Traditional recruitment processes have been failing hiring managers for years and intuitive machine learning AI.
A principal cloud architect turned Co-founder, David Weinberg believes that the sky is not the limit of technological advancements. And leveraging the power of AI and ML in the hiring process can only create wonders. Under his leadership, Vervoe empowers businesses to create completely unique assessments, tailored to suit the specific requirements of a role. The company is not only providing end-to-end solutions but also revolutionizing the hiring process. In an exclusive interview, David spoke about the effectiveness of the AI-powered hiring process.
Below are the interview highlights:
Kindly brief us about yourself and your role as the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Vervoe.
I co-founded Vervoe 7 years ago. Prior to that, I was a principal cloud architect at the Department of Defence. I hold a Master’s degree in computer science. At Vervoe I lead the product and engineering teams.
What inspired you to pursue a career in AI and technology, and what do you see as the most exciting developments in the field today?
I’ve always been interested in technology and the majority of my career has been spent working in network security on the vendor side. I love leveraging technology to solve difficult problems, especially when they involve removing scaling limitations or laws-of-physics-type problems (i.e. things that can not be done in the real world, but if they could it would be absolutely the right way to do it).
How does Vervoe incorporate AI into its products and services, and what benefits does this provide to your customers?
We use Machine Learning to grade candidate responses to real-world scenarios (we call them job simulations). We have an active learning interface that our customers (employers) use to train out ML models so the platform grades candidates the way they would grade. This is critical because every organization is different and we set out to ensure that our customers can leverage the power of ML without having the models dictate who they should hire (or who is best). So Vervoe is a true learning platform and every customer has their own unique ML models that are tuned to their specific preferences.
How do you ensure the ethical and responsible use of AI within your organization, particularly in areas such as privacy, security, and bias?
Vervoe is totally blind to any biased information. For example, we do not know the gender, or date of birth, we do not have candidates’ work history or any part of their resume. Additionally, for video and audio questions all grading is done based on a transcript of the video/audio – this way we are also blind to facial expressions, accents, etc – all of which can be biased. We are GDPR compliant as well as ISO27001.
How do you measure the effectiveness of the AI-powered testing process in identifying the right candidates?
We “close the loop” meaning that we survey the hiring manager post-hire (starting at 90 days) to ensure that the candidate who was hired is performing as expected (based on the results of their job simulation). This real-world data is fed back into the system to tune our models and our question library.
How does Vervoe incorporate other factors, such as personality traits and cultural fit, into the hiring process?
Cultural fit is taken into account using our active learning interface. For example, we may learn that a particular employer may prefer short, succinct answers for a particular role rather than longer answers. Or we may learn that candidates who use a larger vocabulary may be preferred. While we do test soft skills, we do not test “personality”. Basically, we test trainable skills, so things like “attention to detail” we test for as you can train or learn to have better attention to detail, however, we do test whether someone is an introvert or extrovert as this is a personality type that does not change.
What kind of support and training do you provide to hiring managers to help them make informed decisions based on the results of the AI-powered testing process?
We have extensive knowledge-based, in-app support and guidance, we provide face-to-face training via our CS team as well as a library of videos and other material.
What would be your valuable advice for budding entrepreneurs and industry professionals?
This is hard! In order to have the best chance of success make sure that you are solving a problem you deeply care about. It needs to be your passion, not just a business.
How do you plan to scale up Vervoe’s growth curve in 2023 and beyond?
We are coming out with some incredible job simulations to give every candidate a chance to show what they can do if they were hired. We are bringing our simulations for Cyber Security, Sales (SDRs, Account executives, and sales reps), Marketing (SEO, growth, brand), Data Scientists (3 types), QA Engineers, Business Analysts, and a ton more! 2023 is going to be a massive year for Vervoe!!!
David Weinberg
Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Vervoe
As a Co-founder, and CPO at Vervoe, David drives Vervoe’s innovation, leads the company’s strategy alongside co-founder Omer Molad, and is responsible for product development and technology. Prior to co-founding Vervoe with Omer, David was the Principal Architect for Australia’s Department of Defence and worked for Juniper Networks in Silicon Valley as a Distinguished Engineer in the CTO Office, and as a Director of Corporate Strategy. David Holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science.
