The first is that you cannot just think about bringing AI as a tool. It’s not that simple, even though ChatGPT makes it seem so. You can’t just go out there and buy something with AI because the board is pressuring you to start doing something with AI.You actually have to really understand the business that you’re supporting and what their biggest problem or their three biggest problems are.
Most likely, the solution that you bring to bear is going to have an AI component because AI is such a powerful accelerant to deliver productivity to recruiters, your HR people, and to the business. But you’ve got to figure out what that business problem is first.
Do you have an issue with churn? Values? Hire quality? General speed to hire? Candidate experience? The first step is setting out exactly what you need from an AI system, and going to market with that objective in mind.
Take candidate experience: According to this 2022 report by Aptitude Research, 63% of companies aren’t planning on doing anything about candidate experience in 2023.
That’s a great place to start.
The second thing is that you’ve got to be really honest and hold the mirror up to you, your team, and the organization on whether or not you’re ready to embrace technology that has AI in it.
There is a lot of investigation and due diligence required for any company bringing in AI. And there are elements around privacy, as well as US regulations that you need to comply with.
You need to have a level of maturity and sophistication and awareness about the effort that you’re going to have to put the organization through to really embrace and adopt it.
That very much starts with your team and your people: are they ready to embrace the opportunity of AI?
Right now, I find that many companies and recruiters are very fearful of it. They’re worried about what it will do to their jobs.
They don’t think of it as a co-pilot; they think of it as a replacement.
So, I would encourage you to start having conversations with your team as early as possible about the opportunity that AI could bring before you ram an AI solution down their throat, which is likely to face some resistance.
It’s no wonder recruiters and organizations approach AI with fear. The media has been quick to paint it as a Doomsday creator, destined to put 300 million people out of work.
Just as computers did not make millions of people redundant, nor will smart AI systems. They’re force multipliers. The stats prove this.
According to this article, recruiters have embraced partial AI innovation with great results. 94% said it has improved their hiring processes. 44% said it helps recruiters save time.
42% think that it will help recruiters be more strategic. This stat is particularly interesting to us, because we care first and foremost about giving recruiters time back to focus on deep people strategy.
There’s nothing to fear if you can see that your chosen AI solution is improving hiring outcomes, while also giving you time back to focus on strategy.
Smart Chat Interviewing technology uses structured interviews to deliver fair and comparable insights on all candidates: Soft skills, hard skills, and cognitive ability. According to time-honored research by Frank Schmidt and John Hunter, structured interviews are the best explainer of performance on the job (26%).
Structured interviews are hard for humans to do – especially across decentralized networks – but the complete objectivity of the right AI makes it perfect for this job.
The proof? Sapia.ai has helped its customers achieve a 25% decrease in employee turnover through better interviewing. It does this because it can accurately match people to the roles for which they’re best suited.
Take Woolworths Supermarkets, Australia’s largest private employer. Using Sapia.ai’s Smart Chat Interviewer, Woolworths interviews 1 million people per year and hires 50,000 people per year.
Hiring managers are happy, and the in-house Talent Acquisition team has more purpose than ever before. No one has lost their job due to AI. Candidates are happier, staff are happier.
Every day, we read stories of increased fake or AI-assisted applications. Tools like LazyApply are just one of many flooding the market, driving up applicant volumes to never-before-seen levels.
As an overwhelmed hiring function, how do you find the needle in the haystack without using an army of recruiters to filter through the maze?
At Sapia.ai, we help global enterprises do just that. Many of the world’s most trusted brands, such as Qantas Group, have relied on our hiring platform as a co-pilot for better hiring since 2020.
Our Chat Interview has given millions of candidates a voice they wouldn’t have had – enabling them to share in their own words why they’re the best fit for the role. To find the people who belong with their brands, our customers must trust that their candidates represent themselves. Thus, they want to trust that our AI is analysing real human answers—not answers from a machine.
The Rise of GPT
When ChatGPT went viral in November 2022, we immediately adopted a defensive strategy. We had long been flagging plagiarised candidate responses, but then, we needed to act fast to flag responses using artificially generated content (‘AGC’).
Many companies were in the same position, but Sapia.ai was the only company with a large proprietary data set of interview answers that pre-dated GPT and similar tools: 2.5 billion words written by real humans.
That data enabled us to build a world-first:- an LLM-based AGC detector for text-based interviews, recently upgraded to v2.0 with 99% accuracy and a false positive rate of 1%. An NLP classification model built on Sapia.ai proprietary data that operates across all Sapia.ai chat interviews.
Full Transparency with Candidates
Because we value candidate trust as much as customer trust, we wanted to be transparent with candidates about our ability to detect artificially generated content (AGC). As an LLM, we could identify AGC in real time and warn candidates that we had detected it.
This has had a powerful impact on candidate behaviour. Since our AGC detector went live, we have seen that the real-time flagging acts as a real-time disincentive to use tools like ChatGPT to generate interview responses.
The detector generates a warning if 3 or more answers are flagged as having artificially generated content. The Sapia.ai Chat Interview uses 5 open-ended interview questions for volume hiring roles, such as retail, contact centre, and customer service, and 6 questions for professional roles, such as engineers, data scientists, graduates, etc.
