Voice of Innovation: Qualifi's Journey and the Future of Recruiting

[00:00:00] Yo Chad, what if I told you there's a platform that could completely revolutionize your

[00:00:06] hiring strategy in a matter of hours?

[00:00:10] Yeah, I'd call a bullshit.

[00:00:11] Well it's not bullshit with AI for jobs powered by our friends at this way global.

[00:00:17] Okay, I'm listening.

[00:00:19] Well everyone else is fishing in the same old talent pools.

[00:00:22] AI for jobs can source over 160 million diverse candidate profiles.

[00:00:29] This way global has established unique partnerships with over 8,500 trusted diversity partners.

[00:00:36] So wait a minute.

[00:00:37] All of the hard on the groundwork is already done.

[00:00:40] That's right cowboy you can discover 300 qualified candidates per job rack instantly.

[00:00:46] It's like having a candidate sourcing magic wand.

[00:00:49] Dude if you had a magic wand you would have Mexican pizzas all day.

[00:00:57] Job distracting me so ash.

[00:00:59] AI for jobs advanced matching algorithm analyzes past applicants using trillions of historical

[00:01:05] matching events in over 1600 data points.

[00:01:09] Now that is what AI should be doing saving recruiters time on sourcing while they provide

[00:01:15] a white glove candidate experience.

[00:01:18] Let's wrap this shit up I'm hungry.

[00:01:21] Listen up kids revolutionize your hiring process today by jumping over to this way global.com

[00:01:27] and checking out AI for jobs where you can learn more about how to leverage AI for your

[00:01:33] recruiting instead of just writing poems and grocery lists.

[00:01:37] That is this way global dot com we out.

[00:01:42] Hi, kids lock the doors you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast Chad Soash

[00:01:50] and Joel Chezeman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where hers complete with

[00:01:55] breaking news.

[00:01:56] Brought to opinion and loads of sir.

[00:01:58] Bottle up boys and girls.

[00:02:00] It's time for the chat and cheese podcast.

[00:02:04] Oh yeah, what's up everybody?

[00:02:07] It is Ron Burgundy's favorite podcast aka the chat and cheese podcast.

[00:02:12] I'm your co-host Joel Chezeman joined as always the Sam to my photo.

[00:02:16] Chad Soash is in the house we're recording live from Tee Week at the qualified booth and

[00:02:21] what better guest to have who in the qualified booth in the co-founder and CEO in the

[00:02:26] flesh.

[00:02:27] Darian Michael.

[00:02:28] In the first let's go to the podcast your two time guests on the show at this point.

[00:02:36] If you get to five you get a velvet jacket so yeah, so stick with it stick with it.

[00:02:41] Yeah, stick with it.

[00:02:42] Well we got to talk about the first time though who's on firing squad and it was a double

[00:02:47] applause wasn't I think double rainbow.

[00:02:50] Double rainbow.

[00:02:51] So now it's pitching all the time.

[00:02:54] I was ready for it.

[00:02:55] Are you not pitching all the time?

[00:02:57] I still pitching every day every day every day is I'm pitching.

[00:02:59] Every day is probably coming off a fundraiser every day.

[00:03:01] I gotta be all my fees and keys.

[00:03:04] So Darian, a lot of our listeners don't know you even though you've been on the show before

[00:03:08] those that don't know get us get us acquainted with you what makes you tick and please mention

[00:03:13] how many kids you've brought into this world while you're out.

[00:03:15] I'm trying to cut the train off.

[00:03:17] We have three kids.

[00:03:18] I'll start there.

[00:03:19] But no, there's a medical procedure for that.

[00:03:21] I'm very aware of it.

[00:03:24] That's all saved about that.

[00:03:25] But yeah, I'm Darian Michael.

[00:03:27] This is the hell of an intro.

[00:03:28] I'm Darian Michael co-founder CEO, qualify where the phone interview company we help capture

[00:03:34] the voice of candidates beyond the resume.

[00:03:37] We automate that phone interview step in the hiring process so that recruiting teams can

[00:03:42] get to know their candidates quicker make decisions faster and then now we help schedule

[00:03:46] the ones that you like get them to live interviews that much more seamlessly as well.

