IA02 JA - FAR Part 13.5 - HANDSHAKE 2024 COL STUD RECRUIT TOOL (Final)_Redacted 1.pdf

Control No: MICC 2024-59

FAR 13.5 SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURES FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

1. Contracting Activity: U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command - Fort Knox, 199 6th Avenue, Suite 250, Fort Knox, KY 40121-5720.

2. Description of Action: The Army’s Civilian Human Resource Agency (CHRA) – Army Civilian Career Management Activity (ACCMA) – Recruiting & Outreach, requests a new firm-fixed-price contract for three modules of a cloud-based software as a service platform with Stryder Corp, dba. Handshake, 225 Bush Street, Floor 12, San Francisco, CA 94104. The Government projects award for September 2024 and fiscal year 2024, Operations & Maintenance, Army funds will be used.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: CHRA requires a recruiting tool specifically centered around the College Student marketplace to increase efficiency and return on investment of recruiting college students. The recruiting tool is comprised of three modules of a cloud-based platform, which will be external to all Army systems. The products needed are: Twenty (20) Premium Licenses of the Talent Engagement Suite (TES), which enable and simplify college student talent engagement and recruiting;

One Hundred (100) Events in Virtual and In-Person Event Management (VEM); and One (1) Enterprise Program Management (EPM). EPM is an optional module to the tool, which provides enhanced access to technical help, tool setup, configuration, and availability of training. It provides a repository of documents that include information on lessons learned, proven methods of executing events, segmenting candidates, and developing materials. It also provides data generated by events and activities that can be utilized for analysis and return on investment.

Period of Coverage:

Base Period: 24 SEP 2024 to 23 SEP 2025 Option Period 1: 24 SEP 2025 to 23 SEP 2026 Option Period 2: 24 SEP 2026 to 23 SEP 2027 Option Period 3: 24 SEP 2027 to 23 SEP 2028 Option Period 4: 24 SEP 2028 to 23 SEP 2029

4. Authority Cited: Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items, 41 U.S.C.

1901 as implemented by FAR Subpart 13.5: Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

5. Reason for Authority Cited:

a. Background: The Army’s CHRA, ACCMA Recruiting and Outreach division, serving as the new Enterprise Level Lead for civilian recruiting in the Army, requires a

Handshake’s event module assists with virtual and in-person event development, setup, and execution, and the platform easily facilitates communicating with students using their “.edu” email addresses, and enables the tracking of data for ROI analysis of events. The platform and event module can easily handle the breadth and scope of the Army recruiting requirements for college students. Additionally, the Enterprise Program Management module provides user support for setup, configuration, and training.

By leveraging an enterprise approach to recruiting by using a tool like Handshake, it provides the ability for everyone who uses it to set up and hold Virtual recruiting events with colleges and universities for which they may have had to travel to in the past, but which now they can do virtually. So, travel expenses plus all the expense of taking some sort of booth, or backdrop, as well as hard copy materials, and other items on the road to an event, will no longer be needed.

Handshake possesses several unique qualifications that no other source possesses or can provide. Currently, Handshake is the official career management system of record with more than 1100 of the 1452 accredited public and private 4-year degree colleges/universities in the U.S. That equates to a 76% coverage of the target institutions and market, and they hold over a 90% share of the top 500 colleges in the U.S. No other company holds this kind of market penetration, with tools that fit the Army requirements, or the access to the universities and students the Army needs to recruit.

Within this network, Handshake partners with over 195 Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) including 59 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), 108 Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and 28 Women’s Colleges.

c. Alternatives. Any alternative vendor product either does not have the functionality required by the Army or does not have the market penetration to reach the greatest number of hiring candidates in our colleges and universities. Our ability to reach a broader and more diverse pool of student candidates with verified academic standing and demographics would be impaired using other vendors’ products compared to Handshake’s current products.

ACCMA was established as part of the Army People Strategy. One of its goals is to approach Civilian recruiting, training, and retention from the enterprise level, to more efficiently and effectively acquire, develop, employ, andretain civilian employees. Part of this work is to pull activities (like Recruiting of civilian employees) that have been executed by individual commands or organizations at the individual level to the enterprise level and provide capabilities for everyone to participate and use tools for the activities that will not only consolidate effort but will also have significant reduction of overall costs.

