CodeSignal and WurkNow Secure Funding
September 27, 2021 – More recruiting technology firms have announced funding rounds this past week, including CodeSignal, a skills assessment platform, and WurkNow, a software platform for staffing firms and employers of hourly workers. CodeSignal, which helps companies like Facebook, Roblox, Zoom, Robinhood and others, make data-driven hiring decisions in tech recruiting, recently announced $50 million in Series C funding. It also launched its new advanced Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that unlocks highly relevant assessment experiences. This round, which brings CodeSignal’s total funding to $87.5 million, was led by Index Ventures, with additional participation from Menlo Ventures, Headline and A Capital.
Job assessments, whether at the top of the funnel or in later stage interviews, that feel like a simulation of the job provide the best indicator of skill and also create a better candidate experience, even for those who don’t ultimately get the job, said CodeSignal. “Until today, it has been hard to achieve a true flight simulation of the coding environment, limiting hiring managers ability to assess skills, and candidate’s ability to demonstrate them,” the company said.
With CodeSignal’s advanced IDE candidates will now be able to interact with code, files, a terminal and a preview of their application in a persistent, fully configurable environment. This means candidates will have a similar experience to coding on a local machine, and the assessment provides a more powerful and familiar environment for them to solve tasks just as they would actually do on the job, showcasing their full range of skills.
A Single Coding Task
Likewise, employers can now assess all of an applicant’s skills at the same time through a single coding task. “This innovation is essential for hiring full-stack developers, a highly sought-after specialty, and it revolutionizes the online IDE-based assessment experience to create the most realistic simulation of software engineering jobs that’s available on the market,” said CodeSignal.
Tigran Sloyan, CEO and co-founder, said that from CodeSignal’s early days, its investments have focused on building a platform that can help technical recruiters and hiring managers to make unbiased data-driven recruiting decisions. “As the demand for technical talent intensifies, hiring teams need better ways to identify qualified candidates while at the same time creating a great candidate experience,” he said. “This funding will help accelerate our product and go-to-market functions to continue helping companies make data-driven hiring decisions, while creating a phenomenal candidate experience along the way.”
“CodeSignal has seen astounding growth this year, which speaks volumes to the need for companies to re-imagine their hiring practices to attract and hire the best candidates,” said Nina Achadjian, partner at Index Ventures. “Today’s job seekers have options and they are looking for companies that value fair and unbiased business practices. There is an amazing opportunity in front of us to change hiring culture and CodeSignal is the company making that happen.”
WurkNow, meanwhile, announced the closing of a $10 million Series A funding round, led by Newport Beach, CA-based Newport Hayseed Group. This funding will be used to further optimize WurkNow’s user base and product offering, including investments in new product development, staff growth, and scaling the company’s brand and market presence, the company said.
Digital Acceleration
WurkNow’s capital raise comes after a year of immense growth, brought on by the digital acceleration caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Demand for WurkNow’s fully-integrated staffing and workforce management platform has surged within its client base of staffing and recruiting firms and employers that manage large, hourly workforces. Currently, there are over 125,000 active employees using the platform, a year-over-year increase of 400 percent.
“The labor market has dramatically shifted over the past 18 months,” said Sammy Singh, WurkNow CEO and co-founder. “Outdated, disparate systems tend to complicate and slow hiring efforts. The need for a tech-forward single platform approach to fill jobs faster is greater than ever and, as a result, we have seen an accelerated demand for the WurkNow platform.”
WurkNow’s tech-forward and data-driven approach empowers businesses to source, pool, and engage the right talent so that hiring managers can attain 100 percent fill rates.
“We understand our clients’ need to have technology that will allow them to further automate many processes and create efficiencies through artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said TJ Sehmi, WurkNow’s CTO and co-founder. “The WurkNow platform has provided the ability to do both, through continuous innovation in recruiting and matching process, seamless onboarding, and a cutting-edge mobile app to increase applicant interaction.”
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Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media