January Rec Tech Insider

The funding of new and established HR tech continues. Here's what's new inside the Rec Tech industry including a new job board for HR tech professionals.

ACQUIRED

• AuthenticJobs.com a popular niche job board has been acquired by BuySellAds a maker of ad technology. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read details.

NEW LAUNCHES

• CareerCloud launches audio jobcasts for employers. New service embeds short interviews with hiring managers into your job descriptions. Read about it.
• HR tech Talent is a job online job market for HR tech professionals and vendors. Free to post jobs or resumes. Go there.

NEW FUNDING

• Reflektive, the real-time performance feedback platform, today announced it has raised $25 million in Series B inside funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Reflektive will use the funds to expedite innovation in its consumer-style performance management and talent development suite designed for the modern workplace. Full press release.
• EmployeeChannel - Employees Can Be Reached Anytime, Anywhere via Mobile as a new employer feedback tool Raises $5M. Press release.
• Shiftgig raises 20 million. Shiftgig, a marketplace that connects U.S. employers with workers seeking short-term positions, has raised $20 million in a Series C funding round from DRW Venture Capital, FJ Labs, GGV Capital, and KDWC Ventures. Founded in 2012, Shiftgig is a mobile-first platform that harnesses the burgeoning “gig economy” by letting workers choose the shifts and days they want to work — and the employer(s) they want to work for. It’s not aimed at those seeking a career position, obviously, but those seeking flexible working arrangements will find it useful. Via VentureBeat.
• Staffjoy Raises $1.2M, Allows Employee Schedules to be Sent via Text. Staffjoy launched in 2015 with the aim of giving small businesses the technology to improve scheduling of hourly workers. Today, the company announced the next phase of its offering and shared that it has raised a $1.2 million seed round led by Caffeinated Capital. Additional participants in the latest funding round include Brainchild Holdings and Haystack Fund. Read more here.
• Namely, a Zenefits rival, raises Another $50M. HR Software Startup Namely Raises $50 Million: Namely, which aims to make human resources software more user-friendly, today announced funding of $50 million. The New York-based startup targets mid-sized companies, which typically have 100 to 1,000 employees. “A few years ago, I noticed that all mid-sized companies had one thing in common,” founder and CEO Matt Straz told VentureBeat in an interview. “They seem to really struggle with getting the data that they need to run their business.” Read more here.
• Never Eat Alone: Working inside a massive company can mean being surrounded by thousands of people every day and yet feeling isolated. How do you start to connect with colleagues who might share your interests or make good mentors?This was the feeling Marie Schneegans had a couple of years ago while interning at global bank UBS. And it was what inspired her and cofounder Paul Dupuy to launch Never Eat Alone, a Paris-based startup that helps employees connect with each other over lunch. Via VentureBeat.
• Accompany, an app that wants to be your virtual chief of staff, has raised a boatload of new cash. The company, whose app publicly debuted in August, said on Monday that it had raised $20 million in new funding. The premise for Accompany is simple: the free app wants to automatically provide you with all the information you need to prepare for meetings. Accompany connects to your Google or Microsoft email account, your mobile calendar, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. From there, the company’s algorithms parse through your personal data—as well as biographies and information listed online—to create miniature dossiers on each of your contacts. Via Fortune.
• WeFind wants to help people companies recruit their users. For, say, a media company, it could be the people who’ve signed up on the site somewhere to read something. For a clothing company, it could be people who bought something. For a travel company, perhaps people who signed up for an alert when prices dip. For Uber — well, we’re talking of millions of users — aka potential candidates. From ERE.
• Ripple Recruiting, a startup founded by Yale students to help employers recruit, target and hire top students, has raised $700,000 in a funding round. Read about them.
• MyAlerts, a Product-tracking startup closed on $2 million in funding as it expands into a market close to CEO Doug Berg's entrepreneurial roots: recruiting. Will track corporate job pages and alert users of new jobs. Read about it.

MISC

• Indeed ends free resume searches for new accounts. Details.
• Russia blocks Linkedin. Nyet! from NY Times
• Rumors Are Floating About A Cornerstone OnDemand Sale: Speculation is swirling that Los Angeles-area Cornerstone OnDemand could be up for sale; the company’s stock is up about 5 percent today and rising after hours. Among the potential buyers, are ADP, Microsoft, and Oracle Read more here.
• Jazz, the leading recruiting solutions provider for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), today announced its name change to JazzHR (www.jazzhr.com). The name change comes as part of a brand refresh initiative to better align the company's name with its growth strategy and product roadmap. More details.
• ADP Building Mobile App For Gig Workers. via WSJ - The payroll processor, which historically sells software and services to corporations, is testing a mobile app for individual temporary workers with unpredictable paychecks. The app, yet unnamed, is an attempt by ADP to reach new customers as shifts in technology, culture and demographics reshape the U.S. workforce. 
• Microsoft is getting into HCM software via ZDnet

Indeed's own job descriptions offer glimpse into keyword strategy

I was cruising some listings on Indeed.com the other day when I came upon their own sales jobs and decided to take a peek at how they craft them. A section at the bottom caught my eye. 

NOTE: I searched for I searched for sales job in Stamford, CT. The title of the sponsored job I clicked is "Inside Sales Executive - Online Advertising".

These 'alternative job titles' are not what you see in most job listings. I can only deduce they have a keyword purpose. They are there to help job seekers find these jobs when they type in an alternate form of the job in the search box. 

It's a smart idea. These extra job titles are essentially keywords in disguise. But they also educate the job seeker that they should be searching for alternatives job titles since many of them will have variations.

My takeaway for employers is do more research around your job titles. They are arguably the most important part of your job listing. Use the Indeed trends tool to conduct keyword research around your job. Compare things like sales vs account executive. And pay attention to your Indeed monthly advertising report which also details how job seekers are finding your own jobs.

Job titles, just like content, are king.