Chatbots Are the New Phone Interview

What is the purpose of a phone screen?

We asked Jim Stroud, Global Head of Sourcing and Recruiting Strategy for the Randstad Sourceright Talent Innovation Center. Here’s what he said:

“A phone screen is generally perceived as an effort to gauge the qualifications and interest of a candidate. However, I see it as more than that, especially when representing a client. A phone screen is an opportunity to make an indelible mark on someone we might hire, someone who might refer a candidate, someone who might consume the products or services of our client and someone who may rave about the recruitment experience so much that their testimonial on social media serves as a recruiting vehicle in and of itself.”

Additionally, in a recent blog post titled The Best Phone Screen Interview Questions, Robert Half similarly highlights the importance of phone screens saying, “a candidate’s answers to key phone screening interview questions can allow you to speedily identify the most promising candidates.” The post goes on to share a list of questions aimed at uncovering a candidate’s work style, soft skills, technical skills and expectations for the position.

When it comes down to it, recruiters use phone screens to achieve three things:

1. Present information about the job to the candidate
2. Capture information about the candidate
3. Be empathetic and engaging for the candidate

These three outputs are vital, allowing recruiters to make informed decisions on whether to move candidates forward or not. Monster and G2V Careers reports that recruiters spend 78,352 minutes on the phone per year or roughly 63% of a 40-hour work week.

Source: Monster

This got us thinking…

What if we could achieve the outcome of a phone screen without actually having a phone screen?

When we began testing our AI chatbot for recruiters, Wendy, we asked ourselves:

• Would this save recruiters hours of time each week?
• Would this be an engaging and empathetic experience for candidates?
• Would this capture the necessary information to further decision-making capabilities?

Our hypothesis was “yes,” we can replicate the outcome of a phone screen without actually conducting a phone screen. In our early beta stage, Wendy has begun validating this hypothesis. She pre-screens applicants via chat (think: text, Facebook messenger or web) and then delivers the transcript (as well as her recommendations) to recruiters. Here’s what we’re seeing so far:

1. Better Candidate Experience

Recruiters have a lot on their plate, especially when over half their week is spent on phone calls. As a result, many phone screens are rushed and distracted, leaving candidates feeling unheard. Wendy, on the other hand, is patient. She doesn’t have the same time restraints as humans and can chat with candidates whenever and for as long as they wish. For corporate positions, candidates are spending around 31 minutes chatting with Wendy, while candidates for more blue collar positions are engaging for 7 to 11 minutes.

2. Better Notes & More Complete Candidate Profiles

Following a chat with an applicant, Wendy shares the transcript directly with recruiters. As a result, recruiters are learning information about applicants outside their cover letter, resume and LinkedIn profile — without having to take notes or conduct any research.

With the Wendy chat transcript, recruiters have a robust profile on every applicant before they ever reach out. The information is detailed and presented uniformly, so if hiring for a position is put on hold and resumed months later, there’s no knowledge gap or need to re-assess the applicant for fit. With Wendy, candidate fit is no longer determined by the note-taking skills of the recruiter. Regardless of how detailed their notes are, at some point, a recruiter will be under the weather and forget to capture an important point or their computer will crash, capturing nothing at all. Wendy removes the subjectivity of recruiters’ notes and the effect they have on a candidate’s standing.

3. More Intelligent & Knowledgeable Conversations

Wendy allows recruiters to pre-qualify ahead of scheduling a phone interview. This means two things: (1) recruiters are taking less phone calls and (2) the phone calls they do take are more informed. With more information about an applicant available to them, the initial conversation flows better and is more relevant.

In some cases, recruiters have moved candidates straight to the in-person interview after reviewing the Wendy chat transcript. We expect this to happen more and more as Wendy’s knowledge base and understanding of various roles and domains grows.

Looking Forward

When you think back to the best interviews you’ve had (whether as an interviewee or interviewer), it usually has something to do with the quality of conversation. People remember really great conversations. Our goal with Wendy is to allow better flowing and informed conversations to occur. By automating the outcome of the pre-screen process, recruiters can focus on listening and candidates can focus on sharing their story.

