A Thought Experiment: Paulie - AI Transforms Candidate Experience

If you’ve ever been in the unfortunate situation where you’ve had to apply for a job not through choice but necessity, you’ll empathise with me on this: A couple of years ago, I was put at risk of redundancy. The first and last time I had to apply for a job was in 2000. Since then, I was either contacted by agents, head hunters or connected through my network to move companies based on my own decisions. I got an interview through my contacts right away, but I did not do well. I thought it would be a chat, but it was a full-on competency-based interview, and I did not expect to be so stressed and uncomfortable with it. I guess I felt the pressure more than I realised.

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Since I’ve had the good fortune to find my current amazing job staying with my company, I’ve not thought much about it. But the experience came to mind again when I read about how roboticists are using AI to give quality of life to people with dementia (Read the Article ), which got me thinking about how I, as a personal and professional consumer of AI, will actively impact the direction the development is moving into. I decided I would try to create positive impact to experience both in my personal life and professionally. On the personal side, I’m going to use it to make a yet unfulfilled dream of my 89-year-old mother-in-law come true (if you’re interested in the details, have a read of AI & Dementia: A New Hope? ).

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Professionally, I’m going to try to overhaul a candidate’s job application experience.

The Problem

I have two big bugbears when it comes to recruitment: One-size-fits-all processes and application forms.

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Happily, we live in a world where a lot of emphasis is put on equality, diversity and access. At the same time, contradictorily to this, we are still mandating application processes that do not take candidates’ personality types, abilities, backgrounds or even the job itself into account.

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I'm an extrovert with limited patience for administration. If I found myself in a position to have to find a new role, the process itself would be a key deciding factor. It would be very unlikely that I would sit through a psychometric assessment or fill out an application form. I am a seasoned professional, have a LinkedIn profile and a resume. Why isn’t that enough? With all the Lego blocks that exists today – resume readers and writers, Hume's EVI (Empathetic Voice Interface, a voice-to-voice chatbot), Microsoft's CoPilot, the great creations of OpenAI – we should be able to create something better.

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I would like to create Paulie, your friendly job application assistant. Paulie can do text to text, voice to text, voice to voice and can be front- or backend and can serve multiple personas:

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Liz, the extroverted Sales Executive: I’m applying for a senior Sales position. I’m very good at my job and regularly exceed my targets. I am dyslexic and not able to express myself as well as I would like on paper and as such have relied on my network for jobs. Currently, this is difficult so I’m finding myself in a situation where I need to enter a formal process from the start. I wish I could just talk to someone right away – I know I could convince them of my abilities!

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Hamish, the introverted coder: I’ve been made redundant and need to apply for a new job. I have a few contacts I can reach out to, but it is a very uncertain and stressful time for me. I have been in this job for 15 years and have not had to formally go through an application process in all that time. The last time I updated my resume was when I left university, and I haven’t touched my LinkedIn profile since I created it 12 years ago. I’m great at my job but I am not good at “selling” myself. I wish I could just skip to where I can just show what I can do!

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George, the incredibly busy warehouse supervisor: We’ve just had a new addition to our family – twins! Plus, we thought it was a good idea to get another puppy…not so smart it turns out but here we are. What a wonderful and happy chaos! It does mean I need to get a better paying job and I’ve started looking. We need the money but between my shifts and family, it’s hard enough to squeeze sleep in, never mind job hunting. I’ve contacted a couple of recruitment agencies, but I haven’t had time yet to update my resume so I’m a little stuck. I wish I could just speak to someone when it suits me, tell them about my experience, have them write my resume and talk to me about potential jobs and then apply for me so I don’t have to do anything beyond the phone call. But that’s just wishful thinking I suppose. Right?

The Vision

Liz and Hamish find a job they like with Examplefirm and see a choice to “Apply with AI”. Clicking into it, a window pops up and Paulie introduces herself: “Hi, I’m Paulie – Examplefirm’s AI-powered Application Assistant. I appreciate applying for a job can be stressful and I’d like to help you make this as easy as possible for you. You don’t need to fill in an application form or create a resume if you don’t want to; I can do this for you. Would you prefer to speak to me, or we can use my chat function? Oh, and don’t worry, whatever option you choose, you can pause and continue our chat if something comes up and you have to stop.”

