Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Management Excellence Conference

I’ll be moderating a session on Ethical Technology Implementation and Governance in Talent Management because this issue has reached a critical juncture. Technology’s power comes with profound responsibilities that could destroy your employer brand, create legal liability, and damage employee trust if you get it wrong. Good intentions aren’t enough. We need deliberate, ongoing safeguards.

Beyond the Hiring Hype

Most discussions about ethics in HR focus narrowly on recruiting and candidate screening. That’s understandable given the visibility and legal exposure of those functions. But this technology has permeated virtually every aspect of human resources: performance management systems that flag employees for improvement plans, learning platforms that recommend development paths, scheduling algorithms that distribute shifts, compensation tools that suggest salary ranges, and engagement surveys analyzed by machine learning models.

Each of these applications carries ethical implications. A system that identifies flight risks among your workforce might disproportionately flag certain demographic groups. A performance evaluation tool trained on historical ratings could perpetuate past biases about who gets top scores. A scheduling algorithm optimizing for business efficiency might inadvertently disadvantage employees with caregiving responsibilities.

The scope of technology in HR means the scope of potential harm extends far beyond who gets hired. It touches promotion decisions, compensation equity, development opportunities, and even who gets laid off during restructuring. Biased algorithms can undo years of work to ensure fair access to opportunities, systematically disadvantage specific generations or demographic groups, and perpetuate inequities that exclude talent from growth.

The Hidden Nature of Bias

Here’s what makes technology ethics so challenging: the bias often isn’t obvious. A system might systematically disadvantage older workers, working parents, or certain demographic groups without anyone noticing until significant damage has been done.

Most HR departments don’t truly understand how their tools work. We know what they promise to deliver. We can see the outputs they generate. But the decision-making process inside the algorithm? That’s often a mystery, even to the vendors who built them.

This creates an accountability gap. When a tool recommends promoting one employee over another, can you explain why? When it suggests a particular salary for a new hire, do you understand what factors drove that number? When it identifies someone as a retention risk, do you know what patterns it detected?

If you can’t answer these questions, you’re not in control of your HR decisions. The algorithm is. And that algorithmic control can limit upskilling access to certain groups, block talent mobility for protected populations, undermine talent readiness by restricting development opportunities, and reduce organizational talent agility by creating invisible barriers.

The Broader Impact on Culture and Trust

The consequences extend beyond individual employment decisions. Privacy violations and opaque decision-making expose you to legal action. But there’s something equally damaging happening beneath the surface: the erosion of the very culture elements organizations claim to value most.

Biased systems undermine wellness by creating unfair stress. They damage the psychological safety needed for innovation labs to function effectively. They erode the trust essential for social and collaborative learning across multi-generational teams. When employees suspect that automated systems are making unfair decisions about their careers, they disengage from the collaborative behaviors that drive innovation.

Organizations racing to implement HR technology are often dangerously unprepared for these complexities. They’re so focused on competitive advantage and efficiency gains that they overlook the ethical foundations required for sustainable implementation.

What Safeguarding Actually Requires

Creating genuine safeguards in HR isn’t about checking compliance boxes. It’s about building a culture of intentional oversight and continuous questioning. In our conference session, we’ll explore practical frameworks based on organizations that have thoughtfully implemented technology with strong ethical guardrails ensuring inclusive outcomes. Here’s what that foundation looks like:

Demand Transparency Before Deployment

Before implementing any tool, insist on understanding its logic. What data does it use? What patterns does it look for? What assumptions are baked into its design? If a vendor can’t or won’t explain how their system works, that should disqualify them from consideration.

This is where most organizations fail in their vendor selection process. They evaluate features, negotiate pricing, and review implementation timelines without ever asking the critical ethical questions. Does the vendor conduct independent bias audits? Can they demonstrate how their system performs across different demographic groups? What happens when their algorithm produces a discriminatory outcome?

The vendors who bristle at these questions or hide behind claims of proprietary algorithms are telling you something important: they haven’t prioritized ethics in their development process. The solution providers using technology properly will welcome your scrutiny. They’ll provide documentation of their testing methodologies, share results of bias audits, and explain their governance frameworks.

This transparency requirement applies equally to hiring tools, performance management systems, workforce planning algorithms, and any other technology touching employee decisions. You’re not looking for technical documentation that only data scientists can parse. You need clear explanations of what the system considers and why. Employees need to understand and trust technology-driven systems, which requires explainability from the start.

Understand How Bias Enters Systems

Bias doesn’t appear magically. It enters through data, algorithms, and implementation choices. The training data might reflect historical patterns of discrimination. The algorithm might weight certain factors in ways that disadvantage specific groups. The implementation might lack safeguards that catch problematic outcomes.

You need strategies to prevent bias at each of these entry points. That means scrutinizing your historical data for patterns of inequity before using it to train systems. It means testing algorithms across demographic categories before deployment. It means establishing checkpoints during implementation that surface problems early.

Establish Human Judgment as Non-Negotiable

These systems should inform decisions, never make them autonomously. This principle sounds obvious but gets violated constantly in practice. When systems automatically reject applications, flag performance issues, or route employees to certain career tracks, they’re making decisions without meaningful human review.

Meaningful human oversight means having trained personnel who understand the recommendations, can evaluate them critically, and have genuine authority to override them. It means creating space and time for that judgment to occur. It means measuring managers not on how efficiently they process recommendations but on the quality of their decision-making.

Monitor for Unintended Patterns Across Generations

These tools don’t remain static. They learn, adapt, and evolve. An algorithm that performs fairly at implementation might develop problematic patterns over time. Regular auditing isn’t optional.

These audits should examine outcomes across demographic categories, with particular attention to how systems affect multi-generational workforces. Are certain age groups disproportionately receiving negative performance ratings? Are development opportunities being distributed equitably? Are promotion rates consistent across demographics at similar performance levels?

The goal isn’t to find problems. The goal is to know whether problems exist so you can address them before they become systemic.

Protect Privacy While Using Employee Data

Advanced technology requires data. Learning personalization needs information about employee skills and preferences. Performance management systems analyze work patterns. The question isn’t whether to use employee data but how to use it responsibly.

Establish clear privacy protection requirements for when employee data feeds system training and decision-making. Employees should know what data you’re collecting, how it’s being used, and who has access to it. Data minimization principles apply: collect only what you need, keep it only as long as necessary, and secure it appropriately.

Create Governance Models That Support Innovation

Ethical frameworks aren’t constraints on innovation. They’re prerequisites for sustainable implementation. You need governance models ensuring responsible technology use that protects the collaborative learning cultures organizations depend on.

This governance requires cross-functional collaboration between HR, legal, IT, data privacy, and executive leadership. Regular meetings should review deployments, discuss emerging concerns, and make decisions about new implementations. When everyone shares responsibility, critical issues are less likely to slip through the cracks.