[00:03:52] So we started with the phone interview and now have it into in screening solution.

[00:03:54] And there's a pride of Indianapolis area startups, by the way.

[00:03:57] He's been very humble but local kid, kid done good.

[00:04:01] We're really proud of you for sure.

[00:04:02] And now we appreciate it.

[00:04:04] So talk about where you started and where you're on your way too, right?

[00:04:10] Because you've had this evolution of who you are, what you want to be and it can happen

[00:04:14] overnight, right?

[00:04:15] Certainly.

[00:04:16] You don't have so much funding for God's X.

[00:04:18] So where did you start?

[00:04:20] Where do you guys want to go?

[00:04:22] Yeah, I was literally talking to somebody at breakfast.

[00:04:24] I feel like it's been still pretty young, right?

[00:04:27] But I feel like it's been a long journey.

[00:04:29] We've been at this for close to officially five years but technically around like seven

[00:04:36] years when the idea with the inception of the idea and it started based off a personal

[00:04:40] experience.

[00:04:41] I'm at another indie based tech startup company called Byra Launch and I was employee

[00:04:48] number one or two there.

[00:04:50] And from starting with the CEO of myself, we grew to about 70 people on the team and my

[00:04:54] responsibility was over like that internal operations.

[00:04:57] I was doing all the things and how you're doing to start up?

[00:05:01] Yeah, like everyone I would say everyone wears a lot of hats and a startup.

[00:05:03] I felt like I probably wore the most hats at that time and the recruiting HR function

[00:05:09] was one of those hats and that's where I saw the pain points around all of recruiting

[00:05:13] but especially I noticed a pattern of like, hey, I'm asking these same questions over

[00:05:17] and over again in the phone interview.

[00:05:19] Why don't I just record it, send it to people, let them respond.

[00:05:23] Yeah.

[00:05:24] And then the fun part, I think we're spoiled in Indy.

[00:05:26] Like we no one really has that bad of a commute but I had like a 45 minute commute

[00:05:29] tour.

[00:05:30] Yeah, we're in California where there's like real worst communities.

[00:05:32] That's around the corner.

[00:05:33] Yeah, I stopped sign up straight 45 minutes.

[00:05:37] So like 45 minutes was a long time and I'm always efficiency driven person.

[00:05:41] I'm always looking for tools or solutions to like plug, you know, even the smallest gaps

[00:05:45] in my process.

[00:05:46] And so I was like, hey, I have this 45 minute commute to work.

[00:05:49] I listen to podcasts like could I be more productive even in my, you know, commute?

[00:05:53] And I was like, if I had these recorded I could listen to interviews like a podcast.

[00:05:57] And so that was where the idea started for me and I took it to my brother who's my co-founder

[00:06:03] and resonated with him because he was doing recruiting as well in his own right.

[00:06:07] Bolton the food industry and in senior care, both high turnover.

[00:06:11] And so we thought that there was something there that we wanted to start with.

[00:06:15] So that was a start.

[00:06:16] Yeah.

[00:06:17] Where you guys?

[00:06:18] Where you went out?

[00:06:19] I mean, what's the big evolution step spin thus far?

[00:06:22] You got funding.

[00:06:23] I'm sure that fueled some of it.

[00:06:25] Seven point seven million.

[00:06:26] Yeah, five years old.

[00:06:27] What's next?

[00:06:28] When's that 25 million series, series be coming?

[00:06:31] Hopefully, hopefully at some point we're grinding right now.

[00:06:34] 2023 was a slog for a lot of companies and we made it through.

[00:06:38] Luckily, we have more of that money still in the bank and we can continue to grow the company.

[00:06:43] But I think the evolution started with like a very finite idea of like, hey, record interviews,

[00:06:48] send it to candidates, they record and send it back basically.

[00:06:52] Yeah.

[00:06:53] And now I think the bigger vision centers around the totality one of the hiring process

[00:06:57] we've since expanded, like I mentioned into the into and screening aspects.

[00:07:01] So we added scheduling and live video interviewing.

[00:07:06] So I like to say we take you from your first interview to your last interview.

