(00:00:05) - Welcome to The HR Tech Spotlight podcast. I'm Deanna Shimota, CEO of GrowthMode Marketing. The HR technology market is crowded, and we know it can be hard to find the best software solutions for your business in the sea of sameness. On this podcast, we shine a spotlight on some of the best up and coming technology options out there. Check it out if you are interested in learning about new, innovative solutions available in the market. And if you are with an HR tech company and interested in being considered for a guest spot. Stay tuned for details at the end of the show.
(00:00:45) - Hello, I'm this episode of the podcast we are shining a light on Gem, a talent engagement platform that helps recruiting teams use data and automation to engage talent more deeply, build diverse, high quality pipelines, and hire predictably at any scale. Through the platform, companies can automate and personalize candidate communication, unify all recruiting touchpoints into a single system, and get usable data across the entire hiring process. Here to talk about gem is the company's head of marketing, Jeff Beckham.
(00:01:16) - Welcome to the show, Jeff.
(00:01:18) - Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
(00:01:20) - So the first question I always ask every guest, tell us about your background in the HR tech space.
(00:01:28) - So my story is, I don't know, maybe unique in that I didn't come from the HR tech space. I've been in B2B technology, marketing different solutions from data to productivity tools to video conferencing. But I was drawn in by my experience as a hiring manager and just feeling like there was a better way to do things, and just also having a very deep appreciation of the recruiting profession and loving the people that I worked with there and figured, let's do it. And I've been in it for two and a half years now, and and I've loved it. And I can't imagine going back to where I was.
Speaker 4 (00:02:07) - Awesome.
(00:02:08) - So let's talk a little bit about what Gem does.
(00:02:12) - Sure. Uh, ultimately, gem solves the problem that it's really hard to hire good people and do so quickly and efficiently. So I'll be more specific.
(00:02:25) - A big thing we solve is that recruiters spend hours per day. Um, these are things that they tell us just doing manual tasks and not actually doing recruiting, talking to candidates, closing candidates and the other things that they're best at. Um, so Gen helps automate those parts of the day saving, you know, our stats show anywhere from 1 to 3 hours a day per recruiter, which really adds up and helps them close better. Uh, the other is that there is often a lack of data in the recruiting process. And so sometimes you have spreadsheets, you use your applicant tracking system, gives you a couple reports here, and there. But by and large, recruiters and the talent acquisition leaders say, I don't really know what's going on in my organization. And when our finance team comes to us saying, here's the headcount target, it's hard to have the conversation around, well, I can't hit that or I need this many recruiters to hit that. Um, as well as just optimizing things throughout the team.
(00:03:33) - So Gen helps you from end to end, kind of see things from your outreach at the top of the funnel all the way through, hire and bring it together. Um, so gym's really a combination of automation data, um, and just engagement processes for recruiters.
(00:03:51) - So every company starts with the spark of an idea to solve a problem within the market. What is the story behind gem?
(00:03:59) - Yeah, our two co-founders, Steve and Nick, were engineering leaders at Dropbox and Facebook. And to them, hiring the best people was everything. But of course, they weren't always actively hiring. Or if they were the person that they just had to have wasn't ready to leave their job at the time. So they kept a spreadsheet that they called their list of gems, people that they wanted to stay in touch with over time. And then as they started staying in touch with these folks, they said, this doesn't seem like the best way to do things. I'm having to track all my interactions manually. I have to send each email one by one.
(00:04:44) - It just takes tons of time to effectively manage the relationship and to source high quality people. So the company started. They're really just applying the best of sales and marketing technology and the things there to the recruiting process, with very specifically designed tools for recruiters and sorcerers, recruiting ops and talent acquisition leaders. And then from there, the solution expanded greatly over time. People said, I love the ability to do sourcing and outreach. Now we want more data. Now we want to do more things with our talent marketing processes. And so now gems become a quite wide ranging solution for a variety of companies.
(00:05:26) - What are you from your perspective? See is a big challenger problem that is facing HR departments today that GM can solve for.
(00:05:35) - A common phrase I hear when I talk to our customers, especially the leaders, the talent acquisition leaders, is we're being asked to do more with less. Pretty much always, but especially right now. And I'm guessing that resonates a little. I see smiling and, uh, well, sometimes it's just the reality that there's not going to be more budget or more people coming.
(00:05:59) - And fortunately, there's ways that your technology can give you more and help you automate things, help you have data to be more efficient, to spend more efficiently. And that's something that that gem can really help with throughout the process.
(00:06:15) - When you think about the competitive landscape out there, how is your solution different from the other options, or what is your unique point of view in the market?
Speaker 5 (00:06:26) - Yeah.
(00:06:27) - I'll start with the unique point of view. Um, and it's kind of twofold. One is that the best talent rarely applies to your jobs. Certainly sometimes it does, but it would be akin to having a company, uh, selling something and spinning up a website and thinking, oh, all the customers are just going to come. You have to go out and get the people that you want. And so there really weren't a lot of great solutions that go beyond accepting applications. And so GM really started to help teams source and go out and find the people that, that they want. Um, and so that's one thing Jim does exceptionally well.
