The creator and CEO of Paradox, Aaron Matos, is passionate about the way people and technology can coexist, and he has long recognised the potential of computers. After finishing his undergraduate human resources degree, he worked as an HR professional for more than eight years before starting a number of businesses in the HR IT sector.
Aaron recognised a chance to change the recruiting process for businesses by employing artificial intelligence to free up people’s time on menial duties. The AI assistant Olivia, which was named after Aaron’s wife, is what Paradox is best known for (then-girlfriend). The Paradox team intended to build an assistant with personality since they think that the hiring process is a human experience. The name ‘Paradox’ is also a play on the paradoxical concept of an AI having a personality.
How Paradox Works
Olivia, their AI assistant and flagship product named after the founder’s wife, is also linked with paradox. Their simple goal is to free up HR professionals’ time from tedious duties so they can concentrate on work that is more people-centric. Olivia has various applications for recruiting, and having one at your disposal is similar to having a personal assistant.
The way Paradox works is that Olivia, their HR chatbot, texts job candidates on your company’s behalf. Even if artificial intelligence is driving it, it feels like you’re speaking with a real person. In actuality, the chatbot’s profile picture is set to a picture of Olivia. You can ask Olivia to set up interviews, interview potential hires, screen them, and more.
Olivia appears to hiring managers and recruiters to be a personal assistant who asks you to customise your settings with a few taps on a smartphone app. Olivia then moves the conversation further by having direct conversations with the contenders. You can even incorporate it in your “careers” website so that when people are looking for a position that fits their qualifications, Olivia can find the best opportunities based on their background, hobbies, and in-the-moment reactions.
Olivia is also useful for virtual hiring events that you host. Olivia is in charge of organising interviews, answering candidate queries, and handling reminders. The natural integration of video conferencing is also present. Traitify, a pre-employment evaluation tool that uses images to gather personality data points, was bought by Paradox as of August 2021. Users can utilise Traitify on their mobile devices, and tests can be finished in about two minutes.
Paradox Key Features
- Conversational AI: Olivia, a conversational AI tool from Paradox, is their main point of differentiation, and you may assign her any tedious HR responsibilities. Olivia would communicate with your job seekers on your behalf and give along all the required details.
- Recruiting: Olivia can be used for hiring in a variety of ways. Applicants can apply for a position at your company through a job board, and Olivia will start corresponding with them as soon as they click the “apply” button. Olivia can also be integrated into the employment page of your business to present applicants with customised job openings based on their qualifications, background, and reactions to the dialogue with Olivia.
- Interview scheduling: Candidates’ interviews can be scheduled automatically. Olivia automatically handles this for you by syncing with your calendar. It can be used to plan complex interviews with many participants and locations. Additionally, it handles rescheduling with job hopefuls on its own and sends automated reminders to applicants.
- Screening: When a potential employee contacts Olivia about a job vacancy and submits an application, Olivia will immediately check the applicant against the job specifications. If a candidate passes the initial automatic screening, Olivia will also set up an interview for them.
- Events: Olivia can serve as an event assistant to facilitate communication between hosts and guests. Olivia may communicate with your guests using text messaging to register, answer their queries, and share any information prior to the event rather than having them sign up through an events website. Many events, such as job fairs, seasonal hiring, orientation, and recurrent virtual events, can leverage this. Olivia may direct qualified candidates to speak with recruiters right away because Paradox supports native integrations for video conferencing.
- Pre-employment assessment: To develop desired talent, use Traitify, a pre-employment testing tool from Paradox. This application is intriguing since it offers users a quick, image-based evaluation that is visual and takes less than two minutes to finish. Despite the test’s briefness, you can nevertheless gather a huge amount of personality-related information on your prospective employees.
Paradox Pros and Cons
PROS
- They have excellent customer service and highly effective implementation. Your difficulties will probably be fixed the same day, and you will have a Customer Success Manager to assist you with every step of the implementation phase. Contrary to many providers, you can speak with their support staff over the phone and describe your problem in real time.
- It saves a tonne of time and lessens back-and-forth contact between recruiters and job hopefuls. “Olivia helped us slash our response time from 7 days to under 24 hours,” says Derek B, Head of Recruitment at a large-sized company. The candidates we picked to interview were the finest of the bunch because to the time savings.
- The company’s AI chatbot, Olivia, is intended to respond to applicants in a way that feels human—just like a real person would. Even better, you can view all chats and manually override them if necessary despite perfect automation.
CONS
- Although you can obtain some information and comments on your business and its operations, Paradox’s analytics are not very robust. You’ll need to hunt for other applications if you want sophisticated capabilities that let you manipulate your data in different ways.
- Although Olivia, their AI assistant, is smart and has a human touch, Olivia is still AI in the end. You may need to manually handle the chat at times if you want nuanced responses in conversations.
Conclusion
The Paradox ATS automates processes such as requirement screening, interview scheduling, reminders, offers, new hire onboarding, and more. It is supported with a conversational user interface (UI) that makes involvement feel natural and effortless. The solution is already assisting international clients in significantly reducing time-to-hire to hours or days, rather than weeks, and delivering frictionless experiences that applicants adore.