About the Author:

Bailey Newlan is the Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy, a New York City-based startup on a mission to make hiring more human. Wade & Wendy is a conversational engagement platform for recruitment automation. To connect, reach out to Bailey via LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium.

P.S. If you went down on SourceCon, give Bailey a shout at bailey@wadeandwendy.ai

 

An AI Intern For Your Recruiting Team

Source: Wanda Arca via Dribbble

As a recruiter, have you ever had an intern?

It’s awesome. They take on many of the tedious administrative tasks that typically take up so much of your time. They assist with everything from processing applications to coordinating interviews and compiling applicant profiles for hiring managers.

Ah, the luxury.

Then they leave for the Summer. Suddenly all those tasks are put back on your plate. You now have to cut back on one-on-one time with candidates. You’re back to scheduling interviews and filtering through application after application. Gone are the days of complete, uninhibited focus on building relationships with candidates. Gone are the days of getting ahead of your hiring managers’ needs.

But with AI interns, you get the best of both worlds.

Artificially Intelligent (AI) interns share many of the qualities of their human counterparts, except they’re in it for the long haul. AI is impressionable, sponge-like and eager to learn. With AI interns, you get all the benefits of having human interns and none of the downsides. AI doesn’t take lunch breaks or Summer Fridays.

This is what inspired our beta testing program, aptly titled the Wendy Internship Program. Wendy is our conversational AI chatbot for recruiters. Wendy is young and eager, like an intern. She melds seamlessly into your existing workflow, easing burdens and lightening your workload along the way.

As a first round interviewer, Wendy helps recruiters engage and qualify candidates by chatting with them after they apply. This chat occurs via SMS/Facebook Messenger or our web app, and is similar to an initial phone screen. Here’s an example of Wendy initiating a conversation with Katie, a Software Developer who applied to a role at ACME:

This an example of how Wendy starts a chat with an applicant.

Like previously mentioned, Wendy is young and impressionable, so this is your opportunity to shape her to your needs as a recruiter. Wendy…

• Allows for more data-driven decision making — Wendy is able to gather information not found in applicants’ resumes. With these enriched applicant profiles, you can make more informed decisions about who to interview.
• Increases your bandwidth — Rather than going through countless email exchanges and phone screens, you can allocate that time to other areas, like sourcing and building candidate relationships. Wendy also handles many administrative tasks, like scheduling and updating applicants.
• Improves applicant engagement — Because Wendy can engage every single applicant, applicants no longer experience the “ATS black hole.” Unlike humans, Wendy never sleeps — meaning she can screen applicants at any time of the day and even on holidays.

We are currently filling out our Wendy Internship Program and looking for the next class of companies who are excited to help us train Wendy. If you’re interested in adding Wendy to your team, sign up here.

About the Author:

Bailey Newlan is the Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy, a New York City-based startup on a mission to make hiring more human. Wade & Wendy is a conversational engagement platform for recruitment automation. To connect, reach out to Bailey via LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium.

---

If you want to share this article the reference to Bailey Newlan, Wade & Wendy and The HR Tech Weekly^® is obligatory.

5 Machine Learning Startups To Improve Your Recruiting Workflow

This list was originally published on Product Hunt here. Below is an abbreviated version.

Sam DeBrule co-founder of Journal and voice of the Machine Learnings Newsletter has curated a list of top startups using Machine Learning to automate work-related tasks. I’ve pared this down to my favorites for simplifying recruiting and team building efforts.

1. Textio | Spell checker for gender bias and more

Job descriptions are often vague and unintentionally biased, which affects the quality and diversity of applicants applying to your jobs. By generating insights from your job posts, Textio teaches you how to better message an open job role in a way that is both non-discriminatory and eye-catching to applicants.

2. Slack | Real-time messaging, archiving & search

Slack facilitates quick, real-time communication using ML-powered search, allowing you to chat with your team and candidates without the lag-time between emails. It automates many internal status updates and meetings regarding candidates as they move through the pipeline. Additionally, with hundreds of groups, it’s a great place to source candidates and learn tactics and best practices from other recruiters.

