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Who doesn't love seeing all of the amazing innovation happening in Canada's Startup world? We connect with Canada's best startups to learn about their business and the amazing people behind it. Follow along and hear some of the most interesting ideas and top elevator pitches from across Canada!
00:00.92
mike_flywheel
What's up everybody. It's Mike we're back here on the pitch please podcast today I've got Jonathan from search list and we're going to be talking about how generative Ai and specifically conversational Ai are shaking up the hiring process. And so I'm excited to learn a little bit more about their product. We're going to talk a little bit about their traction where and how this is going to change the dynamic of potentially how you are going to be interviewing in the future and how companies are going to be hiring Jonathan welcome to the show kick us off with a little bit of an introduction about yourself and then we'll get the ball rolling.
00:30.21
Jonathan Mirecki
Sounds great. Great to be here mike first of all, hi everyone. My name is Jonathan Merecki cofounder and Ceo of search list I started search lists back in September with my cofounder and brother and we went full time into it end of September early October and we're we've been working hard on it ever since.
00:53.27
mike_flywheel
That's amazing I'm gonna want to learn a bit about even just working with your brother because I've had a couple different family co-founders on the show and it's always interesting to pick into the dynamics of what's good. What are the pros and cons. So we'll talk about that. But let's learn a little bit about your history of what got you here? um.
00:55.56
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, cool.
01:07.79
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, sure.
01:10.54
mike_flywheel
Sounds like you've been doing this for just a few short months but where did your career journey or life journey start. Did you know you were going to be an entrepreneur from the start like were you holding this searchless idea for last like 20 years or where where did you get the where'd you get started.
01:22.34
Jonathan Mirecki
Ah, yeah, a good question I had in the back of my mind that I would do some kind of entrepreneurship one day I mean technically I was an entrepreneur at twelve I cut neighbors lawns I went around and talked to 300 houses and and got a few customers one summer so made a bunch of. Bunch of money for you know a kid. Um, but then when I was 15 years old 1516 I actually started working for another one of my brothers companies called car pages and I was in charge of our bookkeeping and then eventually all of our accounting and I actually had a few. Employees as well and so I took some accounting courses throughout that time eventually when I was in my early 20 s I decided I'd go back to school full time finish. My bachelor's degree and from there um, figure out what I wanted to do and so in university I was kind of leaning towards consulting. I really like the idea of going into a business problem and trying to solve a puzzle and and break through some frustrations that somebody's facing and I ended up talking to my brother again at car pages Ben and yeah, sure.
02:35.13
mike_flywheel
Just just to clarity is this the same brother that you're doing search list with oh 2 brothers. Okay okay, cool family and business mixed. Well for you. That's a good thing.
02:40.13
Jonathan Mirecki
Same brother. No no different different brother different brother. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, so it it seemed to work so far. Um, so so Ben and I started talking and he said to me hey um I want somebody to head up sales at car pages would would you be interested in that and I said. Well let me think about it. You know and and didn't have to think long because I was the idea of diving headfirst into a startup culture and trying to take its revenue to new places that sounded really exciting to me. It's like. Consulting on steroids for somebody at that age. So I said yeah, let's ah, let's do it and so for the last six years up until September I was doing that I headed up sales and business development had a number of sales reps across Canada outside and inside reps. I was involved in acting as a product manager a couple of for a couple of our product launches um taking those to market testing them in the market as minimum viable products and then scaling them and then I was also involved as a recruiter believe it or not so. We didn't have a recruitment team internally. We're just too small for that you know 30 people. Ah what and whatnot so I got involved in recruitment because I loved the process. So every time we were hiring a salesperson I just.
04:10.91
Jonathan Mirecki
I I got almost giddy about it like oh this is sweet I get.
04:11.77
mike_flywheel
And you you you love the process before you started doing it or as you had to do this by necessity because you know like start up lots of hats then you just you're like I Love this.
04:18.25
Jonathan Mirecki
As I had to do it by necessity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I realized that I loved it. But every other manager in the company didn't like it so anytime somebody was like oh I need you know someone in customer service or we need an accountant or collections person or. You know in some cases even software engineers I put up my hand and I get involved in screening or interviewing what and and and so on so forth. So that's how I started to appreciate the whole recruitment world and throughout the last two years really I started thinking that I wanted to do something in recruitment some sort of recruitment tech company but I wasn't sure what yet and so that was bubbling around in the back of my mind at the beginning of 2023 January I said this is the year I want to do something on my own and. I don't know exactly why but it was just one of those kind of gut feelings like I feel like I've contributed a bunch to my current role. You know I've I built out teams I've helped us launch products I've I've won certified vendor status with a couple of major companies like Ford of Canada Toyota Canada. And so I want to move on to something new and try to build my own thing so recruitment was still in the back of my mind I wasn't completely set on it yet. But I had ah you know an inkling that recruitment would be the direction I go with this some kind of hr tech and ah.
05:50.38
Jonathan Mirecki
My initial idea in January last year was I'm just going to quit my job and figure out what I'm going to do and I told my wife that idea and she said no, you're not.
06:02.60
mike_flywheel
Yeah I can I can imagine that although the part that is interesting here is I Guess you know you were in some regards, um, having that conversation because you're still at car pages so you're having that conversation with your one brother.
