Hiring a robot to do a human’s job isn’t just the future anymore — it’s the present.
And, shockingly enough, people aren’t too upset by it. At least in the experience of XOR AI, a recruiting chatbot startup from Eastern Europe that recently relocated to Austin.
People don’t mind being served by a robot.”
The company launched in 2016 and develops AI-powered hiring tools that serve as recruiting assistants in the early-stage interview process for positions in retail, logistics, hospitality and more.
Its chatbot, XORBOT, interacts with job candidates through a series of templated and customized questions to help both the companies and candidates evaluate and determine if the position is a good fit. XORBOT prescreens candidates, answers frequently asked questions, schedules interviews and provides status updates throughout the hiring process.
After wrapping up a survey that included participation from 10,000 candidates within XOR’s network, the company found that 93.3 percent of the people who have gone through XOR’s interview process said it was an “excellent experience.” Six percent called it “good.”
“People don’t mind being served by a robot,” said Nikolay Manolov, CTO and co-founder of XOR. “They want to get a job, and they want to get a job as fast as possible, especially when it comes to blue-collar positions.”
By pre-screening candidates via automation, Manolov said XOR is saving recruiters roughly one third of the time they would spend otherwise qualifying candidates for first interviews. Plus, the platform can cross-check recruiter calendars and automatically schedule interviews for them once a candidate has passed the automated portion.
“Our entire process takes 15 minutes,” said Manolov. “It used to take recruiters seven to 10 days to schedule that first interview.”
To date, XOR’s chatbot, which operates in more than 100 languages, has conducted over one million interviews worldwide.
“When people visit job boards, usually 60 percent of them drop out during the job application because it takes too long,” said Dave Perry, COO. “By having our chatbot start the engagement process early, we can increase the application capture rate by nearly five times.”
After making a big dent in the European market, XOR looks next to tackle the U.S. market. With a current team of 15, the company relocated its headquarters to Austin and has plans to add another 10 to 12 new hires in sales, marketing and research and development.
“We were originally going to move to Silicon Valley, but Austin is a much happier place,” said Manolov. “The community is stronger here than it is in Silicon Valley.”
In addition to growing its team, XOR is actively raising a Series A round of funding and adding new features that can tackle internal surveys, exit interviews and onboarding. The startup is also working on cultural surveys that can offer predictive analytics for how long a person would stay at a company.
