Deanna (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. Hello and welcome to another edition of the show. In this episode, we are exploring an AI platform called Arya, a technology by Leoforce that helps organizations optimize the recruitment process with capabilities to source, screen, rank and engage higher-quality candidates. Arya goes beyond simple keyword matching, using multidimensional data points and hundreds of attributes to discover and connect with the talent most likely to succeed. Joining me to talk about the platform is Chief Revenue Officer of Leoforce, Wade Pierson.
Deanna (00:01:18) - Welcome to the show, Wade.
Wade (00:01:20) - Good afternoon. Deanna, how are you?
Deanna (00:01:22) - Good. Thank you. So tell us about your background in the HR tech space.
Wade (00:01:27) - Sure. So the foundation of my career was spent in talent acquisition. I've actually owned two RPA firms, so that's sort of the the foundational piece of my background. Owned two of them, sold one to a European HRO, sold another one to the largest search firm in the world. So I was always involved with hiring people and best practices around hiring people. And after my stint in the owning town acquisition firms, I was the chief operating officer for a startup technology company relative to HR tech. And that's where I really started to to shift focus from sort of hiring folks just as a hiring exercise to implementing technology, to make it sort of more efficient and quicker to hire folks. So been here at Leoforce for about two years and enjoying every moment, moment of it.
Deanna (00:02:21) - So let's talk a little bit about what Arya does beyond, you know, the short description that I gave.
Wade (00:02:28) - Yeah. So at a very high level, it's an AI artificial intelligence sourcing tool. So I describe it internally and externally. So there's, there's there's the mothership of Arya that does about ten different things. The combination of all those ten things basically equates to a sourcing tool that allows a recruiter to be more efficient and to get a quicker, higher quality result when searching for a candidate.
Deanna (00:02:58) - And I know we were talking before we hit record and you said there's a, you know, a really interesting story behind the founding of the company Leoforce. Tell us about that.
Wade (00:03:08) - Yeah. And it really is a major differentiator from how most technology companies or most companies in general start. So our founders, we have two founders that own three different companies. One of them is a very large staffing company named Spectre Force. The other is an IT consulting firm, and the third is Leoforce. So about nine years ago, as a real need from our real company, from Specter Force, our founders said, how can we implement or create or grow or build however you want to say it, a technology that allows, you know, poor performing recruiters to be leveled up or, you know, medium level recruiters to be leveled up to be great recruiters.
Wade (00:03:50) - So how can we use some sort of technology that will make our recruiters more efficient and we can produce a higher quality candidate? So that was the original genesis of the idea behind Leoforce. So what's unique about us as compared to anybody in our space before we have a commercially sold Leoforce, it was built and broken probably a thousand times over, over about a five-year period and tested by our own recruiters at Spectre Forest. So we built it organically, grew it, you know, started we have our company is at about 250 employees, of which 170 of those are data scientists and engineers. So real heavy on the technology side. So this the product was built over a period of years, tested by our own recruiters before we were ever, you know, before we ever commercially sold it. So to me, that is a major sort of value prop and differentiator because most technology companies, especially doing what we do, either you take a large check from a, from a VC firm or a PE firm, you know, dump a bunch of money into sales and marketing.
Wade (00:04:53) - If the product works great, if it doesn't, the deal is to grow revenues as quick as possible and flip the company. Our trajectory was quite the opposite, right? So we bought it over a period of five years because we are very intense resource-wise on the technology side, we reinvest all of our money back into the technology team and the data science team in order to grow and make sure our company from a technology standpoint is sound, which, you know, fast forward to me joining two years ago, my mission with sort of that trajectory is now to scale the front end of the business, which is the sales and marketing piece. So that really is a unique sort of value proposition because we allowed the technology, we built it, we tested it over a period of years before it was ever sold, which again is a major sort of differentiator for us.
Deanna (00:05:45) - So as you're out in the market, wait, what would you say is a big challenge or problem that you see facing HR departments today that Arya can help solve for?