Part of this governance involves ongoing vendor management. Your relationship with solution providers shouldn’t end at contract signing. Establish quarterly reviews where vendors report on system performance across demographic categories, share any bias detected and remediated, and discuss algorithm updates that might affect outcomes. Build contractual requirements for this transparency. The providers committed to using technology ethically will view this as partnership, not burden.

Evaluate Vendor Accountability and Responsiveness

When choosing solution providers, assess not just their current product but their commitment to addressing problems when they emerge. Ask pointed questions: What happens if we discover bias in your system six months after implementation? Who bears the liability? How quickly can you investigate and remediate? Do you have dedicated teams focused on algorithmic fairness?

Request references from other organizations using their tools, and ask those references specifically about the vendor’s responsiveness to ethical concerns. Have they ever discovered bias? How did the vendor respond? Were fixes implemented promptly? Did the vendor take responsibility or deflect?

The best solution providers treat ethics as a competitive advantage. They proactively test for bias, publish transparency reports, engage third-party auditors, and maintain dedicated ethics teams. They understand that responsible technology use protects both their clients and their own reputation.

Connect Technology Ethics to Broader Organizational Goals

Technology ethics doesn’t exist in isolation. It connects directly to wellness initiatives (preventing unfair stress from biased systems), inclusion efforts (ensuring equity across diverse populations), and innovation strategies (maintaining the trust required for effective collaboration).

Organizations that successfully implement technology with strong ethical guardrails recognize these connections. They see that fair algorithms support wellness by reducing arbitrary performance pressure. They understand that equitable systems enable inclusion by removing barriers to opportunity. They know that transparent technology maintains the psychological safety innovation requires.

Learning From Success and Failure

In our session at the Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Management Excellence Conference, we’ll examine real examples of both responsible implementation and cautionary tales of failures. The organizations defending themselves in court didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. They believed they were modernizing, becoming more efficient, making better use of data. They trusted their vendors and assumed compliance would follow.

They learned that assumption was expensive. Legal and regulatory considerations for technology in employment and development contexts have become increasingly complex. What was acceptable two years ago might violate current standards. What seems harmless today might trigger lawsuits tomorrow.

But beyond legal exposure, there’s a deeper issue: trust. Employees who believe they’ve been unfairly evaluated by an algorithm, passed over for opportunities due to automated decisions, or disadvantaged by systems they don’t understand lose faith in their employers. That erosion of trust damages engagement, retention, and culture in ways that far exceed any efficiency gains technology might provide.

Building Your Ethical Framework

The session objectives reflect what HR leaders need most: practical guidance for building ethical frameworks appropriate for their organizational values. You need to identify and mitigate bias risks before they cause harm to any group. You need to establish governance ensuring responsible use that supports wellness, inclusion, and innovation across generations. You need to balance innovation and competitive advantage with ethical responsibility and legal compliance.

Most importantly, you need to create employee trust in the systems making decisions about their careers. Without that trust, even the most technically sophisticated implementation will fail to deliver its promised benefits.

Your safeguards should enable you to leverage strengths while remaining vigilant about weaknesses. They should position HR as the ethical steward in your organization, setting standards that other functions can follow.

The Path Forward

The choice isn’t between using this technology or avoiding it. It’s already embedded in HR, and that integration will only deepen. The choice is between using it thoughtfully, with robust safeguards and ongoing oversight, or using it carelessly and hoping for the best.

Only one of those paths is sustainable. Only one protects both your employees and your organization. And only one aligns with the ethical responsibility that comes with managing human capital in an increasingly automated world.

As we convene at the Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Management Excellence Conference in February, we’ll be exploring these challenges with practitioners who are navigating them in real time. The organizations succeeding aren’t those with the most advanced technology. They’re the ones who’ve built the strongest ethical foundations beneath that technology.

The future of work will be shaped by algorithms and automation. But the future of ethical work will be shaped by the guardrails we build today. Join us as we explore how to build those guardrails effectively, protecting your organization while unleashing technology’s potential to create more equitable, effective talent management practices.

The post Safeguarding Your HR Department’s Use of AI: <br/> Building an Ethical Framework appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

TL;DR: The onboarding landscape in 2026 is being reshaped by AI-powered personalization, strategic preboarding, hybrid learning models, and data-driven insights. Organizations with strong onboarding practices see notable improvements in retention, productivity, and time-to-proficiency. The key is moving beyond checkbox orientation toward continuous, learner-centric experiences that speed up contribution while fostering genuine connection and belonging.

The Onboarding Imperative: Why 2026 Changes Everything

The stakes have never been higher. Most organizations recognize they need to improve their onboarding initiatives, yet few receive the executive support required to make meaningful changes. At the same time, the majority of companies acknowledge they must do a better job of offering equitable onboarding to both on-site and remote employees.

The workforce has shifted. Hybrid work has become standard. The traditional one-size-fits-all orientation model simply cannot address this complexity.

Organizations that get onboarding right see remarkable results. Strong onboarding processes lead to dramatically improved retention, faster productivity, and accelerated time to proficiency. The connection between effective onboarding and business outcomes has never been clearer.

Trend 1: Preboarding Becomes Mission-Critical

The period between offer acceptance and start date has become a strategic battleground. Leading organizations fill this gap with structured preboarding rather than radio silence, recognizing that an engaged candidate is far less likely to reconsider their decision or accept a counteroffer.

Effective preboarding extends the onboarding experience before Day One, building early connections, reducing new hire anxiety, and creating a sense of belonging from the very start. This includes personalized welcome communications, team introductions, access to company culture content, and logistical preparation that transforms uncertainty into anticipation.

EI Powered by MPS specializes in creating comprehensive preboarding and onboarding solutions that address this critical window. Their approach encompasses everything from first-day induction and compliance training to complete 30-60-90-day performance journeys, ensuring new hires feel supported from the moment they accept an offer through their first year and beyond.

Trend 2: AI-Powered Personalization at Scale

2026 marks the mainstream adoption of AI in onboarding. Artificial intelligence is changing the process by making it more automated, tailored, and scalable without overloading HR and IT teams.

The shift from generic orientation programs to AI-powered personalization represents a major change in how companies integrate new talent. AI analyzes role requirements, team dynamics, and individual backgrounds to create onboarding experiences that feel custom-built for each employee. A software engineer joining an office in Berlin receives different technical setup instructions than a sales representative starting in Singapore, yet both experience the same level of thoughtful preparation.

Key AI capabilities changing onboarding include:

• Hyper-personalized learning paths that adapt based on progress, performance, and learning style.
• Intelligent chatbots providing around-the-clock support for common questions and administrative tasks.
• Predictive analytics identifying at-risk new hires before disengagement occurs.
• Automated content curation delivering the right information at the right time.