06:08.55
Jonathan Mirecki
O.
06:17.28
mike_flywheel
Where's your other brother at this time was he equally bouncing um hr tech ideas with you was this like all 3 of you hacking it.
06:26.84
Jonathan Mirecki
not at all. not at all no no this was just this is literally just my wife and I having these conversations my other brother his name's eli he was fully into his current role. He was only about a year into it at the time he was um.
06:31.48
mike_flywheel
Okay, so.
06:44.26
Jonathan Mirecki
He's at dropbox actually on on a big data team and and previous to that he was at Amazon alexa as a software engineer so he you know he's big into technology. He's always been super excited about ai. He actually showed me a tweet he made about Ai like ten years ago that you know. Ai here I come that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, so but but then he never really got a chance to to work hands on with Ai um, other than a bit I think at Amazon alexa maybe a bit of machine learning. But anyway at that time.
07:04.74
mike_flywheel
Og status.
07:19.68
Jonathan Mirecki
He was telling me that he wanted to go back to school and do his ph d in Ai and so that was kind of what he was thinking long term for his career. So I mean we neither of us thought we might be starting anything together anytime soon if ever. Um so I kept.
07:38.89
Jonathan Mirecki
Coming up with ideas striking them down when I get to something that's somewhat good showing it to my wife and her you know, giving that final veto. No no, no, no, no way. Um.
07:50.85
mike_flywheel
You're not, You're not, You're not quitting your job for this. My friend.
07:58.30
Jonathan Mirecki
Especially because because she was pregnant at the time with our our second kid on the way. So ah, she's like it's it better be a damn good idea if you're going to quit your job. Um, so going into the summer I um
08:16.83
Jonathan Mirecki
I Started looking at the recruitment space as a whole and thinking through what are some of the problems being faced right now as somebody who's hired a lot of am I getting ahead of myself here going going into cool.
08:28.31
mike_flywheel
No, no, no no because I think the the stories blend. So I think it's important to know like you were you were doing recruitment at car pages. You knew you started in this entrepreneurial space. You knew some point you wanted to go run something the the bug bit you around.
08:42.16
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, first.
08:47.79
mike_flywheel
Recruitment and you're trying to figure out like where the gaps or challenges are because you love this space Your brothers in the technology space thinking about going back to school Q movie. It's all making sense. So I'm starting to see where and how search list came to be so so keep going keep going.
08:48.88
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:00.37
Jonathan Mirecki
Cool, cool, cool, cool. So so late spring early summer I started thinking well where are the gaps in the recruitment process and what is high activity level low value or or you know where where do I see some sort of arbitrage opportunity here I guess you could say. And from my own experience. The heaviest lifting is done upfront. It's writing a job descriptive description figuring out what websites to post it on. Um, going through resumes and figuring out who's a yes, who's a no just by the resume then going through. As many candidates as you can and so doing a phone screen and then figuring out who you want to interview and then once you get to the interview process. It's it's pretty quick. You know you're just moving a handful of people through a couple of meetings with you know, several managers and then you make the decision to hire or not and so. For me I felt like you know when I'm getting 300 resumes for a role and I'm spending a week or 2 at least going through the mall just trying to figure out who am I going to screen. That's a crazy amount of work and. That's not where the value in the recruitment process is as far as I'm concerned the values when you do a deep dive interview so that was interesting to me at the same time which you know which I found weird was you call somebody up who has a great looking resume.
10:37.70
Jonathan Mirecki
And you start talking to them and realize this isn't the person on that resume. They're a phenomenal resume writer but they're not going to be good and customer success or sales or whatever you know for for 1 reason or another.
10:51.30
mike_flywheel
So assuming assuming they did themselves these days with with generative Ai and I think that's going to be really cool to talk about here too right? because that's transforming right? like your your resume is a snapshot and that snapshot can have one hundred edits Twenty Thousand peer reviews from friends and family members.
10:57.32
Jonathan Mirecki
That's yeah out. Absolutely yeah.
11:09.38
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, yeah, yeah.
11:10.59
mike_flywheel
Is like your group project that you submit. That's why there's a very big difference to your point between a resume and sometimes how people show up in an interview. Um and vice your so and interview is different too. But yeah, keep keep going talk to this like so the the resume piece.
11:17.40
Jonathan Mirecki
Absolutely yeah, and yeah, yeah, so so I'm thinking like okay resumes are maybe a decent proxy is somewhat of a decent proxy but a lot of people get help in writing the resumes. And a lot of people don't tailor the resumes to jobs they just send in a generic resume. So um, so on the 1 hand you have these people who put all this time in and that may or may not get them an interview then you have people sending in generic resumes. And as a recruiter you're trying you're struggling to see sometimes how their background fits with the job. Um, you don't know if they had a family member write it or ah or a friend write it or a professional recruiter write it for them. You now you don't know if. If chat gbt wrote it heck I mean and here's the crazy thing this is this is fast forwarding a little bit but I've talked to over two hundred job seekers in the last couple of months and I'd say of those almost every single one is admitted. They've used chat gbt to write the resumes or some other tool like it.
12:30.57
mike_flywheel
Or at least rewrite the resume right? like when you're talking about the the custom tailoring I don't even know if there's already a gb plugin but you can definitely make your own new custom Gp that basically just tailors a resume to a job. You just snap your existing resume that you've put work in energy.