Wade (00:05:55) - Yeah.
Wade (00:05:55) - And it's, you know, you could say today or you could go back 20 years. You're probably going fast-forward the next ten years. It's the same. Right. So finding quality people quickly. Right. So that's that's been the challenge. And again harkening back to my time as owning a staffing firm. You know I started my first firm in 2000. So 24 years ago. So that was the challenge then. But technology hadn't caught up to trying to solve the challenge. So the challenge is still the same. How do you get to a quality candidate quicker? So live for us and our product Arya was designed and built for exactly that, right? So through using artificial intelligence, we're able to get to a pool of candidates different and new quicker. And then we're able to again through AI, stack, rank and score those so a recruiter can come to his or her desk, open up their laptop, and automatic search has begun. Through Arya, they have a list of quality qualified candidates that are ranked for them to automatically reach out to.
Wade (00:06:58) - So depending on what kind of search and what kind of role that could save hours, days, weeks, maybe even a month, so that's the primary challenge we're solving for. And.
Deanna (00:07:10) - As all of us that live in this space know the HR tech market is extremely crowded. Obviously, you're not the only solution out there, and I think it's a pretty competitive space that you're in. What would you say is Leoforce's unique point of view in the market or true differentiation?
Wade (00:07:27) - Yeah. So a lot of times in business and in life, being first doesn't mean being best or being first doesn't even mean you have an advantage because you didn't have a chance to copy from someone else that does it better. In the case of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we truly were the first. So again, that's also a differentiator and an advantage because our modeling and our model of artificial intelligence and machine learning has had ten years of data and learning to do versus the rest of the market, which didn't. So again, a lot of times it's it's not really an advantage.
Wade (00:08:00) - But for us, because of the billions and billions and billions of data points and data sets that have been added to our modeling, it's truly, you know, the longest, the most tenured and the most sort of proven out AI. So it gets the best result as compared to direct competitors.
Deanna (00:08:19) - And I think that's a really good point, because obviously in the last year or two, AI has really exploded in the air tech space. But that doesn't mean I didn't exist before then, right? Like it just wasn't as prevalent. It maybe wasn't what organizations led with. And now there's a lot of companies who, you know, if you're like Leoforce, you built your technology, you know, with AI from the beginning, some of these companies out there, they're now trying to plug it into an existing system. Right. And you gotta, you know, think that the experience for the end users is probably a bit different when the technology wasn't built from the ground up with AI in mind.
Wade (00:09:01) - It.
Wade (00:09:02) - Yes to that. And then the second and this is just my sort of general market knowledge, don't quote me on this exact statistic. But what we've seen are found in my daily operations, selling this and speaking with folks, there's probably only about 20% of the companies that actually have true AI and were built in a way similar to our model. The rest of the market, like a lot of, you know, a lot of AI companies in our space, it's really keyword matching. That is not artificial intelligence. It wasn't built on a platform of machine learning. Keyword matching in no way is artificial intelligence. And to your point, which I don't think you were making the point about keyword matching, but I if you want to define that, to say he's been around for quite some time. But so I say that to say there's a lot of liberties being taken currently by a lot of companies that say we are an AI company, it's not truly AI. And be specific to your point, just like anything else in life, right? So if you build it from the ground up, think about a house, right? So you build a foundation and build the house up.
Wade (00:10:10) - If you take an existing house and add a second layer, you're doing something to that. Probably not in a great way structurally to that house. So yes, bolting on something to something else, there's probably going to be unforeseen problems or in this case, unforeseen errors, or I guess more specifically results that aren't true or accurate because you're connecting two things instead of just, you know, organically building one thing for for a non-technical way to say that.
Deanna (00:10:43) - What type of companies would you say are the perfect fit for Arya?
Wade (00:10:49) - anybody that's hiring in, in volume. So, you know, vertically, there's no real specific we're not vertical ized. There's no vertical better than another. So companies you know, so our our ideal client profile is probably, you know, let's call it 100 employees through enterprise companies that are hiring a volume of candidates where they have a recruitment team in place and bringing in our technology and our product and services, allowing them to be more efficient and more just efficient. And they need a higher quality, I guess, where we wouldn't fit, nor would anybody else.
