Phenom Acquires Be Applied for Skills-First Hiring

In Brief

• Phenom acquires Be Applied to enhance AI-driven hiring assessments.
• Organizations increasingly prioritize practical skills over credentials in recruitment.
• HR leaders gain scalable, validated skills assessment tools to reduce mis-hires and improve talent outcomes.

Phenom announced its second acquisition of 2026, with the buy of Be Applied, an AI-driven cognitive assessment solution. The deal adds adaptive skills validation capabilities to Phenom's enterprise talent platform and is a reflection of accelerating demand for AI-driven skills validation in hiring.

The acquisition helps organizations move toward skills-first hiring without sacrificing speed, quality or fairness, according to a company statement. London-based Be Applied's technology adapts assessments to specific job requirements across industries and experience levels.

The acquisition addresses a notable market shift. World Economic Forum's The Future of Jobs Report 2025 found 63% of employers view skills gaps as the biggest barrier to business transformation between 2025 and 2030. KPMG's Q4 2025 AI Pulse Survey found employers would pay salary premiums of up to 15% for candidates with strong AI skills.

Phenom's Strategic Acquisitions

Phenom has maintained strong momentum through strategic acquisitions and product innovations, at a time when experts predict accelerating M&A activity within the HR technology sector. 

The company's acquisition activity began in September 2020 with its buy of My Ally, a company known for its interview automation capabilities. An acquisition of Tydy in July 2024 brought enhanced preboarding and onboarding capabilities to the platform. Phenom followed the Tydy buy in February 2025 with the acquisition of EDGE to strengthen resource-planning tools.

On Jan. 14, 2026, Phenom acquired Included, an AI-native people analytics platform founded in 2021.

Skills-First Hiring Context

AI-powered skills intelligence platforms have emerged in recent years to analyze capabilities, match employees with opportunities and drive internal mobility. These tools are reshaping talent management practices across the enterprise. AI-driven skills management solutions now bring structure, scale and insight to previously manual processes.

The emergence of such solutions is in response to a common issue affecting enterprises: they know less about their own talent than external platforms like LinkedIn. This gap is driving adoption of evidence-based assessment tools that evaluate demonstrated capabilities rather than resume credentials.

Capabilities Be Applied Brings to Phenom

With today's buy, Phenom will add the following capabilities to its platform:

Capability	Description
Adaptive cognitive assessments	Evaluations that adjust to industry, role and experience level
AI-powered screening intelligence	Industry-specific hiring agents with added assessment intelligence
Inline delivery	Assessments embedded within application experience
Skills mapping reuse	Same assessments validate employee skills for gap analysis
Scientific validation	Industrial-organizational science ensures fairness and defensibility

Phenom Background

Phenom, founded in 2010, is an enterprise HR technology company that provides an AI-powered Intelligent Talent Experience platform designed to help organizations hire faster, develop better and retain longer. The platform uses Applied AI to automate and personalize the entire talent lifecycle — from recruitment and onboarding to employee development and retention — integrating with major HR systems and delivering personalized experiences for candidates, employees, recruiters and managers. Major clients include Southwest Airlines, Adobe, DHL and Mars.

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