3. Wade & Wendy | AI chatbot for engaging & interviewing candidates

Wade & Wendy has developed an Applicant Experience Chatbot, Wendy. She serves as a first-round interviewer and candidate engagement tool. By chatting with applicants at the top of the funnel, recruiters and hiring teams can spend more time building relationships with candidates and sourcing hard-to-fill positions.

Disclaimer: I work at Wade & Wendy! 😎

4. Grammarly | Clear, effective, mistake-free writing everywhere you type

With nearly 1 in 3 employees searching for new opportunities, many often communicate with recruiters when a few spare minutes arise while at their current job. When candidates have a small window of time, recruiters need to move fast with their communication. Grammarly is a seamless way to side-step embarrassing typos when quickly emailing (or Slack-ing) back and forth.

5. X.ai | An AI personal assistant who schedules meetings for you

Between, texting, calling, emailing and messaging candidates, it’s tough to keep your calendar straight. X.ai uses AI scheduling assistants to automate this process. Cc’ing Amy to emails eliminates the time-consuming task of scheduling phone calls, interviews and coffees with candidates.

Any other tools keeping your recruiting efforts on track? Drop them in the comments section.👇

About the Author:

Bailey Newlan is the Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy, a New York City-based startup on a mission to make hiring more human. Wade & Wendy is a conversational engagement platform for recruitment automation. To connect, reach out to Bailey via LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium and join the private beta list.

---

If you want to share this article the reference to Bailey Newlan, Wade & Wendy and The HR Tech Weekly^® is obligatory.

Google for Jobs: Opening the Door for Applicant Experience Chatbots

Source: TechCrunch

Recently, the Google Cloud Jobs API team unveiled Google for Jobs. By aggregating similar job titles into groups of jobs, job seekers can search and discover relevant jobs in a centralized location, rather than visiting multiple job boards and company career pages. Google says recruiters can expect “more, motivated applicants.”

Google’s entrance to the job search space, brings much needed innovation. In a recent blog post, Google for Jobs: Disrupting the Recruiting Market?, Josh Bersin, details today’s frustrating landscape:

“The bottom line is a lot of headaches and inefficiency in the job market: the average open position receives more than 150 resumes, more than 45% of candidates never hear anything back from the employer, 83% of candidates rate their job search experience poor…”

With Google doing what they do best — organizing information and making it searchable and discoverable, the job search experience will improve. This further catalyzes an already budding, industry-wide movement towards improved candidate engagement.

When coupled with the increasing pervasiveness of “Quick Apply” options, Google’s enhanced job discoverability has officially knocked down all barriers to applying. Recruiters will experience a massive increase in inbound applicants.

As applicant pools grow, recruiters’ needs will shift from, “How do I get applicants to apply to my jobs?” to “How do I engage this new and much larger applicant pool?” The application floodgates have opened and recruiters, already stretched thin, lack the bandwidth to engage.

Here’s where chatbots come in.

Chatbots engage on candidates’ schedules.

Most applicants and recruiters have tight schedules, which makes it hard to find time to connect. With narrow windows of time to communicate, recruiters and applicants often miss each other. Unlike recruiters, chatbots are not limited by time. Rather, they engage with applicants at their convenience.

Chatbots are patient and listen attentively.

In order to move through the ever-growing queue of applicants, recruiters often rush through the most important aspect of their job: building relationships with candidates. Recruiters strive to listen to candidates, to empathize with their situation and to provide thoughtful feedback and context about the job. Unfortunately, buckling under the pressure to quickly engage, screen and assess, recruiters lack the bandwidth to provide such a thoughtful experience. Chatbots, on the other hand, can be patient when recruiters cannot. Chatbots fulfill the outcome recruiters desire, but are too overburdened to achieve themselves.

Chatbots allow recruiters to make data-driven decisions.

Lastly, similar to “Quick Apply” applications, rushed interviews reduce the data available to recruiters. Short, distracted phone screens provide an incomplete picture of a candidate. Not only does this force recruiters to make decisions based on data they know is incomplete, but candidates are left feeling misrepresented. Chatbots patiently listen to applicants in order to gather a complete picture of their experiences and skills as they relate to the role in question — effectively replicating the outcome recruiters seek in the initial phone screen, but with more holistic data.