12:32.47
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, at least rewrite it? Yeah yeah.
12:41.66
Jonathan Mirecki
There are there are actually I've come across. Yeah yeah, there are yeah I've come across at least a dozen websites where you drop in a link to your ah to job posting and you upload your resume and it will rewrite it.
12:49.27
mike_flywheel
And the job description and it filters it. So.
12:59.55
Jonathan Mirecki
And it will also write a cover letter for you too. Um, there are also applications that will mass apply on your behalf to hundreds of companies a day as they release job postings. So you know you couple those 2 things together and you think. As a hiring manager. It's art or as a recruiter either way if you're involved in the hiring process at the start. It's already a lot of work getting through all those resumes and trying to weed out. You know who's actually a good fit and whatnot. It's just got it got in a lot harder. People are are going to come into this um and and you're going to have no idea what this who this person is based on the resume anymore. Um, especially when you when it comes to things like hallucinations if you're familiar with the term for for those listeners who aren't a hallucination is basically like. You ask chat Gpt for something and it thinks it knows what you're talking about so it makes something up so it could make you look better than you are or say you've done things that it thinks you should have been able to do based on your old job but you didn't do so that kind of stuff will get into resumes as well. And I think it's just going to be a mess as more people use these tools.
14:11.97
mike_flywheel
So I'm definitely going to want to talk through some of the elements of what exists in this space today. But I'm always curious like what were the ideas you scrubbed. So obviously you're kind of thinking through the recruitment process and the hiring process. And think that's going to get to maybe some of the things you've seen out there but what were the ideas you've scrubbed and what's some of the stuff that exists out there today to either combat this or work around like funnel management around a ton of applicants what what exists today.
14:31.82
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, yeah.
14:45.11
Jonathan Mirecki
Sure sure so 2 questions I'll answer your your first question first and then take the next. So um, as far as what did I scrub off the top of my head I was thinking about creating a specialized job board of some sort.
14:47.64
mike_flywheel
Yeah.
14:59.36
Jonathan Mirecki
Just for one vertical that's underserved in some way I is thinking about having some sort of um, like live interview. Um co-pilot. But those those actually exist already that kind of coach people through an interview. Um. I was thinking about creating a um, a more general recruitment firm the standard you know I call you up and interview you and try to figure out if you're good for my client that kind of thing. Um. Backed by technology so it would be more of like a ah recruitment firm that's augmented by tech so those I I scrapped all of those just because I think they're not sharp enough in terms of their messaging as well as the product value itself. What's out there today. Quite a few different options. I mean you have things like ah job boards. For instance, right? You have maybe maybe I won't give too many names but you know um Microsoft as Linkedin you know you have monster you have ah indeed. Some of the big guys and and you have acquisition tools like Juicebox and and a bunch of others I've come across so those are basically like you put in what kind of person you're looking for and it pulls up a profile from Linkedin or wherever. But then it's up to you to reach out and convince that person that they should leave their job and whatnot. So.
16:30.52
Jonathan Mirecki
That's that's ah, ah, a different approach might be useful for recruiters. Um, there are profile based matching systems that will allow you to like hired where it's more than a resume but it's um, it's It's more like an an extended cv but it's all digitized and Standardized. Um, there are like I mentioned earlier those augmented um co-pilot interviewing systems where like you're you're a recruiter or hiring manager and you get live feedback on the screen as you're interviewing someone like.
17:03.83
mike_flywheel
Oh wow.
17:05.93
Jonathan Mirecki
Oh that's interesting. What they just said, you should ask them this question next that kind of thing. Um, so there there's some pretty cool stuff out there.
17:12.96
mike_flywheel
And there's correct me if I'm wrong, but there's also things that just when people are applying because I know there's a big thing where people are for a while trying to figure out the algorithm to hack it. There's automated resume processors where like you're just going through a tool.
17:30.18
Jonathan Mirecki
Yes, yes, that an applicant tracking system an Ats that's what that is and so there there are a lot of those out there like workday or greenhouse and and whatnot um and actually that's one of the other tools I crossed off my list just because that's such a saturated market.
17:31.90
mike_flywheel
And the tool is determining if you're getting shortlisted and.
17:49.80
Jonathan Mirecki
And Ats is useful because it allows you to see the numbers. It's it's like a sales pipeline right? What's the top of funnel. How many resumes can come in how many screens did you do how many first and deb review second interviews whatnot. Um, so you you get an idea of the quality of candidates coming in and. Those tools can be very useful and I think they were the best way to move candidates through the pipeline previously. Um, so where I think yeah, yeah, yeah, so the idea of searchless is that because resumes.
18:14.72
mike_flywheel
So tell us the new tell us the new way Jonathan I want to hear about this new way.
18:27.46
Jonathan Mirecki
Are going to all be made up by chat gbt or whatever you can't really trust them cover letters same thing they're all going to be written by Ai and again you can't trust them and they're all going to be very similar across people of of similar backgrounds. So instead of. Trying to use the the old method the old interface of looking at a candidate I think that we should take it back a hundred and fifty years to conversations and that's the idea of searchless. So instead of looking at resumes or cover letters or for candidates job descriptions which by the way candidates aren't reading candidates do not read your job descriptions if you're a founder or manager out there I've talked to a lot of them. They've confirmed this for me. Um, they do easy apply.
