Transcript to come
Mark:
Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. I’m mark Feffer. My guest today is Sanjoe Jose, the CEO of Talview. Their platform streamlines the workflows involved with screening, interviews, assessments, exams, and credentials. We’re going to talk about incorporating data into hiring processes, how that’s impacting recruiters, and what’s doing with Talview’s roadmap all on this edition of PeopleTech.
Mark:
Hi, Sanjoe. Thanks for coming in. Let’s start by just a little bit of background about your company. What do you folks do? And what is it that distinguishes you, do you think?
Sanjoe:
Yeah, so we look at Talview as a talent measurement platform, where we help companies to make confident and effective talent decisions. And this is independent of where the life cycle of talent, whether it’s in hiring, whether it’s in internal talent management or certification or learning and development, any kind of use cases. Talview’s platform is used to conduct assessments and interviews, which, together, we refer to as talent measurement, to make decisions on whom to hire, whom to promote, whom to certify, any of that.
Sanjoe:
So our unique, I would say, approach to solving the problem of talent measurement in an effective manner is a two layered approach. We call it our orchestration layer and our intelligence layer. In the orchestration layer, we solve for the efficiency of the talent measurement process, how we bring together different steps involved in the talent measurement process, from matching a profile to the right opportunity, to scheduling of the measurement sessions, whether it’s an interview, an assessment, any of that, in an effective manner and deliver it in a completely virtual environment.
Sanjoe:
And two, our intelligence layer, where now, since everything is digitized and it’s happening in a virtual environment, we not just facilitate the end to end transaction, but also use AI and intelligence to derive additional insights from the measurement activity, whether it’s an interview where we, for example, have the ability to build a behavioral profile of a candidate based on interview which happens on the platform, which becomes an additional critical input for the interviewer to make a decision. Two other aspects are in terms of interviewer coaching and other forms of intelligence which is available for the organization to make better decisions. So that sets us apart from most of the other players in the space.
Mark:
Now, it’s a really interesting time to be in talent acquisition, I think, given the great resignation and then there’s just a whole lot of unknowns, it seems like, right now. How has all that affected your business? And has it changed your outlook when you look at the business going forward?
Sanjoe:
Yeah, I think the big change, or I would say the most important priority for us right now is that our talent acquisition functions across our customers, across organizations, are currently under a lot of pressure. There is a lot of demand to be met. And I think we, as partners in that and their process, it’s also a lot of pressure for us to ensure that we are able to live up to the expectations, live up to the demand which is put on the talent acquisition community as a whole, given the great resignation and [inaudible 00:04:07] talent supply chain balance right now.
Sanjoe:
So we’ve been at the forefront of not just ensuring that we provide the best in class service, but also continue to innovate so that we can help these organizations to adjust better to the new normal, where they have to hire a lot more than they’re used to hiring traditionally. Their competition for hiring or competition for talent is significantly higher than what it was a few years back. And all of this is also happening when there is a significant change of nature of work, with more flexible work and remote work. And people are looking at additional talent pools, and there is also requirement for new kind of talent, especially in the technology space. So a lot of different things. So we are focused on ensuring that we bring our best of our capabilities on the platform and service to help our customers. And we continue to invest in innovation, such that we are able to improvise on what we are offering and disrupt the way in which organizations can adjust to the new normal.
Mark:
Now, video’s gotten to be a more accepted tool over the last two years. And certainly, video interviews have become increasingly popular. Now this might be an obvious question, but I can’t resist asking you this. What’s the impact been on Talview?
Sanjoe:
Yeah, I think we’ve gone through exponential growth on the number of transactions which we’ve seen on the platform. In the last two years, we have seen almost 15X more number of assessments and interviews happening on the platform. Which means, as an organization and as a platform provider, that was exponential growth which we had to cop up with. And that has been a major change to what also is the expectation from organizations. So we had this vision, we knew that this is going to happen, but in their pace of adoption or the accelerated pace at which organizations had to do change management and adopt digitization in the interviewing process, adopt digitization in all aspects of talent measurement I think meant that we also fast track everything which we do from a product standpoint, from an onboarding standpoint for our customers. So we’ve made significant investments, for example, to fast track our onboarding process, build a lot of reusable connectors, significantly store capacity from the onboarding standpoint, whether it’s professional services, customer success across the board.