Wade (00:11:29) - What we're not is a magic act, right? So like, where are their very, very, very specific roles and very, very, very rural locations? you can invent a candidate. So whether it be Arya or any other search engine or any other AI sourcing tool, if candidates don't exist, they don't exist, right? So what our platform does is again, we're able to, you know, just, you know, if we're engaged with the fortune 500 company and they're hiring a sales person in Atlanta, Georgia, we're able to get to the higher quality of candidate quicker. And that's really the value proposition of what we're able to do. But we're not a we're not a magic shop. So if you're looking for, you know, whatever a DEI scientist in the middle of Malaysia, I don't even know what those two have to do with each other. But, you know, you can't invent a candidate through AI or through anything else, so.
Deanna (00:12:27) - Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
Deanna (00:12:29) - A lot of times when people are trying to solve hiring problems. There may be more to the story, right? Like, okay, this. You're looking for a unicorn. This person just doesn't exist. Or it's such a limited universe that it's hard for any technology tool to be able to solve for that problem.
Wade (00:12:47) - Yeah. And, you know, let me can I, I want to give you sort of an ancillary answer to that question because I described at the beginning sort of we have this area as a mothership of things that does ten things at once, right? One of those things, and I describe it internally as a pie. So let's say there's ten slices to that pie. So we sell Arya as the whole pie. Right. So we're we're selling the whole tool, the whole technology. And you can do ten different things. One of those, relative to this last question you ask is market intelligence. So let's say we engage with a fortune 500 company. They have a role in Peoria, Illinois.
Wade (00:13:24) - It's whatever title. Here's the salary, our market intelligence. Before we even engage in a search we'll show whether it be locally, you know, that town or regionally or that state or whatever parameters you choose. It'll show you where the candidates are, how many they are, how many there are, what companies they're coming from, what their salary range is, so on and so forth. So I say that to say that's where you're able to be strategic with the hiring manager to say, okay, Mr. and Mrs. Hiring manager, I know you're looking for I'll use that dumb example I just use I know you're looking for a data scientist in Malaysia. Here's the the intelligence report. There's only three of them. They all make 200 K or more. So you need 50 of them and you want to pay 80 K. So guess what. That's not going to be something to your point at the end. That's not going to be a search that whether you're implementing Arya or any other AI or search tool, that you're going to magically find a candidate, they don't exist in that area.
Wade (00:14:22) - So that's a powerful thing for a recruiter to be able to have a conversation with the hiring manager, whether it be internally in a corporate shop or, you know, if it's a staffing firm externally to a client to say, hey, here's the market intelligence report, we're not able to either. There's not that many of these folks. There's none of these folks. And or your compensation ban is off. So we're going to have to adjust something in the search that's powerful. That knowledge is powerful to be able to make sort of future planning and current planning when you're making hiring decisions.
Deanna (00:14:57) - Yeah, I can see how that information would be very powerful. I love stories about how HR technology solutions are really, truly solving pains for companies. What impact have you seen Leoforce and Arya have with organizations that you've worked with over the years?
Wade (00:15:16) - Again, it's mainly geared towards low it decreasing the time to fill. Right. So like what we measure internally, we measure a lot of things internally. But what's most important to probably a unanimous statement across the board small company, medium company and large company is they want to reduce the time to get to a short list of candidates that will reduce the time to hire.
Wade (00:15:38) - So those are those are the biggest things that we see that we're adding value where, you know, previous to implementing Arya, maybe their time to fill was 90 days with the implementation of Arya, maybe the time to fill is 30 days. So that's a metric that is sort of static across all of our clients. The other big thing that we measure that is a huge value for clients is especially larger clients that have an enormous volume of resumes coming in. There's a value. And this again, so this is one of the ten pieces of that big pie. One of the slices of the pie is that we can, as a standalone stack, rank candidates coming in. So let's say I'm just going to make up a client. Let's say we're working with GE. They have, you know, 30,000 resumes coming in per week for a specific, you know, grouping of positions. We're able to integrate with their ATS. I'm just going to make this up. Let's say the bullhorn. We're embedded in their bullhorn instance.