19:22.16
mike_flywheel
Yeah, yeah, that's a huge thing now too. Yeah.
19:24.18
Jonathan Mirecki
That's it easy apply or quick apply that's that's what everyone's doing now. Um, So ah because all this stuff isn't written by humans. It's basically Bots talking to Bots so we have to remove the Bots from the equation to a degree. And I think we can do that through conversational Ai So the idea of searchless is that instead of applying to jobs that you you don't understand because you're not reading the job descriptions and giving a resume that you use chat chip Pt to write you get an interview immediately. From searchless and search list tries to understand understand what skills do you have what experience? Do you have and what competencies do you have from those skills and that experience and then it rates your competencies and it looks through its database of employers and figures out. Which job. You're best applicable to.
20:21.47
mike_flywheel
So search this um, it's actually taking my profile in but not necessarily one to 1 with a specific job. It's almost building a candidate profile. It's disassociated with a specific role. Or is it always like it's part of the application process to a specific role. Got it. It's like building a candidate profile almost like you would as a recruiter in your.
20:39.77
Jonathan Mirecki
It's it's disassociated with any specific role. So the idea is almost almost yes but the the profile's hidden though. It's not like you as ah as a as a recruiter or a hiring manager have to go through. You know a 20 or 30 page profile to you know 1 at a time. It takes pieces from that profile and only shows the relevant pieces to what the requirements for that job are.
21:08.73
mike_flywheel
But it's also helping with that intake process remember when you were talking about like the traditional like recruitment agency where you you find a bunch of talent and then you go figuring out where you can match them to employers. You're doing a little bit of that. Um.
21:18.54
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah.
21:22.91
mike_flywheel
But you're using Conversational ai and tech to enable that at speed. So it is interesting that it's got some? Yeah yeah, that's super cool. So um, let's let's walk through it a little bit. Ah, let's assume that um, is it only when people are looking to apply.
21:26.21
Jonathan Mirecki
At Speed and scale.
21:42.10
mike_flywheel
To a job like I'm not currently job seeking would I just have my profile on here like when a recruiter reaches out to you and you're like hey we'll let you know when we have a match and so anyone could do it whether I'm actively job seeking or not who's sort of your icp here if you will so.
21:43.16
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, yeah.
21:55.13
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly yeah on on the candidate's side. Anybody who's looking for a job either actively or passively um our customers though are the businesses. It's anybody who's looking for somebody to employ.
22:08.50
mike_flywheel
It got it. It's it's actually a good um clarification because I think that's always the piece which is is this a 2 sided marketplace. But what you're saying is the employers come first.
22:10.82
Jonathan Mirecki
So.
22:17.32
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, yeah.
22:22.17
mike_flywheel
The employees come second this is a process to filter the employees to the employers who are your customer.
22:26.26
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly But there is a bit of a value proposition to people looking for work as well because instead of applying to jobs. They're having employers come to them.
22:37.47
mike_flywheel
Cool. So assume I'm ah I'm looking for a job or I've been tapped what does that process look like for my intake How how long am I talking to ah a video of you am I chatting with.
22:40.73
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, yeah.
22:51.16
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
22:51.87
mike_flywheel
You know search list Gpt Talk talk me through what that looks like. So.
22:55.52
Jonathan Mirecki
Sure sure so we we've um, we've been working on a multimodal system. So what that means is at the start. It's going to ask you a quick form you know a quick couple of form questions which of the following have you done you know, have you done frontend development backend development cloud engineering. What frameworks have you worked with what libraries. What? what programming languages it's going to ask a bunch of high-leve things and then it's going to use that to do what we call a shallow match to a potential job and from there. It's going to deep dive into the specifics that that job requires so. We're using ah a job to guide the conversation at that point and as they go through that process if it turns out that they're not a good fit for that job then the next job will come along and that will guide the conversation. So the whole process is. Probably going to take about half an hour to an hour. We're estimating um for for employees or candidates.
23:57.77
mike_flywheel
And does it. Um, this shallow match does it do the shallow match also on behalf of jubs that maybe have not yet been posted or it's only referencing you against whatever the current postings are today. So.
24:09.36
Jonathan Mirecki
Ah, both So I mean as far as guiding the conversation we have to use a job that is in the database but the whole idea is searchless is let's say that you say you're a Cloud engineer but for whatever reason there aren't any Cloud engineering jobs in the system.
24:14.33
mike_flywheel
So.
24:25.80
Jonathan Mirecki
Search list is going to tell you that pretty much within 3 to 5 minutes of starting the interview process. We don't have any jobs that are a fit. We're going to ping you when something comes up and so somebody uploads a job that is you know ah needs a cloud engineer um and all of a sudden they get invited back to say hey let's let's.
24:33.90
mike_flywheel
Okay, cool.
24:45.30
Jonathan Mirecki
Let's interview. Not you know.
24:47.50
mike_flywheel
That's interesting. So the piece where um I'm a candidate. Um do I have to come back and refresh my profile I guess because you were saying you know if if ah, there's no role for you yet. It'll kind of end it early in that scenario.
24:54.60
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, no.