Organizations with technology-enabled onboarding see improvements across key talent metrics. This acceleration comes from just-in-time learning modules, role-specific knowledge paths, and automated administrative task management that frees HR to focus on relationship-building.

Trend 3: Hybrid Onboarding Takes Center Stage

Organizations increasingly recognize they must offer equitable onboarding to both on-site and remote employees. This reality underscores the importance of hybrid onboarding approaches that combine in-person and digital elements effectively.

The advantages of well-designed hybrid onboarding extend beyond logistics. There is a clear connection between company culture metrics and the onboarding process. When organizations successfully integrate remote and in-person elements, they create consistent experiences that reinforce values and build genuine connections regardless of location.

EI Powered by MPS designs mobile-first, WCAG-compliant onboarding solutions that support hybrid and remote-first environments at scale. Their approach includes integrated learning journeys combining instructor-led sessions with eLearning modules and real-time collaboration, ensuring consistency and quality regardless of where new hires are located.

Trend 4: Executive and Manager Engagement Drives Results

One of the most important findings in onboarding research is that organizations with leaders who extensively support onboarding see greater improvement in new hire talent metrics than those providing minimal or no support. Yet most organizations still lack extensive executive backing for their onboarding initiatives.

Leading organizations address this by making onboarding manager-led rather than just HR-led. This means equipping managers with toolkits, check-in guides, conversation prompts, and visibility into each hire’s onboarding progress. When managers can intervene and coach effectively, new hires integrate faster and develop stronger connections to their teams.

Managers often teach the unwritten rules: who to ask for what, how decisions really get made, and which activities matter most. These insights cannot be delivered through formal training alone. They require active manager participation in the onboarding process.

Trend 5: Culture Integration and Belonging

Research shows a clear connection between company culture metrics and the onboarding process. The shift to more remote and hybrid workplaces has deepened the need for strong organizational culture, reinforcing the notion that onboarding should be the time to assimilate new hires with organizational values and beliefs.

From the new hire perspective, onboarding is truly transformational. When managed correctly, new employees quickly see that they are valued members of the organization, that they can develop professionally, and that they receive support to achieve their career goals. With these experiences, new hires become champions of the organization, promoting it internally and externally.

Progressive organizations are integrating employee wellness directly into onboarding, recognizing that a new employee’s mental and physical well-being is foundational to their long-term success, engagement, and productivity.

Trend 6: Data-Driven Insights and Continuous Improvement

Onboarding in 2026 is becoming a more scientific, data-driven discipline. Organizations gathering regular feedback from new hires see improved engagement levels.

Key metrics organizations should track include:

• Time-to-Competency: Both the speed and quality of skill acquisition, including how quickly new hires reach key performance milestones
• Strength of Affiliation: Cultural alignment through engagement surveys and team integration through manager feedback
• First-Year Retention: A significant portion of voluntary attrition for new hires occurs during the first year
• Business Impact: New hire contributions to department goals and customer satisfaction levels

Organizations with mature onboarding practices see improvements in customer satisfaction, demonstrating the direct link between effective onboarding and business outcomes.

As a Brandon Hall Group Platinum Smartchoice Provider, EI Powered by MPS brings proven frameworks and methodologies for measuring training effectiveness and impact. Their analytics dashboards track learner completion, engagement, confidence levels, and early performance indicators, providing the insights L&D leaders need to refine onboarding in real-time.

Trend 7: Extended Onboarding Journeys

The traditional view of onboarding as a one-week orientation is giving way to extended journeys. Successful organizations recognize that true integration, which includes understanding the role, building relationships, internalizing culture, and reaching full productivity, requires sustained support over time.

Companies at higher levels of onboarding maturity see improvements in key metrics like new hire retention and employee engagement. This maturity comes from treating onboarding as a strategic journey rather than an administrative event.

Effective extended onboarding includes:

• First week: Intensive orientation covering essential policies, systems access, and team introductions
• First month: Structured learning aligned with role responsibilities and initial performance milestones
• First quarter: Ongoing development, regular check-ins, and embedding of performance support
• Beyond 90 days: Role-change onboarding, refreshers, and long-term development extensions

EI Powered by MPS takes this end-to-end approach, ensuring every step from the first welcome email to post-90-day learning is structured, relevant, and built for performance. Their programs grow with the business, offering continuous refreshers and development pathways that extend well beyond initial onboarding.

Building Your 2026 Onboarding Strategy

The trends shaping onboarding in 2026 share a common thread: They require infrastructure that makes intentional, personalized onboarding possible at scale. Success requires moving beyond administrative checklists toward strategic programs that drive engagement, accelerate productivity, and improve retention.

Key actions for L&D leaders:

1. Secure executive support: Leadership backing is essential to onboarding success.
2. Audit your preboarding gap: Identify what happens between offer acceptance and Day One, and fill silence with structured engagement.
3. Evaluate AI readiness: Assess where automation and personalization can reduce manual burden while improving the new hire experience.
4. Enable your managers: Provide the tools, training, and visibility they need to actively participate in onboarding success.
5. Design for hybrid reality: Ensure your programs work seamlessly across in-person, remote, and blended formats.
6. Implement measurement: Establish metrics and dashboards that enable continuous improvement.

With more than five decades of learning design expertise and recognition from leading industry analysts, EI Powered by MPS partners with organizations to create emotionally intelligent, learner-centric onboarding experiences. From strategy through development, delivery, and measurement, their approach ensures training investments drive performance gain and maximize ROI.

Whether you’re launching a new onboarding program or transforming an existing one, 2026 presents an opportunity to move beyond orientation toward true integration, creating experiences that equip new hires to contribute faster while building the foundation for long-term success.

Ready to transform your onboarding approach? Connect with EI Powered by MPS to explore how their award-winning solutions can help you build onboarding programs that drive measurable business impact.

The post Induction & Onboarding Trends 2026:</br> The Future of New Hire Success appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Every talent acquisition leader I speak with tells me they are working hard to optimize their hiring process. They’ve invested in modern applicant tracking systems, built strong employer brands, and trained their recruiters. Yet when I ask about their agency relationships, I get a different story — one involving scattered contracts, rogue hiring managers working with friends who recruit, mysterious fees, and a general sense that they’re paying too much for too little control.

I recently sat down with Brin McCagg, CEO and founder of RecruitiFi, to understand how they address this challenge. The company has been quietly building something unusual in the talent acquisition technology space: a platform that treats agency recruiting like a marketplace problem rather than a vendor management problem. This briefing comes at an interesting time. RecruitiFi has been expanding its contingent workforce capabilities while pursuing deeper integrations with major ATS platforms, positioning itself as an embedded solution rather than another standalone system.