(00:07:11) - And then the other piece was just that there's a lack of data in the recruiting process. Um, something we heard time and time again, and that there were all these different ways you would interact with candidates or have different parts of your team and you, like, wouldn't know what's going on. And so Jen believes that data driven recruiting is really the only way to do it well and efficiently at scale, and we try to enable that. Um, so I know you asked about the competitive landscape and all that that I, that I didn't answer is you could look at, uh, I'll oversimplify this, but start there and feel free to follow up. There's kind of like two key parts of a recruiting technology stack. One is the applicant tracking system that accepts the active applicants and helps manage the process. And then there's all the sources of talent LinkedIn, indeed a bunch of other social networks along those lines. But how do you get people from where they are into your ATS? Effectively get them into your process to want to work for you.
(00:08:23) - Jen sits right in the middle and helps fill that gap. Um, oftentimes that's referred to is CRM or candidate relationship management. But we'll get into this as I share more about the product. But it's ultimately a lot more than that. It's not just sending emails to folks. It's really unifying and automating the whole process of attracting, engaging and hiring folks.
(00:08:47) - What type of companies would you say are the perfect fit for your solution? Jeff.
(00:08:53) - So Gem serves a couple of industries more than others. But then there's also just like certain types of hiring that you do, so I can hit on that. We serve a lot of companies in the technology industry, financial services, um, life sciences, in healthcare, and then in manufacturing. Um, those are our kind of big four. And then as far as the types of hiring. It's specialized roles with, um, small, scarce talent pools. So imagine if you're trying to hire data scientists or you're trying to hire nurses or lab techs. Um, not something that you just find everywhere.
(00:09:37) - And that's going to necessarily apply in the volumes that you need. And so companies that need to go after these folks and convince them to work there, uh, really benefit from Gem, because it helps make that outbound recruiting process really efficient and then move people through the process efficiently as well.
(00:09:58) - And what impact have you seen organizations that work with GM experience?
Speaker 5 (00:10:04) - Yeah.
(00:10:06) - Uh, I can give you a couple examples of just different types of customers in those buckets I talked about before. Um, Robin Hood's a big customer. I imagine most of you listening in, maybe trade some stocks or have a high yield savings account on the app. Um, they, their stats that they give us save 8 to 10 hours a week per recruiter. And that comes from automating all of their sourcing processes, uh, with GM and then also a lot of their reporting that used to be super manual. Um, another example is a manufacturing company called Celestica. They make semiconductors based out of Canada, have 20 30,000 employees.
(00:10:50) - They were having a real problem filling a specific type of roles for plant managers, specialized technicians in their plants. And they had some of these roles open for six, 12 months. And then once they brought on GM, they were able to fill these roles in 30 days, 60 days on average. And then just one, one last one that highlights a different angle is, um, a customer of ours called Twilio. They're a public company. Um, they do kind of technology based APIs, if that means anything. And they wanted to improve their diversity hiring efforts. So what they found was, despite their best efforts, that they weren't getting the types of candidates through to the end of the process and ultimately hired across different groups. And so they use gems and Gems data to help debug their hiring funnel, figure out where the drop off is for different groups of folks, say women versus men or different ethnicities. Um, and then use that to change the way that they interview, to change the types of folks that they reach out to in the way that they do so.
(00:11:59) - And ultimately, they were able to see really great results there towards their Dei and beagles.
(00:12:06) - Excellent. What do you think is the biggest hesitation that, uh, your team at GM is seeing companies have when they're implementing or considering implementing a solution like yours?
(00:12:21) - In general, I'd say the sentiment is that there's so much tech out there. Why do I just need another thing? Uh, yeah. And so one of the ways that we help solve that is there's a lot of types of tech that maybe you can consolidate by bringing in gems. So it's not just a net new type of thing. Um, and then also we help you get more value out of the other things that you're already using, such as your ATS, such as LinkedIn. And then in a lot of cases as well, you can reduce your cost to hire, which is another cost savings. Just, you know, you might need to spend less on job ads with some of the methods you can use Gem for to bring folks in.
(00:13:06) - But yeah, it's always like why? Yet one more tool. And often recruiting leaders are seeing their finance counterparts get involved in more purchases and processes at the moment. So it's always about developing that right business case to equip them to bring it in.
(00:13:23) - And I think that's, you know, that's a very real struggle for HR tech buyers, right? Like you want to build out this comprehensive stack, but you also have to manage all of the different things. And so, you know, I see that in the companies that I work with where it can be a challenge to get that buyer kind of over that hump of, yes, it's another technology, but it's a missing piece of your puzzle that will help you, you know, achieve the objectives that you have at hand for sure. Yeah. So what are some of the things that you would recommend a purchaser take into consideration when they're looking at evaluating them and the other options that are out there?
(00:14:09) - Yeah. Uh. Can the team use the tool and get value out of it? And that applies to gem as much as anything else.
