Interview with Co-founder and CEO, Entelo – Jon Bischke

Human resource development

1. Tell us about your role in Entelo?
I am the CEO and co-founder of Entelo. I started Entelo back in 2011 after identifying a gap between the need for passive talent and the current resources available to source that talent. Today, Entelo has evolved into the industry’s only end-to-end source-to-hire
recruiting automation solution.

2. Can you tell us about your journey into this market?
Prior to Entelo, I worked in Venture Capital. At the time I was partnering closely with CEOs and executives looking for solutions to roadblocks in front of their company’s growth. I quickly realized that they all shared one road block in common: hiring the right talent. This was by no fault of their recruiting teams, whose reliance on antiquated tools left them bogged down in manual processes. I went on to found Entelo because I believe there is a better way to find the right people for your company. Using predictive
lgorithms, data-backed insights, and the single largest source of recruiting data, we’ve created a recruiting automation platform to help you recruit faster, smarter, and better.

3. How do you think technology is changing the HR Sector?
At its core, recruiting and HR are still about connecting people with opportunities, persuading them to take the leap to something new and exciting, and giving them the support, community, and resources to reach their full potential. Technology has stepped in to automate the less glamorous (but still necessary) elements of recruiting. Things like sourcing candidates across the web, qualifying candidates and handling that initial outreach, scheduling interviews, and managing candidate engagement throughout the interview process take a frustrating amount of time. This is where technology is lending a hand.

4. How has AI and big data helped in better recruitment?
There are certain things technology does better than people. Look at how Amazon recommends new products or Spotify recommends music — they’re harnessing the power of big data to know exactly what is out there, predicting the kinds of things you are
likely to want, and serving them up to you seamlessly. As an individual person, it’s not possible to have a handle on all the data out there and make entirely informed and unbiased decisions about each candidate. AI and big data make this possible, ushering in a fairer and more effective recruiting process while allowing recruiters to focus on the most important aspects of their job: connecting people with opportunities.

5. Can you explain the functioning of your recruitment automation solution?
Entelo helps talent acquisition teams hire better-qualified candidates, faster. We do this by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to systematically search the web for public data about potential candidates. We then serve up talent pools that are more open, diverse and qualified so that recruiters can focus on the nuance of bringing in talent rather than waste their time on the more tedious elements of their jobs.

6. How has your employee engagement solution benefitted your clients?
Entelo Track, our email outreach product, lets recruiters quickly pull candidates’ personal email addresses and set up personalized, multi-touch email outreach campaigns — as well as see open rates, click-through rates and other indications of potential candidate interest. Using Track, our customers have seen increased response rates of up to 30%. ConveyIQ by Entelo, our candidate engagement product is an all-in-one candidate engagement solution that delivers a highly individualized candidate experience utilizing customizable email templates, text messages, scheduling tools, digital interviews, surveys, analytics and more. It’s benefited our clients tremendously by allowing them to consolidate various point solutions they would typically use during the day and has dramatically increased productivity which has resulted in a time-to-hire rate decrease on average of up to 64%.

7. How do you differentiate your recruitment platform from your competitors
Entelo delivers three critical advantages to help optimize your recruiting process: Better Information, Better Insights, and Better Engagement. Entelo has compiled the most comprehensive database of candidate profiles, with over 500 million individuals around the world, to immediately identify the best-fit candidates for your open roles. Entelo then helps you identify qualified candidates faster by intelligently analyzing and summarizing their skill set, company fit, likelihood to leave their job, and many more insights — reducing the time it takes a recruiter to determine if a candidate is qualified by up to 75%. Entelo’s ability to personalize multi-touch email campaigns directly to the personal email inbox of the most qualified and receptive candidates results in increased response rates up to 30%. Last month’s acquisition of ConveyIQ takes the Entelo competitive advantage one step further with interviewing functionality, scheduling, and post-application candidate engagement. Today, Entelo is the only end-to-end source-to-hire recruiting platform on the market.

8. What advice would like to give to the upcoming HRTech Startups?

One thing that I have always practiced – and to which I owe a lot of my success – is surrounding myself with people who have the job I want in 3 years.

For example, when I was first starting out Entelo, I developed a strong network of series A founders – individuals who had found some initial success in their venture and could impart guidance and wisdom as I followed in their footsteps. Now that Entelo has raised it’s series C and recently acquired ConveyIQ, I’ve begun to reach out to those in my network who’ve seen their company through an IPO and have many lessons learned to share.

9. What work related hack do you follow to enjoy maximum productivity?
As anyone in the Entelo office can tell you, I am a big proponent of the standing desk. In the moments when I’m not in a conference room, I like to spend my time on my feet because I feel more engaged, more alert, and more productive. And I swear it’s not just
feeling – there’s been mounting evidence in recent years connecting standing desks to a boost in productivity. That’s why every Entelo employee has the option of a standing desk.

10. How do you prepare for an AI-centric World?
AI is a great advancement for our society– it’s already driving positive impact in many facets of our lives: work, education, health, finance, transportation. But it also means that we need to adapt to a new world in which the skills and aptitudes necessary for today
will be replaced by the new skill sets and aptitudes AI technologies necessitate. To be successful in our professional lives, as well as our personal lives, we need to be ready and willing to learn and adapt. That’s the mindset and approach I’ve taken, and it’s really opened my eyes up to the exciting opportunities that the future of technology holds.

11. What are the major developments you are planning, in recent times?
With Entelo’s recent acquisition of ConveyIQ, we have a unique and ambitious roadmap ahead of us. This will not be what acquisitions in the HR space have typically been – someone’s technology bolted onto someone else’s technology. What we’re doing today is truly the first time in the history of HR tech where you will now have the opportunity to manage end-to-end the engagement of a candidate through all of the lifecycle – from first touch point with a candidate all the way through the application process – using one system. Stay tuned!

12. Can you tell us about your team and how it supports you?
At Entelo, our people are our priority– in fact, Prioritize People is one of our core values. It’s simple, Entelo is a product of the smart, innovative, and driven individuals working tirelessly to build the right solutions for our customers. Therefore, we strive to create a
culture that honors achievements, celebrates our diversity, and creates a sense of open and transparent community.

13. Which Book are you reading these days?
Right now, I am in the middle of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. It’s an interesting look at the psychological properties of willpower: what it is, why we need it, and how we can master it. I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I’m enjoying this read.

14. We have heard that you have a very joyful work culture, we won’t mind having a
look at some of the pictures?

Jon Bischke Co-founder and CEO, Entelo

Jon Bischke is the founder and CEO of Entelo, a social recruiting tool. Bischke is an experienced entrepreneur focused on the intersection of education and technology. He has been on the founding team of four companies, three of which have been acquired (two by publicly-traded companies) and a fourth that was bootstrapped to profitability. Jon’s most recent company, eduFire.com, is a leading video platform for online education and was acquired in June of 2010. Jon has a Bachelor of Science in Business in Finance and Management Information Systems from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In addition, Jon is also a co-founder of The Legacy Foundation and Unleashed, two organizations that strive to empower the world’s most promising entrepreneurs.

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