Technology is evolving, teams are sprinting, excitement is building, features are launching, and nobody notices... (waa waa) which is why Chad & Cheese cooked-up FeatuRama, a brand new competition which pits 4 companies against one-another, but only one can win and emerge with the BadAss Belt of Technology.
Contestants will receive 2-minutes to pitch their new feature and the remaining 13-minutes will be spent with rapid fire Q&A.
This Chad and Cheese FeatuRama episode features XOR's founder & CEO, Aida Fazylova. Chad & Cheese came equipped with questions, bourbon and snark, luckily Comuno's Cindy Songne, who was available to step in and inject brains into this judging panel...
Enjoy while Aida pitches XOR's newest feature.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
FeatuRama Intro (0s):
Technology is evolving. Teams are sprinting. Excitement is building features are launching and nobody notices. This is Joel Cheesman of the Chad and Cheese podcast. And that's why Chad and I cooked up FeatuRama, a brand new competition that pits for established companies against one another with only one emerging victorious awarded with the bad-ass belt of technology.
FeatuRama Intro (31s):
Here's the four, one, one contestants will receive two minutes to pitch their new feature. And the remaining 13 minutes will be spent with rapid f ire Q and A. This FeatureRama puts Aida Fazylova CEO, and founder of XOR.ai on the hot seat chat. And I dropped mad questions while Downing drams of bourbon and Camino Cindy Sonya helped inject brains and class to the judging panel. Enjoy listening to Aida who can probably drink all of us under the table, by the way, bring the heat.
Intro (1m 5s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HRS most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Aida (1m 38s):
Thanks for having me here guys, but he might've done CEO and founder here at XOR. So we all wouldn't communication platform that lets the recruiting teams as well as the HR teams to hire people much, much faster than ever before and retain the talent. We do this by on one hand, giving the recruiting teams an opportunity to communicate with their candidates over the text, as well as in any other messaging apps like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, because it really drives the engagement as well as the speed of the responses. The companies hear back from the 40 to 46% of all the candidates, just in just under 15 minutes.
Aida (2m 11s):
And on the other hands, we give them the opportunity to utilize artificial intelligence and virtual assistant that let them automate the most retainer repetitive processes in recruiting. So screening of the, and capturing the applications and the chats or all the candidates coming from online sources like social media, company career site, as well as job boards, as well as from offline sources like texts to apply or scan the QR code to start the conversation. We also made the entire thing really to do the interview scheduling one on one meetings, panel interviews, sequential interviews, and updating everybody's calendars.
Aida (2m 45s):
And we also do the passive candidate re engagements engagements as well as the referral partnerships or programs where they a TA tech side of things. So we've been around since 2016, the company was actually born out of my personal team because I used to work as a talent acquisition practitioner. We serve close to 200 customers in 15 countries at the moment. Yep. We're about 85 employees headquartered back in San Francisco, California, and we have three more offices in Europe. So we just recently released a new feature that I wanted to talk with you about today.
Aida (3m 18s):
It's ability not only to communicate with their candidates over the texts or any, any other messaging apps, but also call the candidates and have the entire conversation, transcribed and analyzed before afterwards. Right after the call. So this is what I wanted to talk to you though today. Thank you.
Cindy (3m 36s):
Okay. You said transcribed right after the call. How quickly is it ?
Aida (3m 40s):
Transcribed as you speak?
Cindy (3m 42s):
That's amazing. Can, if I start on one device as a candidate, can I switch over to another device?
Aida (3m 48s):
Yes, you can. You can use XOR over your desktop as well as in your, when your mobile devices.
Cindy (3m 54s):
Like if I start on text, I can switch over to email or whatever. Okay. Very good. Oh, it says that you interact with all ATS - how does that work?
Aida (4m 7s):
That's right. So we have close to 30 integrations within ATSs. So that means that the companies can utilize XOR. First of all, they can use the word when the LTSS clever as a lightweight ATS, but usually the way it works is that we compliment the existing technical stock of the company, which is usually an ATS slash CRM, have the calendar system. And we sit on top of this ETS or CRM as an AI powered communication layer. So that entire conversation flow that happens between the candidates and the virtual assistant and the recruiter is pushed back to the candidate profile in the ATS.
Aida (4m 40s):
So that's the way works. Wilson supplies, the Google Chrome, and then all the forth routers to work directly through our ATs without even leaving and then utilize XOR functionality to, from there, from the XOR extension.
Cindy (-):
Very good, thank you.
Joel (4m 54s):
Cindy wants to know about integration. I want to know about collaboration. Can you take notes on this solution? Can you tag, can you search everything? Can you share notes and all that stuff with, with coworkers and other recruiters? Talk about the collaborative tools of the new feature.