[00:07:10] But what I'm more excited about, more fascinated about is the idea that phone interviews in

[00:07:15] the traditional sense are still very traditional people just talk on the phone.

[00:07:20] Yeah, they scribble down notes as they're talking.

[00:07:23] And I just think about how much data gets lost to the ether because people don't have a

[00:07:28] good way of capturing that information yet.

[00:07:31] There's so much more information I learned about a candidate that you can do in a phone

[00:07:36] interview beyond a resume.

[00:07:38] We have all the tools from AI perspective, centered around scraping, scraping resumes, figuring

[00:07:44] out how to assess candidates there.

[00:07:46] Right.

[00:07:47] But there's a lot of rich information that gets lost in fun interviews and so I'm really

[00:07:50] excited about the potential there.

[00:07:52] So yeah.

[00:07:53] I think for us real quickly, if I'm a candidate, my interaction with Qualify, walk us through

[00:07:59] that you said from the first interview to the last.

[00:08:01] Yeah.

[00:08:02] What does that like for a candidate?

[00:08:03] Yeah, so the typical entry point for a candidate is they've already applied to specific

[00:08:08] job and what else received through Qualify as a notification saying from the recruiter basically

[00:08:15] either text or an email saying, hey, we got your application.

[00:08:19] We want to learn more about you.

[00:08:21] We want this experience to be really convenient.

[00:08:22] So we pre-recorded these questions for you.

[00:08:25] Click this link to get started.

[00:08:26] So they click the link, they see a branded landing page branded to the employer with the

[00:08:32] simple instructions on what to expect in terms of this phone interview and then ultimately

[00:08:37] when they're ready after they've read these instructions, they have now two options.

[00:08:41] We started with one.

[00:08:42] They have two options now.

[00:08:43] One will call you so like they can hit a start button and our system will dial their

[00:08:47] phone.

[00:08:48] Or we've now added the convenience of taking the interview right there in the web interface.

[00:08:53] So on their mobile phone or on desktop, they can still respond with their own voice and

[00:08:58] capture however they want to sell themselves, however they want to respond through those

[00:09:02] two convenient mechanisms.

[00:09:03] And so they'll hear the questions from the recruiter.

[00:09:05] We also have AI generated voice in the platform as well.

[00:09:08] Also, recruiters can type out their questions and have a really polished AI voice as well.

[00:09:13] But most people are still using their own authentic voice and they'll hear that and they

[00:09:18] can respond in a very conversational way.

[00:09:20] Yet, the recruiters not there live on the other side and so it's pretty seamless in that

[00:09:25] way.

[00:09:26] So we need a chat and cheese.

[00:09:27] We've had our voices cloned so we'll go ahead.

[00:09:30] We should talk about.

[00:09:31] Yeah, I've always thought about having celebrity voices eventually in the platform.

[00:09:35] So if you guys would be like, yes, they'll be licensing.

[00:09:38] Exactly.

[00:09:39] Yes, who do you want to read this out to?

[00:09:42] Do you have Angelina, Julie, Brad Pitt?

[00:09:45] I always say, the one I always, uh,

[00:09:47] prefer Snoop.

[00:09:48] Yes, like, yes.

[00:09:49] You just love to take a interview.

[00:09:51] Yeah, I just put you to ease.

[00:09:53] Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:54] I mean, that's exactly what you want.

[00:09:55] So, so keep going.

[00:09:56] Uh, I'm a recruiter like I've got all these candidates that I sent this invite out to.

[00:10:00] I've funneled it down to maybe two or three that I want to come in.

[00:10:03] Yeah.

[00:10:03] Then what happens?

[00:10:04] Is it the schedule and interview alive person?

[00:10:06] Does it keep being automated?

[00:10:08] So after the phone interview, one recruiters can integrate qualified any step in the journey.

[00:10:14] Typically it's at the point of application or just after they've applied.

[00:10:17] So they take that phone interview after they've applied and then it all gets sent back to the recruiter.

[00:10:22] The recruiter dashboard allows you to see all the candidates that have completed interviews,

[00:10:26] it helps score based off of the survey questions that we asked before.

[00:10:29] And then we also summarize the full interview.

