Affinity and Celential: Building a Strong, Diverse Talent Pipeline for High-Volume Hiring

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Affinity, a relationship intelligence platform, was facing a significant challenge in 2020. The company was looking to scale their technical team across the US and Canada after opening a new office in Toronto and experiencing three years of record growth. The demand for their data-driven CRM platform was expanding rapidly, and they needed skilled talent to further accelerate their technology innovation. Additionally, Affinity was committed to building an inclusive workforce, a task that was proving to be slow and difficult. Despite having a company culture focused on empowering employees and having won multiple “Best Workplace” awards, building a strong and diverse talent pipeline for its many open technical roles was a significant hurdle.

Affinity is a relationship Intelligence platform that empowers dealmakers to drive and close more deals. Its next-generation CRM is purpose-built for fields like venture capital and investment banking, which rely on long-term, data-heavy relationships. Leveraging AI, ML, and NLP, Affinity helps users tap into the full potential of their networks and better understand their buyers. It’s intuitive and easy to deploy, and team members can collaborate at each touchpoint of the customer journey with history and engagement insights. In 2021, Affinity closed a Series C round of funding for $120M, from leading investors like Menlo Ventures, Advance Venture Partners, and 8VC.

Affinity partnered with Celential, an AI technology company, to augment their tech candidate sourcing process. The partnership began in November 2020, and Celential presented the first warm candidate the day after the partnership started. The first hire was made in only five weeks. Over the course of almost two years, Celential covered a crucial part of Affinity’s sourcing process during one of the company’s largest periods of growth and built strong talent pipelines. Affinity filled two-thirds of their software engineering roles from the candidates Celential discovered and activated, landing 30 critical hires. These hires covered a variety of technical roles across the US and Canada, including Mobile, Frontend, Backend, Machine learning, Product, and more. Seniority levels ranged from mid-level to Staff, Manager, and Director-level engineering positions.

• The partnership between Affinity and Celential resulted in a consistent flow of qualified candidates and a significant improvement in the diversity of hires. Celential’s powerful technology and dedicated customer support saved Affinity significant time and resources on talent sourcing at the top of the funnel, allowing them to focus on building and nurturing candidate relationships. Together, they created an exceptional experience for candidates from start to finish. Celential ensured that candidates were engaged with warm, personalized outreach and rapid follow-up, while Affinity honed their rock-solid hiring process which included close involvement of their engineering team and executives to make top-quality hires. The proactive targeting of underlooked talent pools and customized messaging speaking to mutual fit and shared values helped Affinity meet their diversity goals.

• 30 critical hires made in a variety of technical roles

• First hire made in only five weeks

• 80% present-to-interview ratio achieved