Gal Almog

I (Gal Almog) am the CEO and co-founder of Talenya.

Talenya is the provider of the first and only fully-automated AI-powered talent sourcing solution on the market. Its groundbreaking platform taps a pool of 1.5 billion profiles to find and engage with more qualified and diverse active and passive candidates than any other tool makes possible. Talenya has also been recognized for its social responsibility as a provider of diversity-boosting solutions and for its high representation of women in its employee force.

Talenya operates in the recruiting and talent acquisition tech field, especially with respect to the sourcing of passive talent and diversity boosting. The recruiting field is long overdue for an upgrade, as traditional and entrenched candidate-search and -engagement techniques are tedious, discriminatory, and incredibly time-consuming. AI such as Talenya’s which can lower costs and time significantly while producing stellar results are already here, but there is still work to be done to integrate it into the standard sourcing process.

It is an honor to receive these international accolades. Years of investment in AI technology are paying off with the public recognition of our achievements. We are proud to bring more efficiency and cost cutting to the talent acquisition industry.

We’re very excited to be recognized for our innovative technology; this year Talenya was acknowledged by two organizations for our contributions to social responsibility. We’re deeply proud of our commitment to a more equitable society, however, it’s nice to be acknowledged for the incredible technology that makes it possible as well. We’re also looking forward to expanding our reach to other English-speaking countries beyond the US, and we hope this international award will lend us some credibility in communities that haven’t yet heard of us.

Our greatest challenge, as is usually the case with modern technology, is bringing the recruiting industry into the 21st century. Our AI has the potential to change and improve recruiting as we know it, but that can only happen at scale once recruiters embrace the new way.

Ideas always stem from identifying problems. Everyone has been involved in one way or another with recruiting employees. They all experienced the challenges. If you speak with recruiters, it is easy to notice their pains and challenges. So identifying problems and pains is the first step. Then it is about how technology can address such pains. I try to imagine the ideal solution and how it would work and then consult with my tech partners and check whether it is realistic. Obviously, ideas change over time and you need to be open to change strategies and refine the product/market fit.

It is about continuous debate, evaluating different opinions and then working together to implement the solution that most people support. Then changing and improving it continuously. In order to achieve this, you need to build a team of extremely intelligent people, entrepreneurial people who are not afraid to voice their opinion, even if their are questioned.

Having been in the recruiting tech industry for two decades and having had the opportunity to get close to many leaders and workers in it, I’ve been able to pick up on the specific drawbacks and fallacies of the methods available for sourcing candidates. Being in tune with the real challenges to recruiters as well as their attitudes toward new technology and the unspoken ways they choose one candidate over another has helped me create products that will genuinely make lives easier and save real, significant time and resources. Rather than trying to solve problems as they arise, with Talenya we anticipated those problems and created a platform that smooths the process before common problems come up in the first place.

Israel is known for its thriving high-tech business. Most young people serve for a few years in the military and learn the meaning of working under pressure and high levels of uncertainty. This is a very good environment to build an entrepreneurial spirit that encourages risk taking.

Since we work in the recruiting space, we had a real scare when recruiting and hiring ground to a halt at the start of the pandemic. While the uncertainty was difficult to handle, all we could do was continue business as usual and grow our organization slowly as best we could. Luckily, a biproduct of lockdowns was the embracing of new technologies which businesses had to use to continue to keep society functioning—meaning people are more willing and eager than ever to try new things such as AI and automation software.

Again, the current move toward technology and innovation is really exciting because our goal is to create a completely new recruiting process that incorporates sourcing automation. We are also happy to see how the last few years have created a business landscape that is more committed to diversity and equity than ever, and are proud to provide a product that genuinely evens the playing field for underrepresented talent.

For recruiters looking to up their talent sourcing game and their diversity recruiting game, we have run several webinars and a have a great newsletter and blog with tons of resources on recruitment, DEI, and talent sourcing in 2022. Business owners may also wish to read my book, The Frequency of Business: How to maximize your chances to build a company for an EXIT.

In a few years we will look back and be embarrassed to remember the primitive ways we used to source. I am confident that sourcing will be based on AI with humans focused on what they do best – human interaction.

Alan Schonberg was the Founder and CEO of MRI, one of the leading recruitment companies in the tech world. I met him andf we became friends. He was my mentor and eventually the chairman of my company. He is the smartest and the most inspriing person I have ever met.

A pessimist sees a problem in every opportunity. An optimist sees an opportunity in every problem. This quote is associated with Winston Churchill. I have adopted it in my life.