[00:10:33] And so you can see like the highlights from each candidate and dig a little further set like an LLM kind of a thing.

[00:10:39] Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:40] Adjust all the transcript and then you exactly.

[00:10:42] Yeah, we ingest the transcript and bring out like the top five bullet points, the highlights from that interview.

[00:10:47] And so as you're looking at all your candidates,

[00:10:49] you can hover over the the summary and see like,

[00:10:52] oh, this candidate has five years experience at this company doing this thing.

[00:10:55] And like has these different bullet points.

[00:10:56] You're like, oh, I want to dig in further without that review time is five minutes or so anyway.

[00:11:01] It's way shorter than a standard phone interview,

[00:11:03] but that helps, you know, bring your focus into the right candidates still.

[00:11:07] And then from there, if you're like, hey, I want to give this candidate the thumbs up.

[00:11:10] I want to move them to the next steps.

[00:11:11] You can hit schedule this candidate right in the platform and we'll send a follow up to the candidate where they can self select the best time that works for them.

[00:11:20] And then if that next step is a live virtual panel interview,

[00:11:25] we have what we call qualify video meetings,

[00:11:28] which is a browser-based video interviewing solution to mitigate that like that.

[00:11:35] Oh, do I have to download some app or troubleshoot with zoom?

[00:11:38] It's just browser-based.

[00:11:39] So it's a like frictionless two is there an automated rejection component as well?

[00:11:43] Because we hear a lot about ghosting and I'm from a company.

[00:11:46] So it's not automated, but there is dispositioning in the platform.

[00:11:50] So yeah, if you don't like the candidate and give them the thumbs down and you can just easily hit,

[00:11:55] hey, it's not a good fit for us right now.

[00:11:57] So on the other side, not the rejection,

[00:11:59] but say that they had a great interview and they meet all the requirements.

[00:12:03] Can you just automatically push them into an interview scheduling?

[00:12:07] Yeah, right now we don't have that built in, but that's something that I think is very exciting on the forefront for us.

[00:12:12] It's like how do we, yeah, streamline that even further.

[00:12:15] Right.

[00:12:16] And we've always from day one like with AI or anything automated,

[00:12:20] wanted to be really careful because diversity and inclusion is like very integral to like how we operate as a company.

[00:12:27] We don't want to be part of like kind of our competitive,

[00:12:29] how we compete and talk about our product differentiated from other interviewing services is on the level of mitigating bias.

[00:12:36] And so we don't want to be problematic in like especially reject candidates that shouldn't have been rejected,

[00:12:41] but I think there's an opportunity to like say, hey,

[00:12:43] we feel confident that this candidate is a strong candidate to get them scheduled.

[00:12:47] You can review them for yourself and see,

[00:12:49] but I think there's an opportunity for us for sure.

[00:12:54] Okay, listener, how can you help your employees become more productive?

[00:12:58] I have answers.

[00:12:59] How about automating manual and repetitive tasks,

[00:13:03] giving meaning to data, then allowing that data to actually drive decisions?

[00:13:08] And how about matching people to your jobs quicker?

[00:13:12] Well, wait, the chat and cheese has a new LLM.

[00:13:17] No, cheeseman, I'm talking about text kernel.

[00:13:20] Okay, that makes more sense.

[00:13:23] What I'm hearing is the groundbreaking concept of wait for it.

[00:13:27] Yeah, simplicity.

[00:13:30] Seriously though, seriously, text kernel cuts through the complexities like a tortilla chip through some hot nacho cheese.

[00:13:38] Oh my god, really?

[00:13:39] Nacho references already.

[00:13:40] Anyways, text kernel brings efficiency and productivity to your operations.

[00:13:45] Text kernel seamlessly unifies your tools and data to drive efficiencies and success.

[00:13:52] Text kernel is creating new opportunities for your recruitment journey,

[00:13:58] kind of like adding guac to my barbacoa burrito.

[00:14:01] Oh my god, how about extracting meaningful insights from data?

[00:14:05] I mean, that's something swiftly matching people with jobs,

[00:14:09] automating repetitive tasks.

