SAP to acquire SmartRecruiters to bolster its HCM suite and recruitment data

HCM and enterprise software giant SAP plans to acquire the hiring platform SmartRecruiters.

Execs told reporters on a media call that the move would bolster SAP’s all-in-one suite with additional capabilities. The company announced the acquisition on Aug. 1.

“Bringing in talent isn’t just an HR priority, it’s a business priority,” SAP SuccessFactors Chief Product Officer Dan Beck said on the call. “SmartRecruiters has a robust portfolio with advanced capabilities [that] allows us to move more quickly to serve our customers.”

He pointed to SmartRecruiters’s AI expertise in candidate sourcing and screening, its rich sources of recruiting data that can help SAP further people intelligence for strategic workforce planning, and its robust end-to-end workflows that can help SAP deliver a better candidate experience, as well as a better experience for talent pros.

“Recruiters and hiring managers have really grown to love the brand and the product,” SmartRecruiters CEO Rebecca Carr said. “They’re using it every day in the flow of work, and it’s become not just a module or a bolt on, but really a system that is designed for hiring across all stakeholders in the hiring process.”

Beck said he expects the platform’s AI capabilities and data will help SAP better and more quickly serve its customers amid this moment of rapid technological transformation.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The move is still subject to regulatory approval, which Beck told reporters he expected in the last quarter of this year. The acquisition won’t change up the recruitment workflow for SAP or SmartRecruiters customers just yet. SmartRecruiters will remain an “agnostic vendor” for the “foreseeable future,” according to Carr.

“Whether you’re a SmartRecruiter customer or an SAP customer or both, we’re going to be able to create good value for you, and hopefully not a lot of complexity,” she said.