Why This Problem Exists

For permanent hires from agency recruiters, the core issue is straightforward: most organizations hire 95% of their people through traditional channels such as job boards, career sites and employee referrals. But for that remaining 4-5% of hard-to-fill roles, they turn to contingent agency recruiters. These might be technical roles in hot markets, leadership positions requiring discreet searches, or openings in new geographies where the company lacks presence.

The problem compounds because each agency relationship typically means:

• Separate contracts and terms negotiated individually
• Different fee structures ranging from 15% to 30% of first-year salary
• No visibility into which agencies are actually performing
• Rogue hiring managers engaging recruiters without HR involvement
• Payment chaos for accounts payable teams juggling hundreds of invoices

For contract/temp workers, which companies are increasingly reliant on,  the situation often proves worse — spreadsheet management, workers being billed who aren’t actually working, and no systematic way to evaluate agency performance. In Brandon Hall Group’s advisory work with enterprise members, this consistently ranks among the top three operational pain points that TA leaders cite. But it’s the one they’re least likely to address systematically.

The Current Landscape

Several vendors have attempted to solve pieces of this problem, with varying approaches:

Beeline and Fieldglass (SAP): The enterprise heavyweights in vendor management systems (VMS), both platforms focus primarily on contingent workforce management. They offer robust functionality for large organizations but require significant implementation time and resources.

Workday VNDLY (formerly VNDLY): Following Workday’s acquisition, VNDLY has integrated more tightly with Workday’s core HCM platform. The system handles contingent workforce management effectively for Workday customers but primarily serves the Fortune 500 segment.

Eightfold AI: Approaches the problem from a talent intelligence angle, using AI to match candidates with opportunities. While powerful for internal talent mobility and direct sourcing, it doesn’t solve the specific challenges of managing external agency relationships, fee structures, and payment processes.

Bullhorn: Serves as an ATS specifically built for staffing agencies themselves — not the companies hiring them.

GoCo and similar HRIS platforms: Some provide basic vendor management capabilities as part of broader HR platforms, but lack the depth of functionality needed for sophisticated agency relationship management, particularly around performance tracking and AI-driven agency matching.

The landscape fragmentation we’re seeing here reflects a broader pattern in HR technology: established enterprise platforms handle the high-volume, standardized processes well, but struggle with edge cases that still represent significant cost and risk. When we conduct technology selection advisory projects for clients evaluating TA solutions, agency management capabilities rarely make the requirements list, yet six months post-implementation, it’s inevitably one of the first gaps they want to address.

What Makes RecruitiFi Different

Having reviewed the demo and spoken with their team, three capabilities stand out as genuinely differentiated:

Universal Terms Architecture

RecruitiFi operates on a single contract model similar to how Airbnb standardizes rental agreements. When companies join, they can’t modify the underlying terms; they can only adjust variables like fees and geography. This seems restrictive until you understand the implications:

• Every agency in their network (now over 20,000) has already accepted these terms.
• New agencies can be added to a client’s program in minutes, not months.
• The procurement and legal bottleneck that typically takes 6-12 months simply disappears.
• Companies maintain their existing agency relationships and fee structures.

The system includes a 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee, which is shorter than the industry standard 90-day prorated refund, but actually delivers more money back to clients (their analysis shows companies recover about 53-54% more under this model because they actually get 100% back rather than negotiating partial refunds).

AI-Driven Agency Matching With Community Effects

The platform doesn’t just manage existing relationships. It actively introduces new agencies to relevant openings:

• Agencies build detailed profiles showing their specializations, placement history, and performance ratings.
• Both candidates and companies rate agencies after each interaction.
• For each new job posting, the system automatically suggests 2-3 agencies beyond the client’s existing roster.
• These matched agencies consistently fill more than 50% of roles, typically at lower fees (since they’re earning new business).
• Agencies accept lower fees for matched opportunities because they’re skipping business development entirely.

This creates a network effect: more agencies joining makes the platform more valuable for employers, which attracts more employers, which makes the platform more valuable for agencies.

Dual-Model Economics: Direct Hire + Contingent Workforce

Most VMS platforms handle either permanent placements or contract workers, but none do so effectively in one system.

• For direct hires: RecruitiFi charges 6% of the gross placement fee (deducted from the agency’s commission, not added to the client’s cost).
• For contract workers: The platform takes 3% of the ongoing bill rate.
• Clients pay nothing. The model is 100% vendor-funded.
• Both workflows operate on the same platform with the same agencies.

The contract worker side has become particularly interesting. In one case study McCagg shared, a manufacturing company discovered contractors being billed who weren’t actually working, saving $2.5 million in the first six months simply from having visibility.

Who This Actually Serves

Based on their client base and go-to-market strategy, RecruitiFi fits specific organizational profiles:

Mid-Market Companies

• Need agency support for specialized roles but can’t justify enterprise VMS complexity
• Lack dedicated procurement resources for agency management
• Want professional agency infrastructure without enterprise price tags
• Growing fast enough that ad-hoc agency relationships have become unmanageable

Fortune 500 Companies With Decentralized Hiring:

• Use agencies across multiple business units or geographies
• Struggle with rogue hiring and contract proliferation
• Need to consolidate spending without disrupting existing agency relationships
• Current clients include MasterCard, Goodyear (70+ countries)

Organizations Scaling Contingent Workforce:

• Currently managing contractors through spreadsheets.
• Face compliance risks from inconsistent practices.
• Need time-tracking and billing integration (they integrate with UKG Workforce Management and other time-card systems)
• Want to expand contractor usage but lack infrastructure

Companies Implementing New ATS:

• RecruitiFi white-labels its functionality into several major ATS platforms.
• Agencies submit candidates that flow directly into the ATS workflow.
• Organizations gain agency management capabilities that their ATS lacks natively.
• Zero additional cost to the company (RecruitiFi revenue-shares with the ATS vendor).

Talent Acquisition Teams Under Pressure:

• Reduced headcount but same hiring targets
• Need agency support without admitting they “need agencies”
• Want performance data to justify agency investments
• Seeking cost reduction without sacrificing quality

Strategic Position and What’s Next

RecruitiFi’s real competition isn’t other technology platforms — it’s organizational inertia. Many TA leaders remain reluctant to acknowledge how much they rely on agencies, making this a challenging sale despite strong ROI. McCagg noted that companies often insist they “don’t use agencies” before eventually revealing they often work with many agencies.

The strategic direction centers on embedded partnerships rather than direct sales. By white-labeling their agency portal into major ATS and HRIS systems, RecruitiFI avoids the “we don’t want another system” objection entirely. The ATS gets a functional agency portal (most openly admit their agency portal doesn’t work well or in some cases does not exist), the company gets consolidated agency management at zero cost, and RecruitiFi monetizes the placements.  RecruitiFi shares a portion of its revenue with the ATS partner.