(00:14:21) - A really common kind of tragic story up in here is we spent. 50,000 300,000 on this new thing, and it just sits there and it collects dust because either nobody knows how to use it or nobody likes to use it. Um, so I think applying that mindset to the things in your current tech stack, the things that you might want to look at, such as gem like, is the team getting value out of this? Do my recruiters like it? Do they log in every week, if not every day? And if not, why do we have it? Um, so one of the things that Gem does excel in is, is just driving adoption of the product. Within teams. We see that the adoption rates are up to four times higher than competitive solutions. Um, the main reason is we've just really focused on the recruiter experience in the product. And then the last thing I'll say in this is I think the the team you work with is really big to like technology is just technology, but you need advice on how to set it up right, how to use it, applying it to your business, um, the change management involved with that.
(00:15:34) - And so you should ask yourself to do the people that I'm buying from and that'll be working with me throughout the duration of the relationship. Do I feel like I can learn from them and benefit from their advice?
(00:15:48) - I think adoption rates are something. Obviously, anytime you're implementing an HR technology solution are really critical because otherwise you're just throwing money out the door, right? And you mentioned that Jim has higher adoption rates than a lot of other organizations out there. What are some of the things that when your team enters into an organization and is helping them implement it, that you do to ensure that the adoption is high?
(00:16:16) - Uh, there's a couple of things. Um, one is making sure that the integrations with the other parts of the technology stack actually work and work well. So the the nightmare scenario that people get into is there's data shared across the CRM, gem or other tools and the applicant tracking system, and it doesn't match. And so you input data in one and it doesn't show up in the other or vice versa.
(00:16:47) - And ultimately say, I can't trust any of this. We're not going to use it. And so GM invests a lot in the integrations between we support all the major ATS out there workday, greenhouse. SAP, lever, you name it. But getting that integration right and it doesn't require a three month long custom implementation project with it. That's just not how modern technology works. Um, so that's a big thing. A second is customizing the tool and the training to the actual company. Um, it's one thing to say here, have at it, go build some reports and send some emails and all of that. But like, well, what are you trying to achieve? What do you want to measure? Like we do things like helping you build your first dashboard for all the different teams of the data that you want to see on there, uh, helping you create your first sets of outreach sequences to reach out to candidates, to help get them interested in your roles and like ultimately figuring out what your objectives are and setting up the tool in such a way.
(00:17:51) - And then from there, it's obviously not just about the setup, it's staying in touch and helping you as your needs change, your goals change and all that.
(00:18:03) - What is the future vision for Gem as you look ahead in the next few years?
Speaker 5 (00:18:09) - Yeah.
(00:18:10) - There are a couple things that were really focused on, I think one, um, for large enterprise companies, I think companies couple thousand all the way up to the biggest companies in the world. The big thing we hear is that we want to connect deeply into our ATS and make it better. Basically. Can you be a workflow tool? Um, so we don't have to go into workday or SAP and use it as little as possible? Um, so that's something Gem's very focused on, of augmenting the the ATS and helping increase recruiter productivity. And then one of the big components of that is I obviously, I think, uh, nobody can talk about anything else these days. So integrating AI and automation, um, throughout the product. And then another piece is smaller companies.
(00:19:06) - The thing that they tell us back to the talk of, there's so many tools is we want to consolidate, we want fewer tools that work better together. And so GM has recently announced and launched an applicant tracking system so that you can have kind of the all in one hiring solution that recruiters love to use. Um, so if you're a small company, anywhere from two people to 1000, um, GM could theoretically give you all or the majority of the technology would need to do recruiting.
(00:19:41) - What final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with, Jeff?
(00:19:46) - Uh, if I or the Team Gem can be useful in any ways, you think about your recruiting problems. By all means, please reach out. I mean, if that leads to not buying Jim, that's okay. But we'd love to explore the ways that we might be able to help you.
(00:20:04) - And that leads nicely into my final question. Where can our listeners go to learn more about GM?
(00:20:11) - Gem.com. Somehow we managed to get the URL.
(00:20:15) - Yeah, that's kind of amazing because, you know, obviously gem has more applications than your technology. So the fact that you guys own that is pretty awesome.
(00:20:24) - Yeah, we're not the vitamin company and we're not a jewelry store, uh, recruiting software company.
(00:20:32) - I love it. Well, thanks so much for sharing your time with us today, Jeff. It was great to learn more about gem.
(00:20:38) - You're welcome. It's a pleasure being on the show.
(00:20:41) - All right. To our listening audience, thanks for joining us again. And be sure to check out [email protected].
(00:20:54) - Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Tech Spotlight podcast, where we showcase some of the best up and coming HR technology options in the market. If you are an HR tech company leader who would like to be. For a guest spot on this program. Please contact me at GrowthMode Marketing. Reach out to me. Deanna Shimota on LinkedIn. And if you found this show informative, subscribe. Connect with us on social media and leave a review.
(00:21:23) - This is Deanna with GrowthMode marketing signing off. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll tune in again next time.