Aida (5m 13s):
Sure. That's a really, really great question. So yes, you can do take the notes. You can also assign the tasks to the candidates. Not only you can assign a manual, the candidates move down the funnel, but also some of the texts are assigned automatically as the candidates have the conversation about the virtual assistant. So for example, whether or not this candidate was qualified during the screening process, whether or not they were skid jewel for meeting whether or not they got scores and you know, the locations and everything along those lines Afterwards the recruiters can perform the searches. You're absolutely right based on the texts.
Aida (5m 44s):
And they'll set up the mass actions. For example, if the recruiter, if there was a series of set of the candidates that successfully have done an interview with the recruiter, and we want to now schedule them for a meeting with a hiring manager, we select those candidates based on the text and then have the virtual assistant take over the process and schedule them for a meeting with a hiring manager. And by the way, you, as a recruiter is using the Google Chrome extension, the XOR and the browsing door ATS, and find the candidate, you will be able to see the entire chat history, not only with yourself, for your positions, but also for any other team members in your team, as well as the conversation.
Joel (6m 22s):
Zora is. And how many languages number one, and number two, how many languages are you transcribing into?
Aida (6m 30s):
No, we support 103 languages. That's the only system in the world that actually does this. Not only supporting the companies different languages, but also giving them the opportunity to utilize the local mediums of communication. For example, like We chat or Line, you know, if we're speaking about the OPEC region and we are operating in 15 countries at the moment, as I said, and what was the last question? Sorry.
Joel (6m 53s):
How many, how many do you transcribe and all of those languages
Aida (6m 57s):
Right now, it's transcribing 35 of them. More or less on the grade level.
Joel (7m 2s):
Okay. Cindy, how little fail. What was that?
Chad (7m 5s):
Total fail only 35 languges.
Cindy (7m 8s):
Yeah. Seriously. What's your target audience?
Aida (7m 11s):
We target the direct employers with over, I'd say 500 employees, upwards. And if we're speaking about the stuffing, you just, this can be staffing agencies as little as the five recruiters and we are working with them as well. Yep.
Cindy (7m 26s):
Industry doesn't matter correct?
Aida (7m 28s):
It does not matter. That's right. Yes. It's industry agnostic solution.
Joel (7m 32s):
Do you work better in some industries though?
Aida (7m 36s):
We started from the height, you know, with a high volume type of roles, like retail, restaurant chains, taxi drivers, and so on and so forth. So warehousing, but as we were evolving as a company, we did find out that, you know, this was an industry agnostic solution. The only, the only industry, the only field of vertical that we are not really great performers is executive search, search, probably because you can not really have those missions go walk to the CMOs and very, very <inadudible> people. Yeah.
Joel (8m 6s):
Yeah. Tell me about pricing typically solutions like this, they price based on the number of minutes or hours that you're talking and how much transcription. So obviously the more you talk, the more texts we have to deal with, the more the price goes up. So, so how does the pricing breakdown on this new feature?
Aida (8m 25s):
Very good question. So normally, XOR pricing works based on number of recruiter seats, because every single recruiter gets access to their own inbox, which is Gmail for texting in a way. And based on this recruiter seats, we actually limit them on the amount of context they can do on a monthly basis. And in terms of the calling feature, there is a certain amount of hours that is included, on the monthly basis. They want to get will be on this, they are just being extra.
Cindy (8m 53s):
Does anybody hit those maxes?
Aida (8m 55s):
Not yet. No. It's very new feature. So we're at right now working with this.
Joel (8m 59s):
So regular phone conversations could easily burn through preloaded minutes for candidates, right? So XOR is already integrated with WhatsApp. Why not allow candidates to choose that mode of calling instead of perspectively burning through their minutes?
Aida (9m 15s):
Sure. So, WhatsApp does not have such feature because you are WhatsApping with your candidates, from your business accounts. What's not allowed the businesses to call through WhatsApp. And unlike like people to people conversations with WhatsApp, it's also paid for. So every single text message you send out to the candidates, the first one will, they will charge you extra and the candidate needs to opt in within 24 hours. So in order for you to carry on the conversation, it's fairly cheap, but the WhatsApp is really, really relevant in, let's say Europe LATAM, South Africa, Australia, because texting over there is really, really expensive unlike here in North America.
Aida (9m 54s):
So yeah, so this really important for those regions.
Joel (9m 58s):
Okay. Cindy
Cindy (9m 59s):
Tell me about your predictive analytics and how they're used.
