Show HN: Candydate – TikTok Meets Tinder but for Recruitment | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Candydate – TikTok Meets Tinder but for Recruitment

candydate.app

8 pointsTheRealHB12 comments

HB here, sharing my first post ; )

I run a tech lab in the UK, and after several costly, poor hires over the years, we decided to build our own hiring tool with a focus on personality over skills.

Here's the thing: resumes suck at showcasing personality! We've been using video and AI successfully and for quite some time to solve this problem. Now, we thought, why not spread the love? Especially if we can make it FREE for small businesses like ours?

https://candydate.app, has the following goals:

1. Highlight true personalities using short videos, instead of relying on CVs or forms. 2. Employ AI to help rank applicants for each role, based on human factors and company culture. 3. Transform the selection process into something akin to scrolling through TikTok or using Tinder.

Job seekers won't need to fill out forms, attach resumes, create an account or download anything. They just scan a QR code, record a short video, and they're done. It's truly simple!

The aim was never to build an ATS (too complex for our needs) or a job listing site (there are many already). Instead, something simpler, to use wherever we already advertise vacancies, be it online or in print.

We believe small businesses that lack recruitment tools (like we did) might appreciate it, although Candydate can certainly help businesses of all sizes.

I have no idea how to launch or promote this type of tool, so any feedback or tips on spreading the word or improving the app would be immensely appreciated.

Many thanks, HN!

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This will be terrible for introverts, minorities, people who don't like to be on video but great for attractive people, people who like to make videos, fakers

Also, the name is creepy, to me, for the following reasons:

* using the word date in a professional setting

* comparisons to tinder

* the candy part seems falsely alluring

* the candy part makes me think "don't take candy from strangers"

Hi @june_twenty, many thanks for the feedback!

Candydate’s targets are the hospitality and retail industries. Restaurants, cafes, hotels and stores in general. Basically, customer facing roles, where an interview is more nerve crunching than recording a short selfie at your own pace and time. So the idea was actually to give a chance if you are an introvert. Surely they can also just skip the video or point the camera elsewhere and just submit the old resume too...

* The "date" word sounds indeed "dating" but it relates to you being a candidate for a job, not dating ; ) But I get the point.

* My comparison to tinder here may not be the best I agree ; )

* Our tag line is "Recruitment Sweet as Candy" so the "candy" here is used to allure to the fact that videos are easier on the eye than reading a bunch of resumes or application forms, hence the candy idea. Also a rhyme/play with job candidate.

Again, any thanks on the feedback!

Try it out ; )

Those with high turnover rates and continuous hiring needs

Oh, _now_ I get the “candydating” name! The first association I got when reading the name was “sugar daddy”.

Well, no "..ing" just candydate but true, it triggers the imagination ; )

I'm about to FB you but just remove the "date" part. I thought first glance it was yet another dating app instead it was hiring. I get the thought in the name tho.

As said above, this is mostly a terrible idea, it will for sure discriminate against look, language, accent, gender, personality traits, and obviously race, no matter how you make your platform NOT to, people are biased when there’s no context for what your knowledge worth (like a resume or portfolio) to weigh things up and down.

I remember I saw a similar site did a similar thing for a mall hiring in my city, and out of personal test and obviously not a statistical data, I gave the same script to be said by two different individuals, one was a good looking dude, shot with a dslr camera and another was just an average looking one with a phone camera, the first received around 7 calls back while the second is none. Then I repeated the test but this time against a female with a phone a camera and nothing professional, the female received 14 calls back, same mall, same shops, and within a 3 days the test was done. It gives you an idea how the hiring process will be.

Additionally, it will reinforce the bias and obsession the new generation have with the overall look, I read a few articles how tiktok is negatively affecting that, to the point some are breaking their jaws with hammers for some reason.

Hello @AHOHA, harsh feedback but welcome indeed,

My comments:

As I said prior, Candydate is intended mostly for customer facing roles and/or those who need to be quickly filled, like for events as example. The applicant can skip the video or point the cam elsewhere and just submit the old resume as we still have that as optional.

The idea here is to avoid people wasting time sending template CVs or filling forms only to then fail on an interview. By recording a short video pitch at one's own place and time, people usually perform better.

Our system don't decide on anything, the AI is used just to score and rank, the final word is for the person hiring. So biases can indeed happen here but also in a conventional interview where even more is wasted. That said, we do have an idea to blur the video as option until you "shortlist" someone so you do only based on how and what was said, plus our insights from the AI analyses. We may implement that sooner after your comment ; )

Again, this tool is for small business, mostly brick-and-mortar types: restaurant, bar, hotel, shop, gym, etc. Where the owner is doing the recruiting, no HR department, no structured recruitment process, just candidate and the decision maker.

Thanks again for the feedback,

HB"

Thanks. This is somewhat useful. If a company uses this I know not to apply.

Why?

Because skills and aptitude do matter. You can’t teach this at all sometimes; Or it cannot be taught in the required timeframe. And character is not deducible by AI from video.

Now could this be successful? Sure! I just hope it isn’t! I hope you pivot.

Hi @quickthrower2, thanks for commenting!

Candydate’s targets are not on the technical or professional side, but the hospitality and retail industries. Restaurants, cafes, hotels and stores in general. Basically those with high turnover rates and continuous hiring needs, where training is provided.

The idea is candidates won't waste time with long applications and employers can flip thru video-pitches instead of reading template CV's, saving everyone's time.

For introverts (odd for customer facing roles) they can just submit the old CV and skip the video, or by point the camera to a wall while they talk ; )

Thanks.

Video applications even for tech roles are Ok with me. I got a job that way once (at least that was round 1).

But it sounded from the pitch that you are using AI to make the decision or at least kick a lot of people out at a stage, and that doesn’t sound great for either party.

My fear is this will just bias against some portion of the population. Maybe against men, maybe against certain races, or against older people. Because they didn’t on average have the same micro facial expressions, vocal variety or hand expressions as what you are optimising for.

We do not use AI for any decision making, we give each person applying an AI score for humans to use at will, that does not shortlist or drop anyone, only the human VOTE can (thumbs up/down), and it only does automatically if unanimous between all users. Even after all that you can manually override ; )

We actually use AI in a bunch of ways, then we combine it all, so we do analyse the human expressions on the video, timing, context, then detach the audio / voice alone to run audio specific suff, and from that, for example get transcriptions so to contrast and understand what's being said and how it relates to content. We also "read" any file attached like a resume or CV if there is one.

So the idea is to make simple and quick to find a new waiter, cashier, sales person, support worker, etc.

Again, we appreciate feedback and will adjust our messaging to make it clear,

Nice one! Do we deserve upvote? ; )

Seen somewhere that I should have posted the text as a first comment instead, hopefully it will work anyhow ; )

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