Recruiting poses difficulties for every organization, but it’s a particularly big challenge in service industries where companies must often hire hundreds of employees per year due to high turnover. OnboardIQ Inc., a startup based in San Francisco, has armed itself with $9.1 million in funding announced today to tackle the issue.

The firm offers a cloud service that can automate many of the manual tasks involved in hiring personnel. During the initial applicant review stage, a recruiter can use OnboardIQ to quickly filter resumes based on factors such as location and professional experience. The platform then provides the ability to invite the qualifying candidates for interviews with a bulk messaging tool.

From there, OnboardIQ can be used to perform background checks and manage the on-boarding process for successful candidates. The platform packs an extensive set of data management features to help recruiters sort out the records that need to be filed when hiring a new employee. They can collect any personnel information that may be needed for administrative purposes, distribute legal documents via an electronic signing mechanism and share training materials. 

A retailer hiring personnel in a hurry ahead of the holiday season, for instance, could send recruits training videos to avoid the delay of hands-on orientation. OnboardIQ also provides the option of adding in test forms for checking that staffers fully understand job requirements. 

Meanwhile, an analytics dashboard lets managers look for ways they could improve their recruiting procedures. For example, the software highlights how much time it takes workers to complete each step of the on-boarding process. If a user sees that recruits require disproportionate time to successfully complete orientation tests, they might need to rework their training materials.

OnboardIQ claims Groupon Inc., Safeway Inc., Foodpanda GmbH as clients, and said its customers are already using the platform to process more than 300,000 job applications every month. Chicago-based fund Origin Ventures was the lead investor in today’s round, while Y Combinator, SoftTech VC and Crosslink Capital contributed as well.

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