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On Wednesday, Salesforce unveiled Career Connect, an AI-powered internal talent marketplace.
The platform can help Salesforce employees gain job experience and skills and find new career opportunities within the company, Lori Castillo Martinez, EVP of talent growth and development at Salesforce, said in a press conference last week. Salesforce also hopes the platform can provide it with more visibility into what skills are needed at the organization, and where extra training or upskilling is needed.
“Everything is moving so quickly, and so when it comes to retraining, we want to make sure that we’re staying ahead, and this gives us that opportunity to do so as we continue to plan for this AI-driven future,” Castillo Martinez said.
How it works. Internal candidates create a profile on the platform, which draws from their job history to gather the skills they currently have. The platform then suggests a whole range of opportunities for the candidate, including new roles, temporary assignments, and learning opportunities. All of the roles suggested to employees are opportunities they can take on immediately using their relevant or transferable skills. If an employee chooses to apply for a position, they’ll be directed to Salesforce’s internal application system.
“It can sometimes be hard to find all of those different career opportunities that exist,” Castillo Martinez said. “What Career Connect is actually doing is helping employees think about how they can leverage their current skills and really grow them into meaningful careers in that flow of work.”
Early signs of success. Salesforce saw initial success with the platform following a three-month pilot conducted earlier this year with around 1,200 global employees across its customer success, employee success (HR), and business technology teams.
Around 90% of participants created a profile and cataloged their skills on the platform, and 74% of employees engaged with the platform regularly, logging in to look for opportunities multiple times throughout the pilot.
About 39% of participants enrolled in courses and trainings recommended to them on Career Connect, and 28% applied for roles through the platform. Nearly all (91%) roles filled by participants were recommended to them on Career Connect.
Zoom out. Other large employers have introduced similar internal talent mobility platforms, including PwC and Workday. Of PwC’s 75,000 employees, more than 20,000 had used its platform between December and May, HR Brew previously reported. And employees who took on gig assignments using Workday’s platform experienced internal mobility at a rate nearly 50% higher than their colleagues.