes access to a centralized recruiter directory.

With this level of transparency, there will be a big shift to a performance driven culture that fosters more intense competition. Your brand will live and die by your online reputation.

There will be more focus on building proactive relationship and more placements will be made via word of mouth and referrals.

What does the phrase ‘hiring success’ mean to you?

Our people are the organization. So ‘hiring success’ really speaks to the hiring, cultivating, and retention of employees that are passionate and driven to pursue the company’s mission and vision

Establishing clear expectations from a candidate and employer perspective is vital, as is a creating culture that promotes transparency, feedback, empowerment, and accountability.

What is your favorite interview question and why?

What is your ‘why to buy message’?  Which translates into their elevator pitch and 30 second sale for why I should hire them. Our personal/career brand is everything and we should be prepared to quickly describe our value proposition. I’m looking for what makes this person unique relative to their peers. It’s also a question that they typically haven’t rehearsed coming into the interview.

What is the role of technology in hiring?

Technology should be viewed as the enabler of more human driven interactions that put emphasis on candidate experience. Hiring is a contact sport that requires human contact. Any technology that misses the candidate experience and only focuses on process efficiency, is not likely to survive the long-game.