This partnership approach makes sense given market dynamics. Companies consolidating systems won’t readily add standalone platforms, but they will adopt capabilities embedded in tools they already use. The challenge will be execution — navigating partnership sales cycles, integration work, and the leadership turnover at platform vendors that McCagg described as frustrating (mentioning one ATS had three CEOs during their three-year collaboration).

From our perspective at Brandon Hall Group, RecruitiFi represents the type of specialized solution that often gets overlooked in favor of all-in-one platforms, yet solves a genuine pain point that traditional systems handle poorly. Their technology is well-positioned for our Excellence in Technology Awards, which recognize solutions that deliver measurable business impact.

For solution providers navigating similar market positioning challenges,  particularly around partnership strategies and establishing credibility with larger platform vendors, our strategic marketing services help companies articulate differentiated value propositions and reach decision-makers who might otherwise default to familiar enterprise names. The agency recruiting space particularly benefits from third-party validation, given how reluctant many organizations are to admit they need help managing these relationships.

For organizations currently managing agencies through email, spreadsheets, and hope, RecruitiFi offers infrastructure that addresses real operational pain. Whether they access it directly or through an embedded ATS integration, the value proposition centers on making an unavoidable business process — using agencies for specialized hiring needs — actually manageable and measurable.

The post How RecruitiFi Turns Agency Chaos</br> Into a Managed Marketplace appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Enterprise talent acquisition teams are facing an unprecedented challenge. Companies emerging from hiring freezes need to ramp up quickly, but their recruiting teams haven’t grown. Meanwhile, the volume of applications has exploded every job posting now generates hundreds of resumes, many AI-generated and keyword-stuffed, creating an impossible screening burden for human recruiters. 

We recently spoke with Bala Vishwanath, CMO at SeekOut, about how the company is addressing this challenge through agentic AI. When we talk about agentic AI in recruiting, we’re not talking about a dressed-up chatbot we’re talking about autonomous agents that work alongside expert recruiters to make them more effective and productive in transforming the top-of-funnel recruiting process. After seven years of building semantic search intelligence across over a billion profiles, SeekOut has launched a service that promises to deliver interview-ready candidates in days rather than months. 

Through our advisory work with HR technology vendors, we’ve seen countless companies attempt to solve recruiting’s speed-quality paradox. Most focus on either automation or human expertise, but rarely achieve both effectively. SeekOut’s approach caught our attention because it fundamentally rethinks the recruiter’s role rather than simply digitizing existing processes. 

The Market Reality: When AI Creates More Problems Than It Solves 

The recruiting industry finds itself in a peculiar position. AI tools have made it trivially easy for job seekers to generate customized resumes and cover letters for every application, flooding companies with hundreds of seemingly qualified candidates. As Vishwanath explained, “You need intelligence to understand that what I’ve described is really what is needed… if I am a good developer that has built scalable systems, like let’s say for Netflix, I wouldn’t necessarily use keywords in my resume.” 

This creates a vicious cycle: recruiters can’t manually review 500+ applications per role, so they rely on keyword-based screening tools that miss the best passive candidates the Netflix engineer who describes building “viral apps that scaled to millions of users” rather than using buzzwords like “scalable infrastructure.” 

Several companies have emerged to tackle different aspects of this challenge: 

• Paradox is a conversational AI platform that automates high-volume candidate engagement through its chatbot Olivia, focusing primarily on screening, interview scheduling, and candidate communication for retail, hospitality, and other high-volume sectors.

• HireVue specializes in AI-powered video interviewing and assessment technology, using behavioral analysis and predictive analytics to evaluate candidates through pre-recorded interviews, serving primarily enterprise-scale organizations.

• Eightfold AI operates a comprehensive talent intelligence platform that goes beyond hiring to include workforce planning, internal mobility, and skills development, leveraging deep learning across talent acquisition, talent management, and workforce analytics. 

• HireEZ has evolved from AI-powered candidate sourcing into a comprehensive recruiting CRM platform with their hireEZ 2 launch, providing integrated sourcing, engagement campaigns, analytics, and automation capabilities designed specifically for outbound recruiting workflows and talent relationship management. 

Technology That Actually Understands Context 

SeekOut’s differentiation lies in what Vishwanath calls “semantic intelligence” the ability to understand what candidates have accomplished rather than just matching keywords. Their system draws from over a billion profiles across platforms including LinkedIn, GitHub, research publications, and patents to build unified candidate profiles. 

The technology stack includes several key innovations: 

• Unified Intelligence Layer: Aggregates data from multiple sources (LinkedIn, GitHub, company alumni databases, past applications) to create comprehensive candidate profiles that reveal capabilities beyond traditional resume scanning. 

• Semantic Search Capabilities: Uses context-aware AI to identify candidates whose accomplishments match job requirements even when they don’t use standard industry terminology, uncovering passive talent that keyword-based tools miss. 

• Agentic AI Workflow: Deploys multiple specialized AI agents that handle different aspects of the recruiting process from initial sourcing and filtering to personalized outreach messaging and preliminary screening working together in a coordinated system. 

This sophisticated approach to combining AI capabilities with human expertise reflects the kind of innovation we recognize through our HCM Excellence Awards®, where leading organizations demonstrate measurable results from technology-enabled talent acquisition transformations. 

The “SeekOut Spot” service combines these AI agents with expert recruiters hired from companies like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. These recruiters handle the nuanced human aspects of candidate evaluation while the AI agents manage the volume-intensive tasks. 

Who Benefits Most from AI-Powered Recruiting Services 

Based on our conversation and market analysis, several organization types emerge as ideal candidates for this approach: 

• Post-Hiring Freeze Enterprises: Companies ramping up from hiring freezes who need to scale quickly without proportionally increasing their recruiting team size, particularly those facing critical skill shortages in technical roles 

• High-Growth Technology Companies: Organizations hiring for specialized technical roles where passive candidates often don’t maintain active LinkedIn profiles but demonstrate their capabilities through GitHub contributions, research publications, or patent filings.

• Diversity-Focused Organizations: Companies with aggressive diversity hiring goals that struggle to identify underrepresented candidates through traditional channels, leveraging SeekOut’s ability to surface talent from non-obvious sources. 

• Volume Hiring with Quality Requirements: Enterprises that need to process hundreds of applications per role while maintaining high-quality hiring standards, particularly in competitive markets where top talent receives multiple offers. 

• Resource-Constrained Recruiting Teams: Organizations with lean talent acquisition teams who need to “punch above their weight” in terms of hiring volume and candidate quality, especially those competing against companies with larger recruiting budgets.

Analyst Perspective: The Future of Recruiting is Human-AI Partnership 

SeekOut represents a significant evolution in how we think about recruiting automation. Rather than replacing recruiters, the platform amplifies their capabilities by handling the 80% of top-funnel activities that don’t require human judgment while freeing recruiters to focus on relationship-building and cultural fit assessment. 

