Let your competitors talk to your next hire

July 22 2020

Poor hiring decisions are costly and time-consuming – and the risk of making a poor hiring decision in the midst of limited face-to-face interaction is even greater. Letting your competitor interview your top candidates might just be the answer.

Soft signals are in short supply. It’s tough to judge a candidate’s body language, his or her poise as he or she enters a room, and the personal rapport built over a coffee shared in person. But, as more of the hiring process moves online, we might find new ways to measure talent. Which tools and techniques might give superpowers to hiring managers?

As the transition to remote work began, we hypothesized that organizations would seek new forms of intelligence on individuals’ potential and performance. This problem might be exacerbated in times of rising unemployment, and rising competition for jobs. The recruitment startup Swyg’s peer-to-peer interviewing system has gained traction in the tech world. Its model is based on the simple belief that the best person to rate a CFO is another CFO. After all, letting your competitor interview your top candidates might not be such a crazy idea after all. Swyg claims its products sensitively address the risk of algorithmic bias and considers the appropriate handling of personal data.

There’s also promise in marketplaces or community-based products that can intelligently match employers with candidates. Kandidate and Screenable are promising early entrants. The sensitivity of advertising interest, for both employers and candidates, presents an obstacle to a fully efficient market. One of the key areas to address is the question of cultural fit: what predictive indicators of working style and team dynamics are measurable in a remote hiring process?

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Smart Hiring Companies:

Andela, Inc. is a privately-held company that recruits software developers in Africa to work for mostly U.S.- based technology companies. The company seeks, recruits, and pairs software engineers throughout Africa with global technology firms on a full-time basis. The developers, on four-year contracts, work full-time from Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria. Andela, Inc. was founded in 2014 by Christina Sass, Ian Carnevale, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, and Jeremy Johnson. Andela, Inc.'s headquarters are located in New York, New York.

Triplebyte offers personalized online coding tests (the tests ask questions based on how well you answered previous problems) and subsequent technical interviews to help screen candidates for prospective employers. Triplebyte matches candidates to jobs that it determines are most suitable, which might not be the companies a candidate has set out to target for work.

Candidate Labs is a modern talent agency pairing seasoned recruiters with technology and data to ensure sales and marketing leaders are able to confidently grow their teams without compromising on speed or fit. Candidate Labs makes the job search experience intelligent and seamless for sales and marketing professionals, ensuring candidates see more opportunities, leverage unmatched opportunity insights, and land a role that best accelerates their career.

Walmart restarts talks on possible sale of Asda stake

Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, has restarted talks with potential buyers of a stake in its British supermarket arm Asda.
[Read more].

Chevron Agrees to $5B Takeover of Noble Energy

Chevron Corp agreed to a deal to buy Noble Energy Inc. for $5B, in what would be the largest oil-patch tie-up since the coronavirus pandemic delivered a shock to the industry. [Read more].

Since last week, PrivCo has added:
1422 Profile Updates | 199 M&A Deals | 176 Funding Activities

Funding & Deal Highlights:

Noops, the world's first protein-rich, plant-based organic oat milk pudding, launches online and in select Northeast grocery retailers. Founded by Gregory Struck, who previously founded Hungryroot, Noops is poised to turn the snack world upside down with the introduction of an innovative superfood pudding that's packed with real ingredients and powerful nutrition.

Effx, a startup that aims to give developers better insights into their microservice architectures, announces that it has raised a $3.9M funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and Cowboy Ventures. Other investors and angels in this round include Tokyo Black, Essence VC Fund, Jason Warner, Michael Stoppelman, Vijay Pandurangan, and Miles Grimshaw.

SpotX, the global video advertising platform, has announced a strategic investment in SpringServe, the ad serving platform for OTT and connected TV (CTV). Under the terms of the agreement, both companies will work together to provide joint customers with advanced video advertising capabilities, while seamlessly connecting platform customers to the advertiser ecosystem.

Ready, Set, Food!, a Los Angeles, CA-based childhood food allergy prevention company, raises $3M in a second funding round.

Propel(x), a San Mateo, CA-based online investment platform for investors to source, evaluate, and fund science and technology startups, closes a new round of financing in Q1 2020, which, including all converting notes, adds up to $5.5M.

3DLOOK, a San Mateo, CA-based AI-first technology company that digitizes human body data to bring fit and sizing intelligence to the apparel industry, raises $1M in a pre-series A funding.

Frequency Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on harnessing the body’s innate biology to repair or reverse damage caused by a broad range of degenerative diseases, announces that it has agreed to sell 2,350,108 shares of its common stock in a private placement to institutional and accredited investors. The transaction is expected to result in gross proceeds to the Company of approximately $42.3M.

Norway’s Adevinta has won the auction to buy the bulk of eBay’s classified ads unit for nearly $9B, with the U.S. e-commerce firm planning to keep a minority stake, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.

Sarnova announces that it will acquire and simultaneously combine Digitech and the R1 RCM Inc. EMS business (formerly ADPI/Intermedix), in partnership with Pamlico Capital and Digitech Founder and CEO Mark Schiowitz, to create a leading provider of revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions for emergency medical services (EMS) professionals. The business will continue to operate under the Digitech name and will be led by Mark Schiowitz and the combined management teams.

Energyworx, a market leader in cloud-based Energy Data Management solutions announces a strategic investment by ENGIE, through its venture capital arm ENGIE New Ventures. Based in the United States and the Netherlands, Energyworx enables top US and European energy companies to unlock valuable insights in their massive granular supply, demand, and contextual energy data sets.

Spear Street Capital, an owner, and operator of office properties located in the United States, Canada, and Europe, announces that Bonaccord Capital Partners, a division of Aberdeen Standard Investments, has made a strategic investment in Spear Street.

Ascend Technologies, a leading Midwest IT solution provider, announces a merger with Infogressive, Inc., a leader in cybersecurity solutions.

GlobalSCAPE, and HelpSystems jointly announce they have signed a definitive merger agreement under which HelpSystems will acquire all outstanding shares of GlobalSCAPE for $9.50 per share in cash. The combined company will focus on providing the most comprehensive collection of trusted security and automation solutions to customers worldwide.

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