If the status quo is maintained, the implementation of the Army People Strategy will not be achieved, nor will the goals of ACCMA. There would be no cost savings from using a tool which allows each Army command who recruits civilians, to use an enterprise level tool that aggregates usage, reduces redundancy, ensures that the Army is speaking with one voice, but at the same time opens the access to potential candidates, and makes the recruiting process much more efficient.

d. Impact if this justification is not approved: Without being able to take advantage of this new technology and functionality that Handshake’s recruiting tools provide, the Army will lack an enterprise capability to recruit efficiently at a wide range of universities, and this will impact the Army’s goal of attaining an academically adept and diverse pool of candidates to bring into its workforce.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: On 09 July 2024, a Notice of Intent to Sole Source - Notice ID: W9124D24R0100 was submitted on the System Award Management (SAM.gov) for Handshake Software in support of the Army Civilian Career Management Activity (ACCMA) Recruiting and Outreach division serving as the new Army Enterprise Level Lead for civilian recruiting. The response date was 22 July 2024, which resulted in one response from a vendor but was dismissed because they were out of scope to successfully fulfill the requirement and reached out as a generalized vendor of many products and services.

Per AFARS 5139.101(a)(1), the Army's CHESS program is the mandatory source for commercial IT purchases. Specifically, the CHESS ITES-SW2 contracts are the primary vehicle for IT software purchases IAW Army Regulation 25-1. These contracts were awarded under the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) and Clinger-Cohen Act.

A thorough search of the CHESS system for the products required and/or for the proposed vendor, generated no results.

A Request for Quote (RFQ) #481857 “Talent Engagement Suite Premium Licenses” was sent to 28 CHESS software vendors on 13 February 2024. Twenty-seven of these vendors acknowledged the RFQ. Twenty-five of those responded with a no bid message and the other two vendors did not submit a response. The RFQ closed on 21 February 2024.

In addition, a request for Information (RFI) #482120 “Handshake Enterprise Recruiting Tools” was submitted on 15 February 2024 through the CHESS IT e-mart and disseminated to 28 CHESS vendors. The RFI closed 29 February 2024, 22 out of 28 vendors acknowledged the request, and 20 vendors responded, with a “no bid” response, the other two did not provide a response.

A Statement of Non-Availability no. 216805224 was obtained from CHESS on 29 February 2024 which indicates Handshake products are not available through CHESS.

ITAS waiver no. 20240223137490 was approved by the Army G-6 on 29 February 2024.

Handshake is the only company found that meets all the Army’s requirements and will enable ACCMA to accomplish all of its goals efficiently and effectively. This is because Handshake has proprietary rights to their products and have no licensed resellers of their products.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: ACCMA will continue conducting market research to monitor the marketplace for potential companies who may be getting a larger foothold with universities. ACCMA will also continue conducting market research to identify any new trends or new technology that may provide new solutions in the future.

8. Market Research: The Program Manager from the Army Civilian Career Management Activity conducted extensive market research via the internet and with a few colleges who use the proposed vendor. The research efforts included identifying competitors, similar companies, companies who said they had better solutions, industry news, trends in talent acquisition, and talent marketplaces. It is important to understand that this research was completed from the point of view of the employer and not individuals who are seeking employment. This viewpoint is critical in understanding the requirements of the employer, to understand how well companies met or did not meet the research criteria. The Market Research was focused on understanding the marketplace and the different companies within the “Talent Marketplaces” space, which generated the following results:

a. A total of forty-two companies were identified and reviewed. All companies were found based on searches for Talent Marketplaces; largest companies in Talent Marketplaces; or competitors within Talent Marketplaces. These searches generated results that contained lists of companies in Talent Marketplaces with claims that the listed companies were competitors in the industry segment of Talent Marketplaces.

All companies were compared against the following market research criteria:

1) Were the products offered as Cloud-Based products or would internal system integration and implementation be required on Army systems?

2) Did the company establish proprietary partnerships with the universities to become their career management system of record?

3) Did the company have their platform integrated with the University Registrar’s systems?