The economics are compelling. Vishwanath shared that they’re seeing six-figure annual contracts with companies as small as 1,000 employees, suggesting strong ROI potential when the alternative is hiring additional full-time recruiters or missing critical hires due to capacity constraints. 

Our research team frequently collaborates with solution providers on thought leadership initiatives that advance industry understanding, and SeekOut’s approach aligns with broader trends we’re seeing toward “augmented intelligence” rather than full automation. The most successful AI recruiting tools enhance human decision-making rather than attempting to replace it entirely.  

Through the Brandon Hall Group Institute, our members have access to research and certification programs and thought leadership ithat advance industry understanding of AI-enabled recruiting and other aspects of HR.  

However, success will depend heavily on execution. The market is littered with recruiting tools that promised revolutionary outcomes but failed to deliver measurable results. SeekOut’s focus on pilot programs and measurable metrics (time-to-hire, application-to-qualified-candidate ratios, final hiring success rates) suggests they understand the importance of proving value before scaling. 

Strategic Implications for Talent Leaders 

The emergence of agentic AI in recruiting signals a fundamental shift in how talent acquisition teams should think about their role and structure. Organizations that adapt their recruiting strategies to leverage AI agents while investing in human recruiters’ relationship-building and strategic advising capabilities will gain significant competitive advantages. 

For talent leaders evaluating solutions like SeekOut Spot, the key question isn’t whether AI can improve recruiting efficiency it’s whether your organization is ready to reimagine the recruiter’s role. The companies that succeed will be those that view AI as a force multiplier for human expertise rather than a replacement for human judgment. 

Talent leaders looking to deepen their understanding of how agentic AI fits within broader talent acquisition strategies can explore these topics further at the HCM Excellence Conference®, where practitioners and solution providers share real-world implementation experiences and measurable outcomes. 

As the talent market continues to evolve, the organizations that combine sophisticated AI capabilities with deep human expertise will capture the best talent while their competitors struggle with the limitations of purely manual or purely automated approaches. The future of recruiting isn’t human versus machine it’s human with machine, working in partnership to solve problems neither could tackle alone. 

The post Are SeekOut’s AI Agents Going to Redefine the Recruiter’s Role  appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

PageUp presented a compelling vision at HR Tech 2025, positioning recruitment marketing as the next frontier in talent acquisition. Following their acquisition by EQT and subsequent global rebrand, the company has unified four previously separate brands into a cohesive platform serving over 700 customers with more than $100 million in revenue.

CEO Eric Lochner articulated how talent acquisition is following the same evolution as sales and marketing technology. Just as Salesforce revolutionized sales process tracking and HubSpot brought transparency to marketing ROI, PageUp envisions recruiters thinking about candidates the way businesses think about leads. Their research shows 86% of customers now view marketing as a core part of their recruiting role.

The platform’s strength lies in serving highly regulated industries including healthcare, higher education, government, and legal sectors. Notable clients include British Airways, the State of California, and the State of Virginia. These organizations value PageUp’s deep compliance capabilities, configurability, and comprehensive reporting—essential for meeting strict regulatory requirements.

Three compelling case studies demonstrate PageUp’s impact: Ancestry doubled their quality candidate conversion rates and can now run targeted campaigns in minutes instead of weeks; IWG now sources 20% of hires directly from their talent pool through automation; and Storyhouse Early Learning achieved 50% sourcing cost savings while maintaining a 6.7/7 candidate experience rating regardless of hiring outcome.

The company’s recent product launch, Paige (a virtual recruiting assistant), exemplifies their pragmatic approach to innovation. Rather than rushing to market with AI features, they beta tested with 25 customers over three months, incorporating feedback before general release. Paige handles administrative tasks from job posting to candidate identification, freeing recruiters to focus on strategic sourcing.

PageUp’s differentiation stems from three client-validated strengths: exceptional customer commitment (with half their workforce in customer-facing roles), transparent product development driven by client needs, and platform flexibility that allows clients to make changes without support tickets. Their partnership ecosystem includes over 180 integrations spanning the full talent acquisition lifecycle.

The company’s sweet spot is organizations with 5,000 to 25,000 employees, though they successfully serve clients up to 200,000 employees. Their geographic split reflects global reach: approximately 300 employees in Australia, 40% in the UK, and the remainder in the US. This distribution supports their growing US market presence, where they’ve achieved 3-3.5x year-over-year growth.

Related HR Tech 2025 Coverage:

• Fountain: Agentic-first frontline operating system reducing hiring time from two weeks to 22 minutes with mobile-first design
• iCIMS: Acquired Apli to address frontline hiring challenges, with SmartSearch technology and TrustArc AI certification
• NXTThing RPO: PersonaG enabling 30-60 second application-to-offer processes with AI scoring and TalentaG retention insights
• Phenom: Voice screening agent finding unexpected success in healthcare with fraud detection and AI boot camps
• Radancy: MyInterview acquisition bringing 72% reduction in time to hire with comprehensive Teams integration
• Daxtra: Talent Flow platform with explainable AI and marketplace approach for custom recruiting agents

I also stopped by to see recruiting powerhouses Greenhouse Software, SmartRecruiters, HireVue, Paradox, and Avature at the Expo.

About Brandon Hall Group Institute

Brandon Hall Group’s Institute provides strategic guidance, benchmarking data, and best practices to help organizations optimize their human capital management strategies. Our research and advisory services help HR leaders navigate complex technology decisions and drive meaningful business outcomes. Learn more about our comprehensive research offerings and how we can support your HR transformation journey, including our new AI Progression Model for HR.

The post PageUp Positions Recruitment Marketing as the Future of Talent Acquisition at HR Tech 2025 appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Daxtra is undergoing a strategic repositioning at HR Tech 2025, shifting focus from enterprise to mid-market opportunities while transforming from a resume parsing specialist to a comprehensive talent workflow automation platform. Under new leadership (90 days in), the company is consolidating 22 years of parsing expertise with their recent PivotCX acquisition to create Talent Flow.

The platform addresses critical recruiter pain points: managing 300 applications on day one while simultaneously struggling to fill other roles, despite sitting on millions of historical candidates. Talent Flow syncs with existing ATS systems to automatically match historical candidates to new jobs, rediscover past applicants, and use AI agents to screen candidates and verify they’re real people with relevant qualifications.

A key differentiator is the explainability of AI matching scores. Where traditional systems might score candidates as 92% or 82% matches without context, Daxtra’s platform explains why, giving recruiters insights to better present candidates to hiring managers. This transparency addresses a major concern in AI adoption—understanding and trusting the technology’s decisions.

