Our Mission

We started SSR in 2018 to help organizations find and buy the right HR and recruiting tools through our in depth reviews and buyer guides.

Our team of editors collectively have over 40 years of using and evaluating HR technologies. Some of us worked in People or TA, or have simply lived HR Tech for years as a technology analyst.  We also rely heavily on the input of users and experts to inform the advice we give our readers.

You can read about how we select vendors, check out our HR software buyer guides, or use our many resources for teams looking to buy software around ROI, price negotiations, or how to get buy-in from your boss.

Our business makes money through vendor advertising. If a vendor is selected to be on our site, we allow them to advertise and so we may earn a fee if you click on various vendor links throughout our site.  We also typically have advertisers in our newsletter.

Our Editorial team works separately from our sales team. Editorial has 100% control over what is written on the site, and which vendors we share with our audience. Each month we turn down offers to pay to be on our site. We strongly believe that our success aligns with our readers, and the best way to serve readers is by offering objective advice.

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Our Timeline

Phil writes the first post on SSR explaining what to look for an in ATS
Fall 2018
4 summer interns join us to help get the word out about our first HR Tech buyer guides
Summer 2019
We generated our first revenues as a business
Fall 2019
The first month where more than 10,000 companies use our advice to buy the right software
Spring 2020
We hired our first two employees Huda and Rodrigo!
Summer 2020
Over 100,00 companies use our advice!
Year 2020
We launch our Q&A community where HR pros can ask each other about anything HR Tech related
Spring 2021
We launch our PeopleOps Job board full of amazing HR roles
Summer 2021
Over 300,000 companies use our advice!
2021
We expanded our team to 10 full time employees
2022
We reached a new milestone with 12 full-time employees
2023
Launched Performance Content and Talk to HR Advisor offering
2024

Our Team

Phil Strazzulla
Founder / CEO
HR Tech Expert, Harvard MBA, Software Enthusiast
Laura Duane
COO
Operations expert with 10 years' experience in business and people leadership
Ciro Alvarez
Head of Vendor Relations
International B2B Seller, Go-to-Market Strategist, Bidding Manager
Shubham Sahu
Head of Marketing
Marketing & Growth professional with 8+ years of experience working with B2C & SaaS startups
Rodrigo Vázquez Mellado
Editor
HR and B2B Software analyst & advisor, tech writer, musician
Huda Idris
Editorial Operations Manager
Technical writer, B2B software advisor, and marketing strategist
Frieda de Jager
Senior Content Marketing Editor
Senior content marketing editor with 10 years of technical journalism experience
Aswin Raghav Rengarajan
Marketing Manager
Full-stack digital marketer and content creator
Sean Johnstone
Account Manager
15 years of experience with focus on sales and marketing for global companies, managing B2C and B2B customer relationships.
Alison Hunter
Editor
HR Tech author with over 10 years in Human Resources with strong focus on people-centric narratives
Ryan Davis
SEO Lead
Experienced SEO & content marketing professional and remote work advocate
Anh Nguyen
Staff Writer
Former recruiter and experience-driven HR editor who loves to write all things HR and recruitment tech

The sun never sets on SSR

How We Got Started

Hi - My name is Phil and I’m a software geek.  I’ve been a software engineer, software investor, and software entrepreneur.

I started SSR because it’s getting harder to find and implement the right software. Plus, most of the advice online is very biased or too theoretical.

My hope is that our content will help you buy the right tools, build your organization, and help you progress in your career.

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Our Software selection process

Research
We talk to industry experts, users, buyers, and vendors to comprehensively understand the different solutions
Educate
We take the massive amounts of data we collect during our research phase to refine our content into bite sized chunks you can use to find and buy the right tools
Iterate
We aren't going to be perfect the first time we understand a landscape, we also know that tools are evolving at light speed, so we constantly update our research to keep readers informed

The information provided on our site is meant to assist in the vendor selection process, but should not replace your own decision making process, merely augment it.  You should do your own diligence on vendors before making any purchasing or partnership decision.

Lastly, our business makes money through online advertising. While we only feature companies on our site that we believe in, we do allow these companies to run ads on our site. These ads almost exclusively show up on our "best software" categories and vendor review pages. Advertisers will have some of the most prominent spots on this page, and typically have links back to landing pages on their sites, with UTM codes in the URL to help them track the ROI of their spend.

Please reach out with any questions about our research or business!

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