Candidates deserve a hiring experience that is un-rushed, attentive and personable. Recruiters want this too, but lack the bandwidth to provide such engagement at scale. The introduction of Google for Jobs further compounds this dilemma.

🙋 ️Enter Wendy.

Wendy is an Applicant Experience Chatbot. She automates the experience recruiters wish they could provide for every applicant. She does not seek to replicate the candidate-recruiter relationship itself. Rather, she replicates, at scale, the outcome a conversation between candidate and recruiter achieves. She aims to engage candidates in an attentive, empathetic way that makes them comfortable enough to open up about their professional accomplishments and career goals — just as a recruiter seeks to do.

What other implications do you think Google for Jobs has on the industry? Let us know in the comments or start a conversation with us on Twitter: @wadeandwendy.

---

If you want to share this article the reference to Wade & Wendy and The HR Tech Weekly^® is obligatory.

The Conversation Paradox: Why 100% of Interviews Are Biased

In a recent New York Times article, The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews, Jason Dana, Assistant Professor of Management and Marketing at the Yale School of Management, explores the biases surrounding the unstructured interview process. He observes that:

“…interviewers typically form strong but unwarranted impressions about interviewees, often revealing more about themselves than the candidates.”

Throughout the article, Dana cites, Belief in the Unstructured Interview: The Persistence of an Illusion, a study he conducted in 2013 with 140 student subjects. To test the effectiveness of interviews in predicting a student’s GPA, Dana broke students into two groups. While both sets of students used past GPA and course schedule to make predictions, only one group was interviewed. The results of the study showed that GPA predictions were more accurate for the students not interviewed. In other words, the interviews muddled the data and negatively impacted the decision-making process. 

Conversations Are Biased

Something occurred during the interviewing process that led the interviewer to misidentify which interviewees were best qualified and thus most likely to succeed. This ‘something’ is the collection of biases that often come up through the course of conversation or what we, at Wade & Wendy, refer to as conversational bias.

Conversational bias is the set of biases that influence the quality and quantity of data extrapolated during the course of a conversation. At a high level, it includes two key components:

• Set of biases refers to external factors, including everything from confirmation biases and preconceived notions to physical environment and mood, that influence how a person engages in a conversation.
• The quality and quantity of data refers to the information learned during the course of a conversation and how helpful it is in facilitating good decision-making.

The data learned through conversation is inherently incomplete and/or misleading due to the external factors and biases that influence engagement and perception. This is clearly demonstrated in the study above, where subjects were better able to identify future success for students whom they had never met over students that they had met. While not explicitly referred to as ‘conversational bias,’ the issues it perpetuates have been studied time and time again.

Interviews Are Biased

There is information asymmetry between the data learned in a job description and the data learned from a resume. Former SVP of People Operations at Google, Laszlo Bock, says about this paradigm:

“[having] a taxonomy of skills and abilities that are hard to articulate, and resumes don’t do a good job of capturing them. Employers have a set of jobs, but are terrible at both articulating what they need, and actually filtering candidates.”

Essentially, the two forms (resume and job description) used to determine a job seeker’s ability to fulfill the requirements of a job both contain incomplete data. It is for this reason that a conversation — often in the form of an initial phone screen or a first-round interview — is necessary to resolve this asymmetry. This initial conversation allows candidates to better understand the requirements of the job and allows hiring managers to gather information not found in the resume.

It is at this point in the hiring process that conversational bias comes into play.

For example, imagine a hiring manager has a full day of interviews lined up. Throughout the day, he/she becomes increasingly fatigued and, as a result, asks poorer questions and takes fewer notes as the day goes on. Because the conversation and the subsequent data gathered about each candidate is different, it becomes impossible to compare candidate to candidate accurately.

The Problem

In Dana’s Belief in the Unstructured Interview study, GPA, course schedule and an interview were used to predict future success. Results showed that the assessments were less accurate when interviews were included in the decision-making process. In effect, the interviewers were counterproductive.

The Other Problem

To fill the information gap that exists between resume and job description, a conversation must take place. Applicants need clarification on the requirements of the role, just as hiring managers need to gather information not found within the resume.

