Paradox CEO on Using AI to Make Hiring More Human - Future of Work Podcast

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[Music] Welcome back to Workday Rising live from San Francisco. Workday recently signed a

San Francisco. Workday recently signed a definitive agreement to acquire Paradox, a company specializing in conversational AI for candidate experience. This

acquisition will streamline and personalize the job requisition process and application process particularly for high volume frontline industries

globally which encompasses nearly 3 billion workers.

Today I am joined by Paradox CEO Adam Godson to talk about the vision behind Paradox, why the acquisition is such an exciting step forward for Workday and

what it means for the future of total workforce management. Adam, thanks for

workforce management. Adam, thanks for joining me.

>> Dave, thanks for having me. It's

fantastic to be with you.

>> It's so great to have you here with us today. It's something that I think we've

today. It's something that I think we've been all trying to work for for a long time. Glad to have you here.

time. Glad to have you here.

>> Thank you. It's it's exciting and the the the team and I couldn't be more excited to be here.

>> That's great. Well, why don't you why don't you share some of that excitement with with those listening and tell us a little bit more about like what is Paradox.

>> Sure. uh paradox is conversational AI for talent acquisition and as you mentioned we've uh gained a specialization in the frontline worker and solving the challenges that are often overlooked in hiring for frontline

industries in restaurant retail healthcare manufacturing where hiring has a different process and has deserved different methods of of recruiting and we've found a fantastic fit for

conversational AI in that and over the last nine years we've been able to build a company with over a thousand clients uh and some fantastic impact for those those clients that we're proud to serve.

So we're and and now we're even more excited to join Workday and join forces to do even more.

>> Yeah, that's incredible. Tell me, so you mentioned the the incredible impact that you've had for those thousand those thousand I've seen some stats that like I think 70% conversion rates and some of these other key elements like what what does some of that impact look like for

your customers?

>> You know, the impact is is uh we've got lots of clients that can tell fantastic stories. One that's really consistent is

stories. One that's really consistent is speed. uh and being be able to to staff

speed. uh and being be able to to staff a restaurant or a store um and and be able to do that because you can hire faster and and early on we went to see

uh clients in the field and we walk into a restaurant or a retail store and they tell us it took 20 days, 30 days to hire someone and we thought it could just be done so much faster and after the

implementation of Paradox we see times that are two days, three days uh to get hired and there was nothing special happening in those 18 or 20 days of it it was all waiting or waste and and so

we're really proud of being able to help people hire faster and have better staffing rates and lots of the impact that we've been able to have on our clients.

>> Yeah. I So time like hiring faster is not a new challenge for customers. I

mean talent acquisition's been burdened with trying to uh reduce time to fill and get people into roles faster. So,

it's not a new problem, but people and I've seen tons of customers try to solve time to fill and getting people in roles quicker in so many ways. What What is it that you saw that gave you all such a

powerful solution to that sort of age-old problem for talent acquisition?

>> Yeah, a mix of process redesign based on technology, uh the actual technology of conversational AI and then using messaging with SMS or WhatsApp and being

able to use that as a as a new medium.

And so those three things in combination were able to really boil down the process to its core. When you know it used to be when you walked into a store, you would um fill out a job application

um and you would hand it to the person at the counter and then you'd leave and wait.

>> And that's such a weird process like like like you would never do that if you were selling someone something like like totally you know oh like come in and shop in our store and then leave and maybe we'll call you but probably not.

Like you wouldn't do that. Uh, and so being able to have someone uh be able to complete the process right there. I I

happened to be at a quick service restaurant last week uh near Chicago and I got a chance to talk to a an applicant that got hired uh and and it was such an interesting thing. He wasn't looking for

interesting thing. He wasn't looking for a job. He was he went through the

a job. He was he went through the drive-thru. He said, "I kind of need

drive-thru. He said, "I kind of need some cash." He saw the something to text

some cash." He saw the something to text on the receipt said, "Now hiring text this number." He did it between the

this number." He did it between the first and second window of the drive-thru. he got the interview

drive-thru. he got the interview scheduled for the next day and the next day he worked there >> and and just that speed, but it was the the process to be able to schedule the interview based after he answered some questions to qualify him. It was the

fact that he could use text messaging.

>> Um and then it was the automation in the process that made it happen and it was just a cool moment like there's someone standing before me that wouldn't have been there if it hadn't been for the the tech and the process.

