A recent CNN story quoted only 12% of companies used AI last year to deliver not just a faster status quo, but a complete reinvention of the way they work. The automated learning that comes from AI solutions grounded in machine learning also delivers exponential returns to those who start early.
That same news story quantified those benefits as a 20% increase in cash flows over 10 years and the inverse is true as well – a 20% decline in cash flows for those that wait. These kinds of stats should trigger ‘FOMO’ for any enterprise business.
‘BC’ (before Covid-19), the motivation ‘to AI in HR’ might have been the automation of manual expensive HR processes, like recruitment, in a world of declining HR budgets and growing concerns about the bias we humans bring to those processes.
‘To AI’ your HR processes can also go beyond your bottom line. It’s a way to humanise your candidate experience. A way to reduce the asymmetry of recruitment, to empower both sides to make the right decisions. It gives you this kind of candidate feedback from a solution that looks like this.
Right now, curiosity about AI is being replaced by a burning platform for change. For those wearing the exhaustion of surge recruitment using old traditional processes (not to mention the increased chances of bias as a result), the case for change is obvious. For everyone else who does any volume of recruitment, 4 factors will accelerate the move to AI solutions.
1. The need for humanity in your people processes especially recruitment.
Even though tragically it will soon be an employers market as unemployment rises, any organisations, including government, that can make that experience better for job seekers is onto a winner. Nothing sucks more than having to line up at Centrelink, or fill out endless tedious application forms, and then hear nothing.
We ‘live’ on our smartphones, we expect convenience and immediate results, we want to be able to navigate a wide range of opportunities fast and make decisions fast. This applies to services we consume regularly (think Uber Eats, Afterpay, even banking services such as our next home loan). That immediacy and convenience is now the new norm for consumers, and candidates as a consumer of their next job are looking for the same experience.
Imagine if your applicants only needed to answer 5 engaging questions over a text conversation. Every applicant also receives their own personalised feedback which helps them prepare for future interviews!
Compare recruitment to applying for a bank loan where AI has been in use for a decade or more. That’s now a reality with AI in recruitment.
Use Sapia’s FirstInterview to see how easy it is for you to give every job seeker a fast, simple and empowering experience.
And read what job seekers think about it here.
2. The accessibility and affordability of AI solutions
We specialise in volume recruitment for those roles where it is even more critical to hire the right people now. Frontline roles like your customer service teams, carers and health care workers, sales consultants, and blue-collar workers. Our ready-made predictive models are instantly deployable enabling you to go live in under an hour. When using our AI saves you at least $20 on every applicant, (i.e. if you receive 1000 applications, that is a saving of $20,000), and deployment is as easy a sending a link to your applicants, AI offers value to any sized organisation.
3. The right AI tool can remove bias from your recruitment and deliver a more diverse workforce
No amount of bias training will make us less biased.
The ability to measure bias is one reason to use AI-based screening tools over traditional processes. The growing awareness that AI can be fairer for people prompted the California State Assembly to pass a resolution to use unbiased technology to promote diversity in hiring.
Avoiding bias is why we use text data to assess applicants. With 25 million words to draw upon in our data bank, across 10 critical volume hiring roles, our approach is both bias-free in its design and its execution. Our technology is built on the advances in ML and NLP that allow computers to gain valuable insights from large volumes of textual data. Our AI is entirely ignorant of race, age, gender or any of those irrelevant markets of job fit.
4. Knowing someone’s traits and values is a shortcut to hiring for culture
Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote a blog a few years ago on the ‘real skills’ that matter in hiring.
Whilst we all know what matters for our roles, our teams, our culture- real skills like resilience, curiosity, humility, drive and so on, these attributes are invisible in a CV and very hard to assess fairly and scientifically in a phone call or f2f interview.
Using text data, we can not only uncover standard personality traits such as extraversion, openness, humility but also real skills that matter such a drive, critical thinking, team player and accountability. Our data science team has recently uncovered that the language one uses in answering standard interview questions show a correlation to how likely they are to hop jobs. New hires that leave early cost significant time and money for organisations. Identifying such candidates early on can help companies make better hiring decisions.
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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.
Blog
The Diversity Dashboard: Proving your DEI strategy is working
Why measuring diversity matters
Organisations invest heavily in their employer brand, career sites, and EVP campaigns, especially to attract underrepresented talent. But without the right data, it’s impossible to know if that investment is paying off.
Representation often varies across functions, locations, and stages of the hiring process. Blind spots allow bias to creep in, meaning underrepresented groups may drop out long before offer.
Collecting demographic data is only step one. Turning it into insight you can act on is where real change and better hiring outcomes happen.
What is the Diversity Dashboard?
The Diversity Dashboard in Discover Insights, Sapia.ai’s analytics tool, gives you real-time visibility into representation, inclusion, and fairness at every stage of your talent funnel. It helps you connect the dots between your attraction strategies and actual hiring outcomes.
