Author: Buddhi Jayatilleke, Chief Data Scientist, Sapia.ai
We all know the value of company culture. Culture forms the shared values, beliefs, and practices that shape the behaviors and interactions of employees within an organization. It is like the collective personality of a company that shapes everything from employee satisfaction to customer experiences.
While culture is a collective outcome, it isn’t something that just happens automatically. Leaders are responsible for defining the underlying values and must remain intentional about sustaining the desired organizational culture. A key part of culture is who you hire and how you hire them. We hear phrases like “Culture Fit” and “Culture Add” in the hiring process. These are part of “who” you hire and are used to both accept and reject candidates. But “how” you hire reflects your culture and creates the virtuous (or vicious) cycle that amplifies (or derails) an organizational culture.
“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” – Simon Sinek
The above quote, attributed to Simon Sinek, makes a great point, but how do you find people “who believe what you believe”? In other words, how do you attract and hire individuals who will thrive in and uplift your culture? The experience through the candidate’s journey plays a key role.
And today we have a new enabler. Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI certainly can not create culture. Culture is innately a human construct. However, AI as a tool can help sustain, project, and amplify culture through effective engagement with employees and candidates. From job description writing to employee coaching, new generative AI tools, built on ethical principles, can help organizations instill their culture through sourcing to onboarding.
Here I highlight four key steps that leaders should pay attention to for building the right “hiring culture” and how AI can help. Due to my own experience in the selection process, more emphasis is placed there, but all 4 steps are equally important.
1. First Impressions Matter: The Job Description and Career Site
The job description is often the first interaction potential employees have with your organization. The language used, the values highlighted, and even the requirements listed can say a lot about your culture. For instance, emphasizing teamwork and collaboration suggests a culture valuing collective success over individual achievements. Using gender-neutral language can help attract a candidate pool that is gender diverse. These indicators give candidates an upfront understanding of what you prioritize and allow them to self-select based on fit.
Companies can enhance this first impression by providing more interactive means to get to know the organization rather than using static career websites filled with a lot of content. While some organizations do a great job in structuring the content and including more engaging content such as videos from existing employees, FAQ’s etc, these approaches fail to address questions a potential applicant might have in a timely manner. In a high-volume recruitment scenario, it is impossible to have human recruiters answer thousands of questions via phone or text chat.
This is where smart chatbots built on top of generative AI like Sapia.ai‘s Phai, a careers site assistant, can help. Phai can ingest all the relevant content on a website (or other sources) and then provide fast personalized responses to candidate queries, 24/. Phai not only enhances the experience but also increases the chances of a candidate completing the application process. Chat with Phai yourself by clicking the blue icon in the bottom right of your browser.
2. The Selection Process: What You Value in Candidates
The selection criteria and the selection process are reflections of what the organization values. Prioritizing skills over experience may indicate a culture that values continuous learning and potential. An interview is a common step in the selection process and most of the time it is unstructured and fraught with bias. We can all fall victim to various unconscious biases at this stage (and sometimes practice conscious ones too, unfortunately). As an example, here are 4 common ones that I have noticed in fast-paced growth environments like startups:
- Urgency bias: Rushed decisions to prioritize immediate needs over long-term goals when making hiring decisions. (We need to fill this role this week!)
- Confirmation bias: The tendency to interpret or favor information that confirms one’s preconceptions and ignore other relevant details. (This candidate comes from ABC Inc. They must be good!)
- Halo effect: Tendency to base an overall impression of a candidate on one positive trait or experience. (Wow! Their presentation slides looked amazing!)
- Dunning-Kruger effect: Individuals with limited skills or experience might overestimate their abilities in an interview and this overconfidence can sometimes be persuasive. Leaders who are inexperienced in a specific subject matter, for example, a non-technical founder who is recruiting an engineering manager, can be susceptible to this bias.
