Honeypot wins Recruiting Startup of the Year at Hiring Success 18

Honeypot was up against some tough competition with the likes of Recruitsy, Talent Savant, Job Pal and Recruiterly also competing for the award and we’re absolutely thrilled, chuffed, stoked / whatever-other-word-you-want-to-use-for-excited to say that we won Recruiting Startup of the Year at Hiring Success 18 in San Francisco!

There can be only one — further congratulations to @honeypotio, the Recruiting Startup of the Year! @emchenita #hire18 pic.twitter.com/sS6U6ZSQc2

— SmartRecruiters (@SmartRecruiters) March 19, 2018

For real, we smashed it. But “how did it go down?” we hear you ask.

After an intense social media battle in which we were selected as one of the five finalists to pitch at Smart Recruiters’ third annual #hire18 competition, battling it out with a variety of HR products in the process, our co-founder Emma Tracey jetted off to San Francisco to make our case for first place in front of 1,000+ Talent Acquisition leaders and executives at Hiring Success 18.

For those who may not be familiar with it, Hiring Success is an annual HR-focused conference organized by Smart Recruiters that aims to provide exposure to fledgling HR startups and innovation in the HR space in general.

Congrats to the finalists of the Recruiting Startup of the Year @ #hire18 pic.twitter.com/NbuEc4hVpj

— Camelia Caraban (@Camelia_Caraban) March 14, 2018

Overseen by an impressive judging panel of investors, C-suites and analysts, the five remaining finalists then pitched their products in an aim to get their hands on the all-important prizes: $10,000 in media spend, gold level sponsorship at next year’s Hiring Success conference and an article by Talent Tech Labs’ executive director Jonathan Kestenbaum.

As you can see in the video above, Emma crushed it for Honeypot and the judges were particularly impressed by how our platform has been able to turn candidates into active players in the employment search.

Other interested observers were taken aback by the cuteness of our logo and stickers…

My favorite # logo from #hire18:@honeypotio pic.twitter.com/fSMNAfWwli

— Taft Love (@SuthernerAbroad) March 14, 2018

I feel like I need a @honeypotio sticker for my computer #hire18

— Tiffany Yu (@ImTiffanyYu) March 14, 2018

While some people were visibly intrigued by our name… 😳

Big congrats to @honeypotio for winning #hire18 and I love your name and logo. But I wonder if you've had any comparisons to a #honeytrap 🤷

— Adam Gordon (@Adam_W_Gordon) March 15, 2018

But ultimately, all pitches were evaluated on the same criteria, the focus being on each startup’s vision, how innovative their product is, how much traction it’s been getting and to what extent they’re able to articulate their vision on stage.

Here’s a short recap of our cofounder’s pitch:

1. Vision: Candidate-Led Recruitment

2. Innovation: Strong Technical Foundation

3. Traction: Impressive Growth On All Fronts

We couldn’t be prouder and it’s an absolute honor to be awarded first prize at such a prestigious event, pitted against such fierce competition! It really inspires us to keep believing in and working on our mission of getting every developer a great job.

PS: The trophy is now sitting pretty in our Berlin office - maybe we should invest in a shelf for it?

Thanks once again to Smart Recruiters for this awesome opportunity, we can’t wait to see you next year!