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Liz chooses “voice-to-voice”, and Paulie starts to talk to Liz. Paulie picks up on Liz’ voice cues and notices some discomfort; Paulie acknowledges that talking to an AI can feel odd at first and suggests that perhaps she could tell Liz bit about the people in the organisation - what have they done, what do some of your potential future team like to do in their spare time, what the culture is like. Paulie asks Liz if she could see herself in a team like that and what she likes about it. And that starts the interview process - naturally and at Liz’ pace. Paulie can answer most of her questions but not all - she promises that she will find out the answer and get back to you. Paulie asks Liz if she would like Paulie to create a resume and cover letter for her, which Liz is very happy about! At the end of the interview, Paulie thanks Liz for your time and gives her a summary of the key takeaways and asks if there’s anything else Liz would like to add to support her application. Just a short while after, Paulie gets in touch to answer the outstanding questions, a transcript of the interview, a nice-looking resume with all the correct detail and a good draft cover letter! Liz takes a look, makes a couple of edits and clicks the button to apply for the job. Pretty much everything done in a phone call!

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Hamish chooses “text-to-text” and Paulie asks him questions about his experience in a very natural way and gives him a few coding scenarios. Paulie asks some questions about the reason he made certain decisions in the way he wrote the code and if there might be other ways. Paulie gives Hamish feedback right away, confirming that the code and his rationale were spot on! Paulie asks if Hamish has a resume and if not, would he like Paulie to help him with that and a cover letter. Hamish is grateful but wants to review. Paulie asks some additional questions and sends Hamish a draft resume and cover letter right away, which he edits and then confirms that he’d like to proceed with his application. Hamish is very pleased – he feels like he was able to demonstrate his skills and what he could bring to the best of his abilities.

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Scrolling through his phone on a dog walk, George comes across recruitment company Kelly Services and sees an “Search & Apply with AI” button. Clicking into it, a window pops up and Paulie introduces herself – much the same as the experience Liz and Hamish had. George has his ear pods in so chooses voice-to-voice. Paulie asks him what kind of work he is looking for and what is most important to him. George shares his current situation and says that he needs a higher earning position in the Detroit Metropolitan area with a more regular shift pattern and no late shifts. Paulie asks him a few questions related to his experience, current income and then, based on George’s responses, gives him an overview of four jobs. George asks a few questions, which Paulie answers and then discards two but he is very interested in two others. One of them is a Warehouse Manager role, a position George has always had his eye on. The other is a role similar to what he is doing but no late shifts. He tells Paulie he’d really like to go for the Warehouse Manager position. George answers some more questions and Paulie tells him that he is currently only a 65% match for the role. She gives George specific feedback and make suggestions how he could improve the match. She asks George if he would like to go ahead with the application, but George decides to heed Paulie’s advice and follow her suggestions. He asks Paulie to send him self-learning courses and certifications that he could pursue. For now, he’d like to proceed with the other position. George is happy to accept Paulie’s help with his resume. Paulie asks him relevant questions. His phone pings and he has received the resume draft, a suggested cover letter, notes of their conversation and suggestions with links of qualifications he could pursue to get to the next level in his career. When he gets home, George reviews the resume and cover letter, makes a couple of tweaks and hits “Apply”. That’s it. He managed to find a job, get career advice and write a resume on a dog walk!

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Paulie identified all information required to move Liz, Hamish and George forward in the hiring process and populates Examplefirms Applicant Tracking System (ATS), so that the process can continue from there.

Your Thoughts on Paulie

I firmly believe variety and diversity is the key to a healthy society and a successful, innovative organisation. To attract and engage a diverse workforce, we have to make sure we are accessible to all, and this starts with the application experience.

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So far, this is just a concept – and there is of course much more that Paulie could do beyond the application process. If you like where this is headed, I’ll explore her other skills with you in a follow-up.

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For now though, I’m counting on you all to give me feedback through likes, shares and comments if you think this is a good idea and, if you’re a potential client, if the approach I’m laying out would make you more likely to buy from a company offering this.

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I'm excited to hear your thoughts!