The hiring course of has lengthy been criticized for its inefficiency and opacity. Candidates spend hours writing purposes and submitting cowl letters, solely to vanish into what usually seems like a black field. Generative AI has solely made issues messier, with employers more and more counting on AI-powered screening techniques to sift by way of an awesome variety of submissions.
Stockholm-based startup Coffee Jobs thinks there’s a greater method. The corporate is constructing a video-first hiring platform that mixes AI interview brokers with short-form video profiles, creating one thing that seems like a cross between LinkedIn and TikTok. As a substitute of relying solely on resumes, candidates full AI-powered interviews designed to showcase their persona and communication abilities.
Fika Jobs introduced on Tuesday a $4 million pre-seed spherical, which will probably be used to proceed growing the platform, develop the workforce, and put together for a wider launch later this 12 months.
For job seekers, the method begins by connecting a LinkedIn profile. Fika’s AI critiques the candidate’s background and generates personalised interview questions. Candidates then full a roughly 10-minute video interview with the AI agent, at present powered by Google’s Gemini fashions.
After the interview, Fika robotically turns responses into brief video clips and organizes them right into a profile. As a substitute of making use of to each new function, candidates preserve a dwell profile that employers can uncover and revisit as new alternatives come up.
The thought got here from co-founders and brothers Jakob Dubois (CEO) and Alexander Dubois (CTO) whereas they had been constructing their earlier startup.
“Once we had been constructing (social app) Gaff, we spent plenty of time recruiting and nearly handed on a candidate as a result of his resume didn’t actually stand out,” Jakob Dubois informed TechCrunch. “We ended up talking with him anyway, and inside minutes, his grit, drive, and ambition turned apparent. Precisely the form of individual we needed to rent.”
That have satisfied the founders that some traits that employers care about most are tough to seize on paper.
In contrast to most opponents (Alex, Makiand Mercoramongst others) that target serving to employers supply, display screen, and match candidates extra effectively with AI, Fika is constructing a platform the place candidates preserve video-first profiles and employers browse a pool of people that have already been interviewed and evaluated by AI.
If profitable, Fika Jobs may assist employers assess communication abilities and cultural match early within the hiring course of, complementing conventional resume and utility critiques. This method could also be particularly precious for early-career professionals and candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, whose potential will not be at all times obvious from a resume alone.
After all, video profiles introduce actual bias dangers which can be additionally value acknowledging. When employers can see a candidate’s race, age, gender, bodily look, and accent earlier than evaluating their {qualifications}, it opens the door to discrimination {that a} resume, for all its flaws, a minimum of partially obscures. There’s a purpose some firms have moved towards blind resume screening.
The platform plans to open early entry to candidates this week, with a broader public launch anticipated this fall. The corporate will initially give attention to Sweden earlier than increasing internationally. Fika at present has a small workforce however expects to succeed in round 10 staff by the tip of the 12 months.
Greater than 100 firms are on the waitlist, say the founders, although they declined to reveal which of them. Individually, they stated greater than 50 firms have examined the platform, together with Loads Labs, SICS.ai, Kognity, and Rebtel.
The platform is free for job seekers. Employers pay nothing up entrance, however Fika takes 10% of a candidate’s first-year wage upon a profitable rent. (The corporate notes that that is decrease than the 20% to 30% placement charges usually charged by conventional recruiters and headhunters.)
The spherical was led by Luminar Ventures, with participation from Alliance VC and King co-founders Sebastian Knutsson and Riccardo Zacconi, the duo greatest identified for creating the hit cellular recreation Sweet Crush.
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