Toronto startup Careerify connects employers with job candidates via employee social networks

According Harpaul Sambhi, founder of Toronto-based startup Careerify, “the average person is connected to 1,000-plus people across all of their social network profiles.” But what is the likelihood that a company’s employees are aware of everyone in their network who is looking for a job? That’s where Careerify comes in handy.

Careerify is a social talent acquisition and employee engagement software platform on which companies can build their recruitment strategy. The platform allows organizations to connect with their employees’ vast social networks, creating an opportunity to reach millions of potential candidates.

Sambhi says that “we are able to reduce the amount of time it takes an employer to find a suitable candidate. Basically, we do the work so that employees don’t have to think about potential candidates, or spend too much time trying to find them.”

The 2011 Microsoft Blue Sky Award winning platform also saves companies a lot of money. Traditionally, HR departments pay to post openings on job boards, or pay recruiters a lot of cash to find them the right candidates.

Careerify sends employees a weekly summary of potential job postings that might be a match for people in their network. Next, employees choose any contacts or groups in their social networks that they want to send those postings to based on industry or location. Employees then use the tool to send status updates and direct messages to their Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter contacts – all within five clicks. The process is entirely automated, personalized and then tracked for employee engagement and for referral incentives.

The Careerify referral incentives follow a similar model to Groupon. Sambhi says that many of his clients have been “really creative and offer daily deal-like raffles and vacation packages. The incentive values are based on certain milestones that the employees need to meet or by the degree of difficulty involved in filling certain roles.”

The obvious question I asked Sambhi was about how Careerify protects employee privacy? After all, employees have to grant Careerify access their social networks in order to identify who their connections are and whether they are a match for a role. Sambhi assured me that everything the employee does on their social networks and within the Careerify platform is protected and that the employee has full control over the data collected in the tool.

The company, which will have upwards of 250,000 users by the end of the year, has recently signed a number of medium to large-sized clients in the US and Canada. Their smallest-sized client to date has around 400 employees. Apparently, companies that are more Gen Y focused have been keen to use the service. However, Careerify has also had success with organizations that employ an older demographic as well.

It will be interesting to see how the company gains traction in Canada versus the US. Sambhi says that “US companies are currently a bigger opportunity for us. That’s because a lot of Canadian companies are satellite offices for larger US corporations. In that case, the HR decision-making happens in the US.”