Affinity + Wellfound: Strong, diverse talent pipeline for high-volume hiring

Previously published on celential.ai

Affinity is a relationship Intelligence platform that empowers dealmakers to drive and close more deals. Its next-generation CRM is purpose-built for fields like venture capital and investment banking, which rely on long-term, data-heavy relationships. Leveraging AI, ML, and NLP, Affinity helps users tap into the full potential of their networks and better understand their buyers. It’s intuitive and easy to deploy, and team members can collaborate at each touchpoint of the customer journey with history and engagement insights.

In 2021, Affinity closed a Series C round of funding for $120M, from leading investors like Menlo Ventures, Advance Venture Partners, and 8VC.

The challenge

Affinity was looking to scale their technical team across the US and Canada in 2020 after opening a new office in Toronto and 3 years of record growth, recognized by Inc. 5000. The demand for their data-driven CRM platform was expanding rapidly and they needed skilled talent to further accelerate their technology innovation.

The other key priority for Affinity was building an inclusive workforce. They have a company culture focused on empowering employees and have won multiple “Best Workplace” awards from Fortune and Inc. Affinity has great success in creating excellent candidate experience and closing candidates. However, building a strong and diverse talent pipeline for its many open technical roles was proving to be a slow and difficult process.

The solution

One of Wellfound’s customers had such a positive experience that once they heard about Affinity’s candidate pipeline challenges, they referred Wellfound immediately. Affinity was intrigued by the potential ROI of using Wellfound's AI technology to augment their tech candidate sourcing process and began the partnership with Wellfound in November 2020.

Immediate results and a consistent flow of qualified candidates

Wellfound presented the first warm candidate the first day after the partnership started and the first hire was made in only five weeks. Wellfound covered a crucial part of Affinity’s sourcing process during one of the company’s largest periods of growth and built strong talent pipelines for almost two years.

The quality of candidates we received... has been consistently superior to that from our other external sourcing solutions. We made an average of 4 tech hires every quarter.

Stephanie Martin, VP of People @ Affinity

Affinity filled 2/3 of their software engineering roles from the candidates

Wellfound discovered and activated over this period, landing 30 critical hires.

These hires covered a variety of technical roles across the US and Canada, including Mobile, Frontend, Backend, Machine learning, Product, and more. Seniority levels ranged from mid-level to Staff, Manager, and Director-level engineering positions.

Efficient sourcing support to optimize candidate experience and hiring success

Wellfound and Affinity achieved an impressive 80% present-to-interview ratio and 70% offer acceptance rate through a close, collaborative partnership. Wellfound’s powerful technology and dedicated customer support saved Affinity significant time and resources on talent sourcing at top of the funnel, so they were able to focus on building and nurturing candidate relationships.

Together, Wellfound and Affinity created an exceptional experience for candidates from start to finish. Wellfound ensured that candidates were engaged with warm, personalized outreach and rapid follow-up, and Affinity honed their rock-solid hiring process which included close involvement of their engineering team and executives to make top-quality hires.

Gender diverse targeting and engagement

Almost 40% of Affinity’s hires made through the partnership were women. This was achieved through Wellfound’s proactive targeting of underlooked talent pools and customized messaging speaking to mutual fit and shared values. Wellfound’s unique diversity sourcing approach helped Affinity meet their diversity goals and set up Affinity’s candidate-focused interview process perfectly.

With only 23% of software engineering hires being women, Affinity partnered with Wellfound to rocket past this industry norm.