2019 was a year of tremendous growth for SmartRecruiters—and our sights are set even higher for 2020. But before we charge into the new year, we’d like to reflect on our accomplishments and express our gratitude to those who supported us along the way.
We entered the year with incredible momentum, boasting 100% growth in the enterprise and 50+ new product features shipped. Inspired by this progress, we were determined to keep accelerating — and we did.
We worked relentlessly as a company to build the best possible product for our customers, to empower talent acquisition leaders across the globe to achieve Hiring Success, and to change the lives of millions of job seekers by connecting them to jobs at scale. Our efforts were met with success and, as a result, we were fortunate enough to gain an asset that’s truly invaluable—trust. The trust of our customers—both new and old—investors, market leading analysts, and more.
It would be impossible to recount everything we’ve accomplished as a company. Therefore, we’ve shortlisted the most memorable successes of 2019. To be perfectly honest, however, we cannot claim them entirely as our own. They would never have come to fruition without the wonderful community we’ve cultivated that supports us, trusts us, and believes in us. These are your successes, too.
$50M Series D Funding
In May, we announced that we had raised a $50M Series D round, with the support of repeat investor Insight Partners, as well as long-time investors Mayfield and Rembrandt Venture Partners.
We chose to invest the funds into accelerating our product roadmap including deepening the abilities of SmartAssistant through AI and machine learning, geographic expansion in Europe and Asia Pacific, and further developing our signature Hiring Success methodology, specifically process optimization, strategy, and customer workshops.
HS19 and HSEU Conferences
We held our third annual Hiring Success Americas conference at Pier 27 in San Francisco this past February. Over 1,000 attendees gathered for panel discussions, breakout sessions, a hackathon, the Recruiting Startup Awards ceremony, and—of course—an amazing after party.
Noteworthy announcements at the conference included:
- The announcement of the Hiring Success function, a new division within the company—headed by SVP Rebecca Carr—that’s staffed by TA experts who are tasked with providing customers programmatic support in the areas of awareness, transformation, acceleration, and optimization.
- In the opening keynote by Jerome Ternynck, CEO and founder of SmartRecruiters, attendees learned about the launch of our flagship corporate social responsibility program, Reverse Recruiting. The program is designed to help job seekers from marginalized and overlooked communities gain access to employment through professional mentoring.
The conference has experienced 3X year-over-year growth, solidifying its spot as the premiere talent acquisition industry event and growing the Hiring Success community globally.
Jumping across the pond, our second annual Hiring Success EU conference took place in Amsterdam from September 10th-11th. Over four hundred attendees from across the world came to the Dutch capital to network, participate in workshops, view product demos, and attend lectures from a diverse cross-section of industry experts.
The conference was held at Compagnietheater and outfitted by accessibility experts to accommodate guests of any visible and invisible disability, including translators and a sign language-encouraged coffee bar! A key ingredient of Hiring Success conferences, the sessions touched on a variety of workplace-related topics significant for talent acquisition professionals, ranging from the latest technology and process innovations to diversity, inclusion, and—of course—Hiring Success.
Trifecta in IDC MarketScape Reports
IDC MarketScape recognized SmartRecrutiers as a Leader in their Worldwide and U.S. Modern Talent Acquisition Suites 2019 Vendor Assessment reports for Large Enterprise, Medium Enterprise and SMB-sized companies.
The reports assessed a number of recruitment platforms including talent acquisition suites and recruiting modules of HCM products, and measured across 52 capabilities. In their findings, they lauded many elements of SmartRecruiters’ talent acquisition solution, as evidenced by the following quotes:
- “SmartRecruiters has long been on the front lines of recruiting innovation, pushing the boundaries on the role software plays in supporting the rapidly expanding scope of talent acquisition.”
- “Whereas any software vendor worth its salt would claim its solution is easy to use, SmartRecruiters is undoubtedly ahead of the curve when it comes to UX. ”
- “SmartRecruiters and its set of prebuilt customizable integrations are designed to make it easier to integrate with prominent HRIS providers, such as Workday and SAP SuccessFactors.”
Core Leader in the 2019 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Talent Acquisition
At the beginning of October, SmartRecruiters was selected as a Core Leader in the 2019 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Talent Acquisition.
The Fosway 9-Grid™ is a five-dimensional, European market analysis model that draws on 20-plus years of independent research. It allows organizations to compare Next Generation HR and Talent solutions based on their Performance, Potential, Market Presence, Total Cost of Ownership and Future Trajectories across the market.
Commented David Wilson, CEO of Fosway, “Growing rapidly in the US and in Europe, SmartRecruiters has built out a modern TA suite and is firmly targeting enterprise customers. Its recognition as a Core Leader highlights both the breadth of its solution and partner ecosystem, as well as its strong customer momentum and advocacy.”
The Ability to Measure Net Hiring Score (NHS) In-Product
At the end of October, we unveiled a new product release that brought to market a strategic metric for measuring new hire fit into our platform. The feature came alongside multiple process automation and platform extensibility updates that enable hiring teams to scale their efforts.
Most organizations attempt to measure quality of hire, but find it difficult to capture. Quality is often measured during year-end performance reviews, which come far after the hiring process is completed. To measure hiring success and strategize sooner, we wanted to empower organizations to automatically track their Net Hiring Score (NHS) in-product. Similar to a Net Promoter Score, which is the standard for measuring customer experience, the NHS measures the fit between new hires and jobs immediately after their ramp-up period.
Thanks to this update, SmartRecruiters customers can now automatically survey hiring managers and new hires 90 days after their start date to capture the hiring manager’s assessment of a new hire’s aptitude, attitude, and potential, as well as the new hire’s assessment of job responsibilities, management, and company culture. Responses are collected and presented in a real-time dashboard to track an organization’s NHS over time.
The Definitive Guide to Hiring Success
On December 3rd, we launched our most comprehensive resource to date—The Definitive Guide to Hiring Success—a 150-page playbook designed to help TA leaders build a modern recruiting strategy from the ground up.
The guide details the Hiring Success methodology that SmartRecruiters has built and applied with its customers over the last two years. A number of new and validated principles and practices were introduced in the text, spanning talent attraction frameworks, sourcing best practices, internal mobility, organizational structure, and management operating models.
Other key takeaways from the guide include:
- Hiring Success Scorecard—new metrics that have proven to be simple and easy to understand at the boardroom level, like the Net Hiring Score (measuring new hire and job fit )
- A talent scarcity-impact framework— the basis for any talent attraction strategy—it segments hires into four categories and lays out tailored acquisition tactics and budget allocation per category
- A talent acquisition maturity model that helps companies score themselves on 30+ different areas of functional investment, and provides guidelines for building out the right mix of people, processes, and technologies to get to the desired maturity level
Within the first two weeks, The Definitive Guide to Hiring Success was downloaded over 4,000 times.
Putting Our Mission Into Practice
In the spirit of our mission to connect people to jobs at scale, SmartRecruiters connected 20 million candidates to 300,000 jobs in 2019. The result? 250,000 new hires made—and consequently lives changed—globally.
Thank you once again to everyone who was a part of our journey in 2019. We look forward to continuing to work with our valued customers, colleagues, friends, and supporters in 2020 and beyond. We wish you all the best for the holidays and a prosperous start in the new year!