Sanjoe:
Two, from a roadmap standpoint, we’ve accelerated our pace in terms of how we are delivering, especially with more digitization, there’s more data and more intelligence, which we can deliver for our customers. A lot of insights, which they can use to adjust to the new normal and the great resignation and all of that. So we’ve been, I would say, laser sharp focused on how we can help our customers with these insights. So for example, there’s more offer dropouts. So how can we predict which are the candidates at risk based on the interview process in an automated fashion so that the customer can focus on those candidates more? Can we predict who are their best interviewers so that they are able to make their interview process more efficient, and hence, they can do lesser number of interviews and they can also improve the conversion ratios of these interviews? So those are all aspects which we have been helping our customers with over the last few quarters.
Mark:
Now, has the last two years changed your point of view personally as a CEO? Do you find that after the pandemic and all the technology changes that have gone on, the politics are very rough in this country, are you thinking differently about developing the business and running the business?
Sanjoe:
Yeah, I think the primary change in outlook has been on how we think about how the nature of work would evolve and how that could impact what we do, which is supporting organizations with talent acquisition. Yeah, we see that. So there is an unbundling of work which is happening. Work traditionally was not just the source of livelihood, but it’s also where you derive your sense of purpose and sense of belongingness from. And I think with the remote work, with flexible work, that’s getting unbundled. People are looking at being part of communities, not just at work, but there are many digital communities which they’re part of. Or with work from home, they’re part of other communities, physical communities as well.
Sanjoe:
And that, we believe, is going to change the tenure, or make the work tenures shorter. And with that, we believe organizations will have to do more of hiring. So probably, on an average, they were filling a particular role once every three years. Now they probably have to fill it once every year, once every one and a half years. And what that means is you cannot have long drawn hiring processes to make those decisions. You should have a decision making process which is short because you don’t want to spend like three months or six months in hiring somebody who’s going to be with the organization probably for a year or 18 months.
Sanjoe:
So a lot of focus for us has been on how we can enable organizations to make effective talent decisions without long drawn processes. And that’s achieved through more insights from every step within the process. So what can we help them to achieve within the same interview? You probably have an interviewer who is very good at making a technical evaluation or a skill judgment of the candidate, but can we use non-interviewer dependent techniques like psycho-linguistics, for example, to build a behavioral profile of the candidate and do a behavioral fitment of the candidate based on the interview? Can we use AI to train the interviewers better so that they can do more holistic interviews? And we don’t need different interviews to evaluate different aspects of it manually, whether it’s learning ability or cultural fit or skill or any of that. So I think those are all things which we think are becoming more and more relevant on how organizations can make better decisions faster, given how the nature of work is changing.
Mark:
My last question is actually about your customers and what they’re thinking. They’re the ones obviously who are trying to hire and retain and all that kind of stuff. What’s their outlook? Are they feeling that they can handle all of this or that it will pass? Or are they panicking? How would you describe their outlook?
Sanjoe:
Yeah, I think it’s a mix of all of those. So we recently did a survey with one of the research firms. And what we got as output of the survey is, one in two organizations are looking at revamping their hiring process. So they are sensitive of the change and they’re already planning for it. But at the same time, around 40% of them are already aware that they’re not going to meet their targets for the year when it comes to hiring. The targets are very steep because of the pressure of the business. But they know that they’re not going to meet their targets for the year. So I think there’s a sense of, I would say, desperation, given everything which is happening. And at the same time, they’re also not standing still. They are preparing to change. And across organizations, we have seen the willingness to invest in change. So that’s a sense that we’re seeing from our customers right now.
Mark:
Sanjoe, thanks so much for making time to come and talk today.
Sanjoe:
My pleasure, Mark. Happy to be part of the conversation.
Mark:
My guest today has been Sanjoe Jose, the CEO of Talview. And this has been PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. We’re a publication of RecruitingDaily. We’re also a part of Evergreen Podcasts. To see all of their programs, visit www.evergreenpodcasts.com. And to keep up with HR technology, visit the HCM Technology Report every day. We’re the most trusted source of news in the HR Tech industry. Find us at www.hcmtechnologyreport.com. I’m Mark Feffer.
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