Jack & Jill Secures $20M to Revolutionize Job Hunting with Conversational AI

Jack & Jill raises $50 million to bring conversational AI to job-hunting | TechCrunch

Between infinitely scrolling job boards and the puzzling rise of fake applicants using AI to apply en masse, job-searching has quickly become one of the most bewildering experiences the internet has to offer. Listings are posted and re-posted across different platforms as applications go unanswered, creating a spam-like flood of activity on both sides. "If you put a job on LinkedIn, you might get 1,000 people applying for that job within the first six hours," says Matt Wilson, a London-based serial entrepreneur. "Some companies don't even review the applicants that apply for those jobs, because the signal to noise ratio is very, very low." Wilson's new solution is Jack & Jill, a new platform that uses conversational AI to reinvent the recruitment process from the ground up. The company announced $20 million in seed funding today, led by EU investor Creandum, but it's hardly been in stealth. Service is already live in London, where the outfit has garnered nearly 50,000 users -- and Wilson wants to use the influx of cash to fuel a US expansion and take Jack & Jill to a new level. "There hasn't been a major change in how people find jobs since LinkedIn and Indeed came on the scene 20 years ago," says Wilson. His bet is that, with AI chatbots changing workplaces across the world, now might be the time to shake things up. As you might guess from the name, Jack & Jill is a two-part platform. The "Jack" side of the platform handles the applicant side, giving users a 20-minute, AI-powered profile interview before providing them with a select list of roles pulled from online databases. From there, Jack can be used for mock interviews or more involved professional coaching. "Jill" works with employers, building a profile of a particular role and elevating candidates that match its requirements. Like LinkedIn, part of the goal is for both workers and hiring managers to keep an active presence on their respective apps, letting the app pull players off the sidelines as needed. The service takes a standard commission from any successful hire, and as the scope of the platform grows, Wilson hopes to make Jack & Jill indispensable for both sides. That might sound like a standard recruiting system with a little AI sprinkled on top, but Wilson thinks conversational chatbots are more important than a simple matching algorithm. By building the process around chatbot interviews, he believes he's found a scalable alternative to the endless shuffle of listings and resumes, potentially reinventing the basic elements of the contemporary hiring process. Using AI systems to conduct first-round interviews is increasingly common in many parts of the world -- particularly in China, where many multinational corporations have used the practice for hiring local roles. But while a surprise interview with an AI hiring manager might seem alienating, Wilson hopes that Jack & Jill's approach will result in more intelligence applied to job placement overall. "I think the way that we are mapped to the companies we work for, and vice versa, is just extremely inefficient," Wilson says. "There are billions of people out there that could be in better jobs for them. And that's a mission worth working on."

Jack & Jill raises $20M to fix job hunting with conversational AI - SiliconANGLE

Jack & Jill, a hiring platform powered by conversational generative artificial intelligence, said today it raised $20 million in seed funding led by Creandum. Every year, millions of job seekers go online to find employment and 68% of companies said they used online platforms for "all" or "most" of their hiring, according to a report from iHire. But despite this digital shift, the experience has deteriorated for both employers and candidates. "Hiring is broken for candidates and companies. Misaligned incentives, spammy outreach and crowded inboxes," Matthew Wilson, chief executive of Jack & Jill, said in the announcement. According to Wilson, AI has made the problem worse. It has enabled job seekers to generate generic cover letters and flood job boards with automated applications, while recruiters increasingly rely on keyword-based filters that screen out qualified candidates with little context. "We're not adding a layer on top of that messy system," said Wilson. "We're rethinking it from first-principles, equipping everybody with an agent that works for them." Given the name of the company, it's easy to understand that the platform is a two-part system. Jack is a conversational AI chatbot that does intake interviews with job seekers. It gets to know them, understands their skills and experience, and works through what they really want out of their career. It does this with a 20-minute profile interview that gives users a real chance to describe their experience and role in the workplace, as well as their ambitions. The platform can also be used for mock interviews or more involved "coaching" to provide users with the tools needed to land their preferred job. Jill, on the other hand, works with employers by building a profile of specific roles and job opportunities, then uses information from the solution to find applicants that fit those requirements and company needs. Wilson said in just six months, already 49,000 candidates have spoken with Jack, and Jill has managed the initial recruitment process for hundreds of high-growth companies in London. "Talking to Jill was a surprisingly valuable experience -- she had way more context than we expected, and we're already speaking to some excellent candidates as a result," said Eric Landau, CEO and co-founder of data annotation platform Encord. Jack is currently free for job seekers. The company earns revenue by charging employers a 10% commission on successful hires that Jill helps facilitate. This year has seen a wave of AI-driven hiring platforms gaining traction. Freelancer marketplace Upwork Inc. upgraded its AI capabilities with an instant-interview chatbot feature, while recruiting startup Mercor Inc. raised $100 million. Even Google LLC has entered the space with Career Dreamer, an experimental AI-powered career assistant designed to help students, recent graduates and other job seekers explore opportunities in the workforce. Although Wilson noted that AI is breaking the job marketplace, it's still early in deciding if AI will repair it. With this $20 million raise, Jack & Jill has a chance to help change the current experience of looking at postings online and then trying to get noticed amid hundreds or more potential candidates bustling for the same role. With this investment, Wilson said the company intends to set its sights on broader job markets with an international expansion. The company also has plans for major updates to the platform coming in the next few months.