This AI recruiter automates first-round interviews

^{A week in AI is like a year in other industries. I hope these issues become your weekly source of AI information, inspiration, and ideas. If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about AI and the fascinating folks who are building in this brave new world.}

Good morning. We all have a friend who has a hiring horror story, usually related to AI somehow. I’ve interviewed founders who say that removing humans from products is foolish, especially in areas that require human interaction, like job interviews. 

I wanted to hear from someone who is building in this very category. This week’s founder believes AI interviewers actually make the process more human.

Let’s dive in.

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Matthew Stewart spent the past decade as an internet entrepreneur. As a self-taught software engineer, he built a social dating app that was sold to one of the head of product at Match Group. 

While building that start-up, Stewart struggled with the timezone and language differences of offshore hiring. He was spending hours filtering through candidates, so when AI technology was finally with natural sounding conversations, he got back into build mode. 

Stewart solo coded TalentSprout, an AI recruitment platform that automates first-round interviews for companies that do high volume hiring. It automates the initial first screen instead of having to go through resumes only. Post-call, the tool evaluates the candidates and sends a scorecard with a ranked shortlist to the recruiter/company. 

The ranking uses a range of information such as interview performance, soft skills, language proficiency, and resume evaluation. Companies can set their own custom scoring matrixes, too. Stewart said it’s not supposed to replace the entire hiring process but rather make it more human. 

Stewart said it’s not about forcing AI interviews into every vertical or role and that AI has made the resume worthless because they all sound the same now. “Candidates have been getting rejected based on a resume alone, so I actually believe AI video interviews add a human element back into the hiring process. Now a candidate has the opportunity to show off their personality, communication skills and professionalism on video.” 

He added the key is not to trick the candidate into thinking it’s a human. Instead of AI avatars, TalentSprout is strictly voice and a company can upload a welcome video if they like. The TalentSprout AI agents conduct a natural sounding conversation and ask smart follow-up questions, Stewart added.  

Stewart spent an entire year building TalentSprout. He conducted market research with his network, then spent months building and iterating on the first versions of the platform. 

He said the entire code is written by high-end coding models, with human reviews for everything. Once it was ready-for-market, Stewart switched into marketing mode. 

“We do a multi-channel outbound approach, which is a mix of cold email, cold calling, and LinkedIn. We just try to get people on a 30-day free pilot offer, where we integrate TalentSprout into their workflow,” Stewart explained. 

“We deliver a white glove service for that first month, then measure KPIs and if we’re saving time and providing value, we transition people to the paid plan.” Most companies sit in the middle tier at $499/month. 

TalentSprout works best for companies doing high-volume hiring, not necessarily start-ups looking to fill a few roles or a very high-level role. He said the ideal clients include warehouses or recruitment agencies who are screening hundreds of candidates a week. 

Other types of TalentSprout customers include offshore IT hiring companies, recruitment and staffing agencies, and even universities that use it so students can practice interviewing. 

Stewart said he’s at an inflection point in the business, as a customer might love the product, but they don’t have the candidate volume to justify the cost. On the other hand, he’s had interest from big enterprise companies but given TalentSprout is early stage and operates without a team, it’s been hard to close those deals. 

“We’re trying to target that sweet spot where they’re not too big, where we can still land them, but it makes sense where they’re still doing high-volume hiring.” 

If one of these stories stuck with you, I’d love to hear which one.

Speak soon,
Amanda

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