It’s no secret that HR technology is tough to navigate. At SSR, we try our best to break it down for you through in-depth buyer guides, expert interviews, SaaS business insights, and more. But as much as we aid the space, we would be nothing without the incredibly talented and hardworking professionals in all parts of People Tech.
A few months ago we asked you, our readership, to nominate people who you felt make a big impact in this landscape. Today, we honor those practitioners, consultants, and vendors who are raising the bar for HR technology by presenting them our very first HR Tech Awards.
Without Further Ado, the First Ever HR Tech Award Recipients
Best Practitioner Award: Mark Jenkins, Head of Talent Acquisition for Operations for the Ocado Group
Ellie Angell of myInterview nominated one of their customers, Mark Jenkins, for an HR tech award because of his resilience during the pandemic.
Ocado is a UK-based online supermarket, so when COVID-19 forced everyone to quarantine, the company saw a huge spike in business. Ocado would need to hire a lot of people quickly to keep up. Pre-pandemic, Ocado saw about 1,500 new job applications a week.
Due to layoffs from COVID, people were desperate for work. As a result, Ocado’s applicant pool jumped to 3,500 applications in a single weekend. Mark was fast on his feet to kickstart a new recruitment structure based around technology.
“Mark looked at a couple of different ways he could streamline the process, and something that came out on top was one-way video interviewing,” Ellie says. By making use of myInterview, Mark’s team went from reviewing only 50 applications a week to making 4,300 hires in 6 months.
Best Consultant Award: Christina Harrold, Director of HR Technology for EBS
Christina Harrold embodies the innovative spirit necessary to navigate HR tech. “Christina always goes above and beyond,” says Marah Funder, Director of Communications at EBS who nominated Christina for the award.
Christina is an expert in saving clients money on their HR tech purchases. Marah sums it up with advice that Christina lives by: “Whatever the vendor is offering, it’s too much.” So make sure to research, negotiate, and stick to the features you need.
Best Vendor Award: myInterview
Tom Hacquoil is the CEO of Pinpoint, an already well-respected HR tech vendor. So why did he nominate myInterview for an SSR HR Tech Award rather than his own company?
“Our clients love it and we’re super proud to make recommendations for their solution. But also, they’ve been an absolute dream to work with,” Tom says. “They share our vision for an open ecosystem in HR tech. We’ve not just delivered an integration, but continually iterated on that over time. They’ve made our product better, we’ve made their product better.”
Tom goes on to say that many ATS vendors build out their own video interviewing platforms, which tend to underperform compared to the rest of the product suite. Therefore, Pinpoint decided to build a partnership with a strong solution like myInterview to provide a better experience for their customers.
Even our Best Practitioner Award went to a myInterview user who was able to boost hiring in a year as difficult as 2020. Therefore, myInterview deserves our Best Vendor Award for simplifying the interview process for countless companies, and even integrating with their other tools to do so.
Until next time…
Thank you to all of our participants for taking part in our first ever HR tech awards. We look forward to having even more interesting conversations with vendors, practitioners, and consultants for the next installment.
In the meantime, check out our detailed buyer guide of the best video interviewing software, featuring HR Tech award winner myInterview, complete with pricing, benefits, features, ROI, and more.
In addition, we just launched SSR PeopleTech, a community for the best and brightest HR tech nerds. Join us to ask for key advice, discuss your biggest wins, highlight your tech stack, and connect with a group of fellow People pros.
