I am incredibly excited to share that WayUp, the company that JJ Fliegelman and I founded in 2014 (and is now the #1 DE&I recruiting platform), is merging with Yello, the leading talent acquisition software company for early career recruiting teams.

Let me start with why I’m so excited about what this will mean for job seekers and employers. 

The past year has been an explosive year of growth for WayUp. We’ve now had four record-breaking sales quarters in a row, while more applications — and therefore, hires — are occurring on WayUp than we’ve ever seen. Most importantly, WayUp users of all backgrounds are getting hired for their dream jobs while our customers are hiring more diverse candidates than they’ve ever reported.  It feels like every day that our team is sending a note to each other and the board about another huge milestone hit.

As a DE&I recruitment platform, this growth has shown us that the world is finally paying more attention to diversity. And it’s about time! After years of hearing companies say they either had no budget to virtually recruit due to on-campus expenses or no budget to invest in DE&I (yes, really), we’re now finally seeing companies come to terms with the future of equitable recruiting, and it feels fantastic.

That being said, as we look to the future of our business, we continue to see that sending candidates into the ATS or CRM “black hole” and never hearing back is not good for anyone. It’s a terrible experience for job seekers (the #1 complaint they have about LinkedIn or any of the job boards), and it’s a frustrating experience for recruiters (who are often understaffed as-is). 

So, we had our “aha” moment. If we create high-quality and diverse pipelines for our clients, but they can’t even make it through all of their candidates, then do our efforts even make a difference? We also realized that having a virtual sourcing platform that is separate from a CRM, ATS, or physical event platform makes everything 10x more difficult for talent acquisition leaders — especially when it comes to understanding their diversity data, funnel analytics, and event ROI. 

So, our team began to design what a dream CRM would look like for early-career recruiting teams. It would fully and securely integrate with every major ATS, include a strong “physical event” product for employers taking the hybrid (virtual + in-person) approach to recruiting, have incredible automation and scheduling, and of course, video interviewing capabilities.

And as it turns out, that CRM exists — and it’s called Yello. 

Just like anyone who works in the campus recruiting or DE&I space, I’ve known about Yello for many years. Jason and Dan (the founders) had become friends with who I’d chat with at every opportunity I could get during the NACE and HR tech conferences. Then when JJ and I met up with Dan and Corey Ferengul, Yello’s CEO, we started talking about what the first-ever end-to-end recruitment platform could look like — one that had sourcing, screening, interviewing, physical events, virtual events, and analytics capabilities all in one. 

That’s when we knew it could be a match made in heaven. So, our teams began talking. 

And as it turns out, we had very similar perspectives about what the future of early-career recruiting should and could look like. It’s a future that emphasizes diversity, equity, and inclusion — where a Black woman applying for a job has the same chance of getting hired as a white man. It’s where a recruiter is just as likely to meet someone with no connections to their company as someone whose aunt is a VP. It’s a future where candidates hear back after applying for a role, and employers don’t have to manually sort through (or worse, ignore) thousands of applications in a span of weeks. It’s one where a recruiter can use the same system to source candidates as they use to interview and hire candidates. And it’s a future where candidates don’t have to fill out ten profiles to apply to ten different companies or check-in at ten different conference booths.

I am excited about that future, and my team and I are excited to build toward that future — together with Yello. 

Of course, we understand that not every one of WayUp’s clients will want to bring a new CRM or events tool in-house, and not every one of Yello’s clients will want to source candidates virtually. And that’s okay — we’ll be keeping many aspects of each of our platforms separate. (Though the experience for mutual clients will undoubtedly be extraordinary.)

Before wrapping up, there are several people JJ and I want to thank for helping us get to this huge milestone. We could have never done it without you.

• First, to our incredible employees — both current and former... you are all the reason we were able to help millions of people get hired. You are amazing, and we’ll never forget all of the memories from the past seven years. 
• To our investors and board members... we would literally not have been able to exist without you, so thank you for believing in our mission and our team. We feel so lucky to have worked with you, and we’ll continue to sing your praises to everyone we meet. (Seriously, if you want great investors, just reach out to ours!)
• To our advisors... thank you for being there for us, always willing to take a call or give advice, even when the times got tough. We have always been fully transparent and real with you, and we are so grateful that you accept us when we do.
• To our customers... you have given us faith that employers really do care about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Many of you were very early adopters of WayUp well before it was expected of you to have a diversity platform (you know who you are). I hope you’ll forever know how grateful we are to you for making that investment in us. 
• And last (but most certainly not least), to the millions of students and recent graduates who have used WayUp... you are why we started this business, and you are why we get up every day to go to work. Thank you for putting your faith in us to help you find your first, second, and sometimes even third job. You are incredible.

This is the beginning of a very exciting chapter. Both JJ and I, along with our whole team, are incredibly excited to be joining Yello to help drive the vision of what equitable recruiting looks like.