>> Yeah. And so I think like the process and being willing to shift and look at that that's a really good example. the

technology that maybe didn't exist before for things like uh conversational AI, conversational experiences and like scheduling of the moment they're there.

It seems like a really clear value to get that person while they're there in the store, especially in front line um to get value. Uh I have to imagine that like for for some organizations that might have required a bit of like a

mental model shift or way that they think about how they do and how how do you how do customers think about that?

Yeah, it really is being sure we get their appetite to change and be able to show them the business value that similar clients have have gotten and be able to get them into um what could be

for them. And what I what I love about

for them. And what I what I love about our product is um that the time to value is super fast. Uh I was thinking about a large um restaurant chain that when they

came to us they had 80 locations at critical staffing levels and they got a daily report of this like red yellow green and um we implemented and

implementations are always hard. Um but

the first day we started to hire people and it took two weeks uh and almost the entire sheet was green.

>> Wow. and and and and so the the climb out of um you know the hardness of implementation, the the challenges there is so fast because the business values there, they're fully staffed, the managers like their jobs again and and

being able to make a huge difference quickly is something I find really gratifying.

>> Yeah, that's such a great story and I think you know when you talk about the technology process and mental model change um you know not all technology is equal. I think this is an area where

equal. I think this is an area where you've also built a really deep like domain context like paradoxes from what I've what I've seen like really understands the domain space of hiring

such that like the solutions and AI that you've put behind this are really tuned for for for those workflows. Tell me a little bit about that like journey and how that helps you serve your customers.

>> Yeah, and I think so much has been um frankly over complicated in in hiring and and some of the systems that we've used over the years. you and I have both been doing this a long time, forced that. Like some of the early applicant

that. Like some of the early applicant tracking systems had one workflow >> and you had to mash in all your types of workers into one workflow and >> that's silly. You would never do that before a system. You would always say

like no, your executives get hired differently than your frontline workers.

>> And um and so in some ways it was a back to basics moment where you're you're you're now um saying we want to design specific experience for many types of workers. Sure.

workers. Sure.

>> And being able to to do that. Uh, one of our mo my my uh aha moments was um visiting a a restaurant and looking at an application with a hiring a hiring

manager and just asking like what are you looking at?

>> Like how are you making this decision?

Like they picked the application on a piece of paper out of the box and said I'm going to decide whether to call this person and they said well I'm looking to see if they're at least 16 years old because has to be 16 to work here.

>> I'm looking to see if they have any relevant experience. That would be nice.

relevant experience. That would be nice.

I want to know if they're eligible to work in this country. and I was to see if they could work the hours.

>> And so what we did is we just re-engineered the process. And guess

what? We

>> we just asked the question instead of saying fill out this long application with like, hey, what was the address of your job three jobs ago? And things

that's to that are totally irrelevant.

We just ask those questions. Are you 16?

Can you work these hours? Can you live this box? You know, what are the things

this box? You know, what are the things you really need to know? And then

schedule the interview and then and then, you know, carry on with any of the um administrative stuff you have to do after you've got the interview scheduled, right? So I think you're

scheduled, right? So I think you're you're right that by having so many frontline workers that we serve, we our our teams have great domain expertise in best practices and recommendations they can make to make huge gains for our

clients.

>> Yeah, that makes I mean in hindsight you look back at it and it makes makes so much sense.

>> It seems so simple but we've been doing it for dec I remember yeah even the application stories of being able to have different applications for different role types and a point in time that was that was innovative and catching that up in in frontline is is

going to make a huge difference. I I

want to bring us back a bit to the to the mission and the vision for Paradox.

I know I've I've heard you all talk about the mission being to free up recruiters and hiring managers and hiring teams to spend more people, spend more time with people and and less time

with with software. Um what what inspired that? Yeah, I think um I I

inspired that? Yeah, I think um I I started my career as a recruiter and it it's the the people connection that is unique and important about that that role and whether it's a recruiter to a

candidate or a hiring manager to a candidate. Um uh and

candidate. Um uh and >> I think as we looked at companies doing recruiting, >> we found that they were >> using lots of systems and spending lots of time clicking and spending lots of

time doing administrative work and not talking to people. And you know we saw AI as a new technology that could uh free people up to spend more time with people and not software. And that was a

paradox uh and thus the name that's the name where the name comes from >> that's where the name comes from is >> paradox paradox is that you use AI technology to spend more time with people not not software.

>> That's awesome. I love the origin story of that of like trying to really get to like where you can add value and and separate recruiters from the maybe mundane or processoriented task completion and have them connect with

people. It's amazing.

people. It's amazing.