Key features include:
- Demographic filters – Switch between gender, ethnicity, English as an additional language, First Nations status, disability, and veteran status. View age and ethnicity in standard or alternative formats to match regional reporting needs.
- Representation highlights – Identify the top five represented sub-groups for each demographic, plus the three fastest-growing among underrepresented groups.
- Track trends over time – See month-by-month changes in representation over the past 12 months, compare to earlier periods, and connect the data back to your EVP and attraction spend.
- Candidate experience metrics – Measure CSAT (satisfaction) and engagement rates by demographic to ensure your hiring process works for everyone. Inclusion is measurable.
- Hiring fairness – Compare representation in your applied, recommended, and hired pools to spot drop-offs. Understand not just who applies, but who progresses — and why.
From insight to action
With the Diversity Dashboard, you can pinpoint where inclusion is thriving and where it’s falling short.
- See if your EASL candidates are applying in high numbers but not progressing to live interview.
- Spot if candidates with a disability report high satisfaction but have lower offer rates.
- Track the impact of targeted campaigns month-by-month and adjust quickly when something isn’t working.
It’s also a powerful tool to tell your success story. Celebrate wins by showing which underrepresented groups are making the biggest gains, and share that progress with boards, executives, and regulators.
Built on science, backed by trust
Powered by explainable AI and the world’s largest structured interview dataset, your insights are fair, auditable, and evidence-based.
Measuring diversity is the first step. Using that data to take action is where you close the Diversity Gap. With the Diversity Dashboard, you can prove your strategy is working and make the changes where it isn’t.
Book a demo to see the Diversity Dashboard in action.
Blog
Neuroinclusion by design. Not by exception.
Why neuroinclusion can’t be a retrofit and how Sapia.ai is building a better experience for every candidate.
In the past, if you were neurodivergent and applying for a job, you were often asked to disclose your diagnosis to get a basic accommodation – extra time on a test, maybe the option to skip a task. That disclosure often came with risk: of judgment, of stigma, or just being seen as different.
This wasn’t inclusion. It was bureaucracy. And it made neurodiverse candidates carry the burden of fitting in.
We’ve come a long way, but we’re not there yet.
Shifting from retrofits to inclusive-by-design
Over the last two decades, hiring practices have slowly moved away from reactive accommodations toward proactive, human-centric design. Leading employers began experimenting with:
- Sharing interview questions in advance
- Replacing group exercises with structured simulations
- Offering a variety of assessment formats
- Co-designing assessments with neurodiverse candidates
But even these advances have often been limited in scope, applied to special hiring programs or specific roles. Neurodiverse talent still encounters systems built for neurotypical profiles, with limited flexibility and a heavy dose of social performance pressure.
Hiring needs to look different.
Insight 1: The next frontier of hiring equity is universal design
Truly inclusive hiring doesn’t rely on diagnosis or disclosure. It doesn’t just give a select few special treatment. It’s about removing friction for everyone, especially those who’ve historically been excluded.
That’s why Sapia.ai was built with universal design principles from day one.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- No time limits — Candidates answer at their own pace
- No pressure to perform — It’s a conversation, not a spotlight
- No video, no group tasks — Just structured, 1:1 chat-based interviews
- Built-in coaching — Everyone gets personalised feedback
It’s not a workaround. It’s a rework.
Insight 2: Not all “friendly” methods are inclusive
We tend to assume that social or “casual” interview formats make people comfortable. But for many neurodiverse individuals, icebreakers, group exercises, and informal chats are the problem, not the solution.
When we asked 6,000 neurodiverse candidates about their experience using Sapia.ai’s chat-based interview, they told us:
“It felt very 1:1 and trustworthy… I had time to fully think about my answers.”
“It was less anxiety-inducing than video interviews.”
“I like that all applicants get initial interviews which ensures an unbiased and fair way to weigh-up candidates.”
Insight 3: Prediction ≠ Inclusion
Some AI systems claim to infer skills or fit from resumes or behavioural data. But if the training data is biased or the experience itself is exclusionary, you’re just replicating the same inequity with more speed and scale.
Inclusion means seeing people for who they are, not who they resemble in your data set.
At Sapia.ai, every interaction is transparent, explainable, and scientifically validated. We use structured, fair assessments that work for all brains, not just neurotypical ones.
Where to from here?
Neurodiversity is rising in both awareness and representation. However, inclusion won’t scale unless the systems behind hiring change as well.
That’s why we built a platform that:
- Doesn’t rely on disclosure
- Removes ambiguity and pressure
- Creates space for everyone to shine
- Measures what matters, fairly
Sapia.ai is already powering inclusive, structured, and scalable hiring for global employers like BT Group, Costa Coffee and Concentrix. Want to see how your hiring process can be more inclusive for neurodivergent individuals? Let’s chat.