Courtney Pearse: What does winning the Talent Tech Innovation Award mean for your company, especially given your size and stage of development? 

Inpoli: Winning the Talent Tech Innovation Award was an awesome achievement for inploi, particularly given our size and company stage, with fewer than 30 employees. 

The recognition was great validation of our innovative approach to candidate experience and positioned us as a winning participant in a noisy field. For a scale-up like inploi, the award gives us greater credibility and spotlights how we are punching above our weight  in the HR tech arena. The award underscores our ability to compete with larger, established companies through our winning formula of innovation, inclusivity, and technological flexibility. We’re hopeful it’ll open doors to new growth opportunities, helping us to accelerate our mission to make the future of hiring personal!

CP:What are the key innovative features of your solution that set it apart from others in the HR/recruitment technology space? 

I: The inploi platform is unique as a front end solution that optimising the whole candidate acquisition flow. Our solution – as one vendor – encompasses  talent acquisition through applicant experience solution, built on proprietary tracking and reporting infrastructure which calls post-application data back from with the ATS. This allows us to optimise the attraction funnel based on data all the way to the point of hire.  

A further USP is that this is achieved by integrating with existing applicant tracking systems seamlessly, transforming the candidate experience without requiring backend change.   

Philosophically, we are focused on enhancing the candidate experience to deliver better outcomes for hiring managers. That means delivering personalised, seamless candidate experiences, combining leading technology with a people-centric design approach, ensuring candidates are treated as people, not just data points. This personal touch runs throughout the platform, from job discovery to application, creating a cohesive journey for candidates. 

Our deep integration with ATSs eliminates silos, ensuring that candidates enjoy a smooth journey from the moment they apply to the final hiring stage, increasing application completion rates and improving brand perception. 

We also offer advanced analytics and reporting, providing clients with actionable insights into their recruitment processes. From land-to-application conversion rates to detailed candidate behaviour tracking, our data-driven approach helps companies optimise their recruitment strategies in real-time. 

Additionally, inploi’s commitment to inclusivity sets us apart. The platform offers features like neurodivergent-friendly interfaces, multilingual support, and accessibility tools to ensure a broad range of candidates can engage comfortably with the recruitment process. 

By combining these innovative features with flexibility and deep integrations, inploi drives both efficiency for employers and a personalised, engaging process for candidates . 

CP: Can you provide a specific example of how your solution has transformed or significantly improved a client’s talent acquisition, management, or development processes? 

I: One of the most impactful examples of inploi transforming a client’s talent acquisition process comes from our work with Compass Group UK & Ireland. Compass, a global leader in food and support services, needed a solution to reduce their recruitment costs while improving the candidate experience and increasing application conversion rates. 

Inploi integrated seamlessly with Compass’s existing ATS TribePad, providing an enhanced candidate journey without requiring any major system changes. We used advanced analytics to monitor and optimise the recruitment funnel, from job discovery to application completion. As a result, Compass saw a 42% improvement in the conversion rate from job views to completed applications within six months. 

Since then we have delivered a further 18 branded careers pages, as well as internal careers infrastructure to support internal mobility. This effect has been to reduce the average cost per application for their more challenging roles by 50%, delivering significant savings. Our solution also saved Compass’s recruitment team around 20 hours per week by automating manual tasks, allowing them to focus on the human aspects of recruitment like interviewing great people. 

CP: What were the main challenges you faced in developing your innovative solution, and how did you overcome them? 

I: Developing inploi’s solution, and staying at the forefront of technological change, presents  ongoing challenges, particularly around balancing technological sophistication with ease of use, ensuring seamless integration with existing complex and often legacy systems, and maintaining inclusivity for a diverse range of candidates. 

Platform integration with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) without disrupting existing workflows is a key challenge. Developing proprietary technology has allowed us to seamlessly transfer data between our front-end platform and any back-end system. This ensures a frictionless experience for both candidates and employers, enhancing the recruitment journey while preserving existing infrastructure. 

Another challenge was ensuring that our platform caters to a wide variety of candidates, including those with different accessibility needs. We address this by embedding features like neurodivergent-friendly interfaces, multilingual support, and accessibility tools such as text resizing and colour contrast adjustments. These are features that helped us create a platform that is not only innovative but also inclusive. 

Finally, keeping the technology both advanced and user-friendly is a key focus. We employ an iterative development approach, continuously gathering feedback from users to fine-tune the platform’s functionality. This agile methodology allows us to address usability concerns early and ensure that our solution remains accessible to clients and candidates alike. 

CP: How does your solution differentiate itself from other tools in the market, and what strategies do you use to maintain your competitive edge? 

I: inploi stands out in the HCM market through its close collaboration with customers and our unique ‘software with a service’ model. Rather than simply providing a standalone product, we partner with clients to continuously optimise their recruitment processes. This collaborative approach ensures that we understand their specific needs and challenges, allowing us to tailor our solution and deliver ongoing support.  

Technological innovation and agility are at the core of what we do. Our platform is designed to adapt quickly to changing recruitment landscapes, using an agile development process that allows us to implement updates and improvements based on real-time feedback. This responsiveness ensures that our clients are always ahead of industry trends, and benefit from the latest technological advancements. 

Furthermore, inploi platform is unique as a front-end solution that optimising the whole candidate acquisition flow. Our solution – as one vendor – encompasses talent acquisition through applicant experience solution, built on proprietary tracking and reporting infrastructure which calls post-application data back from with the ATS. This allows us to optimise the attraction funnel based on data all the way to the point of hire.  

CP: What future enhancements or developments are you planning to continue innovating and addressing emerging needs in the HR/recruitment space? 

I: Our focus for the future centres on data, application quality, and the smart use of AI. One of our key areas of development is expanding our best-in-class reporting capabilities. Our platform already offers detailed end-to-end data on the candidate journey, and we’re enhancing this to give clients even more transparency. Companies will be able to track the exact return on their recruitment spend, understanding how every penny contributes to attracting and converting quality candidates.  

We are also placing a stronger focus on improving the quality of applicants, ensuring that the right candidates see the right jobs at the right time. By refining our data-driven approach, we are helping clients target their job postings more effectively, reducing the volume of irrelevant applications while increasing engagement from top-quality talent. This approach will enable companies to make smarter recruitment decisions, saving time and resources by focusing on candidates who are truly a good fit. 

While we leverage AI to optimise job targeting and enhance candidate matching, we remain firm in our belief that AI should not make hiring decisions. Instead, our AI tools are designed to assist recruiters by improving efficiency, freeing up time for them to focus on human-led decision-making. By ensuring that AI is used to support rather than replace recruiters, we help clients maintain control over the hiring process while benefiting from the latest technological advancements.