HelloCecil - Use one-way video to spot your top job candidates

@iammarcthomas Hey Marc, as a founder of a similar product HireFunnel.io, I wanted to share my opinion on the matter you raised. Personally, I don’t think avoiding tools that let you “meet” candidates earlier in the hiring process can help embrace diversity in any way. It’s the people's attitude and perception that we need to work on and have done huge progress in the last decade. Also wanted to congratulate Brandyn on the launch, looks like a solid thought through product - good job!

@iammarcthomas Hey Marc! I'll let my co-founder (Mark) respond in more detail given his extensive background in both Law & HR, but I wanted to chime in. So this was a concern from the very beginning, as we're sensitive to Title VII discrimination issues. I do think however, that this unfortunately happens with written resumes whether consciously or subconsciously. I also feel getting past a name on a resume and to see & hear a real person could be a benefit. A major concern is that has always been that people don't even make it in for the interview, which we're hoping this helps. Product wise, we're looking into features that can address and help combat this as we grow.

@iammarcthomas @ivan_podgurskiy Thanks for the well wishes Ivan!

@iammarcthomas Hey Marc. Thanks so much for checking us out and for sharing your thoughts on diversity. With 25 years of HR and legal chops, I’m right there with you on ensuring that HR tools support diversity in the workplace. So when we first began developing HelloCecil, I approached both the HR and legal communities with the question: What impact, positive or negative, would automated video interviewing have on diversity hiring? The response from both HR and legal folks was that video interviews are simply a first meeting, just like an in-person interview. Success at achieving diversity in the workplace begins long before that first meeting, starting with a culture of diversity in the workplace, diversity in the planned recruitment process, diversity training, and the like. Our goal with HelloCecil is simply to help hiring parties meet candidates earlier in the hiring process so better decisions can be made -- based on the additional insights gained from a video presentation -- on who to invite for in-person interviews. We want to give candidates the opportunity to make a stronger case than paper resumes alone afford, and hiring parties the opportunity to build a stronger candidate pool and shorten their time to hire. Cheers!

@iammarcthomas As another Founder in the HR tech space (careerblitz.io), totally agree with the sentiments expressed below. One of the biggest difficulties for diverse candidates is just getting in the door. There's so much bias that comes from just a resumes (name, location, school, hobbies, interests), that a platform like this that can get candidates "in front" of a screener or hiring manager faster seems like it would be a net positive from a diversity standpoint. Sure, there's a lot more that can go wrong afterwards (bias from seeing videos of people not like the interviewer, bias towards different dialects, accents), but all those forms of bias would also pop up in an in-person interview. It's impossible for a tool like HelloCecil to solve this, and improving diversity hiring from these points in the funnel really rely on the fact that companies need to spend time with their teams auditing how bias is coming into their interview process.

@brandynmorelli congrats on getting it hunted mate

@murtazabambot I'd recommend trying out HireFunnel.io (mentioned above). We use it at our company for hiring and it's been excellent. Comes with an out of the box ATS too.

@murtazabambot Hi Murtaza. Great question! We know business owners and HR personnel have a variety of HR software favorites they may already be working with - ATS, sourcing, onboarding and other tools. So we built HelloCecil to work right alongside all of those tools, no changes to existing practices needed :) Some employers use an ATS to screen resumes by keywords etc, while other employers manually review each resume (and some do both). HelloCecil is compatible with any such scenario. Once an employer identifies candidates that meet minimum requirements, either via the ATS or manually, they then simply email the HelloCecil video questionnaire link for their next level responses! As an aside, the questionnaire link can also be included upfront in the job posting itself. The value in doing so is that candidates who randomly submit resumes ("spray and pray") are far less likely to do so if they have no intention of completing a video questionnaire. We find this reduces unqualified resume submissions by over 50%.

@brandynmorelli @edwardginis Thanks Edward! We're thrilled with the amazing feedback we're getting from business owners and HR folks.

@priansh Appreciate your questions! Our competitors such as HireVue have excellent offerings for mid-sized to larger, enterprise-sized organizations. Their products are wide ranging, usually requiring a sales rep, a live demo, and at substantial price points. Our goal was to make the automated video interviewing solution accessible to the startup and small business communities where there may or may not yet be a dedicated HR department running the recruiting process. We therefore built HelloCecil to be a focused one-way video interviewing platform that's super easy to use, requiring no sales reps or live demos, and at industry leading and affordable pay-per-use pricing. We made an app that's sign up 'n go, with a growing volume of on-site resources to help make the user experience outstanding. Regarding AngelList, we're definitely reviewing all options for integrations and will be adding in-demand features to our pipeline regularly.

@emin_aliev Hey Emin. Thanks for the inquiry! We'd be happy to chat about possible integration options. If you email me at mark@hellocecil.com we can pick up the discussion offline.

@hellocecil @mark_lewis4 yo got it

@aleksandra_yakuba Thank you!

@aleksandra_yakuba Thanks so much for your feedback and wishes!

@morris49 Thanks Morris... we really appreciate it!

@tareckshah Wow Tareck, thanks for that! We designed HelloCecil with the goals of helping employers make better decisions on who moves forward in the hiring process; reducing the need for follow up emails and phone calls; and shortening the time to hire.

@gabrielle_tennenbaum_radnor Awesome to hear Gabrielle, thank you! Practical is a great word ... we worked hard to make HelloCecil a simple and friendly solution that so many business owners and HR managers can use.

@kamil_keke Thanks Kamil!!