Roundup: HireVue Drops Facial Analysis; Greenhouse Scores Investment

News Roundup

Our weekly roundup of deals, product announcements and other HR technology news.

Listen to a podcast of the roundup.

HireVue stopped using software that analyzes facial expressions to identify certain characteristics of interviewees. The platform had recorded candidates’ behavior, speech and intonations and run them against an algorithm that would match them with specific traits. HireVue said recent advances in natural language processing eliminated the need for visual analysis. Because of NLP’s evolution, the company said, “visual analysis no longer significantly added value to assessments.” The company ended the practice last year, but just announced it now, as it released a third-party audit showing that its assessments “work as advertised” in terms of fairness and bias.

Greenhouse received a $500 million investment from investment firms TPG Growth and the Rise Fund, giving the company an estimated value of about $820 million. About 47 million of those dollars are new money. The rest is being used to buy back stock from existing investors and employees. Last April, Greenhouse had to lay off 28% of its workforce last April because of the coronavirus.

This week's #HRTech news: @HireVue drops facial analysis, @Greenhouse scores $500 million, @Upwork launches a "Project Catalog." And more. #HR Click To Tweet

Upwork announced Project Catalog, a collection of predefined projects that customers can browse and buy from. These are predefined, fixed-price projects organized into more than 300 categories. They cover areas like design, web development and translation, and include information like scope, cost, timing and deliverables.

Alexander Mann Solutions changed its name to AMS.  The company’s going to start talking a lot about “workforce dexterity” as it focuses on helping clients “build, reshape and optimize” their workforce so they can more easily redeploy talent as needed. 

HR Acuity launched an online community specifically for employee relations. The community, called empowER, builds on the company’s Employee Relations Roundtable, which it began in 2015. empowER will host ongoing discussions and networking to help practitioners handle employee relations and changing workplaces. 

JazzHR and social media screening company LifeBrand announced an integration that will allow customers to review social media profiles on their way to making hiring decisions. LifeBrand says its technology is both FCRA and EEOC, and is meant to bring “social media snooping” into the open.

J.D. Power introduced a certification program to recognize organizations for exceptional onboarding, training and career progression programs. The program uses the company’s data and analytics to evaluate talent development initiatives as well as the organization’s focus on accountability, commitment to employee development and measurement of success. 

iCIMS received its ISO/IEC 27701 privacy information management systems certification and completed its first SOC 2, Type II audit. 

Last Week’s Top Stories

ADP Adds New Storyboards, Benchmarks to DataCloud

Among other things, customers now have the ability to benchmark their organization’s data against broader information that’s gathered anonymously from some 740,000 companies. Read more. Read more.

Integrations Will Move Center Stage During 2021

Integrations are a key factor in putting together HR technology solutions. For all the power offered by brand-name suites, the ability to combine core products with third-party offerings has become ubiquitous, to the point where most CHROs and CIOs consider it table stakes. Read more.

IT Leaders Lag in Tracking Digital Employee Experience

Employees and IT departments hold different views on the effectiveness of service desks, something to consider as organizations examine the overall employee experience and look for clues as to how they can improve their approach to HR services, even when separate teams are involved. Read more.

Podcast: CEO Steve Beauchamp on Paylocity’s Evolution

If you have news to share, send a press release or email to our editors at news@hcmtechnologyreport.com.

Image: iStock

Previous articlePodcast: This Platform Applies Metrics to Team Management
Next articleTech Recruiters Hope Biden Will Loosen Visa Restrictions