25:04.45
mike_flywheel
When there is something that is a closer fit it asks you to come back and asks some more questions in a scenario where there are roles that are a fit. It has enough to to drive the conversation a bit deeper and create a profile for you does that imprint or that profile follow you indefinitely or and.
25:07.93
Jonathan Mirecki
Yes.
25:18.67
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly it does? Yeah yes yeah, a bit a bit of both. So I mean like let's say that you.
25:21.92
mike_flywheel
How do you make updates when there's or do you make updates when there's new roles posted or does it do a similar thing where it's like hey there's a new role. We have a few additional questions.
25:34.80
Jonathan Mirecki
Ah, again, if if you're applying for a role that just doesn't exist nothing similar to it exists. It's going to tell you very quickly. We're not going to continue this interview It's just not a good use of your time we'll we'll let you know when something comes up and that's going to take you 3 to 5 minutes so when it invites you back. It's going to start where you left off and say okay you said you know cloud engineering. Let's talk about that a bit what you know what have you worked with.
25:51.56
mike_flywheel
So.
25:59.39
mike_flywheel
That's cool. It's very native experience to how people would have a screener call right? like those initial screening calls or recruitment calls. Um.
26:03.16
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly.
26:09.52
mike_flywheel
That's that's super interesting and so is it. It's chat-based video based audio-based how does that intake process look it sounds like it's like multimodal. So the beginning is mostly like a ah Q and a style sounds like maybe typed.
26:22.15
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, yeah, the the very beginning is going to be form based so it's going to be. You know, just checking off checkboxes that kind of thing. Um and then as you move deeper then it's going to be chat-based so it'll ask you text-based questions and then you answer and ah in a chat bot or chat Box. Um. But we're going to shortly after our initial release add in voice to text and text to voice as well. So You can have a conversation with it like you're talking to a recruiter.
26:45.64
mike_flywheel
That that's course way more diversity. Well and I think that's important because I assume it's the elephant in the room or you've been asked or you will be asked but people are going to say well if my Gpt resume builder could talk to your gp. Or automated you know, intake process. What's stopping someone here from using that to reply and the answers and so how does that work in searches I know someone's thinking it which is like how are you stopping automated or gbt based inputs to that conversation. But.
27:10.32
Jonathan Mirecki
Great question. Absolutely.
27:21.81
Jonathan Mirecki
In a bunch of ways. A great question though. So. The first thing is that we would be screening the people ourselves to start and eventually we'll automate the screening process and when I say screening I mean letting people onto this to the platform in the first place. Um, so. We're going to ensure the quality of candidates coming in their conversation is going to be tied back to their profile so that whether that be either Linkedin or other social media in some way. So if they're not being completely honest and it comes out. That's not a great look for them. Ah, the other thing is that we're going to continuously remind candidates anything you say I hate to say but can it be well used against you. You know it's yes, yes.
28:06.40
mike_flywheel
Well, you're you're trying to build an authentic profile so you are discouraging and and letting them know if there's falsities in there that.
28:15.25
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, if chat Gpt answers for you and it has a hallucination or it exaggerates something and then you talk to? Ah, um, ah the recruiter or the hiring manager or a subject matter expert at the company and they ask you a question guess what they're going to see right through you and say hey they said they did this during that initial screening interview. But they didn't because clearly they don't understand x y z.
28:38.73
mike_flywheel
So you would I don't know if you've watched bitcon recently? Um, and if you haven't check it out. It's hilarious wacky story. But basically these people founded a bitcoin company on the premise that you'd be able to basically spend your bitcoin.
28:47.88
Jonathan Mirecki
Daca.
28:56.50
mike_flywheel
Or your cryptocurrency is like a credit card but everything behind it was like full of shit like they had nothing but an idea everything was a lie. Their Linkedin profiles were a lie. They all went to Harvard but they didn't actually go to Harvard Surch list would up them dead in their tracks by the time someone sniffed that out.
28:59.73
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, tight.
29:07.10
Jonathan Mirecki
Oh my goodness.
29:13.50
mike_flywheel
They'd be nixed from the platform or at least have a star or a tick against them if you will that will therefore and that's part of your reputation because you're you're building a candidate profile and part of that is your reputation your authenticity your ability to be genuine and then you will take that forward in the same way someone I guess could lie to a recruiter. Um.
29:16.81
Jonathan Mirecki
Yes.
29:23.97
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly. Right? Yeah, No exactly.
29:32.69
mike_flywheel
And but to your point like when that feedback comes back to the recruiter guess what that recruiter is not going to have the same trust in you may not put you up for other roles. So you're really like taking a lot of the core principles that are used today and you're just simplifying it and scaling it significantly. So.
29:38.85
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly.
29:46.58
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly exactly and and there there are other cool things that we could do I mean when when you know what kind of answers they're giving to the recruiter you can then create questions based on their answers that prompts the recruiter. At the company that's hiring So Hey why don't you ask? So and so about this thing that they did right and all of a sudden they're being guided as well. So that they know hey this person said this on the screening platform. I Need to dig into this and find out if they actually did it So There's so there's going to be multiple layers that we build into the system that ensure candidates are authentic.
30:23.70
mike_flywheel
So super interesting.
