The hiring course of has lengthy been criticized for its inefficiency and opacity. Candidates spend hours writing purposes and submitting cowl letters, solely to vanish into what usually appears like a black field. Generative AI has solely made issues messier, with employers more and more counting on AI-powered screening programs to sift by way of an amazing variety of submissions.
Stockholm-based startup Fika Jobs thinks there’s a greater means. The corporate is constructing a video-first hiring platform that mixes AI interview brokers with short-form video profiles, creating one thing that appears like a cross between LinkedIn and TikTok. As an alternative of relying solely on resumes, candidates full AI-powered interviews designed to showcase their character and communication expertise.
Fika Jobs introduced on Tuesday a $4 million pre-seed spherical, which shall be used to proceed creating the platform, develop the group, and put together for a wider launch later this yr.
For job seekers, the method begins by connecting a LinkedIn profile. Fika’s AI opinions the candidate’s background and generates personalised interview questions. Candidates then full a roughly 10-minute video interview with the AI agent, at present powered by Google’s Gemini fashions.
After the interview, Fika routinely turns responses into brief video clips and organizes them right into a profile. As an alternative of making use of to each new position, candidates preserve a dwell profile that employers can uncover and revisit as new alternatives come up.
The concept got here from co-founders and brothers Jakob Dubois (CEO) and Alexander Dubois (CTO) whereas they had been constructing their earlier startup.
“Once we had been constructing [social app] Gaff, we spent a number of time recruiting and nearly handed on a candidate as a result of his resume didn’t actually stand out,” Jakob Dubois advised TechCrunch. “We ended up talking with him anyway, and inside minutes, his grit, drive, and ambition turned apparent. Precisely the form of individual we wished to rent.”
That have satisfied the founders that some traits that employers care about most are troublesome to seize on paper.
Not like most opponents (Alex, Maki, and Mercor, amongst others) that concentrate on serving to employers supply, display, and match candidates extra effectively with AI, Fika is constructing a platform the place candidates preserve video-first profiles and employers browse a pool of people that have already been interviewed and evaluated by AI.
If profitable, Fika Jobs might assist employers assess communication expertise and cultural match early within the hiring course of, complementing conventional resume and software opinions. This method could also be particularly useful for early-career professionals and candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, whose potential shouldn’t be all the time obvious from a resume alone.
After all, video profiles introduce actual bias dangers which are additionally price acknowledging. When employers can see a candidate’s race, age, gender, bodily look, and accent earlier than evaluating their {qualifications}, it opens the door to discrimination {that a} resume, for all its flaws, not less than partially obscures. There’s a cause some firms have moved towards blind resume screening.
The platform plans to open early entry to candidates this week, with a broader public launch anticipated this fall. The corporate will initially deal with Sweden earlier than increasing internationally. Fika at present has a small group however expects to show round 10 staff by the tip of the yr.
Greater than 100 firms are on the waitlist, say the founders, although they declined to reveal which of them. Individually, they mentioned greater than 50 firms have examined the platform, together with A lot Labs, SICS.ai, Kognity, and Rebtel.
The platform is free for job seekers. Employers pay nothing up entrance, however Fika takes 10% of a candidate’s first-year wage upon a profitable rent. (The corporate notes that that is decrease than the 20% to 30% placement charges usually charged by conventional recruiters and headhunters.)
The spherical was led by Luminar Ventures, with participation from Alliance VC and King co-founders Sebastian Knutsson and Riccardo Zacconi, the duo greatest identified for creating the hit cell recreation Sweet Crush.
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