One way you can interrupt these human biases is to include an AI assistant in the process. This is where tools like Sapia.ai’s Chat Interview™ can help. Chat Interview™ conducts a chat-based structured interview that is scored by AI. Structured interviews are found to be high in validity and low in bias among the many options available to assess candidates. Hiring managers get access to a detailed report called Talent Insights (Ti) that can challenge some of their biased views and help them make better hiring decisions. For instance, independent research conducted using the Sapia.ai Chat Interview™ found a 36% reduction in the gender gap relative to recruitment without AI. One of the practices the Sapia.ai Chat Interview™ encourages is asking value-based interview questions to gauge alignment with company values. For example “Could you tell me about a time when you went above and beyond to help a team member at work?”.
3. Onboarding: The Introduction to Culture
The onboarding process is a critical stage for instilling organizational culture in new hires. Effective onboarding programs that align new employees with organizational values and expected behaviors can have a lasting impact on their integration and success within the company. As more companies become distributed and rely on remote work, part of company culture can be collaborating effectively over tools like wikis, and messaging apps like Slack and email. This requires making sure a new hire knows how to use these tools well and content norms specific to the company. This also brings to light the importance of “connection” as part of building culture, as in a remote work environment you have to be more intentional in building connections than when working together in an office. You can read more on this in “HR for the world of tomorrow“ where we discuss the changing landscape of work and how smart chat is the new medium for building connections.
4. Feedback and Continuous Improvement: Sustaining the Culture
How feedback is provided during the hiring process and the onboarding period can also be a cultural indicator. A culture that values growth and development is likely to provide constructive feedback to candidates (whether they are hired or not) and to new employees in an effective manner. This is the philosophy that Sapia.ai Chat Interview™ follows with My Insights, a feedback email every candidate gets after completing the chat interview that includes personality insights and coaching tips. The Sapia.ai Talent Insights report provides similar insights to the hiring managers that help them prepare for onboarding a new hire.
In essence, every aspect of the hiring process – from the job description to the final decision – is a reflection of your organizational culture. By being mindful of this, organizations can ensure they not only attract the right talent but also reinforce the culture they aspire to maintain and develop. AI can be used as a tool to mitigate biases, form a consistent process, and enhance the candidate experience to better reflect the company culture.
Related
Blog
Humanising hiring: the largest study of AI candidate experience ever
This is the state of hiring in 2025. Too often, candidates are ghosted, ignored, and reduced to a CV. Recruiters are forced to make decisions in data poverty, with scraps of information like grades, job titles, or where someone has worked before. Privilege gets rewarded; potential gets overlooked.
For the first time, we now have evidence that AI, when designed responsibly, brings humanity back to hiring.
The largest research study of its kind
Sapia.ai has released the Humanising Hiring report. The largest analysis ever conducted into candidate experience with AI interviews. The study draws on more than 1 million interviews and 11 million words of candidate feedback across 30+ countries.
Unlike surveys or anecdotal reviews, this research is grounded in what candidates themselves chose to share at one of the most stressful moments of their lives: applying for a job.
The findings are bold and unprecedented
- 9.05/10 average candidate satisfaction across all groups and industries
- 81.8% of candidates left written feedback — engagement at this scale has never been seen before in hiring research
- 8 in 10 candidates would recommend an employer just because of the interview
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30% more women apply when told AI will assess them, resulting in a 36% closure of the gender gap
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98% hiring equity for people with disabilities through a blind, untimed, mobile-first interview design
Candidate voices
Here’s what candidates themselves revealed:
“None of the other companies I’ve applied to do this sort of thing. It’s so unique and wonderful to give this sort of insight to people… whether we get the job or not, we can take away something very valuable out of the process.”
“That felt so personal, as if the person genuinely took the time to read my answers and send me a summary of myself… that was pretty amazing.”
Expert validation
“This study stands out as one of the most comprehensive examinations of candidate experience to date. Analysing over a million interviews and 11 million words of candidate feedback, the findings make clear that responsibly designed AI has the potential to fundamentally improve hiring — not just by increasing speed, but by advancing fairness, enhancing the human aspect, and leading to stronger job matches.”