30:33.18
mike_flywheel
Well and I think before you said that the the customer is the company. So maybe tell us a little bit about you know where you see this fitting into a company's process today. Um, it's going to help them reduce the the load of going through resumes. But.
30:44.50
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, sure.
30:49.26
mike_flywheel
You know beyond that what are other some of the benefits that you see here or that people are seeing here today. We'll talk about where you're at so far. But I think like what? what? What do you see as the perceived benefits for the organization So that you know if there is companies listening. Um.
30:52.99
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
31:05.14
mike_flywheel
They they right away start to understand where this fits into their current recruiting process. For example.
31:08.10
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah I think a recruiting process has 3 main phases to it first you have to validate that somebody has the right experience for a role and that requires looking at the resume their cover letter and talking to them in that initial screening call. The second part is you want to evaluate their cultural fit for the company and then the third thing is you want to do an in-depth technical assessment and so I think that you know the technical assessment that's usually done by a subject matter expert. So somebody who's going to end up being a colleague or the hiring manager on the on the team. The cultural fit is usually done by managers or by internal recruiters or hr staff and the initial screening is typically done by hr or by the hiring manager and from most people I've talked to That's a very big pain point having to dive into 300 or more resumes and try to figure out who the heck do you talk to? you know am I missing good candidates. That's what we're trying to solve for I think it's a high volume game that initial part the screening. And if it's not done well, you could be missing out on a phenomenal candidate or you could end up overpaying for a candidate because let's say you look at only people with these nice shiny resumes. Guess what they're going to command a premium for those nice shiny resumes.
32:40.62
Jonathan Mirecki
Right? So you might end up paying them $10000 more than somebody who doesn't have as great as of a resume So that's really where the value comes in.. It's the taking a process that normally is a bit of a slog for somebody spending weeks on end going through all these resumes. Making it fast and efficient so that they could focus on the the the more core parts of interviewing which are culture and then the technical assessment.
33:12.70
mike_flywheel
I I can't help but wonder does this help ah or harm or maybe it's neutral I I'm trying to think through it right now. So I'll just jump out of the question which is like where does this sit in terms of like.
33:24.23
Jonathan Mirecki
Now.
33:29.90
mike_flywheel
More diverse hiring or more unbiased hiring I have to imagine I think it helps but I actually have no idea so like how does that? How are you? um you know adopting those concepts or thinking through those challenges as you build this out. Okay.
33:30.00
Jonathan Mirecki
Right? right.
33:40.26
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, yeah, excellent question I think that we're anonymizing profiles. So You're not going to know as a hiring manager or as a recruiter that this candidate a is white black. You know, ah male female part of the Lgbt community or whatnot you're you're not going to know that and because of that you're not going to be able to bring bias into the Conversation. You're just looking at does this person have the skills and the experience and from there you can invite them for an interview and. Know that this person has what it takes and are not taking them out because of some kind of Bias I have.
34:23.38
mike_flywheel
Well not even just have did they have just like the the surface level skill sets but because you're going to deepen the conversation with them. You've double clicked. You've got like more depth to understanding this candidate than those.
34:34.53
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
34:40.42
mike_flywheel
Bullet points that oftentimes become the make or break to your point like on a resume you you might dismiss people who didn't know how to land the bullet point on a resume but when discussing it actually know this stuff deeply and richly and you give ah a wider setting I Love that you're doing this through you know the ability to to chat through through typing.
34:40.42
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah.
34:49.70
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, no absolutely.
35:00.33
mike_flywheel
The ability to to talk because I think some people transparently like are challenged in interviews because they aren't as good at the fluent talking. Maybe English is a second language. Maybe they just aren't you know a person that is quick on their feet but they are very very intelligent. They have the skill sets So the ability to to. Do this intake in various ways is actually opening up the ability to have a more diverse intake process as well which which is pretty cool whether by design or or just net necessity of how you're doing this I think it's a really cool aspect of search list.
35:27.13
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, no absolutely.
35:32.56
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah I was actually asked before like are you going to show who they are. You know who the the is on the other end of that conversation and after talking about it with Eli for a while we decided that no, we don't we don't want to show that person you know Malcolm Gladwell had an interesting if you're if you're familiar with.
35:50.69
mike_flywheel
Yeah, yeah.
35:52.13
Jonathan Mirecki
Malcolm Gladwell great great author but he has an interesting example I think it was for for celloists. Um putting up a screen between the conductor and the person playing makes a big difference in selection because if you see. What that person looks like and for whatever reason you don't think you have a bias but you have a bias you could actually perceive them as being of lower quality and so that's that's something that we want to integrate into searchless.
36:23.59
mike_flywheel
That's amazing and at least for the first gate right? You're going to talk to them once you get on the interview but at least like your initial distilling to the top candidates you're going to take a lot of bias maybe most of the bias out of that process. It is probably hard to eliminate all but a lot of it out.
36:25.42
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly yes.
36:35.92
Jonathan Mirecki
That's the idea.
36:39.70
mike_flywheel
Um, so where where is search list at where are you at with the the product today knowing we're going to this episode will release in in a couple of weeks so probably by the time you're listening to this. There might be even some updates but where's search is set today. Are you.
36:50.11
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
36:55.72
mike_flywheel
Mvp is this live. Can people start using search lists as an employer today for.
