Revolutionizing HR Tech: An Interview with CJ Tufano, Founder of Cherrypicker and Co-Founder of Enrichly AI
I had the pleasure of interviewing CJ Tufano, who is the Founder of Cherrypicker (hiring marketplace), the Co-Founder of Enrichly AI (Contact Data Research Service), an independent recruiter and digital transformation expert in the staffing industry. CJ has 10+ years of large staffing agency experience recruiting for Accounting, Real Estate, and Finance verticals nationwide. He has appeared on several podcasts discussing new innovations in the HR Tech industry and digital transformation within talent acquisition.
What motivated you to launch your startup?
My passion for the staffing industry coupled with the drive to develop solutions that solve a very disjointed hiring process is what gets me up in the morning. I personally have been very fortunate to have had a unique 360 degree experience understanding pain points from a candidate/job seeker/hiring manager prospective.
- As a job seeker, I found it difficult to scan through many irrelevant job postings and finding a new job became a chore.
- When I decided to become a recruiter, I struggled to mass market my active and passive candidate database to our clients at scale since their needs were everchanging.
- As a hiring manager, sourcing for great talent was very time-consuming. Linkedin is a great social network but it lacks transparency of your connection’s needs from a recruiting perspective.
I knew there had to be an easier way to bring all parties together under one ecosystem so we started whiteboarding out the optimal process from all sides to create what eventually became Cherrypicker.
My other venture, Enrichly AI, was born when Cherrypicker needed the ability to find contact data at scale but not one single data provider we worked with had 100% coverage to find everything we needed.
My Co-founder and I created a data waterfall which does what Kayak.com does for the travel industry. It researches for verified contact data (mobile number, personal email, work email, direct work number, social network data etc), and finds it for you at the best possible price.
The goal is to achieve economies of scale so that the end user pays what we pay plus a research fee to achieve near 100% coverage for enriching any lead list (significantly less than signing up for 10 different providers).
What is it that excites you about what you’re building?
Every day the HR Technology landscape is evolving and we feel that we can be a catalyst that changes the way job seekers connect with the companies of their dreams.
The job market lacks a few things including salary transparency, confidentiality and wide scale access to accurate information. We are on a mission to create job market that is removed of hiring bias while arming hiring managers with actionable intelligence, and providing market data to candidates to better understand their worth.
Everything we create is product centered around improving the user experience for all parties.
What is your stance on the power of Artificial Intelligence and how it will affect your industry?
I think when used in the right setting, artificial intelligence will help us automate manual tasks while freeing up more time to focus on developing valuable skills like relationship building. Our stance all along has been to maintain human touch while leveraging automation tools to expedite the hiring process. Removing the human element from the hiring equation will be an extremely difficult task. The presence of collective human consciousness to solve problems is irreplaceable. Decision making and problem solving requires the ability to leverage emotional connections which Artificial Intelligence doesn’t have the capabilities yet to do (and hopefully never will!)
What are your future plans for your startup?
Cherrypicker is actively exploring plans to merge its technology with a large staffing organization that dominates multiple verticals or become a managed service provider to a handful of staffing organizations in different verticals.
It’s a true win-win for any firm(s) that partner with us, hiring managers access a secret talent pool of the best talent, candidates receive more relevant opportunities confidentially and the recruiting firm who represents those candidates get rewarded for making additional placements from the passive candidate database.
We believe that all candidates and hiring managers should have the opportunity to experience Cherrypicker’s ecosystem. Merging with a firm or multiple recruiting firms with nationwide presence will scale our reach while helping them achieve more optimal revenue-generating efficiency. We are constantly innovating leveraging the best technology available to expedite the hiring process without sacrificing quality.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
Here is a list of things I have learned along the way that I wish someone told me before I started:
- Don’t be married to one idea, be prepared to pivot from your original idea.
- Having laser focus and having tunnel vision with blinders on are two very different things.
- Keep an open mind and hear out as many different perspectives as you can so you can plan for the worst while validating your vision.
- Learn how to be scrappy first and before trying to raise capital right away.
- Remember the concept of providing mutual value when networking.
- If you think your project is going to cost 1x it will most likely ending up costing you 3x.
- Be prepared to hear the word “No” and learn how to say it yourself.
- Under promise, over deliver!
How can our readers follow you on social media?
You can follow along with our progress at:
Website: https://www.getcherrypicker.com
https://www.enrichly.ai
Instagram: @getcherrypicker
Twitter: @getcherrypicker
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cherrypicker
Company Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cherrypicker/
Follow CJ Tufano on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjtufano/
This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