— Kathi Enderes, SVP Research & Global Industry Analyst, The Josh Bersin Company
Proof that AI can be human
The research challenges the idea that AI dehumanises the hiring process. In fact, it proves the opposite: when thoughtfully designed, AI can restore dignity to candidates by giving them a real interview from the very first interaction, giving them space to share their story, and giving them timely feedback.
With Sapia.ai’s Chat Interview:
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Every candidate gets the same structured, role-relevant questions.
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Interviews are untimed, so candidates can answer at their own pace.
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Bias is monitored continuously under our FAIR™ framework.
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Every candidate receives personalised feedback.
This isn’t automation for the sake of speed. It’s intelligence that puts people first, and it works. Leading global brands, including Qantas, Joe & the Juice, BT Group, Holland & Barrett, and Woolworths, have all transformed their hiring outcomes while enhancing the candidate experience.
Why it matters now
Applicant volumes are exploding. Boards are demanding ROI on people decisions. And candidates expect fairness and agency. Sticking with the status quo — ghosting, inconsistent interviews, CV screening — comes at a real cost in brand equity, lost talent, and wasted time.
It’s time to move from data poverty to data richness, from broken processes to brilliant hiring.
Download the report
This is the first time candidate feedback on AI interviews has been analysed at such scale. The insights are clear: hiring can be brilliant.
👉 Download the Humanising Hiring report now to see the full findings.
Blog
What’s More Ethical: Measuring Skills or Guessing Them?
Barb Hyman, CEO & Founder, Sapia.ai
Why skills data matters for HR and CHROs
Every CHRO I speak to wants clarity on skills:
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What skills do we have today?
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What skills do we need tomorrow?
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How do we close the gap?
The skills-based organisation has become HR’s holy grail. But not all skills data is created equal. The way you capture it has ethical consequences.
Two very different approaches to skills analysis
1. Skills inference from digital traces
Some vendors mine employees’ “digital exhaust” by scanning emails, CRM activity, project tickets and Slack messages to guess what skills someone has.
It is broad and fast, but fairness is a real concern.
2. Skills measurement through structured conversations
The alternative is to measure skills directly. Structured, science-backed conversations reveal behaviours, competencies and potential. This data is transparent, explainable and given with consent.
It takes longer to build, but it is grounded in reality.
The risks of skills inference HR leaders must confront
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Surveillance and trust: Do your people know their digital trails are being mined? What happens when they find out?
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Bias: Who writes more Slack updates, introverts or extroverts? Who logs more Jira tickets, engineers or managers? Behaviour is not the same as skills.
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Explainability: If an algorithm says, “You are good at negotiation” because you sent lots of emails, how can you validate that?
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Agency: If a system builds a skills profile without consent, do employees have control over their own career data?
A more human approach: skills measurement
Skills define careers. They shape mobility, pay and opportunity. That makes how you measure them an ethical choice as well as a technical one.
At Sapia.ai, we have shown that structured, untimed, conversational AI interviews restore dignity in hiring and skills measurement. Over 8 million interviews across 50+ languages prove that candidates prefer transparent and fair processes that let them share who they are, in their own words.
Skills measurement is about trust, fairness and people’s futures.
Questions every HR and CHRO should ask
When evaluating skills solutions, ask:
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Is this system measuring real skills, or only inferring them from proxies?
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Would I be comfortable if employees knew exactly how their skills profile was created?
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Does this process give people agency over their data, or take it away?
The real test of ethics in the skills-based organisation
The choice is between skills data that is guessed from digital traces and skills data that is earned through evidence, reflection and dialogue.
If you want trust in your people decisions, choose measurement over inference.
To see how candidates really feel about ethical skills measurement, check out our latest research report: Humanising Hiring, the largest scale analysis of candidate experience of AI interviews – ever.
FAQs
What is the most ethical way to measure skills?
The most ethical method is to use structured, science-backed conversations that assess behaviours, competencies and potential with consent and transparency.
Why is skills inference problematic?
