Billion-Dollar Unicorn And Artificial Intelligence Career-Tech Startup Is Improving The Job Search Experience

In this tight, hot labor market, artificial intelligence is gaining attention as a compelling and effective way to improve the hiring process. Phenom, an Ambler, Pennsylvania-based company, effectively uses artificial intelligence to automate tasks and personalize job searches. 

Usually disruptive tech companies are found in Silicon Valley or major tech hubs. Phenom, based in a small town outside of Philadelphia, the startup has quietly become a billion-dollar unicorn.  

Phenom CEO Mahe Bayireddi said that his company relies upon AI to match people with the right jobs. This is achieved by helping companies find on-target talent at their companies and promoting them internally. Bayireddi says that his AI enables recruiters to find the right fits faster and job seekers searching for a new opportunity to find appropriate roles without wasting a lot of time. His goal is to find jobs for over one billion people.

Instead of having one platform, its software is embedded into an array of job sites with some of the best and largest companies in the world. The career-tech company has 300 million users and one million jobs posted in 130 countries. With millions of pieces of data, Phenom is able to predict and guide job seekers to the roles that fit their background. 

Bayireddi spoke about the current job market, stating that the Great Resignation is a movement that shows the shifting demands and expectations of workers. Employees  are in pursuit of greater job flexibility and the desire to feel valued and appreciated.  

These factors are as important—or even more important—than compensation. The employee experience should be top of mind for employers, if organizations want to keep and retain top talent. If they lag behind, they’ll see a lot of attrition and have trouble attracting new talent.  

With all of the data harnessed by Phenom, the company can gain and offer important insights into current trends in the workforce. The AI unicorn company conducted a study to see what is hot and what’s not in the current job market. 

Here are some of the highlights

Hot Markets for Candidates Since June 2021 

• Interest in retail jobs have increased 44.8%, and open retail jobs have also increased 67.2%.
• Interest in IT jobs has increased 13.02%, and open IT jobs have also increased 11. 2%.
• Interest in manufacturing jobs has increased 8.8%, while open manufacturing jobs have increased 12.35%.

Markets of Declining Candidate Interest Since June 2021 

• Interest in HR jobs has decreased 27.5%, but open HR jobs have increased 60.9%.
• Interest in hospitality jobs has decreased 10.3%, while open hospitality jobs have increased 15.4%.
• Interest in healthcare jobs has decreased 2.2%, but open healthcare jobs have increased 19.2%.

Almost all sectors hired aggressively since June 2021, but the number of open HR (60.9%) and retail (67.2%) have soared. The plethora of job listings is due to a combination of being difficult jobs, with an inordinate amount of stress and pressure, and needing to endure difficult patients and customers respectively. 

HR professionals had to risk their lives on a daily basis. For many, the pay wasn’t worth the health risks. We don’t talk about this enough—health care workers have been under unrelenting mental fatigue for having to tend to sick and dying patients at a rate we haven’t seen in modern history. It makes sense that there are many job openings with few takers.

Employees at retail stores, shops, department stores and in other customer facing businesses bore the brunt of an angry public. With fewer staff members, they were forced to work longer hours for low pay. In the Great Resignation movement, many retail workers decided to quit and pursue other opportunities that offer better pay and a chance for advancement.

On the positive side, these folks can use Phenom’s AI-driven job sites to see how their experiences, backgrounds and talent could be utilized in a different industry, job or career.