Aida (10m 3s):
Sure. So during the screening process, during the initial engagements with the candidates, every single candidate gets assigned a score. A score is pretty much summarizations of all the answers that they provided to the screening filtering questions and whether or not this decline is actually whether or not the candidate what's considered successful, a good fit for a role, not a good fit for a role. Maybe you did make a good fit for role. They can either be scheduled for full or a meeting with a recruiter or a phone call with a recruiter or zoom conference with the recruiter.
Aida (10m 33s):
If the candidate did not meet this criteria, the first vote that they get either politely rejected, or there are other job opportunities that are suggested to this particular person. Outside of this kind of hard data, right? So we are asking them to do a first work, any country. How many years of experience do you have? Do you have certain credentials? Like, are you licensed to work as a registered nurse in the state of California and what not. You'll also get access to an enormous amount of metadata about this candidate: how soon they respond, what are the questions they're being assigned, assign the candidate a score of the engagement level.
Aida (11m 13s):
And we, this actually allows the companies to predict if they make a doable for how likely this candidate will accept this. Yep. There is another way of doing the participant analytics, but not for the new customers, because we need to collect and store a little bit more historic data.
Chad (-):
You mean data?
Aida (11m 30s):
That actually allows them to understand based on the initial engagement, the communication with the recruiter and chatbot during the hiring process, how likely this candidate will stay within the company after the probation period and whether or not this candidate will ever be promoted. This type of predictive analytics is actually right now active in around seven of our customers. They're like largest enterprises, with a high volume and high turnover rates
Joel (11m 54s):
Curious about marketing. How are you going to market with this new feature? And you're getting further away from chatbot territory. You're getting into much more categories and whatnot. How do you make sense of that marketing wise and how are you pushing this new product and to whom are you marketing?
Aida (12m 16s):
Yes, absolutely. Very good question. So we are you're right, it's not the chatbot space anymore. It's everything related to the recruiting communication and recruiting communication automation. This is like a very new in the emerging fields, and I call it this, by adding this feature, we actually allow the companies to look the entire recruiting conversation in one channel, right? So they're all like all the mediums you can think of. And if beforehand, when the recruiter picked up the phone, this piece of conversation was more companies we're right now, transcribing this and locking it down in one, in one threat that is particular space.
Aida (12m 55s):
We are also now working on the feature with Zoom, since we are integrated with Zoom that any single recruiter can actually link their zoom accounts, we will be transcribing the Zoom conversations very shortly. It's going to be released on July 28th.
Joel (13m 7s):
Are you using all of that transcribed data? Are you turning your AI and your machine learning onto that data to predict the hire and retention rates? Because it seems like you're getting a lot of data. Is that what you're using?
Aida (13m 23s):
Right now, it's not the way it's used. It actually produces the very useful tips for the recruiters during the conversation, as well as provides the, how many calls, how many of those calls were successful? How many, like, how did recruiter perform to their phone call? Whether or not they were holding onto the scripts, whether or not they were using certain language that is not a desirable, for example, and all analytics of that sort. How long was the conversation? How long did the recruiter speak versus how long did the candidates speak as well as providing them with the certain texts?
Cindy (13m 58s):
Can they do group interviews also a right now? No, it's only one on one conversations.
Joel (14m 4s):
Okay. Talk to me about privacy, GDPR, California laws, all that good stuff.
Aida (14m 11s):
Absolutely. So for the companies that are in Europe or UK, we are GDPR compliance with storing the data of European citizens, only European servers, and yep. And before they start sharing any of the personal data, they actually need to consent to the privacy policies and terms of services. So you guys have grown feature wise, you had three features mainly right out of the gate. And that was like 18 months ago. You guys have grown dramatically. How do you stay away from number one, feature bloat and number two, how do you continue to keep that focus that you originally have when you were on firing squad?
Aida (14m 48s):
Got the, the big applause. Very question. So, right. XOR is the company. We are both vision driven as well as the customer driven, right? So based on the customer requests on the prospect's requests, we are building our roadmap. And all of the features that we right now are building are being used either by acquiring current customers or by new companies that heard we are in a pipelines. Plus we also expanded geographically. This is where we got the needs in terms of like, you know, integrations with all the local messaging apps and the WhatsApp even was
Bells (15m 21s):
Ding, Ding, Ding
Chad (15m 29s):
Aida Fazylova. We've got more to come, so keep watching. Thanks Aida! And we out.
Joel (-):
We Out
Aida (15m 32s):
Thank you.
Intro (15m 34s):
Look for more episodes of FeatuRama, a Chad and Cheese podcast series devoted to breaking through the noise and highlighting new recruitment tech and platform features from established companies. Subscribed today on Apple, Google podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't miss a single episode, boys and girls. For more visit chadcheese.com today.
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