[00:14:12] Who knew such advanced concepts were even possible in the land of human resources?

[00:14:20] We did, Chad.

[00:14:21] We did.

[00:14:22] Dude, wrap it up.

[00:14:23] I'm a little hungry.

[00:14:24] Imagine that.

[00:14:25] Okay, listener, get ready to use today's tech to drive efficiencies and productivity.

[00:14:31] Visit textcurnell.com.

[00:14:33] That's T-E-X-T-K-E-R-N-E-L dot com.

[00:14:40] Nachos.

[00:14:42] How much has D-E-I-B been a part of just the kind of like the love language of pitching companies?

[00:14:51] And is there still traction there because we're seeing in, you know, obviously the broader

[00:14:56] scape where it's being demonized by states, by politicians.

[00:15:02] I mean, even some moguls, you know, like Elon Musk.

[00:15:07] So is it still kind of like the love language of T-A-E-A-E-Is that still important to them?

[00:15:13] Or are they starting to push away from the table?

[00:15:15] I don't feel anybody, at least I haven't seen anybody pushing away.

[00:15:18] What I, the way I talk about it is definitely what we stand on but it's not the thing that we

[00:15:22] lead with. Yeah.

[00:15:23] What it seems like is recruiters care about moving the core metric and right now the core metric

[00:15:28] center around speed and efficiency.

[00:15:30] And so that's where we specialize in.

[00:15:33] But when it comes to how do we differentiate from other platforms, how do we

[00:15:37] shine in, for like video is like who we typically go after.

[00:15:40] It's like that's how we talk about ourselves differently and say hey, yes video is a synchronous

[00:15:46] solution but with that you're also getting information that might not be helpful in making

[00:15:51] the best quality of decisions. Yeah.

[00:15:53] And so let's mitigate that to some degree.

[00:15:55] So that way you can make a better decision.

[00:15:57] I think there's like a huge opportunity for us to add more features around that.

[00:16:02] But then I think my hope is that it continues to grow in terms of importance for

[00:16:08] organizations because right now it doesn't seem like it's a

[00:16:11] budgeted initiative in a lot of organizations.

[00:16:15] Yeah.

[00:16:16] TA cares about it but they're putting dollars behind other things first is what it seems like.

[00:16:21] Well, if they care about it, they will put dollars being it.

[00:16:23] Right.

[00:16:24] And I think that's the big difference that we've seen over the years is that there's a lot of fluff

[00:16:29] and pop and circumstance and it's total bullshit.

[00:16:32] It's like if you believe in it, then put money and resources into it.

[00:16:36] Yeah. And I think at least there was a wave so we'll see what the wave has produced obviously.

[00:16:41] There's more people in those positions but one of learning that DE and I positions all have

[00:16:46] different areas of emphasis.

[00:16:48] Like some is very central to recruiting summits about the current employee experience.

[00:16:52] Some is about vendor relationships and who their suppliers are.

[00:16:56] And so like every organization might have a different focal point when it comes to their DEI

[00:17:01] practices.

[00:17:02] And so that's been a learning curve for us too is like figuring out,

[00:17:05] is this a good point of contact for us to go start a relationship with

[00:17:08] how much influence do they have with sound acquisition?

[00:17:12] And you talk about demand from the DEI perspective.

[00:17:15] I'm curious about overall demand.

[00:17:18] We read in the news every day layoffs like huge layoffs.

[00:17:21] From your perspective as a vendor, if people are becoming more efficient,

[00:17:25] are they looking to services like yours more or do you feel like there's more of a pause button

[00:17:29] to see where the economy shakes out in the next 12 months or so?

[00:17:32] Yeah, I think it's been a little bit of both.

[00:17:34] Like there's certain areas like being a startup that's always evaluating who are we going after

[00:17:39] why are we going after them and like the areas where we found a lot of results and where we tend to

[00:17:44] focus is high volume spaces like healthcare and retail.

[00:17:48] And they're consistently hiring for the same reasons as like day one.

[00:17:51] Like there's a lot of turnover, a lot of attrition.

[00:17:54] And even in like the recruiting ranks, there tends to be like turnover there too.