Wade (00:16:37) - We're integrated with bullhorn. So all of that job once that job is ingested, all of those 30,000 resumes are coming into Arya. We're stack ranking them. So top ten we we apply a score 0 to 5. We apply an explanation as to why someone's at five. So a recruiter just walks in, opens up their desktop, sees out of 30,000 resumes. Previously, they would have had to sift through them in one way or another. Here's the top 30. Here's an explanation as to why they're the best, and they can reach right out to them. So that's again, that speaks to both the efficiency and speed as well as the quality. So those two things increasing, you know I'm sorry, decreasing time to fill and increasing speed and quality are the two primary components of what we do and where we add value.
Deanna (00:17:27) - What would you say are the biggest hesitations that you see out in the market for companies that are potentially considering implementing a solution like Arya?
Wade (00:17:39) - Yeah. So a couple things. And you hit it on a minute ago in a different way.
Wade (00:17:43) - The market is very, very, very splintered now. So since AI is a hot topic, like when you walk into an elementary school and a kid is talking about I, you know, that it's very hot. It's kind of like in, you know, oh seven when the Fedex person was the expert on, on, on the stock market. Right. So that's where I is right now. So everybody is talking about I everybody says they have high. So for buyers it's really become, you know, a very splintered market. People aren't real sure they know they want to implement AI because they've heard that they should. But as far as sort of our sales process and our discovery process, it's really the first couple conversations are really us not selling anything to anyone. It's talking about, our philosophy of AI, our, our technology, what AI does really broad sense. So to sort of educate a prospect on what is what are the value props, what are the differentiators. Because as I mentioned, there are a lot of companies that say they have AI.
Wade (00:18:48) - And you know, it's not real AI. So I always recommend to prospects when you're, you know, when you're comparing us to anybody else, ask them how their I was built and under what philosophy, and ask them what they're trying to accomplish by their model. Most companies, unless they have AI, they don't have an answer for that question. So it's it's a splintered market. So education is it's taking longer to sell to the market because there's so many, so many competitors. So that's and you question what is the biggest challenge. So that that's one challenge. Is that what your question was the biggest challenge to selling it or the biggest challenge.
Deanna (00:19:28) - Yeah. Like what are what are the hesitations that the buyers are having when okay. Yeah.
Wade (00:19:34) - Yep yep. So that's one number two being burned by and same kind of answer being burned by companies that sold them on what it could do. And it was AI and it didn't work. That's again something that we take probably longer than we should.
Wade (00:19:51) - But I say that in a good way through the educational piece before we're trying to sell anything to anybody. And then number three, the user adoption. So this is something different than a traditional, you know, job board. Right. So like if recruiters are used to using LinkedIn or indeed or whatever it is, it's a different experience. and it's a different sort of just a different way to do a search. You're getting a result in a different way. So we have a dedicated client success team that is, you know, that that's their role. Right? So we're we're selling something. We're integrating it into that client. And we spend a lot of time doing sort of with training and adoption. And that's really the biggest challenge, especially if they've used something in the past that they were burned on. It's it's just that's probably the number one challenge, the adoption of a new technology. It's just like anything else. Right. So before there was the iPhone, there was no iPhone. So when people got their first iPhone, they're first looking at it, staring at what is this? Why do I need it? What do I do with it? What does it do? So there's that period of time that you have to sort of, you know, be real buttoned up about what it does, how it works and get people using it.
Wade (00:21:08) - And then they can see the value so that that's a process and that's a, that's a threading of the needle kind of thing. Because you, you have to have a product or a technology that works pretty intuitively, or you will lose people before you have an opportunity to get them to adopt that technology. So.
