RealTime Talent is bringing WorkFountain to Minnesota

Today, RealTime Talent announced its selection of WorkFountain as the platform for a new kind of online labor exchange in Minnesota. Designed by Michigan-based company Digerati, WorkFountain “is a unique scalable platform that engages businesses of all sizes and creates greater efficiency in the labor market. The platform builds pathways for meaningful employment, ultimately creating jobs and strengthening the economy,” says CEO Brian Balasia.

WorkFountain is specifically built with the goal of reducing hiring bias and economic inequalities through blind-correlated matching of candidates to job opportunities. RealTime Talent evaluated 11 online labor exchange platforms, but what sets WorkFountain is the quality of the matches. Organizations that have implemented the technology share that they are seeing faster matches to higher quality candidates. By requiring both job-seekers and employers to complete job-specific surveys, the site goes far beyond resumes or keyword searches to understand subtle differences between candidates, including their preferred work environment, daily tasks, and leadership style.

Small and mid-sized businesses stand to gain from this new approach to hiring. Blind matching candidates based on compatibility means that brand strength doesn’t play as significant of a role in the job-seeker’s search. “As a board member of RealTime Talent, I am really excited to be bringing this innovation to Minnesota,” shared Scott Peterson, representative of the Itasca Project and chair of the RealTime Talent board. “WorkFountain has the potential to bring tremendous efficiencies to match job seekers with employers, as well as harness the power of our diverse workforce. “

The project received funding from the Minnesota Legislature in July 2016 through the leadership of Senator Terri E. Bonoff, chair of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. The Legislature dedicated funding to RealTime Talent to bring a 21st century web-based job and intern-seeking software tool that blind matches the needs of Minnesota’s employers with high school seniors and college students.

“While working on the MN PIPELINE Project, we heard loud and clear from employers that they are struggling to identify and connect with their future workforce” stated Senator Bonoff. “I always knew there had to be a way to harness technology to bring about more meaningful connections between employers and our youth, so we set out to find a solution for them beyond just creating an education and training program and I’m pleased to say today that we found it. WorkFountain is currently doing this connection work with great success in Michigan and Ohio, and I am thrilled that they are coming to Minnesota to unlock so much potential for our employers and students. Thank you to Jess Niebuhr of RealTime Talent and her board for being the engine of workforce solution innovation for our State and making this happen.”

RealTime Talent is working with the support of the Office of Higher Education to implement this pilot. We are seeking regional, education, and industry partners to build, use, and launch this new platform for the benefit of Minnesota employers and job-seekers.

For more information about this pilot project, access to the full report evaluating similar platforms, or inquiries on becoming a partner in this pilot project, please contact Jess Niebuhr at jess@realtimetalentmn.org. More information is available at http://www.realtimetalent.org/ and http://digerati.co/workfountain/.

Read the full press release here:
2016 08 24 RTT WorkFountain Press Release – FINAL