[00:17:57] And so our kind of pitch to that is hey we're an always on system.

[00:18:02] You don't have to retrain us like we've had teams where they've lost recruiters and

[00:18:07] they don't need a backfill or backfill as fast because they have a system in place that's like

[00:18:11] working the way that it's supposed to work.

[00:18:13] So from a demand perspective, I think 2023 was very interesting for us.

[00:18:18] Obviously we grew but then there's a lot of people towards the end of the year like evaluating

[00:18:23] looking at their full stack and wanting to see how things played out.

[00:18:27] Yeah, to that point.

[00:18:28] And so my hope anticipation is they've done a lot of that in 2024.

[00:18:32] They're like all right we're ready to like put some new things into practice.

[00:18:34] And I think everyone's looking at AI and automation as a way to advance and compete because

[00:18:40] I think a TA is a competitive sport.

[00:18:42] So if you're not advancing then you're going to lose out on your best talent.

[00:18:45] I talked to a lot of startups who say recruiters or employers don't want to talk to you because

[00:18:50] they mean I might lose my job if we hire this company.

[00:18:54] Yeah, are you seeing some of that and if so how are you sort of getting around that hurdle?

[00:18:59] Yeah, that's like a common question that we've gotten since day one and what we tend to find

[00:19:03] is that when qualified comes in, they don't say hey all right we're cutting like

[00:19:08] three or four recruiters.

[00:19:10] What they see is like we're adding capacity to our existing team and now they can do more screen

[00:19:14] more candidates or repurpose them to take on better like the more meaningful projects beyond

[00:19:22] just screening because like what we try to talk to our recruiters about is like

[00:19:26] we don't want you to be we want you to be more of a partner to the business and not glorified

[00:19:30] or overpaid admins and just focused on scheduling and coordinating your job is more important to that.

[00:19:35] And so like my hope is that we're elevating the role of what recruiting is.

[00:19:38] And I think I think that's honestly like the future of recruiting is

[00:19:43] that role might shift in a lot of organizations.

[00:19:47] It might require more responsibilities that are more highly aligned to the angles

[00:19:52] of the organization and not just serving the hiring manager fulfilling the coordination duties

[00:19:57] and so that's my hope and that's how we tend to talk about it.

[00:20:00] Yeah, so when it comes down to I mean it's impossible to get into an employer's head in the

[00:20:05] first place to know whether they're literally looking to like scale down the recruiting staff or

[00:20:11] if they're looking to provide them with more resources that's beyond you at that point.

[00:20:15] Right, it's so very explicit.

[00:20:17] So I'm like we've been on demo calls and like they're like they literally look at it as like a

[00:20:22] financial equation like yeah I can literally cut head down and they'll like say that on over like

[00:20:27] oh we're not saying that like this is how we think of it.

[00:20:30] But I'm sorry did I say the quiet part out loud?

[00:20:34] They do that we don't do that we like we are here for recruiters like we very much care about

[00:20:40] their well-being because like one of the things too is like especially like these high volume

[00:20:44] fast-paced industries recruiters are doing phone interviews at the dinner table later

[00:20:49] yeah across different time zones and so it's like hey you don't have to do that anymore

[00:20:53] so we're hopefully hopefully making their like everyday life better.

[00:20:56] Qualify the recruiter buddy yeah exactly that's the recruiter buddy boom.

[00:21:01] So you're gonna be on stage in a little bit what are you gonna be talking about what's the focus of

[00:21:06] your presentation yeah it's about capturing the candidate voice so title this be or the

[00:21:10] the presentation is beyond the resume the power of candidate voice and obviously I'm biased like

[00:21:16] that's what we do every single day and I'm really excited about it because part of the reason I

[00:21:20] want to talk about it is most people don't know who we are let alone the idea behind qualify.

[00:21:26] I would venture to guess close to 100% of our prospects they weren't looking for an audio

[00:21:31] phone interviewing solution they were probably looking for a way to automate but they didn't know

[00:21:35] audio and voice was a medium that they could use to better their hiring practices.

