2022 Predictions: HRTech and Recruiting

have been working in HR Tech for more than 15 years now. Although my focus has recently been more on the NLP / AI side of the business, I am still a consultant in projects that impact the recruiting value chain. So, here are my predictions for 2022 in HR Tech:

1. Another acquisition in the programmatic job advertising world

Stepstone acquiring Appcast was a massive development in our industry. Veritone acquiring Pandologic was a second confirmation. There has also been a range of transactions before Appcast (ClickIQ by Indeed and Recruitics acquiring KRT Marketing and Reverse Delta). We are all set for the next transaction and there are not many names left, but I don't want to be too direct here - you can google one programmatic platform that has been very active recently with PR statements, interviews and blog posts. Who is going to acquire a programmatic job advertising solution? I have bets on an ATS that recently raised significant funding.

2. Matching still not solved

Matching of jobs to candidates is so broken.

Don't get me wrong - we have some great matching products out there, but none of them is where matching can be with the current state of technology. The lack of development in this area of our industry is sad, considering all of the money that VCs invested in AI startups in HRTech in the last 3-4 years.

This year TextKernel acquired Sovren, which killed any chances of having an excellent job-to-candidate matching product anytime soon. Two of the most prominent players in this space merging indicate that this space is an outstanding cow to milk. The focus of this merger will be the expansion in the US Market for TextKernel through Sovren rather than investing in technical innovation, at least for the next 3-5 years. IMHO this is an open opportunity for a new and fast innovator to join the market and use some of the recent AI innovations to build something better. Only time will tell.

3. FB closes Jobs Marketplace in the US/Canada

Facebook has announced closing the jobs marketplace in all countries except the US and Canada. What is the reason behind that? Monopoly concerns? Change of focus to the Metaverse? I think it is way more simple than that - Facebook just joined the ranks of other tech giants who did not manage to figure out job advertising.

4. Google will keep Google Jobs under the radar but not close it

For the last three years, thought leaders in our space have voiced speculations that Google will announce a job-sponsoring product for Google4Jobs. I don't believe this is happening anytime soon - I am pretty confident that Google will not make any significant changes or feature updates to the job search experience next year. The EU is looking at them.

5. DACH still rejecting CPC and CPA advertising of jobs models

Time and time again, clients ask me if the DACH Markets (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) will finally switch to more performance-based job advertising models like CPC, CPA or even CPQA. Well, I am afraid this will not happen next year either. As long as companies like Stepstone and Jobware can charge upwards of €1000 per job posting, there is little motivation to change this.

6. Further consolidations in HR Tech

A couple of factors primarily drive this prediction on the talent acquisition market:

• During Covid, we lost much talent due to the lockdowns and industries closing down.
• These are structural, long-term changes to the labor supply. This workforce is not coming back anytime soon.
• The demand for new hires after the reopening post-Covid is exceptionally high in almost every economic sector.
• The demand will remain high like this even during an economic downturn since there will not be enough time for the structural changes to be reverted and for a new workforce to join the market.
• HR Tech companies (job boards, aggregators, ATS, recruitment agencies) will profit from the increased demand in the workforce, driving higher revenues and more free cash flow for acquisitions.
• At the same time, some prominent names struggle to get traffic via the usual advertising channels. It is also an excellent time to acquire smaller job boards or tools that make the recruitment process even more efficient.

7. There is still no use case for Blockchain in Recruiting

This last prediction is more of a statement rather than a prediction. Sorry, you don't need a decentralized blockchain for any HR Tech / Recruiting use case ... unless you are raising money from a VC, you might find a use case.

All right, that was it. I hope you enjoyed this long text. I will make sure to come back next year and review these predictions.

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Do you want to discuss this further - reach out to me on Linkedin!

Have a happy new year and a great start in 2022.