As AI-generated resumes, deepfake interview responses, and fabricated work histories create a new candidate verification crisis for enterprise hiring, Phenom today announced the acquisition of Plum, a pioneer in psychometric-based talent assessments that validate the durable skills AI cannot manufacture and resumes cannot verify. This follows the acquisition of Be Applied, completing a full-spectrum assessment stack that validates cognitive, behavioral, and situational capabilities across every candidate and role at enterprise scale.
By 2028, one in four job candidate profiles worldwide will be fake (Gartner).
Cost of a single bad hire averages at least 30% of employee's first-year salary.
Plum's Role Model technology maps behavioral blueprints against 40,000+ real-world jobs.
Accuracy proven four times greater than resume screening alone.
Second acquisition in 10 weeks (Be Applied acquired February 2026).
Assessments independently audited for adverse impact across demographic groups.
The acquisition comes as enterprise hiring faces pressure on two fronts: the collapse of resumes as a reliable signal for candidate potential, and the inability of legacy assessment tools to scale behavioral insight consistently across roles, markets, and hiring volumes. The combination of Plum's science with Phenom's Hypercell framework and automation capabilities will give enterprises the ability to address the issues of synthetic talent by empowering them to rapidly scale comprehensive skills validation to emerging and transforming roles. Taking into account the full context of each role based on industry, function, and geography, AI and automation will be carefully applied to both assessment creation and delivery.
Organizations can define what success looks like for any role and automatically deploy the right assessments to measure candidate fit, calibrated to the specific demands of their industry, function and market. A healthcare system hiring patient-facing staff can assess empathy and composure under pressure alongside clinical skills, delivered via Phenom's Voice Assessment Agent. A financial services firm recruiting relationship managers can evaluate social intelligence and sound judgment alongside technical qualifications. A hospitality company recruiting guest experience managers can assess emotional intelligence while the Simulation Agent tests how candidates handle difficult customers or unexpected situations.
Plum joins Be Applied as the anchors of Phenom's strategy to unify candidate assessment and employee development on a single agentic platform, so the behavioral intelligence captured at hire continues to inform growth, mobility, and succession planning across the talent lifecycle. Be Applied provided cognitive and situational judgment assessments, while Plum provides psychometric and behavioral validation. The result is the only end-to-end system for validating candidates on both what they can do and how they'll do it, driven by Phenom's Hypercell precision and delivered through AI agents that operate alongside recruiters and hiring managers.
As Mahe Bayireddi, CEO and co-founder of Phenom, stated: "AI is making general intelligence a commodity, and human skills have never mattered more; yet hiring still relies on gut feelings to assess them. By bringing Plum's psychometric science and models together with our skills ontologies and agentic workflows, we're enabling every enterprise to scale behavioral assessments that predict employee performance for every role, in every market."
Abhinav Shrivastava, Research Manager at IDC, added: "Resume-based screening and basic assessments reveal what candidates have done, but aren't well-suited for identifying leadership potential, adaptability, and learning agility, especially in an era of poor skill signal quality. Integrating skills-based assessment with psychometric science delivers a more robust and reliable skill signal. Phenom's acquisition of Plum, in addition to Be Applied, brings comprehensive assessment capabilities to the market."
Caitlin MacGregor, CEO and co-founder of Plum, said: "Plum was built on the belief that every person has untapped potential, and organizations deserve the science to find it. Joining Phenom brings that science to every hiring team, every career decision, and every industry around the world. Performance depends on fit, not pedigree. Together, we're giving organizations the ability to hire with precision, surface overlooked talent and build teams based on how people actually think and perform."
About Phenom
Phenom is an applied AI company with the only AI infrastructure built specifically for HR. Powered by Engines that harmonize data, Ontologies that guide every decision, X AI that hyper-personalizes experiences, and Agents that work alongside teams, Phenom's platform uses industry and business context to automate workflows, eliminate busywork, and enhance every experience while remaining compliant. Driven by a purpose to help a billion people find the right work, no other company is as dedicated to helping organizations hire faster, develop better and retain longer.
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