To AI or Not AI? That is the Question

The world is impersonal enough, we don’t want some algorithm to reject a resumé because HR was too busy to look at your unique set of experiences and background. Techniques such as scanning for keywords or, worse, employment gaps and arbitrarily excluding candidates based on those gaps can lead to employers missing out on great candidates and is potentially discriminatory.

At The Right Five, we don’t believe resumé writing should require guessing the right keywords to make a robot happy.

But wait, you may say, “The Right Five is still a type of screen, isn’t it?” How is that different?

I’m glad you asked.

For one, we don’t screen resumés. We don’t analyze them in any way. We know you’ve worked really hard on putting it together, which is why we pass them on to the employer once you have gone through our evaluation process.

What we have done at The Right Five is identify the specific set of key attributes that makes a great Pathfinder salesperson – the type of salesperson most likely to be successful as the first Sales hire in a B2B tech startup. It’s a very particular job and, as Liam Neeson might say, we test for “a very particular set of skills”.

Our online assessment takes about an hour to complete. You answer a number of questions that have been developed through qualitative and quantitative research, not to mention decades of experience working in startups ourselves. The result of that assessment determines if you go to the next stage, i.e. are you classified as a Pathfinder or not. If you are then normal human interaction takes place via the interview process.

If you’re not, as we have said before, just because you might not have the attributes of a Pathfinder salesperson, doesn’t mean you are not, nor can you be, an amazing salesperson. We just know what works for this unique Sales position. If your skill set doesn’t match, then that will prevent you taking up a role that ultimately is not going to be a good fit for you. That’s a benefit, right? Why give up your current position lured by the promise of a startup environment and “first person in” share options if that role is not currently a good match for you?

Also, we know the job hunt can be frustrating. It’s completely demoralizing when your application goes into a black hole and you hear nothing back. That’s why we work with our clients to communicate clearly and quickly about where you are in the process. It’s the right thing to do. Gone are the days of being routinely ghosted during your search for a new role.

You can learn more about the benefits of The Right Five to you as a candidate as well as how we protect your data privacy in this recent post.

AI has it’s place for sure, but it should augment human decision-making not replace it. That way it can be brought to bear for the advantage of both the employer and the candidate.