Full Name Colin Day Known for Founder of iCIMS | Occupation CEO of iCIMS Name Colin Day | |
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Alma mater Cornell University (1997) | ||
52 American Success Stories: Colin Day
Colin Day is an American businessman. He founded iCIMS in 1999 and is the company's CEO. iCIMS is a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service talent acquisition software solutions and has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in North America.
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Education and early career
Colin Day graduated from Cornell University with a degree in psychology.
Right after graduating Day started working for Comrise Technology, a New Jersey-based IT staffing firm, in a sales and business development position. While working as a Comrise employee, Day was given the opportunity to open a branch in Washington, D.C., which was successfully completed in 1998. It was with his experiences and accomplishments at Comrise that Day became knowledgeable about the software industry and the direction it was headed.
iCIMS, inc.
In 1999, Day seized the opportunity to take Comrise Technology's internally developed recruiting software and transform it into a web-based Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Day recognized that the future of talent acquisition solutions rested in the Software-as-a-Service model, and guided the re-development of the Comrise software into iRecruiter, a completely web-based applicant tracking solution. Day has likened Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, to the "pay-as-you-go culture of your local water utility: you turn on the tap and pay for what you drink, and let the water company worry about the pipes and filters."
In 2000, iCIMS went to market with the latest in web-based recruiting software, iRecruiter. By the time the software was released the HR software market was crowded with numerous providers selling similar products. To stand out from the competitors, Day recognized the issues within the industry, a lack of products catering to mid-market companies (companies with 500 to 10,000 employees) and universally weak customer service, to base the company’s marketing strategy on.
Day created a "Back to the Basics" corporate philosophy: Create a product supported by an unparalleled customer experience and make it the most robust, simple-to-use, and accessible ATS in the HRIS space. Additionally, iRecruit would be produced and marketed to mid-market as well as small businesses.
In 2008, Day decided it was time to expand the company’s portfolio and offer additional talent acquisition solutions. To reflect this change, in 2007 iRecruiter was renamed the iCIMS Talent Platform and a new product was added, iCIMS Onboard. In March 2011, the company introduced Social Distribution, a complementary recruitment advertising technology that automates the process of posting open positions within 300+ social media environments. iCIMS furthered its recruitment advertising offerings in August 2012 by introducing Career Site Search Engine Optimization(SEO) an option that enables recruiters at any size organization to better position their company to achieve top search engine rankings and garner more traffic to their career sites.
Today, iCIMS can power the entire talent acquisition lifecycle in one integrated, single source code platform. Explaining the rationale behind his one platform approach, Day said, "Using the same platform for sourcing, to recruiting, to onboarding all within a single web-based application provides enormous benefits to organizations of any size. It saves HR departments valuable time, creates an increased productivity and efficiency of processes, and last, but certainly not least, it is far more economical."
In January 2012, iCIMS secured a $35 million minority growth equity investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC (SGE). Prior to securing the investment capital, iCIMS had been self-funded, highly profitable, and solely grown organically at 43% CAGR since 2003, reaching $30 million in revenues in 2011.
Among the company’s clients are New Balance, TAS Energy Inc., ACCO Brands, and Hospital for Special Surgery.
Thought leadership
In addition to his success with iCIMS, Day also works to develop industry awareness and educate HR Professionals on how best to evaluate recruiting technology. Day has contributed to numerous publications including Information Week, Employment Marketplace, Human Resource Executive Online,Human Capital Magazine, HRO Today, eScouter Recruitment Magazine, and U.S News & World Report.
Philanthropy
Through iCIMS' green partner 3Degrees, Day purchases Renewable Energy Certificates. Additionally, he has implemented a corporate matching policy for donations employees make to renewable energy research facilities. Through the Nature Conservancy's Plant a Billion Trees Campaign, 25 trees are planted for every new hire at iCIMS.
In 2006, Day launched iGIVE Back, a program that empowers iCIMS employees to help the environment through volunteer and donor initiatives. iCIMS partners with eco-friendly organizations like Earth Share of New Jersey and Clean Ocean Action to engineer company-wide beach and park clean-ups.
Awards
Finalist of NJBIZ’s 2011 Business of the Year in the Executive of the Year category
Finalists of the 2009 NJBIZ’s Green Leadership Awards in the Green Executive of the Year category
Recognized as one of the most dynamic business leaders in NJBIZ’s 2008 Forty UNDER 40
Named Ernst & Young’s 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year in the Information Technology Software category
Rated one of the top 5 forward-thinking innovators in Fast Company's Fast 50 Readers Challenge.
Recognized as 2005 Distinguished Industry Leader by ReedLogic Speaker Board
Winner of Human Capital Magazine’s 2003 and 2005 Future HR Leader