Entrepreneur programme alumni expand global footprint with Modern Hire

Sonru, a participant company in WIT’s entrepreneur development programme, has announced its union with Modern Hire.

Modern Hire partners with hundreds of leading global brands – including 47 of the Fortune 100 – to modernise their virtual hiring process. Headquartered in the U.S., the company’s SaaS interviewing technology, workflow automation, AI capabilities, predictive analytics and hiring assessments work together to enable organisations to continuously improve hiring results for more than 300 industry-leading enterprises, including Amazon, Capital One, CVS Health, FedEx, Humana, Procter & Gamble, Siemens and Walmart, which rely on Modern Hire to hire the right candidates quickly and fairly, at scale.

From south east to global reach

In 2007/2008 Ed Hendrick, founder and CEO, Sonru, was a participant in the South East Enterprise Platform Programme, now known as the Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers programme, which intakes startups and innovators on Phase 1 of its programme each autumn via www.wit.ie/newfrontiers.

Sonru, a leading provider of automated video interviewing technology, announced its union with Modern Hire, the all-in-one enterprise hiring platform that enables organisations to continuously improve hiring experiences and outcomes with trusted science and technology.

The combined organisation’s expertise and expanded footprint provides clients with the most comprehensive enterprise hiring technology suite in the global marketplace.

Team building

In a previous interview with WIT.ie/news Hendrick outlined how the entrepreneur development programme exposed him to a huge amount of expertise and “really allowed me to fine tune my original business idea and put together an early prototype.”

“Working with a likeminded group within the programme was invaluable in the early days of Sonru. Through the programme I met Chris Horan who came on board as Sonru’s CTO and Joy Redmond, Sonru’s Head of Research. Both Chris and Joy have remained an integral part of Sonru’s success for the past 10 years,” he said.

WIT catalyst

Director of Programmes – Centre for Enterprise Development & Regional Economy, School of Business, Dr Eugene Crehan said: “I would like to congratulate Ed and all the team at Sonru on becoming part of Modern Hire. Ed was inducted into the WIT Entrepreneurs Alumni Hall of Fame in 2019 in recognition of his visionary leadership to Sonru since it’s foundation. He has been very supportive of the New Frontiers programme acting as an advisor to participants. “

Being a part of SEEPP in 2007 was a major catalyst in the evolution of Sonru according to Hendrick. “It helped me get on the right path quickly and identify the right product to build for our potential customers. During SEEPP Eugene was always available to discuss the different aspects of our business. I was very inexperienced when starting off and Eugene understood that, he knew when to kick in with strong advice and also knew when to leave me figure it out for myself and learn from that. He understands what it takes to launch and scale a new business and I found this invaluable at the time.

“We still keep in touch and I have often called him over the years to pick his brain on certain topics, that’s testament to the value I put on Eugene’s experience and advice.”

Consistent innovation

Following the Modern Hire announcement he commented: “Sonru’s strategic decision to align with Modern Hire is the next logical step in our company story, and a transformative action to address the critical needs of enterprises for modern hiring and interviewing solutions.”

“Sonru chose to join with Modern Hire because of our shared focus on the candidate experience, and a shared commitment to support our clients with consistent innovation. Modern Hire has transformed hiring to improve both experiences and outcomes. Our combined organisation’s strategic vision is to provide our clients and future clients with the strongest technology, team and reach in the market.”

Modern Hire combines trusted science and proven technology to provide talent acquisition teams with the ideal balance of fairness, speed and quality to better identify, attract and retain talent while ensuring an enhanced candidate experience. Its data-driven experiences meet the needs of modern candidates, the future workforce and business stakeholders alike. By combining with Modern Hire, Sonru clients have access to the complete Modern Hire digital interviewing offering, which includes text, phone and chat interview solutions, and automatic scheduling. Modern Hire’s Virtual Job Tryout assessment delivers pre-employment scanning. These comprehensive set of capabilities bests all other solutions in the market.

Global leader

“The Sonru brand and heritage are a perfect complement to Modern Hire, given both companies’ commitment to creating client- and candidate-centric solutions to address today’s talent acquisition challenges,” said Brian Stern, president, Modern Hire. “Together, we form the most comprehensive platform for enterprise hiring. Our integration will enable Sonru clients to benefit from continuity of partnership while aligning with a global leader known for its track record and commitment to continued innovation. We look forward to welcoming Sonru to the Modern Hire team, and enabling a smooth transition for our clients.”

Over the past decade, Sonru has established a legacy as a talent acquisition technology leader within Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Its video interviewing solution maximises the candidate experience and enables recruiters to replicate a live interview by replacing early-stage phone, Skype or face-to-face interviews. This cuts early stage screening time, freeing up recruiters to focus on more strategic tasks and ensuring consistency, fairness and the application of best practices. Sonru’s technology reduces recruitment lifecycle time and costs by 50 percent. Its customers come from a wide variety of industry, including several Fortune Global 500 companies such as DHL, Nestlé, Qatar Airways, Rolls-Royce, UBS and Westpac.

According to Gartner, “Application leaders in EMEA-headquartered organisations supporting HCM technology transformation should: accelerate their journey toward cloud HCM applications by evaluating their HCM technology portfolio and strategy, with a focus on vendor innovation and user experience capabilities.”1

About Sonru

For over a decade, Sonru has been a leading global force in the field of video interviewing and selection. Sonru’s innovative, multi-award winning recruitment tool has transformed the recruitment process of hundreds of organisations and facilitated the career aspirations of over a million candidates worldwide. With operations in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, Sonru is passionate about a best in class client and candidate interviewing experience.