Skills inference relies on digital traces such as emails or Slack activity, which can introduce bias, raise privacy concerns and reduce employee trust.
How does ethical AI help with skills measurement?
Ethical AI, such as structured conversational interviews, ensures fairness by using consistent data, removing demographic bias and giving every candidate or employee a voice.
What should HR leaders look for in a skills platform?
Look for transparency, explainability, inclusivity and evidence that the platform measures skills directly rather than guessing from digital behaviour.
How does Sapia.ai support ethical skills measurement?
Sapia.ai uses structured, untimed chat interviews in over 50 languages. Every candidate receives
Blog
Mirrored diversity: why retail teams should look like their customers
Walk into any store this festive season and you’ll see it instantly. The lights, the displays, the products are all crafted to draw people in. Retailers spend millions on campaigns to bring customers through the door.
But the real moment of truth isn’t the emotional TV ad, or the shimmering window display. It’s the human standing behind the counter. That person is the brand.
The missing link in retail hiring
Most retailers know this, yet their hiring processes tell a different story. Candidates are often screened by rigid CV reviews or psychometric tests that force them into boxes. Neurodiverse candidates, career changers, and people from different cultural or educational backgrounds are often the ones who fall through the cracks.
And yet, these are the very people who may best understand your customers. If your store colleagues don’t reflect the diversity of the communities you serve, you create distance where there should be connection. You lose loyalty. You lose growth.
We call this gap the diversity mirror.
What mirrored diversity looks like
When retailers achieve mirrored diversity, their teams look like their customers:
- A grocery store team that reflects the cultural mix of its neighbourhood.
- A fashion store with colleagues who understand both style and accessibility.
- A beauty retailer whose teams reflect every skin tone, gender, and background that walks through the door.
Customers buy where they feel seen – making this a commercial imperative.
How to recruit seasonal employees with mirrored diversity
The challenge for HR leaders is that most hiring systems are biased by design. CVs privilege pedigree over potential. Multiple-choice tests reduce people to stereotypes. And rushed festive hiring campaigns only compound the problem.
That’s where Sapia.ai changes the equation: Every candidate is interviewed automatically, fairly, and in their own words.
- Bias is measured and monitored using Sapia.ai’s FAIR™ framework.
- Outcomes are validated at scale: 7+ million candidates, 52 countries, average candidate satisfaction 9.2/10.
- Diversity can be measured: with the Diversity Dashboard, you can track DEI capture rates, candidate engagement, and diversity hiring outcomes across every stage of the funnel.
With the right HR hiring tools, mirrored diversity becomes a data point you can track, prove, and deliver on. It’s no longer just a slogan.
Retail recruiting strategies in action: the David Jones example
David Jones, Australia’s premium department store, put this into practice:
- 40,000 festive applicants screened automatically
- 80% of final hires recommended by Sapia.ai
- Recruiters freed up 4,000 hours in screening time
- Candidate experience rated 9.1/10
The result? Store teams that belong with the brand and reflect the customers they serve.
Read the David Jones Case Study here 👇
Recruiting ideas for retail leaders this festive season
As you prepare for festive hiring in the UK and Europe, ask yourself:
- How much will you spend on marketing this Christmas?
- And how much will you invest in ensuring the colleagues who deliver that brand promise reflect the people you want in your stores?
Because when your colleagues mirror your customers, you achieve growth, and by design, you’ll achieve inclusion.
See how Sapia.ai can help you achieve mirrored diversity this festive season. Book a demo with our team here.
FAQs on retail recruitment and mirrored diversity
What is mirrored diversity in retail?
Mirrored diversity means that store teams reflect the diversity of their customer base, helping create stronger connections and loyalty.
Why is diversity important in seasonal retail hiring?
Seasonal employees often provide the first impression of a brand. Inclusive teams make customers feel seen, improving both experience and sales.
How can retailers improve their hiring strategies?
Adopting tools like AI structured interviews, bias monitoring, and data dashboards helps retailers hire fairly, reduce screening time, and build more diverse teams.