The Paradox

These problems present two interesting concepts: 1) Conversations are biased and 2) Conversations are necessary. This is what we, at Wade & Wendy, call “The Conversation Paradox.”

Looking Ahead

While the very act of conversation has been proven to introduce numerous biases, it remains a critical part of the hiring process. To date, many solutions have been proposed, such as Dana’s suggestion to use structured interviews, but these solutions do not go far enough. Rather,

• What if there were an artificially intelligent tool smart enough to have a conversation without bias?
• What if there were an artificially intelligent tool agile enough to converse with 100% of candidates 100% of the time?

At Wade & Wendy, we are eagerly working on this solution. To join the conversation, chat with us on Twitter… We’re passionate about conversation, after all: @wadeandwendy.

About the Author:

Bailey Newlan is the Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy, a New York City-based startup on a mission to make hiring more human. Wade & Wendy’s artificially intelligent chatbot personalities bring clarity and simplicity to the hiring process. Wade is an always-on career guide for job seekers, while Wendy assists hiring managers throughout the recruitment process. To connect, reach out to Bailey via LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium and don’t forget to join the beta list.✌️

---

If you want to share this article the reference to Bailey Newlan, Wade & Wendy and The HR Tech Weekly^® is obligatory.

Solving the Job Application Black Hole with Chatbots

Written by Bailey Newlan, Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy.

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are not inherently bad — for the hiring manager. They are critical to managing massive amounts of resumes and establishing an efficient workflow. However, the candidate experience suffers. A survey conducted by CareerBuilder found that 52% of employers responded to less than 50% of candidate applications. With such little communication, candidates are left frustrated and unsure of where they stand. This is referred to as the “ATS Black Hole.”

By incorporating Conversational Intelligence into the existing process, better engagement, better communication and transparency can be realized.

This is how a conversation with Wendy, our conversationally intelligent chatbot, begins in Facebook Messenger.

Here’s How the ATS Fails Candidates

When an individual applies for a job, his or her resume is sent into a company’s ATS. Through matching algorithms and keyword extraction, a shortlist of candidates is generated for the hiring manager to review. These algorithms fail to take into account spelling errors and deviances in word choice (explained in more depth here). Because matches are generated exclusively through one-dimensional data, hiring managers’ understanding of candidates is distorted.

The result: Very few qualified candidates make it past the ATS and to the interview stage.

This problem is further compounded by the ease of the application process. In response to mounting candidate frustrations with lengthy applications, many employers now offer “Quick Apply” or “1-Click Apply” options. While this significantly lowers friction for applicants on the front-end, they are actually worse off in the long run. Employers are receiving more and more resumes, but, due to the simplicity of new application processes, they now have less data from which to draw conclusions.

In a world where candidates expect engagement and transparency, they are getting less and less.

On average, a single corporate job opening receives 250 applications. With an influx of resumes to review and no uptick in resources with which to process them, hiring managers cannot possibly respond to each individual applicant. In fact, of those 250 applications, only four to six will be called in to interview. As a result, most candidates receive zero communication, experiencing what has ubiquitously been labeled the “ATS Black Hole.”

Here’s Where Conversational Intelligence Comes In

Conversational Intelligence transforms the application process from something static to dynamic. At Wade & Wendy, we believe artificial intelligence is at its best when used conversationally. Our two chatbot personalities are built with this in mind. By creating a space in which conversations can occur, chatbots have the power to drastically improve the application experience.

Chatbots can engage every single applicant at any point in time.

Immediately following submission of their resume, candidates are directed to have a conversation with a chatbot through either text or Facebook Messenger. This introduction allows for a much friendlier first point of contact. Rather than receiving a “Thank You for Your Application” message from a “do not reply” email address, you meet Wendy. Here, candidates can inquire further about the company and the job itself.

At Wade & Wendy, we have designed each of our chatbot personalities to be conversational and inviting. Conversational Intelligence has the power to make a notoriously stressful and automated process fun and distinctly personable, especially when emojis are involved 🙌.

Chatbots give every candidate an equal chance at landing an interview.

