Understanding HR Technology series – Meritocracy

In the course of what I do I get the chance to come into contact with an impressive array of HR Technology products that could form a part of how enlightened people professionals are taking to reimagining the world of work. Given the avalanche of technology choices faced by our profession I want to give byte size reviews of some of those I’d recommend as we all seek to make our organisations relevant places to attract and retain today’s talent.

This week I’d like to focus on the recruitment market and an emerging Technology based Digital Agency from Italy called Meritocracy.

The changing recruitment landscape

So HR, let’s remind ourselves of the changing context. After the deluge it was clear that the candidate won the ‘war’ and companies are now having to work much harder to attract, engage and convince the best people to take their job. That discerning candidate no longer walks blindly into the first company that flashes its eye lashes but wants to increasingly explore the Company story from a variety of angles – culture, opportunity, reputation, workspace, benefits, etc – before making an informed decision.

So the good guys at Meritocracy made me sit up and listen because they aim to :

“make job-seeking a rich, rewarding experience”.

Who are Meritocracy ?

It’s a digital Ad agency. Founded in 2013, two clever Italian graduates set out to improve the candidate experience and simplify talent acquisition. By providing deeper insights for the candidate to make an informed choice it also goes after talent retention with better profile matching, underpinned by proprietary technology and a cool platform to amplify the company brand.

How does it work ?

It’s a branded portal that facilitates a matching service so clearly there are 2 constituencies:

The candidate

They get the opportunity to browse a landing page that gives them a richer insight into the organisations there, the teams, roles and benefits and then apply on-line, going through the unique matching process set by the organisation via their own company persona.

The recruitment function

This is an opportunity to brand for influence, reduce churn and encourage a more open and engaging relationship with the candidate. There is a free sign up to the platform for organisations to self-publish content but the value comes from the paid services provided and an ongoing relationship that makes the data journey additive and more relevant over time.

Amplifying the talent brand & specific opportunity

As a technology-based ad agency, Meritocracy provide an engaging platform to deliver a multimedia campaign utilising video (showcasing actual employees), picture (professional photography of the organisation) and a list of benefits to whet the candidate’s appetite and significantly raise the chances of application.

Engaging the target audience

Recruiters get to develop creative marketing campaigns across key channels, to promote openings to target passive and active candidates. Reviewed constantly to optimise the right social channels (where the best come from) with a focus on quality not quantity in shortlists.

Acquiring the best-fit talent

The matching service of the top 5% that is built from an algorithm of up to 30 variables unique to the role & organisation.

What’s the business case ?

As with all of our investments inside Talent Acquisition, then moving well-matched (cultural and technical) candidates along the recruitment funnel is the return. Meritocracy claim that you get a 90% higher conversion rate than common job posts and a 27% lower cost-per-hire (if this still rocks your world) when used continuously.

Coming soon. Virtual Reality

Driven by its commitment to utilising technology for the benefit of the candidate and through an existing relationship with Samsung, I’m excited by the prospect of incorporating VR to enable organisations to go even deeper in communicating and engaging what it is like to work inside a company.

What did I think ?

This is an accessible and affordable ad agency service, underpinned by developing technology and relevant in what is an increasingly crowded employer branding marketplace that is in danger of becoming bland and saturated. Currently it’s very much a point solution (integration with the ATS represents only 5% of the client base) so there is an impact on candidate flow to factor in.

Best utilised as part of an ongoing relationship rather than a transactional approach this allows more data to power more learning about the candidate profiles and, if needed, the channels to engage with them on. The profiles are assessed ultimately by the intelligence provided by the organisation and I’d like to see this develop more sophistication on key softer attributes that are less open to bias than some of the hard facts currently are but it would be wrong to single out Meritocracy for an area that bedevils the entire industry currently.

Obviously the forthcoming VR capability has me starstruck with the potential that it provides to opening up organisations to greater transparency and engagement and I can only see this integration getting more traction. This is a service that focusses on doing everything it can currently to deliver a well-matched candidate and if this is where your thinking is then they are certainly worth a conversation with.

Until next time. Let smart technology help build great companies.