With a renewed focus on flexibility, agility, and innovation, Rival aims to become the go-to platform for organizations looking to streamline and optimize their talent acquisition processes.

Written by Mercer's Tara Cooper

Since its founding in 2003, SilkRoad Technology has been a pioneer in the HR industry, known for its RedCarpet Onboarding experience and a comprehensive suite of talent management solutions, including recruiting, learning, and performance. However, in a bold move that reflects their commitment to adapt and evolve with the changing needs of their customers, SilkRoad Technology announces a complete rebrand: SilkRoad is now Rival.

Rival isn’t a name change for the sake of grabbing the attention of the market for a split second. Rival is a challenge to the market: a bold statement that ensures their vision and belief system is completely understood. Rival aims to redefine the Talent Acquisition (TA) landscape, catering to the modern needs of TA teams while fostering “stable agility.” The core philosophy behind Rival is to provide a single system that seamlessly integrates with all aspects of the recruiting process.

One of the standout features of Rival’s new offering, Rival Recruit, is the inclusion of a vast talent pool of 700 million passive candidates, each equipped with pre-built skills outlined inside the Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Powered by the acquisition of Entelo’s candidate sourcing and recruitment marketing capabilities, this preloaded database enables recruiters to tap into a vast network of potential candidates effortlessly. This data is what differentiates Rival from traditional applicant tracking and even broader talent management solutions. They are positioning themselves to compete against artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven vendors like Eightfold and Beamery, as well as ATS providers like iCIMS and SmartRecruiters.  So, while the branding change is interesting, being a data-driven driver of talent experiences is a much bigger story and ambition.

Additionally, Rival Recruit offers the power of AI for advanced sourcing and engagement (including job descriptions and AI-powered candidate outreach), ensuring that recruiters can work more efficiently and effectively.

While Rival does offer its own ATS, they also understand the importance of flexibility. As such, Rival also launched Rival Engage, which is designed to seamlessly integrate with other popular ATS providers, allowing organizations to use the full potential of Rival’s innovative solutions while maintaining their existing systems, reducing change fatigue.

The rebranding to Rival signifies a new era for SilkRoad Technology. By combining their deep expertise in the HR tech space with a renewed focus on flexibility, agility, and innovation, Rival aims to become the go-to platform for organizations looking to streamline and optimize their talent acquisition processes.

SilkRoad’s rebrand to Rival comes at a time when 49% of organizations are dissatisfied with their existing HR technology solutions, and organizations are seeking to simplify their processes and their tech stacks, often by consolidating vendors. And with TA teams not planning on increasing headcount this year, most leaders are looking for efficiency gains to help them hit their hiring goals. Rival’s new offering addresses the pressing need for more seamless alignment of key capabilities like sourcing and recruiting, while empowering TA teams to automate workflows and gain easier visibility into candidate skills.

Rival’s rebranding reflects the market’s desire to challenge the status quo in talent acquisition. It presents a bold vision that resonates with the collective yearning for change.

If you’re a Talent Leader ready to create the mindset, culture, and infrastructure that enables your organization to bust down silos and make space for true talent agility, Rival is worth looking at. It combines core sourcing and recruiting requirements into a single seamless experience, enabling your recruiting teams to work smarter and faster. Current customers include Cleveland Clinic, Gainsight, and Save the Children.

And for our friends at Rival, we applaud your modern vision and love the rebrand, but what we look forward to even more real outcomes from real customers. Don’t be shy about sharing customer wins with the world and shining a light on what’s possible when talent acquisition shifts to talent activation.