4) Did the company have access to verifiable data, or did they compile data by scraping websites?

5) Did the company have the ability to search, segment, and develop targeted lists of students, based on multiple characteristics using the same database covering over 1100 different universities?

6) Were the company products for employer customers with primary focus on the recruitment of college/university students?

7) Did the company have the capacity to handle the breadth and scope of the Army’s Civilian Recruiting requirements for college students?

b. Fifteen companies were basically job boards (job search sites). Overall, these companies had no partnerships with colleges, were not integrated into college systems, had no access to verifiable data, had no ability to search, segment, and develop highly targeted lists of college students, and were not focused on the college market.

c. Five companies were identified that focused on college students. They offered various ways for students and businesses to interact, but mainly both the businesses and the students had to find the same website, create profiles, and then spend their own time searching to try and find something. In one case, employers could post jobs for a cost and hope that a student saw the job posting. However, these companies had no connection to colleges, were not integrated into college systems, had no access to verifiable data, and had no ability to search, segment, and develop highly targeted lists of college students based on verifiable data.

d. One company was found who did have similar product offerings to Handshake.

However, it is unknown whether the system the college purchases is integrated with other college systems, and whether they have access to the same level and quantity of verifiable data. But more importantly, the company only has 32 college partners and 16 employer partners which is inadequate to meet the scope of coverage required by the Army.

e. The final company, Handshake, possesses unique qualifications that meet all requirements and all seven of the market research criteria above. They offer licenses to access a cloud-based platform that requires no integration with any Army system. They create proprietary partnerships with each college with which they do business. The Handshake platform is integrated in the college student information systems, which enables it to provide verifiable student data. In each case, the platform becomes the colleges’ career management system of record. Handshake’s cloud-base system enables companies with premium licenses to search, segment, and develop targeted lists of students using 26 different criteria. They are fully focused on college students as their primary market. There are approximately 1452 4-year colleges in the U.S. of which Handshake has proprietary partnerships with 1100 (76%) of the universities/colleges (that includes over 90% of the top 500 universities in the U.S.) and access to more than 9 million students, verifiable data on each student, capability to create highly focused lists of targeted students who the Army would be interested in hiring into the areas where the Army needs new employees. Handshake provides event management support, and a communication means via the students’ “.edu” email address.

Handshake is the only talent marketplace in the United States that incorporates students, universities, and employers. Handshake has an exclusive partnership with the universities which allows the organization to expand higher education partnerships programmatically and they are integrated with the university registrar's database and therefore the only place that provides you access to verified student academic data.

Handshake’s University partners give access to all students, resulting in over 15 million students actively leveraging the platform. This is the largest early talent network in the United States that includes 180 Minority Service Institutions and over 55 Historically Black Colleges and Universities as well as over 500,000 employers, including 100% of the fortune 500.

f. A search of SAM.Gov generated nine results over the past year, showing other federal agencies posting notices to offer sole source contracts with Handshake. All nine indicated that they were using sole source authorities. Of those nine results generated, five contained executed contract numbers.

9. Interested Sources: A Request for Quote (RFQ) #481857 “Talent Engagement Suite Premium Licenses” was sent to 28 CHESS software vendors on 13 February 2024. Twenty-seven of these vendors acknowledged the RFQ. Twenty-five of those responded with a no bid message. The RFQ closed on 21 February 2024. In addition, a request for Information (RFI) #482120 “Handshake Enterprise Recruiting Tools” was submitted on 15 February 2024 through the CHESS IT e-mart and disseminated to 28 CHESS vendors. The RFI closed 29 February 2024, 22 out of 28 vendors acknowledged the request, and 20 vendors responded, with a “no bid” response, the other two did not provide a response. To date no other companies have contacted or written to the Army Civilian Career Management Activity to express interest in the acquisition.

10. Other Facts:

Procurement History.

Contract number: W9124D21C0023 Contractor: Stryder Corp (Handshake) Description of requirement: HANDSHAKE College Student Recruiting Tool Competitive Status: Sole Source Authority: FAR 13.5 Contract type: Firm Fixed Price (FFP) Period of performance: 24 September 2021 through 23 September 2024 Total awarded amount: $1,815,450.00