36:58.44
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, we're we're we're getting close. We're actually two weeks out before our paid pilot. So we did an initial testing release in November and we had a whole bunch of companies hiring managers recruiters product managers and candidates. Go through interview processes and see how the flow works got a whole bunch of feedback. That's what we we've been working on figuring out over the last two months and so we're really excited to bring this live and really help people here.
37:31.34
mike_flywheel
So by the time people are listening to this. You will have a ah paid pilot that people can engage in what are the the gates to participate in the paid pilot is there Any criteria is it Canadian companies us companies What sort of the parameters on that.
37:33.50
Jonathan Mirecki
Yes, yes.
37:44.76
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, the start will be working strictly with Canadian companies as well as canadian employees. We're probably just going to keep it to Ontario. That's what we're thinking for the time being and then expand outward from there. Um, we're just doing software engineering roles for now. And that can be anywhere from an entry level or intern all the way up to a more senior role but not not going as far as like a team lead or a software engineering manager at this point.
38:15.73
mike_flywheel
God is there is there. A reason you chose that specific you know type of role as a starting point you have to start somewhere but is there a reason that you drew to that specific area as part of your initial wave.
38:29.82
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, absolutely ah, 3 reasons really the first is software engineers love ai in general and a lot of them are embracing all sorts of Ai technology. Um so they're not going to shy away from this kind of process. The second is that software engineers are. Huge demand as well as there are a lot of them out there especially in Toronto. Um, it's ah you know it's it's really one of the tech capitals in in North America and even the world now. Um, especially with Ai and ml so. Those are those are really 2 of the big reasons and then the third is that um software engineering skills are much more easily accessible through this kind of um interview process because when you're talking about soft skills like how does the person communicate how's their eye contact. What how's their how you know how? how did they commute? How did they get points across that kind of thing that can all be more or less faked when you're talking about um, communicating through a chat. Um people could spend time polishing it or even when.
39:32.52
mike_flywheel
Yeah, yeah.
39:38.95
Jonathan Mirecki
It It becomes a text voice voice to text you're not going to be listening through all of those interviews to to to gauge just how well that person communicates so that might come later. Um, and yeah I think so.
39:48.23
mike_flywheel
Yeah, not impossible right? like you theoretically with Ai you'll be able to hey take a video recording of a live interview and you'll be able to get there but this is where you've you've started and it makes makes sense based on those those reasons for sure can you i.
39:57.10
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, ah.
40:00.17
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly So it's it. We're starting with the hard skills.
40:06.51
mike_flywheel
We haven't talked as much about this on some of the on some of the previous podcasts but tell me about like how you formulated your Mvp and how you put some water through the pipes. Um, because I think that's like such an important piece because you know.
40:17.47
Jonathan Mirecki
Sure.
40:24.50
mike_flywheel
Were were these companies and employees actually being hired were they people like hey I just want you to try this out and see theoretically what it work. What did you frame up as your Mvp to get you ready to go live with searchless.
40:35.80
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, um, so I guess I guess the whole thing maybe maybe I'll I'll rewind a little bit back to August so initially I had my way of thinking about how the the whole program would work I started talking to Eli in August about it.
40:40.75
mike_flywheel
Yeah.
40:52.14
Jonathan Mirecki
And he got pretty excited so that's what I invited him to join me actually um and then we spent a good month figuring out what we think it should look like then I started going to a huge number of networking events talking to every business contact I have um. Probably getting getting out to an event every other night for two months straight so meeting hundreds and hundreds of people who are either looking for work or looking to hire or have experience in hiring and getting their feedback on how this should look. And so throughout that process we started building it around how people would want to see it function both as a candidate and then as well as somebody who's hiring. Um and so that initial not really, um, it was. It was sort of an Mvp but it was also kind of like a ah proof of concept that we were launching in November when we brought that to yeah yeah.
41:47.52
mike_flywheel
Yeah, yeah, how far did you drift from that I'm always curious right? It's so valuable that you're saying you had your perception. You've you've been in this space. So it's not like it was like unfounded by anything but you you brought this and you asking a ton of questions. How much did it evolve and.
42:02.10
Jonathan Mirecki
A lot a lot and I'd say it's it's more like granular though. It's not like the the whole premise. It's based on or the general idea of what we're doing changed. It's more about what kind of questions are going to be asked of the candidate. How is the. Um, how is the hiring manager or the recruiter at the company going to interact with search lists to specify what a requirement should look like how are we going to wait requirements. How are we going to assess that candidate a is better than candidate b. All of those kind of questions were coming up and and we got a lot of really interesting ideas from such a huge number of people. So um, that was really crucial to to getting to where we were in November um, and then the November part was all about user experience. How did the flow go. Um, a couple of the big things that that hit us that we totally missed was when somebody's joining search list as a candidate. How long is the interate view going to take and we would tell them explicitly as we're doing these 1 on one demos. It's going to be 60 minutes and we would even have like a. Ah, chat bubble at the top saying it's going to be a 60 minute interview after a few questions they'd say so how long's the center view going to be and I found that 90 to 95% of the people I demoed it with had the same question so that's one of the things that were like okay.
