Four Valley companies gained recognition from Forbes magazine for being among the nation’s 500 top startup employers.
All four Arizona companies that made the 2022 America’s Best Startup Employers list are based in Scottsdale, and all four found their way into the top half of the companies ranked.
Proctorio, an education service company that helps facilitate online exams, landed highest, coming in at No. 110. Not far behind was Trainual at No. 126. That company provides software that helps companies onboard and train new employees. Trainual also is one of the Valley’s largest software firms and one of the Phoenix Business Journal's Best Places to Work.
The others on the list were No. 195 Emerge, a digital freight marketplace, and No. 211 Paradox, a company that uses artificial intelligence to help with recruiting.
Paradox also picked up among the most outside funding last year, raising $200 million in 2021.
In addition, Proctorio, Emerge and Paradox all made it on the Inc. 5000 list of the country's fastest-growing companies.
As at other companies, the current competitive labor market is contributing to improving employee situations at startups. Startups also have to make themselves more appealing because of a shift in worker attitudes.
Forbes said that startups had been seeing more interest from employees than corporations before the pandemic, but since Covid-19 showed up, more people are looking toward bigger companies, meaning many startups are stepping up to compete.
This is Forbes’ fourth year doing the list. The magazine worked with market research company Statista to evaluate 2,500 businesses that have 50 employees that were founded between 2012 and 2019.
The companies were then narrowed down to 500 and ranked based on the following criteria:
- Employee satisfaction: Research was conducted on 'Average Length of Employment' and 'Online Employer Reviews.'
- Employer reputation: Company specific information was algorithmically extracted from social media channels such as news sites, micro-blogs, blogs and social networks.
- Company growth: Evaluations of 'Website Traffic', 'Headcount Growth Rates', and 'Industry-Referenced Job Openings.'