Rather than building endless agents, Daxtra is taking a marketplace approach, enabling recruiters to build their own agents within guardrails. Recruiters can identify workflow pain points—whether screening, sourcing, scheduling, or hiring manager communication—and create custom automations. This recognizes that recruiting workflows vary significantly not just between companies but even within teams.

Currently processing 100 million resumes monthly in 42 languages, Daxtra maintains partnerships with major platforms like iCIMS and UKG while building direct market presence. Their Capture product addresses data quality by creating aggregate candidate profiles and eliminating duplicates—a persistent ATS challenge. Future plans include HRIS integration to enable internal mobility and career pathing based on current skills rather than outdated initial profiles.

Related HR Tech 2025 Coverage:

• Fountain: Agentic-first frontline operating system reducing hiring time from two weeks to 22 minutes with mobile-first design
• iCIMS: Acquired Apli to address frontline hiring challenges, with SmartSearch technology and TrustArc AI certification
• NXTThing RPO: PersonaG enabling 30-60 second application-to-offer processes with AI scoring and TalentaG retention insights
• Phenom: Voice screening agent finding unexpected success in healthcare with fraud detection and AI boot camps
• Radancy: MyInterview acquisition bringing 72% reduction in time to hire with comprehensive Teams integration
• PageUp: Talent acquisition software solution designed to help businesses transform hiring and engagement experiences for all

I also stopped by to see recruiting powerhouses Greenhouse Software, SmartRecruiters, HireVue, Paradox, and Avature at the Expo.

About Brandon Hall Group Institute

Brandon Hall Group’s Institute provides strategic guidance, benchmarking data, and best practices to help organizations optimize their human capital management strategies. Our research and advisory services help HR leaders navigate complex technology decisions and drive meaningful business outcomes. Learn more about our comprehensive research offerings and how we can support your HR transformation journey, including our new AI Progression Model for HR.

The post Daxtra Repositions from Parsing Pioneer to Mid-Market Talent Flow Platform appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Radancy announced its acquisition of MyInterview at HR Tech 2025, adding AI-powered screening and scheduling capabilities to their comprehensive talent acquisition platform. The acquisition strengthens Radancy’s position as a software platform company, with the majority of revenue now coming from enterprise software rather than creative services.

The company’s investment focus centers on two key areas: candidate experience and recruiter efficiency. Based on extensive candidate focus groups, Radancy updated their platform with natural language job search and enhanced chatbot capabilities. Candidates now expect ChatGPT-like experiences, moving beyond traditional keyword and location searches to conversational queries about culture, hiring events, and career opportunities.

MyInterview brings impressive metrics to Radancy’s platform: 72% reduction in time to hire and near-instant candidate shortlisting. The technology focuses on post-apply screening and scheduling, integrating with existing ATS systems. Recruiters can use AI-generated scorecards or customize screening criteria, with options for full automation or human-in-the-loop approaches based on comfort level.

A standout feature addresses the hiring manager bottleneck through comprehensive Microsoft Teams integration. Hiring managers receive notifications, can reschedule interviews, and access all candidate information without leaving Teams. The platform handles complex scheduling scenarios including round-robin and multi-person interviews, recognizing that hiring managers’ primary job isn’t managing ATS systems.

Looking forward, Radancy sees significant synergies from the acquisition. They plan to optimize programmatic advertising based on quality scores, develop new quality-focused reports, and expand Teams integration across their platform. The company’s approach—solving real talent acquisition problems with appropriate technology rather than forcing AI everywhere—positions them well for organizations seeking practical efficiency gains.

Related HR Tech 2025 Coverage:

• Fountain: Agentic-first frontline operating system reducing hiring time from two weeks to 22 minutes with mobile-first design
• iCIMS: Acquired Apli to address frontline hiring challenges, with SmartSearch technology and TrustArc AI certification
• NXTThing RPO: PersonaG enabling 30-60 second application-to-offer processes with AI scoring and TalentaG retention insights
• Phenom: Voice screening agent finding unexpected success in healthcare with fraud detection and AI boot camps
• Daxtra: Talent Flow platform with explainable AI and marketplace approach for custom recruiting agents
• PageUp: Talent acquisition software solution designed to help businesses transform hiring and engagement experiences for all

I also stopped by to see recruiting powerhouses Greenhouse Software, SmartRecruiters, HireVue, Paradox, and Avature at the Expo.

About Brandon Hall Group Institute

Brandon Hall Group’s Institute provides strategic guidance, benchmarking data, and best practices to help organizations optimize their human capital management strategies. Our research and advisory services help HR leaders navigate complex technology decisions and drive meaningful business outcomes. Learn more about our comprehensive research offerings and how we can support your HR transformation journey, including our new AI Progression Model for HR.

The post Radancy Enhances Platform with MyInterview Acquisition and Teams Integration appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Phenom showcased market-leading AI innovations at HR Tech 2025, with their voice screening agent emerging as the standout success story. Originally targeted at low-skilled, high-volume roles, the agent has found unexpected success in healthcare, with Baylor Scott & White’s nursing recruitment generating over 2,000 applications in one day — enough volume to temporarily overwhelm their system.

The voice screening agent’s sophistication sets it apart from basic automation. Rather than following rigid scripts, it engages in natural conversation, adapting questions based on candidate responses. When candidates hesitate to share information like salary expectations, the agent adjusts its approach to gather the best possible data. Organizations can configure the agent’s tone, personality, and even gender to match different roles and company cultures.

Beyond screening, Phenom demonstrated their fraud detection agent, addressing a critical industry concern. The system ensures candidate consistency throughout the hiring process, detects potential AI-generated responses during interviews, and provides real-time question suggestions to help interviewers validate authenticity. Even with low fraud incidence, the risk implications make this capability highly valuable.

Supporting their technology rollout, Phenom offers three-day AI boot camps for organizations, including process mapping, maturity assessment, and prescriptive technology implementation plans. This consultative approach helps HR teams navigate internal dynamics and scrutiny around AI adoption. The company advocates for keeping humans in the loop while enabling progressive automation based on organizational readiness.

Additional innovations include an intake agent built into Microsoft Teams that automates hiring manager meetings, a 24/7 career coach for employees, and a companion manager coach that shares employee engagement insights. These tools address the common challenge that most HR tools are built for HR professionals, not the managers who need to use them daily.

Related HR Tech 2025 Coverage:

• Fountain: Agentic-first frontline operating system reducing hiring time from two weeks to 22 minutes with mobile-first design
• iCIMS: Acquired Apli to address frontline hiring challenges, with SmartSearch technology and TrustArc AI certification
• NXTThing RPO: PersonaG enabling 30-60 second application-to-offer processes with AI scoring and TalentaG retention insights
• Radancy: MyInterview acquisition bringing 72% reduction in time to hire with comprehensive Teams integration
• Daxtra: Talent Flow platform with explainable AI and marketplace approach for custom recruiting agents
• PageUp: Talent acquisition software solution designed to help businesses transform hiring and engagement experiences for all

I also stopped by to see recruiting powerhouses Greenhouse Software, SmartRecruiters, HireVue, Paradox, and Avature at the Expo.

