Once upon a time, junior baby me told an interviewer I did not know what a partition was in SQL. Later in the interview I was describing a project I worked on, using partitions. As self-taught on the job, I did not necessarily know all the terminology (I called it an over, the literal code being PARTITION OVER so I nearly got it).
I've had a moderately squiggly career - I did not do a grad scheme, I hopped around. The majority of my career was as an Innovation Technologist for Worldpay which is so hard to translate to a CV. Despite having a maths degree and a PhD, most of my useful skills have been learnt on the job and are not easy to demonstrate unless you have actually worked with me.
If I had to write a CV now, I would literally have no idea what to include. I could probably write 20 pages on the skills I have acquired in the last 3 years running a business. But what ones are relevant? How do I even prove I can do them? Can I even do them well enough to do them for someone else?
This is not just a founder thing - anyone who has worked tasks outside their job description, or worked at a startup where you do whatever is needed - will also feel this pain. And it is a bloody nightmare when you go to apply for a job. This pain is a big part of why our platform exists - CVs are outdated, degrees and other qualifications are not keeping up fast enough for the current world. It makes earned nepotism (hiring someone you know through work) the best option.
So people are turning to AI and other automated ways to test people. Nicole, our amazing Founders Associate, got rejected for a role for not having leadership skills. They never spoke to her (clearly), so how did they know this? She popped balloons in an online game.
She has literally just won the Future Spark award at the Sparkies. Their loss.
I remember having to do live coding challenges for Data Analyst roles - having to recall complex SQL and Python is not a good indicator of whether I can translate business problems into meaningful dashboards and reports. In real life, we judge people on what they do and how they talk about things (with ease, confidence, deeper understanding). And that is exactly what we are doing at Taught by Humans. It is a mix of chats with our AI learning companion Dotly, different types of understanding checks and work related tasks to help us deeply understand someone's confidence with a particular skill or set of skills.
This means it does not matter if you formally studied this or not. In my earlier example, I could have explained the project to Dotly, it would base my confidence on how I talked about and applied the skill. It also would have told me the right name before my interview. Always learning is one of our values.
We are already doing this for workplace learning - onboarding, AI upskilling, mandatory training, whatever is needed. Allowing people to learn in their own way, by doing and chatting. Personalising it to their role and needs.
But I am really excited about the next challenge - can this be used to help match and prepare people for jobs? If we can provide a profile of someone, not a CV, does this derisk hiring? If we know more about people, will they waste less time in unsuitable applications and interviews? And can we demonstrate that despite someone not ticking every box on a job requirement, we know they have adjacent skills and can learn on the job?
Well, we have just been awarded 2 grants to find out if we can do this for entry level AI hiring across the South West and Wales. More details to come as we build this out (in two languages!)
If you are in the South West and thinking about hiring - or looking for a job in AI - we'd love to hear from you here.