[00:21:39] Well it's hard when they don't have know that they have a problem they know that there's a problem

[00:21:43] there but they don't know what it is and then you come in and you say you have a problem

[00:21:48] I mean that so that's that's a lot of market education so are you doing that call by call

[00:21:53] are you doing how are you guys doing that because that's not easy I mean we've both been I mean

[00:21:58] we were in the industry when job boards were created back in the day right so going

[00:22:03] and educating companies on wait a minute first off this is what the internet symbol looks like

[00:22:10] this is what job that job board is you guys are literally doing almost the exact same thing it's

[00:22:16] much more advanced don't get me wrong so how hard is that how are you going at the market what's

[00:22:20] the good market when it comes to education yeah it's very difficult we're learning along the way like

[00:22:25] what that means for a while is like brute force like just straight up cold everything we're selling

[00:22:31] you pitching you like we're teaching you like like you said call by call yeah now what we're learning

[00:22:36] is that it needs that just broader market education so we're trying to do more stuff like this show

[00:22:41] but at events that matter produce better content we have tons of data now so we've you know hundreds

[00:22:46] of thousands of candidates have been through the platform we're learning you know from that so

[00:22:50] we're trying to be able to be a authority to authoritative resource to the people that my bias

[00:22:56] or might not in the future but looking at content as like a way to share the word about

[00:23:03] and not only qualify but you know what's possible and my guess is you know from a competitive standpoint

[00:23:09] all of you have been educating the marketplace yeah how do you look at competition because I think

[00:23:14] a lot of people when they hear about your solutions like oh I hear a little bit of this I hear

[00:23:17] a little bit of that how do you look at the at the competition I was actually going to say that

[00:23:22] just a second ago I wish there was more competition sometimes like when we first got started

[00:23:26] like market validation yeah like when we first got started it was like oh no one's doing this

[00:23:32] it is a novel idea and like that is honestly like what part of what motivates me still to this day

[00:23:37] is I know one we've seen real results that like are meaningful to our customers and just more people

[00:23:42] need to know about it but one we do there is an existing category around interviewing that I think

[00:23:47] we're like highly associated with but most of the associations with video and so that's why we can

[00:23:52] differentiate within the same category but yeah there is there is some of that education but

[00:23:57] people that have experienced video tend to have like negative correlation to the interviewing space and so

[00:24:04] there is that like shifting their thinking and getting them to come around to seeing our side so I

[00:24:09] think there's like a love love hate there like in some cases like yeah I would love more competition

[00:24:14] to like yeah validate the market yeah I just validate but educate yeah educate yeah I think that's

[00:24:19] more so it is it's already validated but like educating and like we're trying to create and

[00:24:24] define a category in some regards and so it's like sometimes you just want that to be already there

[00:24:28] and you just go into it and pivot and like be a little bit different and so yeah that's a little

[00:24:33] bit of the challenge but I think we're up for it so yeah are you struggling to attract the talent

[00:24:38] you need today do you lack visibility into where your recruitment ad dollars are really going

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[00:25:26] your talent acquisition today you mentioned being in business with your brother yeah I think

[00:25:31] that's an interesting dynamic where are the pros where the cons of going into business with family do

[00:25:36] you arm wrestle for like hard decisions I mean how does that work no actually where it's people say

[00:25:42] don't go into business family right I would say going business with the right family members so like

[00:25:47] I think I could go and business I have two brothers I think I could go and business with both of them

[00:25:50] but I think I started with with Devon in the right way and I think what we did well was establish

[00:25:56] things early on probably when they didn't matter that much in terms of like hey who's got or like

[00:26:00] what the equity equation looks like who's making these types of decisions where do we split duties

[00:26:04] I think we work really well in that regards and I think we haven't really had any like

[00:26:08] major arguments we have had disagreements for sure but it's we try to keep things in the right

[00:26:14] category like we were brothers first and then business partner second and we tried to

[00:26:19] like even down to how we communicate like we use Slack for like our team so we send Slack messages

[00:26:26] for Slack things so then I'll text him if it's just a personal thing so like try not to make

[00:26:31] a mistake no business chat over holidays like or can you we try to like not we I think we we do

[00:26:37] talk about businesses at all time it's hard not to but we try to like not talk about it as much as

