“As the economy reopens in the wake of the COVID pandemic, employers face a new challenge: Finding enough people to hire,” says Adam Robinson, CEO of Hireology.
The NFIB reports that 46 percent of small business owners have job openings they cannot fill even while raising pay.
Against the backdrop of this tight job market, Cary-based referral recruitment platform EmployUs just had a big exit.
Founded by Ryan O’Donnell and Jeff Stocks back in 2014 when they were seniors at NC State University, EmployUs has been acquired by Hireology, a Chicago-based staffing and hiring platform for the retail automotive industries.
The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquisition, Hireology says, will expand its offerings, helping customers attract and hire qualified talent from a range of channels including Google, Facebook, job boards, and more.
“I’m excited for our customers to see firsthand how running a successful employee referral program can help build a more robust talent pipeline and accelerate hiring,” Robinson says.
EmployUs is a referral software platform that lets organizations leverage their employees and their networks to help hire.
Customers like Syneos Health, Anderson Automotive Group, and Krispy Kreme can reward employees for recommending people to jobs, providing them with a pipeline of interested talent for open roles.
“Employee referrals are hired faster, stay employed longer, and are more engaged compared to employees hired through other sources,” says EmployUs’ CEO O’Donnell. “By bringing our solution together with Hireology, the market leader, employee referral programs will amplify existing sourcing strategies, saving time and reducing cost.”
Back in 2015, Cary-based Cofounders Capital led the startup’s $500,000 seed round, with participation from angel investors and Sovereign’s Capital.
Tobi Walters, a principal at Cofounders, believes Hireology and EmployUs is a good match.
“As the world prepares for more open positions and hires again this year, we are also seeing the trend in the market that customers look for solutions that are bundled or ‘all-in-one’ solutions for their HR needs – in our case, not ‘just’ a tool to increase employee referrals and hires, but a tool that fulfills all HR needs, including leveraging a scalable, best of breed employee referral tool,” he says.
The EmployUs team will stay in Cary, working remotely with Hireology’s team in Chicago.
Get news like this delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for the Hypepotamus newsletter!