Chatbots provide context and depth around the static data gleaned from the ATS. Because every candidate can be engaged via chatbot, algorithm mismatches, various misspellings and differences in keywords no longer hinder a strong candidate from getting in front of the hiring manager. Chatbots, like Wendy, allow candidates to provide context to their resume; they have an opportunity to explain properly a successful project that would otherwise be summed up in a mere bullet point.

Here, the candidate is able to give Wendy more details about her experience with open source projects.

A candidate’s experiences and skills cannot always be properly communicated in a resume. On top of that, the ATS responsible for gauging a candidate’s ability to do a job utilizes flawed algorithms and thus provides flawed recommendations. Conversational Intelligence allows candidates to best communicate who they are and what they can do, while also overcoming algorithm flaws within the ATS.

About the Author:

Bailey Newlan is the Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy, a New York City-based startup on a mission to make hiring more human. Wade & Wendy’s artificially intelligent chatbot personalities bring clarity and simplicity to the hiring process. Wade is an always-on career guide for job seekers, while Wendy assists hiring managers throughout the recruitment process. To connect, reach out to Bailey via LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium and don’t forget to join the beta list.✌️

---

If you want to share this article the reference to Bailey Newlan, Wade & Wendy and The HR Tech Weekly^® is obligatory.

How Conversation Bridges the Gap Between Job Description and Job Seeker

Written by Bailey Newlan, Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy.

Resumes, social profiles and job boards are two-dimensional tools used to present four-dimensional individuals. Each is incapable of communicating your whole story. You are more than a string of keywords and you are more than the templated “Experience” section on LinkedIn.

When people are boxed into these two-dimensional frames, valuable context is lost, leading to a series of frustrating interactions between job seeker and hiring manager. On average, it takes 52 days to fill an open position — a drawn out process wrought with miscommunication and missed opportunities.

How do you communicate the abstract in one bullet or less?

For any given bullet point on a resume, there are a hundred ways to say it. For example:

• Used Java to build features for a platform
• Supported a platform with Java
• Chose Java to build a platform on

Each effectively showcases experience with Java. But, what is a job seeker’s relationship to Java and how does that exhibit what they can really do? Yes, the Java requirement is met, but what kind of person is best-suited for the role? The keyword “Java” falls short of showing how a job applicant and the job itself fit together. This form of static representation is fundamentally limited due to the job seeker’s inability to provide context around their skills, passions, motivations and career goals.

How can you land your dream job when using vague language to apply to an equally vague job description?

Job descriptions are two-dimensional and fall short of providing job seekers clarity around a position. To cast a wide net, job descriptions are often written with vague requirements — carefully crafted with generic keywords, so as not to discourage anyone from applying. Naturally, this results in unclear expectations. Another issue arises when goals and needs shift, yet the job description remains the same. Unfortunately, this kind of moving target is all too common.

This widening chasm between what a job description says and what hiring managers are really looking for in an applicant causes job seekers to create vague resumes and profiles to ensure they will not be overlooked.

By summing oneself up in a string of bullet points, laden with just the right keywords, context is lost and true understanding is clouded. Having to position yourself to meet a set of vague requirements, neutralizes the magic of you.

What can we do about this?

On both sides of the hiring process, there are fundamental flaws. Only by bridging the information gap that presently exists between hiring managers and job seekers, can we:

1. Facilitate better understanding of a job outside of its description
2. Better understand a job seeker outside of his or her resume

This is best achieved through conversation. Flowing dialogue and follow-up questions are effective mechanisms for drilling down and extracting the “Why” and the “Who are you really?” Going past the resume and job description allows both job seekers and hiring managers to make better decisions. We must go beyond the two-dimensional modes of expression. We must find clarity. We need better conversations.

About the Author:

Bailey Newlan is the Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy, a New York City-based startup on a mission to make hiring more human. Wade & Wendy’s artificially intelligent chatbot personalities bring clarity and simplicity to the hiring process. Wade is an always-on career guide for job seekers, while Wendy assists hiring managers throughout the recruitment process. To connect, reach out to Bailey via LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium.

---

If you want to share this article the reference to Bailey Newlan, Wade & Wendy and The HR Tech Weekly^® is obligatory.