People searching for jobs across various industries will likely find themselves participating in more preliminary screening interviews soon. Although this might seem encouraging, it doesn’t necessarily indicate an increase in available job opportunities.
Rather, recruiters—often overwhelmed by the task of sorting through applicants to find those suitable for the next stage—are turning to AI to handle routine screening duties such as verifying backgrounds, salary expectations, and candidate availability.
Alex, a startup developing an AI-powered recruiting tool, claims it is already assisting businesses with conducting both video and phone interviews.
Aaron Wang (center, bottom row in the photo), who co-founded Alex about a year and a half ago, shared with TechCrunch that their voice-based AI can autonomously interview applicants shortly after they submit their applications. “Our AI recruiter conducts thousands of interviews daily and supports hiring at some of the world’s largest organizations,” he explained.
Wang, whose background includes roles at Facebook and as a quantitative analyst at a hedge fund, chose not to disclose specific clients but mentioned that their users include Fortune 100 corporations, major financial firms, national restaurant brands, and leading accounting companies.
Investors see the adoption of AI interviewers as an inevitable shift for many organizations. This belief fueled Alex’s recent $17 million Series A funding round, led by Peak XV Partners. The round also saw contributions from Y Combinator, Uncorrelated Ventures, several unnamed Fortune 500 CHROs, and others. This follows the company’s previous $3 million seed round, which was led by 1984 Ventures last year.
Alex faces competition from other startups in the AI recruitment space, including early-stage companies such as HeyMilo, ConverzAI, and Ribbon.
Mercor, a fast-growing AI data labeling company that we previously reported is seeking to raise funds at a $10 billion valuation, also began as an AI recruiting platform.
Alex’s broader ambition is to interview millions of candidates, creating professional profiles with more depth and detail than what LinkedIn currently provides.
“We believe that a ten-minute conversation reveals far more about a person than what’s shown on their LinkedIn profile,” Wang stated.
For the time being, Alex is concentrating on enabling recruiters to spend more time building connections with vetted candidates and supporting hiring managers.