[00:26:42] we can like when we're just together in person because as much as we talk to each other every single

[00:26:46] day yeah we're not always together like a family environment so we try to maximize that the big

[00:26:52] question is who wins one-on-one on the court oh for sure me for sure me I'm the hooper but well he'll

[00:27:00] if he was here he would he would argue we have the debate because my my older brother played in

[00:27:05] the NFL and we each all of us played collegiate just I mean just rich yeah it's comes from our

[00:27:13] parents my dad played football and we were like my dad would say my mom was probably a better athlete

[00:27:18] too like she we were all athletes and so sports very she could lead you she didn't but she

[00:27:23] she she played she was like pretty she played basketball volleyball all of us are still growing up

[00:27:27] and so I'm a rent track but we both did track and he technically will not technically I this this

[00:27:33] is the older brother come out he's jumped he has the longer long jump marks that I knew so I'll give him

[00:27:39] that credit so where'd you get up to on high jump I jumped six nine and I said shit six nine yeah yeah wow

[00:27:49] I did that in high school and I didn't get higher than that in college so I peek I peeks early

[00:27:55] that is in your how tall just for everybody who's listening to the audio I'm six five no

[00:28:01] no five ten that is ridiculous I thought I was saying something big yesterday I was like I jump six

[00:28:09] two right right nothing you can jump over me so obviously competitive curious what does the

[00:28:16] company look like in two three years you're obviously looking towards the future what is this

[00:28:20] solution look like acquired that could be it you know I hope to I hope to continue to grow the

[00:28:25] company and what I like I said what I'm really excited about is one I think we have an amazing team

[00:28:29] we're we're 15 full-time folks we're a mode team most of us are based in the Indianapolis area but

[00:28:34] where we have folks across the country hopefully to continue to expand the team but then from a

[00:28:39] product and evolution of the company standpoint getting out what I was talking about earlier making

[00:28:44] it way more intelligent yeah I think we fulfill a strong need around just doing the job of like

[00:28:52] the phone review and scheduling but like you said adding more automation intelligently I think is

[00:28:57] what I'm really excited about capturing data global growth is opportunities there or we've

[00:29:02] already touched into international territories I think this year will kind of start that in some way

[00:29:09] more deeply through like partnerships was that through your your US portfolio though that they were

[00:29:14] expanding like the existing need of like organic right yeah I don't think we'll like make like a

[00:29:19] headlong launch into like international waters yet unless it's by way of like partnerships or

[00:29:24] through existing customers but we do have the ability to translate all of our existing like

[00:29:29] communications and I think that's always been something interesting to me is like what if you have

[00:29:34] like two-way conversation needs like yeah I need to recruit in a different language and so I can

[00:29:40] like transcribe and like you know send back like we can each speak in our native tongue yeah and

[00:29:45] I can understand yeah without understanding yeah yeah that makes sense that's got to be coming that's

[00:29:49] gotta be coming well I can say that as an inapolis resident it's really fun to watch the company grow

[00:29:55] and you be successful for those listeners out there that don't know how to connect with you where would

[00:30:00] you send them to learn more about qualify yeah so first it's a qualify.hr qualify qal.i.fi.hr follow me on

[00:30:09] LinkedIn and then also launching is my new podcast called future at work where I interview other

[00:30:16] founders like myself and it's kind of a founders on founders behind the scenes focused on t.a.a.

[00:30:22] in hr so my hope is to give the audience the opportunity to be like a fly on the wall

[00:30:27] yeah conversations that they might not be privy to and conversation matter that's still interesting

[00:30:32] to them and help them do their doubts better sounds awesome and where people say no to a demo they'll

[00:30:37] say yes to an interview so there might be some sales in that funnel coming soon that is

[00:30:42] Darien Michael everybody chat another one in the can we out. Thank you for listening to what's

[00:30:50] it called a podcast the chat the cheese pre-end they talk about recruiting they talk about technology

[00:30:58] but most of all they talk about nothing just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know

[00:31:04] and yet you're listening it's incredible and not one word about cheese not one cheddar blue

[00:31:12] nacho pepper jack swiss so many cheeses and not one word so weird any who we should have

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