Welcome to the Recruitment Hackers Podcast. A show about innovation, technology and leaders in the recruitment industry brought to you by Talkpush the leading recruitment automation platform.

Max: Hello, and welcome back to the Recruitment Hackers podcast. I'm Max, your host. And today on the show, we have someone from the other side of the table. We normally invite people here from the talent acquisition side. But somebody did something very unique on the other side, on the candidate side, which got my attention and the attention of a lot of other folks. Miss Rosie Maharjan, I hope I'm pronouncing it right. Welcome to the show Rosie!

Rosie: Hi, glad to be here. 

Max: We are glad to have you! Rosie, I think you'll talk about this better than I will. Tell us about this chatbot you built, you know, my company builds chatbots for big brands like Walmart and McDonald's and does recruitment automation for all these big brands, but we've never built a bot for the candidates and the job seeker yet. So I'm interested I mean, I think our audience would be interested in seeing how you came up with that. 

Rosie: Yeah, definitely. So I built a chatbot that interacts with recruiters that come onto my website when they come on to see my design portfolio. And so the chatbot essentially goes through the questions that our recruiter would be curious about in the first place or what they usually ask me in the first round.

And so my assumption was that it would save us both time, and that it kind of goes through what I'm looking for in my next role. Where I'm at? like being you know, younger looking for an associate role. And save the time of people who are looking for senior designers, or looking for something else. And kind of get more clarity of what type of candidate I am, and what I'm looking for as well as really highlight my skills and my creativity in a unique way.

I got the idea because I came across conversational UI, being a conversational UI designer on a job application I saw, and I wanted to look into what conversational AI was. And so I kind of experimented with this chat bot and I had a question that was a little bit controversial. I don't think it should be controversial, but it basically was a little filter at the beginning, before the recruiter could interact with my bot. It asked if they believe that black lives matter, which is a huge human rights issue that's happening right now. And If the recruiter said, no, it would politely tell them that I would not be a good culture fit. And then if they did score that sort of a filter, then they were able to interact with my bot. 

Max:  Hold on one second, because I've got an international audience and black lives matter has resonated with the entire world,  but perhaps not so with the same intensity as it has in North America. Walk us through it.

The recruiter would start interacting with you and asking your bot about the Rosie background and then... Does your bot have a name? Or is it Rosie the bot? 

Rosie: I just call it Rosie bot. 

Max:  Okay. Rosie bot will ask the employer: What do you think about black lives matter? Is that right?

Rosie: Yeah. Essentially, in the beginning, the first question the bot will ask is, are you a recruiter? And if they say yes, then it asks, do you believe black lives matter? 

Max:  Boom! First question.

Rosie: First question because, yeah, I don't want to waste anyone's time. You know, like if you want to see if you're a culture fit or not, you want to make sure that they're fighting for social justice and equality. And so, if that's not a priority or that seems too political, then I don't know. I don't think I would be a good fit and I don't want to pretend like I would be. And so it was kind of bold. 

Max:  Obviously it works on two levels. One you're screening them out. And two, you get a lot of attention with that Rosie bot, because it was right in the heat  of a strong political discussion on black lives matter. So I imagine  you got a lot of interest, you made some new friends like me. 

Rosie: Yeah. I was trying to be more transparent than controversial, you know, I just wanted to be like, just straight up. These are things that are important to me. These are values that I have as a designer that will be emitted in my work. And I want to make sure that I'm in a company that also strongly has those values. 

Max: Well, I love that. I think we are dealing with a world where there is more and more data. So from the recruiter standpoint, from an employer, they get more candidates now than they ever have before. They don't know what to do with it. And for you, I mean, in a way you're a job seeker and you can update us on what kind of job you're looking for, maybe our audience can connect you with opportunities. But I suppose there's also hundreds, or maybe thousands of positions to consider. So many maket places to choose from. The volume can, I suppose, become overwhelming. Is that how you're experiencing it? 

Rosie: Sort of, yeah. I think the way that you have to apply for jobs now is so different, I think, than it used to be. You can't just hit the apply button. That's like going in blindly, you usually would have like an internal referral or something, and that would help you.

But I think that kind of, especially for young designers and new grads, it makes you seem like, ah you just want a job! Like you don't want to just settle for something. Where in reality, I think we have the power to be a little bit more selective about our job, and make sure that we are somewhere that we feel like we are making a difference.

And so that's kind of the filter I wanted to create there and make sure that I am somewhere that holds those values, and where it does make that impact. And I think it really worked for the most part. Whoever contacts me or whatever job I get, I know that they have passed that bar! Like it's not a conversation we have to have. 

Max: Yeah. Oh I get that but, can you imagine this forum, this conversational AI form... I mean, most people are not going to get thousands of recruiters to come to your websites to talk to your bots. That's a stretch. But  potentially it could happen that you would build an AI that's smart enough that it could, you know, it could handle a first level interview. You could have two bots talking to each other, and they would come to an agreement. And you wouldn't reveal everything until you meet somebody in person. But before that you'd have that first filter happening.

But in order for that to happen, we'd have to have  a lot of volume in, on both sides where you'd have to have maybe thousands of jobs talking to your bots before you get just the right match, the perfect culture match that would come to you. But still today for you as a job seeker is it a lot of going through, you know, one job listing at a time? One marketplace at a time? Or have you been able to use that, all the fame that you've gone with that bot on Twitter to generate random job opportunities?

Rosie: Yeah, it was like that in the beginning where I wou...