In this product demo, host GJ Jansen van Vuuren sits down with Shawn Bell, founder of Taluate, to explore how recruitment businesses can modernise one of the most overlooked stages of hiring: reference checking.

Shawn shares the story behind Taluate — from building a simple Excel-based reference scoring system during his time as a hiring manager, to creating a scalable platform now used by recruiters and agencies to reduce late-stage candidate fallout and improve hiring certainty.

Throughout the demo, Shawn walks through how recruiters can:
* Get fully set up in under five minutes
* Create competency-based assessments
* Send candidate and reference invites instantly
* Compare candidate self-assessments against referee feedback
* Generate visual reports for hiring managers
* Identify hiring risks, competency gaps, and outliers before offer stage
* Build stronger client relationships through data-backed hiring insights

The conversation also dives into:
* Why traditional reference checks often fail recruiters
* How structured competency frameworks improve consistency
* Using historical reference data for future placements
* Speeding up the hiring process without losing the human element
* How Taluate supports trusted advisory recruitment partnerships rather than transactional recruiting

Shawn also explains how recruitment agencies can access a free 30-day cohort program with unlimited recruiters, candidates, and assessments to test the platform inside their own process.

If you’re looking for a smarter way to validate talent, reduce risk, and improve hiring conversations with clients, this episode is packed with practical insights.

Who This Episode Is For:
* Recruitment agencies
* Talent acquisition leaders
* Executive search firms
* Recruiters struggling with late-stage fallout
* Hiring managers wanting better candidate visibility
* Recruiters looking to differentiate their service offering

Guest — Shawn Bell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connect-shawnbell/
Taluate: https://www.rectools.io/product/taluate/

Host — GJ Jansen van Vuuren: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%91%8Agj-jansen-van-vuuren%F0%9F%AB%9F-72b6b920a/
Rectools.io: https://www.rectools.io/

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