Let’s Take a Closer Look at the Data…
We see that using our AGC detector LLM to communicate live with candidates in the interview flow when artificial content has been detected has a positive effect on deterring candidates from using AI tools to generate their answers.
The rate of AGC use declines from 1 question flagged to 5 questions – raising the flag on one question is generally enough to deter candidates from trying again.
The graph below shows the number of candidates, from a total of almost 2.7m, that used artificially generated content in their answers.
Differences in AGC Usage Rate by Groups
We see no meaningful differences in candidate behaviour based on the job they are applying for or based on geography.
However, we have found differences by gender and ethnicity – for example, men use artificially generated content more than women. The graph below shows the overall completion ratios by gender – for all interviews on the left and for interviews where the number of questions with AGC detected is 5 or more on the right.
Perception of Artificially Generated Content by Hirers.
We’re curious to understand how hirers perceive the use of these tools to assist candidates in a written interview. The creation of the detector was based on the majority of Sapia.ai customers wanting transparency & explainability around the use of these tools by candidates, often because they want to ensure that candidates are using their own words to complete their interviews and they want to avoid wasting time progressing candidates who are not as capable as their chat interview suggests.
However, some of our customers feel that it’s a positive reflection of the candidate, showing that they are using the tools available to them to put their best foot forward.
It’s a mix of perspectives.
Our detector labels it as the use of artificially generated content. It’s up to our customers how they use that information in their decision-making processes.
This concept of having a human in the loop is one of the key dimensions of ethical AI, and we ensure that it is used in every AI-related hiring product we build.
Interested in the science behind it all? Download our published research on developing the AGC detector 👇
Read the full press release about the partnership here.
Joe & the Juice, the trailblazing global juice bar and coffee concept, is renowned for its vibrant culture and commitment to cultivating talent. With humble roots from one store in Copenhagen, now with a presence in 17 markets, Joe & The Juice has built a culture that fosters growth and celebrates individuality.
But, as their footprint expands, so does the challenge of finding and hiring the right talent to embody their unique culture. With over 300,000 applications annually, the traditional hiring process using CVs was falling short – leaving candidates waiting and creating inefficiencies for the recruitment team. To address this, Joe & The Juice turned to Sapia.ai, a pioneer in ethical AI hiring solutions.
Through this partnership, Joe & The Juice has transformed its hiring process into an inclusive, efficient, and brand-aligned experience. Instead of faceless CVs, candidates now engage in an innovative chat-based interview that reflects the brand’s energy and ethos. Available in multiple languages, the AI-driven interview screens for alignment with the “Juicer DNA” and the brand’s core values, ensuring that every candidate feels seen and valued.
Candidates receive an engaging and fair interview experience as well as personality insights and coaching tips as part of their journey. In fact, 93% of candidates have found these insights useful, helping to deliver a world-class experience to candidates who are also potential guests of the brand.
“Every candidate interaction reflects our brand,” Sebastian Jeppesen, Global Head of Recruitment, shared. “Sapia.ai makes our recruitment process fair, enriching, and culture-driven.”
For Joe & The Juice, the collaboration has yielded impressive results:
33% Reduction in Screening Time: Pre-vetted shortlists from Sapia.ai’s platform ensure that recruiters can focus on top candidates, getting them behind the bar faster.
Improved Candidate Satisfaction: With a 9/10 satisfaction score from over 55,000 interviews, candidates appreciate the fairness and transparency of the process.
Bias-Free Hiring: By eliminating CVs and integrating blind AI that prioritizes fairness, Joe & The Juice ensures their hiring reflects the diverse communities they serve.
Frederik Rosenstand, Group Director of People & Development at Joe & The Juice, highlighted the transformative impact: “Our juicers are our future leaders, so using ethical AI to find the people who belong at Joe is critical to our long-term success. And now we do that with a fair, unbiased experience that aligns directly with our brand.”
In an industry so wholly centred on people, Joe & the Juice is paving the way for similar brands to adopt technology that enables inclusive, human-first experiences that can reflect a brand’s core values.
If you’re curious about how Sapia.ai can transform your hiring process, check out our full case study on Joe & The Juice here.
It’s been a year of Big Moves at Sapia.ai. From welcoming groundbreaking brands to achieving incredible milestones in our product innovation and scale, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in hiring.
And we’re just getting started 🚀
Take a look at the highlights of 2024
All-in-one hiring platform
This year, with the addition of Live Interview, we’re proud to say our platform now covers screening, assessing and scheduling.
It’s an all-in-one volume hiring platform that enables our customers to deliver a world-leading experience from application through to offer.
Supercharging hiring efficiency
Every 15 seconds, a candidate is interviewed with Sapia.ai.
This year, we’ve saved hiring managers and recruiters hours of precious time that can now be used for higher-value tasks.
Giving candidates the best experience
Our platform allows candidates to be their best selves, so our customers can find the people that truly belong with them. They’re proud to use a technology that’s changing hiring, for good.
Leading the way in AI for hiring
We’ve continued to push the boundaries in leveraging ethical AI for hiring, with new products on the way for Coaching, Internal Mobility & Interview Builders.