Last week, Randstad Sourceright (RSR) held its annual client forum. Amongst the many topics discussed was Randstad’s and RSR’s commitment to invest in and transform its clients’ recruitment technologies, with a focus on innovation. Here I look at some of their initiatives in play.

Reviewing new recruitment technology

Per NelsonHall research, access to improved technology is one of the top recruitment outsourcing drivers. Talent acquisition technology is improving the delivery of recruitment services, resulting in higher quality candidates. New recruiting technology is continually being released, and some vendors, including RSR, have dedicated groups who review and evaluate new technology on an ongoing basis, and provide recommendations on which technology to incorporate. Not surprisingly then, the top buyer vendor selection criterion is recruitment service capability, which includes recruitment processes that leverage the latest and best technology.

In 2015, Randstad Sourceright interviewed ~250 clients to understand their challenges and goals and identified ‘technology innovations to manage talent solutions’ as the greatest need with a score of 71%.

Randstad Innovation Fund

Innovation is also one of the top vendor selection criteria, which includes vendors providing sourcing creativity, including in technology, and continually introducing new ideas and recommending new services. Buyers are looking for a vendor focused on continuous process improvement and innovation, with a partner that is future focused and understands and incorporates the latest trends and tools.

In 2014, Randstad Holding launched the Randstad Innovation Fund to identify, evaluate, invest in, and collaborate with, HR and talent technology companies. The innovation fund continuously evaluates the market for developments in social sourcing, recruitment marketing, talent assessment, freelancing platforms, mobile solutions, virtual solutions, gamification, and analytics. There are ~2,000+ HR tech ventures tracked globally by the Randstad Innovation Fund to date, with investments made by the Randstad Innovation Fund including:

• Twago: European freelancer marketplace with more than 255k experts in 190 countries
• Gigwalk: mobile workforce management platform for large distributed workforces
• RolePoint: online employee referral platform
• Vonq: European provider of online recruitment marketing services
• RiseSmart: technology driven career transition services and outplacement platform, acquired by Randstad in September 2015
• Brazen: allows organizations to host online recruiting and networking events and leverage real-time ‘many-to-one’ chat interactions
• Checkster: automated reference checking and other talent decision tools
• Gr8 People: comprehensive recruiting platform
• Crunchr: analytics platform supporting workforce planning, succession, talent management and employee preferences
• Pymetrics: job recommendations using big data, neuroscience, and gamification to identify best talent job fit
• Monster: In Q4 2016, Randstad completed its acquisition of Monster Worldwide Inc. to leverage Monster's digital, social, and mobile solutions for talent acquisition
• Wade & Wendy: a fully-automated chatbot to interact with candidates and clients using AI. Wade helps applicants introduce opportunities and shape their careers, and Wendy can assist hiring managers to build their teams
• Joberate: crawls public social media daily, looking for people’s job seeking activities
• HackerRank: an online recruitment community and assessment tool, using coding challenges in a variety of programming languages to source, rank, and match top programmers.

Also, important to note is TalentRadar, RSR’s proprietary technology platform which analyzes all aspects of the talent acquisition and retention process. It combines data from multiple sources in a single dashboard view, automates alerts on critical recruiting operations metrics, and provides predictive analytics.

Continued investments

RSR will continue investment in technology via the Randstad Innovation Fund and incorporate selected solutions into its technology offering to provide greater efficiencies and value for its clients, and improved candidate experience. RSR will also continue to make ongoing investments in its global Talent Innovation Center, which provides thought leadership, innovation and overall expertise in recruiting strategies, employer branding, diversity, and new practice areas surrounding talent and market analytics, technology enablement, and veteran recruiting.