Deanna (00:21:29) - That makes sense, you know, and the I think the interesting thing in the air tech space right now is, you know, with all of the options out there being marketed as AI solutions, HR leaders and finance, you know, leaders are looking at these options and they're buying them. But then there's a lot of reports out there that they're very hesitant and they're not fully embracing them. And you know, I think it's it's a rare situation where you see like people fully going in and buying this stuff without believing fully that, you know, it's going to work for them. And so it'll be really interesting in the next couple of years to see how that shapes the industry and which, which technologies, you know, shake out of the AI tree because they weren't there yet and which ones really end up excelling and moving organizations forward the way they need to be.
Wade (00:22:28) - And per that point, and that was a paradigm shift when I came in to the organization. So previous to me coming here, we were selling the whole pie. So it was sort of a take it or leave it proposition. Right. So and you're right. So the reports, are accurate or accurate. Accurate. Right. So they're used to using something. They get a certain value. They're looking to supplement that or to, you know, get something better. So what we try to do in sort of the sales process is really spend a ton of time in discovery. So, you know, client A is not client B is not client C. So their needs are probably real niche and real not niche but real specific. They're very specific pain points. So as a sales organization or our partnership group, we do not speak to to clients about selling the whole thing. And that's the only way to sell. We want to solve a very specific pain point of theirs. We want them to adopt a a small piece of Arya, build a relationship, get wins with that one piece out of ten, and then build a relationship and sort of grow the relationship from there.
Wade (00:23:45) - Because what we found was, to your point, selling all of Arya again, which does a ton of great things. Right? But it's it could be and can be a little bit overwhelming because it's like anything else. Right? So if you buy a car with no options, you get in turn the key and you start driving when you have 4,000 options and every bell and whistle, everybody wants to hit the bell, hit the whistle. And that's where sometimes it makes it difficult, more difficult for folks to assimilate. So like, you know one example is Lenovo. They're a client of ours. So they wanted just a solution to what I mentioned a couple of minutes ago. They have a huge volume of resumes that come in. They wanted a solution to just stack rank them. That's it. So instead of buying the whole feature at once, they wanted just that we've solved that problem for them. That's great. We can move forward and sort of grow from there. So that's that's an example of not overwhelming someone with a new technology and sort of assimilating them into usage rather than saying, you know, here you go and dump this very large solution on somebody.
Deanna (00:24:52) - Yeah. Wait, what final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with today?
Wade (00:24:57) - Well, number one, thank you for having me. Just this is a you know, this is again, an exciting time and an exciting space. And it's it's definitely something. And I and I speak as a former recruiter. Right. So before I own the recruiting company I was a recruiter. So this is a technology that absolutely does exactly what our founders wanted to create. Right. So it takes an average recruiter and makes he or she, you know, better and more valuable to whether it be their company or to their client, if they're in a staffing company. So this is just the technology and a tool that allows people to more quickly get to more candidates of a higher quality and an easier way, which that's the end goal, is getting someone, you know, identified and hired more quickly than you could on your own. So through the advent of technology.
Deanna (00:25:50) - And where can I listeners go to learn more about Leo for scenario?
Wade (00:25:55) - Yep.
Wade (00:25:55) - So certainly our website. Dot leo.com. That's I guess that's where I would start everyone. And we have a large social presence on LinkedIn and other platforms. So live force.com.
Deanna (00:26:10) - Thanks for the information and insights today, Wade. For those listening in, be sure to check out Leo for us in the Arya platform and join us again next time as we dig into another innovative HR technology, helping to shape the future of the industry. Thanks for listening to this episode of The HR Tech Spotlight podcast, where we showcase.
Deanna (00:26:34) - 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 via GrowthMode Marketing.
Deanna (00:26:48) - Or reach out to me Deanna Shimota on LinkedIn. And if you found this show informative, subscribe, like on social media and leave a review.
Deanna (00:26:58) - This is Deanna with GrowthMode Marketing signing off. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll tune in again next time.