Modern society has grown to expect things on-demand.

We utilize excess capacity for everything from ride-sharing and housing to grocery shopping and dog walking in order to make our lives more instant. And when something isn’t instant, our engagement drastically declines.

As a previous founder of a recruitment startup, Amber realized that this on-demand mentality was impacting almost every industry. Still, it was non-existent in the hiring process–a process that has seen little to no innovation in decades. She began to focus on how to utilize excess capacity in the hiring funnel, specifically during the interview process, to increase applicant engagement for companies and, ultimately, get more people hired. 

Amber founded Vette in May 2020 as an “Instant Human Engagement” platform that would connect companies with human “Vetters” to conduct screenings of their candidate pools. This solution, driven by SMS and phone communication and enhanced by AI technology, would allow companies to engage with applicants instantly after submitting an application and would allow applicants to interview with an actual human (“Vetter”) at any hour of any day.

She raised capital, then built out the proof of concept, working with a beta customer and proving out the need for Vette. While initially focused on the highly skilled workforce, she switched gears when she saw a more pressing need in the market of high-volume, hourly, service-focused positions. With this in mind, in 2021, Amber needed a technology partner to build out the entire Vette platform with a delightful user experience and the ability to scale. AI became essential in scaling the platform, automating communication, and providing real-time data insights to ensure a seamless experience for both applicants and hiring teams. Additionally, she needed a product team to implement processes, techniques, and frameworks to make it all happen.

She approached OAK’S LAB.

To build a functional, user-friendly “Instant Human Engagement” platform that enterprise clients could use to screen and hire for high-volume positions.

In order for the platform to become a pioneer for “Instant Human Engagement,” Amber needed to ensure that the solution was functional. After building out a proof of concept that tested the core functionality of how Vette could operate, we now had to find a way to build a product that could scale to handle thousands of interviews and enterprise clients. This required integrating AI technology that would automate the communication process, ensuring instant engagement between companies and applicants.

The goal was to make it instant, but also user-friendly. AI played a central role in enabling automated messaging functionalities, allowing us to engage applicants in a seamless and appealing way immediately upon application. We also needed to create a user experience that delighted both Vetters and enterprise customers. And finally, we needed to build product development processes that could allow us to understand the problems users face and that would allow us to effectively prioritize and manage a growing backlog of feature requests.

We leveraged our dual-track agile methodology to turn Amber’s MVP into an “Instant Human Engagement” platform capable of handling thousands of interviews and pleasing users.

To initiate the project, we hosted Amber in Prague so that she could meet the dedicated product team that would build and redesign her product. We set up a foundation phase during which we went through a discovery process to understand what features we needed to build and why. Together with Amber we aligned on our shared goals and defined our ideal customer profile.

In order to address and define the core functionality of the platform, we leveraged Amber’s existing proof of concept alongside our business process analysis to find the solution. Once we knew we could build a functional platform, we then leveraged our goals to prioritize additional features using the MOSCOW prioritization method. Our main focus at this stage was to get a product to the market as quickly as possible in order to begin collecting valuable feedback from all users.

We wanted to design a platform that could handle thousands of SMS and phone conversations daily while supporting the entire process of vetting applicants. It needed to be both scalable and stable. To achieve this, we integrated AI-driven SMS communication and AI call summarization, automating key aspects of the platform. AI was responsible for managing instant applicant engagement via SMS, as well as transcribing and summarizing interviews, enabling hiring teams to make more informed decisions quickly. 

Vette works with enterprise clients across the manufacturing, fast food, automotive, retail, and hospitality industries.

OAK’S LAB successfully built Amber’s “Instant Human Engagement” MVP. Applicants apply to a company job posting, and within seconds, they receive a text message inviting them to interview by phone whenever it is convenient. The applicant initiates their interview with the press of a button, and within 30 seconds, a human interviewer calls and conducts an interview with them. The integration of AI ensures instant and seamless engagement, with AI automating SMS replies and transcribing interviews to enhance the overall efficiency of the hiring process. The product is functional. It’s user-friendly. And it’s instant. 

By utilizing the gig economy to conduct phone interviews, applicants are able to interview as soon as they express interest in a job, and in return, companies are able to secure the applicants faster than their competitors resulting in higher interview-to-hire conversions.