>> Yeah. Well, it's easy to think about to fall into a trap where you think about um anything related to um AI in a process as being impersonal and and and it's for us it's not falling into that trap to say it's actually more personal

if we can get you know we'll schedule 32 million interviews this year. Uh so

that's about one out of every 10 interviews in the in the US is scheduled by Paradox.

>> Um >> one out of every 10 of the interviews scheduled in the US scheduled by Paradox.

>> Yeah, we do one every second.

>> Whoa.

>> And so there's a there's there's massive volume there and and I started in my career uh automating interview scheduling in like 2011 and people would say that's very impersonal.

>> And and I think what we learned is people want it to be fast and right.

Like they're not no one's getting self-actualization from the conversation to schedule the interview. It needs to be accurate and we want to connect people as fast as possible. And so we think that that we're we're clearing out

a barrier to build connection by automating that part of the process and using AI in a way that uh that helps build human connection.

>> Yeah, I love it. Human connection. I

think in when we think about like workday's vision of total workforce management and supporting all roles and all types of hiring. Um this is this is about more than just frontline. It's

more than Yeah. Tell tell me a little bit how you think about that.

>> Yeah, of course. Actually, interview

scheduling is a good good example of of that. So, it's it's certainly not just

that. So, it's it's certainly not just at the front line. It's about um global companies. Uh and uh the complexities

companies. Uh and uh the complexities are great in interview scheduling. It's

it's one that if you think about it for a moment, it may seem like an easy problem. If you give it a few more

problem. If you give it a few more moments, you realize there's uh language often and geography and time zones and room booking and all the things that go along with interviews, getting the right

information at the right time and calendar integrations and there's some significant complexity there. And so we built our system to handle that complexity working with a great workday

integration um and other systems as well to be sure that that uh we can deliver interviews and and make that human connection as fast as possible. So uh

all of the stack and panel and sequences and breaks and tours all the complexity that could come with interviews uh Paradox is able to handle that elegantly and be sure that people are getting connected and not spending time on uh

those administrative tasks.

>> Yeah, that's really cool. and and we you you talked about interview scheduling and and a couple other areas like we my understanding is we already have like although we just announced the intent to acquire paradox quite recently we've been working together for a long time

and we already have a number of customers live on integrations today right >> that's true we've got uh five certified workday integrations certified we have uh we have over 200 mutual customers

that we've served many of them for more than 5 years together so so these are wellworn roads and and I think that's what makes me excited about our ability to get to to start quickly and as we

become part of workday and um this is this is new in some senses, but it's also um old friends uh getting together and being sure that we're going down a proven road together where we know how

to do these things and it's about um scaling and activating uh new clients.

>> Yeah, that's so true. And I think it's like I'm so excited having led talent acquisition and the talent pillar at workday for some time now that you know last year we were able to deliver best

of breed AI capabilities through the acquisition of of hired score. This year

we're able to deliver uh best of breed conversational experiences for candidates and scheduling through through paradox. I think it's just a

through paradox. I think it's just a really compelling time I think for for Workday and and Workday Talent Acquisition customers who now have uh the capability to to have best of these best of breed solutions.

>> Absolutely. And I think the the ability to help all that work together and and work together with the hired score team.

I'm really excited to work with you and that team going going forward. Me too.

>> Yeah.

>> But you know, Hired Score has been one of our oldest partners even back to 2017 when we were both young companies. um we

we the the match was clear and so really through the demand of clients we were working with hired score and had special integrations with them and so um that fit has been clear for a long time and

I'm really excited to continue that that journey and bring it all together.

>> Yeah, that's incredible. Maybe maybe we finish quickly with like what's what's one thing you you think people listening should know about Paradox? What should

they do next?

>> Yeah, I think one of the questions I get asked a lot is um you know AI everyone wants to do AI like where should I start? um and and how do I get adoption

start? um and and how do I get adoption in my organization?

>> And my my advice to them is typically just start and getting um and start where there's a pain point and where there's a clear win. And in many organizations that's interview

scheduling uh to be able to get a clear win there. It's obvious the ROI is

win there. It's obvious the ROI is fantastic and you'll get to do more projects after you get that that done.

front line. It can be our apply product to help do text to apply other things there. But just start, get a win, don't

there. But just start, get a win, don't overthink it, and then the projects will come from there.

>> Thanks for joining, Adam. Um, for those of you watching, we hope you found this conversation insightful.

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