Candidate.ID

Candidate.ID, founded in 2016 by Adam Gordon and Scot McRae in Glasgow, Scotland, developed a marketing automation software platform tailored for talent acquisition. The company's creation was driven by its founders' extensive backgrounds in recruitment and marketing. Adam Gordon began his career in recruitment in 1999 and gained experience at firms like Havas and PwC before founding Social Media Search. Scot McRae's career includes marketing roles at Procter & Gamble and Hugo Boss, alongside entrepreneurial and investment ventures. Their combined expertise led to the idea of adapting established marketing automation principles for the recruitment industry.

The firm's core business revolves around a SaaS platform that integrates with a company's existing Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or CRM. It serves in-house talent acquisition teams and staffing agencies by helping them build and nurture talent pipelines. The business model is centered on its software, which automates and personalizes candidate engagement through multi-channel campaigns. A key feature is the proprietary 'ID.Score,' a lead scoring mechanism that tracks candidate interactions—such as email opens and content clicks—in real-time to measure their engagement level. This allows recruiters to identify and prioritize 'hire-ready' candidates, effectively transforming dormant candidate databases into active talent pools. By focusing on engaged individuals, the platform aims to significantly reduce the time and cost associated with filling positions.

A significant milestone in the company's history was its acquisition by iCIMS, a US-based talent cloud company, in March 2022. This event marked a successful exit for the founders and investors, which included Blackfinch Ventures and Crowdcube, and integrated Candidate.ID's capabilities into the larger iCIMS Talent Cloud. The acquisition was positioned as a move to bring the power of marketing automation to recruiting at scale, addressing market challenges like a high number of job openings and flat application rates. The platform's functionality includes a campaign builder with numerous customizable actions and decisions, enabling recruiters to create highly specific workflows that trigger based on candidate behavior.

Keywords: talent acquisition, recruitment marketing, marketing automation, candidate engagement, talent pipeline, lead scoring, candidate nurturing, recruitment technology, applicant tracking system, candidate relationship management, SaaS, talent sourcing, iCIMS, Adam Gordon, Scot McRae, hire-ready candidates, automated marketing, candidate database, recruitment analytics, time-to-hire