As the war for talent rages, the rules of engagement alter

By Andrew Karpie

In the beginning, there was the résumé — then came job boards and social networks (searchable silos of potential candidate information, mainly consisting of candidate self-declarations). But now a new generation of candidate sourcing “intel” platforms is giving talent acquisition professionals a new smart weapon in the war for talent. And a good example is Entelo, a San Francisco-based start-up that commercially launched its candidate “intel” platform in 2012.

Entelo is not a “single silo” source of candidate information, where information is posted and presented by the candidates themselves (i.e., their own profiles). In contrast, it is based on the premise that candidates increasingly have a digital presence and digital footprints that can be tracked across many places on the world-wide-web.

Entelo continuously collects and aggregates this information and uses algorithms to filter and shape it into meaningful information about actual identifiable candidates. This information is not what candidates say about themselves. Rather, it is information about what candidates do on social networks and professional sites (including, but not limited to, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Twitter, Quora, Dribbble and GrabCad).

Entelo has created about 300 million digital identities of potential candidates that it monitors and updates. Entelo’s dynamic, refined information provides unique insights into candidates’ goals, motivations and capabilities, which sourcers or recruiters would otherwise not have on their radar. Entelo’s algorithms can also pick up and interpret signals from passive candidates indicating they may be ready for a career change (giving sourcers and recruiters the chance to make a “preemptive strike”).

“What we’re seeing with recruiters today is a hunger to be smarter about how they approach talent,” says Entelo CEO and co-founder Jon Bischke. “Instead of sending out massive amounts of undifferentiated outreach in the hopes of finding someone who’s looking and is a fit, there’s a desire to be more targeted.”

Entelo has a number offerings for sourcers and recruiters and one for managers. The tool for managers enables them to view and analyze individual and team performance.

What’s the buzz? The war for talent will not be won by conventional weapons alone. To succeed, sourcers and recruiters must acquire and utilize new tools and high-value “intel” of the sort that Entelo is starting to provide.

Andrew Karpie is an affiliate analyst at Staffing Industry Analysts. He can be reached at akarpie@staffingindustry.com.