How Gen AI tool startups are changing hiring
Generative AI is changing not just how people work, but how we will find work, too. Just like Gen AI is bringing down the cost to create content, Gen AI is also bringing down the cost to apply for a job. New startups are changing resume creation, application, and interviewing, making it easier and faster for job seekers.
The macro conditions (rising unemployment), the first recession where most hiring happens online (job sites were comparatively small in 2008), and Generative AI means employers could be swamped with job applications. To handle this, employers will have to turn to a new set a tools, creating a mini gen AI competition.
AI-made resumes (watermarks required?)
ChatGPT’s launch sparked new categories for what people could do with AI and how easily they could do it. Resume creation, a highly important, but time consuming task, is no different. Job seekers need a resume to apply for a job, but don’t want to write them. AI helps out with this.
Google Trends for ‘AI Resume Builder’
Startups like kickresume, Rezi.AI, and TealHQ (plus many more) make it easy to create a resume. LinkedIn has AI features to make and edit profiles. A few things come out of this:
In the near future, most resumes will be made with the help of AI
Tailoring resumes to specific jobs, to help get through keyword filters, will be trivial
Some bullet points might be hallucinated by the AI, making up experience on behalf of the job seeker
‘Apply for me’ will become a thing
Applying for a job is time consuming and emotionally exhausting. Putting 10 to 20 minutes into each application to hear nothing back or get rejected is demotivating. Startups using Generative AI will take the work out of this process. sending out applies on behalf of job seekers.
Job applications come in a few categories:
‘Easy apply’ options offered by major job sites that include a one click apply and resume upload
Applications with Equal Opportunity Commission questions (demographic information)
Applications with screener questions
Automating the two first options is simple and straightforward. A handful of new startups are also automating the third set of applications, using Gen AI techniques like Retrieval Augmented Generation to ground answers in a users resume or other onboarding process.
Startups like Massive, Simplify, and Sonara.ai are automating these parts of the application, making it easy to for job seekers to apply to relevant jobs. With startups like Massive and Sonara AI, job seekers dont have to do any work, the applications are sent on behalf of the job seeker.
AI prep before and during the interview process
Preparing for an interview is important (the odds of getting a job are much higher once you actually have an interview) and stressful. Traditional ways to prep for an interview are to read practice questions and answer them, ask a friend for help, or hire an interview coach. AI startups are improving the fidelity of interview prep and lowering the cost, meaning better interviews for job seekers. One feature that I find particularly interesting is an interview co-pilot that suggests talking points during the actual interview. The system hears the interviewers question and can suggest the answers based on the applicants experience and the company (FinalRoundAI.com).
Screenshot of interview help from Final Round AI
The coming deluge of candidates thanks to Gen AI and how Gen AI solves this
Applying for a job is about to go from inconvenient to inconsequential. AI agents will send out job applications on a job seekers behalf, no job seeker effort required. This will likely mean a lot more job applications. At a time when the number of applies per job is already increasing.
New AI tools will help sort through the application mess.
How AI helps address the issue created by AI
Too many applications is not a new problem. Solutions exist in terms of keyword density algorithms, one way interviews, and assessments. AI brings a new spin to this with AI-powered matching, screening (phone, chat, assessments), and AI conducted interviews.
Startups are using chat to gather more information about a candidate.
Automated, outbound phone screens by voice agents is another option.
Assessments built, conducted, and judged by AI are emerging, too.
These tools help take a growing list of applicants and narrow down to a smaller list that complete these exercise and have the right skill fit.
These tools will help, in some sense its re-introducing friction into the apply process to determine who is really serious.
Try the job before you take the offer
A group of startups in hiring also allow for candidates to try the job before actually doing it. Creating scenarios, AI-driven or not, to test doing the job. This gives the candidate and the hiring manager a sense of how the employee would do in a job.
My SciFi take on a hiring end-game: employee digital twins and AI simulation
The applications and screening arms race will lead to a growth of tools helping job seekers apply to jobs and master the interview. Companies will bifurcate in their response. Some will attempt to neutralize the benefits of AI to see how the candidate performs without the tools. Others will except the AI future and make sure employees can perform well because of AI tools (our future).
Eventually, however, I think a better solution could emerge, which is real simulation.
All employee efforts exist in a way that is recorded (slack, email, transcribed videos, docs, jira, code repositories, etc ), allowing companies to understand how employees perform and how they interact with different team members, managers, and situations.
It will become possible, and maybe accepted, to have employee digital twins that can respond to key questions, speeding up communication and making sure institutional knowledge isn’t lost.
Similar to how robotics has simulation, Stanford testing out Generative Agent simulation1. With high fidelity digital twins, it will be possible to simulate how people might work together over a longer period of time. Every potential applicant could have a simulation run to see how well they’d score at the job, providing a high fidelity hiring signal. Of course, this is a SciFi future.
Generative AI startups are addressing hiring
Job seekers and employers are embracing Generative AI to get an advantage in hiring and save time. These tools will transform how hiring gets done, bringing benefits but also a number of concerns in the hiring process.
https://www.artisana.ai/articles/generative-agents-stanfords-groundbreaking-ai-study-simulates-authentic