Recruiting the Future: Kenexa and StraightSource Join Forces to Change the Talent Wars

Knowing that two of the market’s leaders had come together, HROA Connections wanted to sit down with Rudy Karsan (Chairman & CEO Kenexa), Alan Cayton (former CEO of StraightSource, now part of the Kenexa leadership team), and Brandt Hamby (former EVP of Marketing, now part of the Kenexa leadership team) for a conversation about the future of recruitment process outsourcing, their companies, and their views on the future of global recruiting. In the course of our discussion, we began to see part of the future of recruitment process improvement: moving beyond talent acquisition into talent management. The new company may represent a piece of the future and hint at where all companies should focus. As the war for talent continues, companies will need to focus as much on holding onto and nurturing the great people they’ve already got as on finding them in the first place.

A lot of companies and pundits have held forth on the importance of retention. Few, though, have provided any real, practical insights on how to do it. The combined company has the tools, with StraightSource’s excellence in talent identification and Kenexa’s scientifically-based insights into talent management and retention. The new Kenexa will clearly be a company to watch.

Rudy, Alan, and Brandt also demonstrated some of the attributes that have made the two companies separately – and will help them now joined as one – succeed. They clearly practice what they preach, with careful attention to the needs and aspirations of their people and close management of the nitty-gritty details that underpin success in complex transactions. Kenexa’s attention to its own talent management with the StraightSource merger provides some insights to its ability to manage on behalf of its clients.

Read the intereview: HROA Kenexa Interview