About Brandon Hall Group Institute

Brandon Hall Group’s Institute provides strategic guidance, benchmarking data, and best practices to help organizations optimize their human capital management strategies. Our research and advisory services help HR leaders navigate complex technology decisions and drive meaningful business outcomes. Learn more about our comprehensive research offerings and how we can support your HR transformation journey, including our new AI Progression Model for HR.

The post Phenom Leads Market with Voice Screening Agent and Comprehensive AI Boot Camps appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

NXTThing RPO unveiled Personegy at HR Tech 2025, their new high-volume recruiting solution that has been live with customers for 18 months and officially launched this week. The RPO provider, experiencing 50% year-over-year growth in a flat market, has strategically shifted to become more technology-focused while maintaining their services expertise.

Personegy addresses the inadequate technology landscape for frontline and high-volume hiring. The platform features comprehensive recruitment marketing, career site development, flexible application options (chat, form, phone), and automated scheduling. A major client in the calibration industry now uses Personegy for approximately 15,000 hires annually in a hybrid model, having consolidated multiple systems into this single solution.

The solution’s AI capabilities include two distinct scoring mechanisms: an AI-matching component that crawls external sites to find and nurture candidates, and a weighted prescreening score for compliance-conscious organizations. The system can operate fully autonomously, moving candidates scoring above set thresholds directly to interviews or even offers—some clients go from application to offer with start date and shift assignment in 30-60 seconds.

TalentaG, their workforce insights platform, is expanding beyond analytics to include workforce planning and retention features. Currently in beta, the platform’s AI component identifies retention issues and provides actionable insights, analyzing survey data, external brand perception, and compensation benchmarks to recommend solutions for improving retention.

Looking ahead, Personegy’s roadmap includes an AI recruiter co-pilot that identifies “red recs” and provides specific action recommendations, while TalentaG will enhance its workforce planning capabilities. With implementation timelines significantly shorter than enterprise competitors, NXTThing RPO positions itself to capture market share as companies seek more agile solutions.

Related HR Tech 2025 Coverage:

• Fountain: Agentic-first frontline operating system reducing hiring time from two weeks to 22 minutes with mobile-first design
• iCIMS: Acquired Apli to address frontline hiring challenges, with SmartSearch technology and TrustArc AI certification
• Phenom: Voice screening agent finding unexpected success in healthcare with fraud detection and AI boot camps
• Radancy: MyInterview acquisition bringing 72% reduction in time to hire with comprehensive Teams integration
• Daxtra: Talent Flow platform with explainable AI and marketplace approach for custom recruiting agents
• PageUp: Talent acquisition software solution designed to help businesses transform hiring and engagement experiences for all

I also stopped by to see recruiting powerhouses Greenhouse Software, SmartRecruiters, HireVue, Paradox, and Avature at the Expo.

About Brandon Hall Group Institute

Brandon Hall Group’s Institute provides strategic guidance, benchmarking data, and best practices to help organizations optimize their human capital management strategies. Our research and advisory services help HR leaders navigate complex technology decisions and drive meaningful business outcomes. Learn more about our comprehensive research offerings and how we can support your HR transformation journey, including our new AI Progression Model for HR.

The post NXTThing RPO Launches Personegy and Expands TalentaG for Frontline Workforce Solutions appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

iCIMS announced its acquisition of Apli at HR Tech 2025, just seven days before the conference, marking a strategic expansion into frontline hiring while maintaining its position as an enterprise-grade talent acquisition platform. The acquisition addresses critical gaps revealed in their new 2025 State of Frontline Hiring Report, which found that 91% of frontline hiring managers say filling these roles is urgent, with healthcare showing the highest urgency at 96%.

The acquisition is particularly timely given the challenges their research uncovered: 62% of frontline hiring managers cite quality of candidates as their biggest challenge, while 60% of frontline workers report abandoning applications due to lengthy forms, uncertainty about qualifications, or lack of upfront pay information. Additionally, 69% of frontline workers feel employers ignore what candidates want in the hiring experience, highlighting the need for better frontline-focused solutions.

The company’s AI journey began in 2016-2017, with significant advancement through acquiring Dublin-based match and rank technology that became the foundation for their SmartSearch capabilities. Now in its third generation using VectorDB technology, SmartSearch drives both their ATS and CRM functionality. Looking ahead, iCIMS is developing “Assistant Search” for 2026, unifying search experiences across their multi-product platform.

iCIMS stands out for its commitment to responsible AI and compliance. They were the first HR technology platform to achieve TrustArc’s Trustmark for AI certification and maintain a robust privacy and compliance team. This focus on compliance enables customers to get AI capabilities through their internal approval processes—critical for enterprise adoption.

The platform’s AI strategy emphasizes embedded functionality rather than standalone tools. Their new sourcing agent, launching next month, helps recruiters leverage internal databases before posting externally. Wendy’s exemplifies the ROI: they hire the majority of candidates from iCIMS’ top-ranked suggestions, significantly reducing recruiting costs and improving efficiency.

Key innovations include a Gen AI digital assistant replacing canned responses with knowledge-base driven answers, continued investment in workflow automation, and a focus on all personas—recruiters, candidates, and hiring managers. The hiring manager experience receives particular attention, with plans to enable requisition opening and interview feedback through Teams or ServiceNow rather than requiring direct platform access.

Related HR Tech 2025 Coverage:

• Fountain: Agentic-first frontline operating system reducing hiring time from two weeks to 22 minutes with mobile-first design
• NXTThing RPO: PersonaG enabling 30-60 second application-to-offer processes with AI scoring and TalentaG retention insights
• Phenom: Voice screening agent finding unexpected success in healthcare with fraud detection and AI boot camps
• Radancy: MyInterview acquisition bringing 72% reduction in time to hire with comprehensive Teams integration
• Daxtra: Talent Flow platform with explainable AI and marketplace approach for custom recruiting agents
• PageUp: Talent acquisition software solution designed to help businesses transform hiring and engagement experiences for all

I also stopped by to see recruiting powerhouses Greenhouse Software, SmartRecruiters, HireVue, Paradox, and Avature at the Expo.

About Brandon Hall Group Institute

Brandon Hall Group’s Institute provides strategic guidance, benchmarking data, and best practices to help organizations optimize their human capital management strategies. Our research and advisory services help HR leaders navigate complex technology decisions and drive meaningful business outcomes. Learn more about our comprehensive research offerings and how we can support your HR transformation journey, including our new AI Progression Model for HR.

The post iCIMS Acquires Apli to Expand Frontline Hiring Capabilities at HR Tech 2025 appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.