43:35.77
Jonathan Mirecki
We have to show people how far through the interview they are because just saying 60 minutes go and then having a trail of question and answer you know with with ah with a bot. People aren't going to feel very comfortable with that and I think after several questions they're going to start falling off and that was a concern a lot of people had with with what we initially built that didn't come up though when we were coming up with the idea or when we were talking to users initially that you know nobody thought of it just because.
44:02.42
mike_flywheel
Yeah.
44:07.96
Jonathan Mirecki
When you're having a conversation with a person that person knows how to take that conversation in this direction or that direction. But how do you build that into a machine so that it's that flexible and actually knows where where should I take this next? Um, exactly.
44:20.50
mike_flywheel
Yeah, a progress it makes sense like a progress bar but it's interesting that sometimes the most simple things are things we overlook and without getting true user feedback in the early days you may miss these things that could imagine you didn't catch that insight like imagine how detrimental that would be where.
44:32.74
Jonathan Mirecki
A hundred percent
44:39.82
mike_flywheel
Every time a company's trying to use search lists and every time you're trying to intake new candidates. Everyone's bailing on the interview process and you're like well no one wants to apply for jobs anymore I Guess no one wants a job would be your insight but you're like no no, no, we we talk to people they do want jobs. They just.
44:48.25
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
44:53.69
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah.
44:56.79
mike_flywheel
They need some transparency or awareness of how long this is going to take and even though you set it. The progress bar is like so smart. It makes sense like loading or downloads or you know a questionnaire or whether it shows you're at question 10 of 52 same as a test right? yeah.
44:58.89
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly.
45:05.23
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah.
45:12.14
Jonathan Mirecki
Exactly so like a progress bar and then giving notifications as they move through the process. Okay, you're moving on to this part of the interview. Okay, you're moving on to this part and so on so forth. Um, so so that was one piece and then another major major one was. Getting to a yes or a no as fast as possible, right? And that's where we came up with that whole idea of having that multimodality at the beginning where people just check a couple of boxes and it takes 3 to 5 minutes and immediately they know if they're going to keep talking to search lists or not because.
45:31.59
mike_flywheel
So.
45:48.64
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, initially it was more of what we call an exploratory phase so it would switch between asking generic questions and then diving deep into certain areas that the person says they have experience in and it would repeatedly do that without trying to assess. Is this person actually going to match with a job in the database and so that was the second major thing that came up during those demos. Yeah, exactly.
46:16.30
mike_flywheel
Yeah, it makes sense like I don't want to go through this whole damn process that you don't have any jobs right now for me I tell me to come back when it makes sense. So ah, you have a paid pilot live by the time this releases. Um, if someone's curious to to jump on board. It sounds like it's open to anybody. That's.
46:24.56
Jonathan Mirecki
E.
46:33.22
mike_flywheel
Potentially in Canada but maybe a time of launch for now Ontario and candidates Ontario where should they go to find out more information or to sign up.
46:37.97
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
46:40.29
Jonathan Mirecki
So you could either sign up on search list dot c a or reach out to me directly Jonathan Murrecki on Linkedin. Yeah.
46:47.36
mike_flywheel
Yeah, we'll have those things in the show notes I Just want to make sure we talk about it now we'll make sure we we drop that again before we close that above in the show notes we'll make it super easy for everyone to get there. Um I I've learned a ton I think this is really going to transform how companies bring people on board like this is. I'm trying to to dig for the areas that are problems of why this can't work right? You know like where are the gaps and I think you're tackling them like we're going to add video Eventually, we're going to add chat and voice and. It's not meant to hijack the interview process or the intake process but augment where and how existing recruiters would do their job to to it's it's the kind of the copilot rather than autopilot concept. There's there's human touch still engaged in this. Um and what's cool is you've you've had the.
47:31.30
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, exactly yes.
47:40.29
mike_flywheel
Experience working alongside your your one brother Ben as a founder of ah of a startup or a smaller business all those decently sizable um thirty thirty employees is not you know irrespectable and then now you're working with Eli and I think in both ends of those you've had.
47:41.57
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, yeah.
47:59.46
mike_flywheel
Their partnership in this. But what are some of the most valuable pieces of advice that you have received as a founder either while working with Ben or now working as as search lists I find everyone has like their advice for others but I'm always curious to hear like what's the most.
48:02.82
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
48:18.44
mike_flywheel
Interesting piece or valuable piece of advice. You've received like what's sort of stuck with you in these journeys.
48:22.30
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, I'd say and this this this comes from ah from a lot of different places but move fast, especially when you're starting out early. Um because you don't know what. Is what a product's going to do when you bring it to market. There is one product we launched at car pages and we built it in three months and took it to market and literally nobody bought it and we iterated then for another four months and got it to a point where. It became our best selling product for the the following twelve months and and it did very well in the market. So what I learned from that was don't try to perfect your product and spend six months or a year on it just build it as quickly as possible build. Really make it an Mvp. You know a minimum viable product. Get it to market demo it to as many people as you can and try to see what the common themes are when people say that won't work or I wouldn't buy this because of this and you'll start to see that. Okay, this 1 thing or that 1 thing. Are coming up from pretty much everyone let's tackle those first you tackle those you take it back to the market and ask the same question again and maybe some people start buying it now. So that's that's one huge thing that I've learned. Um.
49:46.70
mike_flywheel
And I love that you took that with you into into the build of search list right? Like we just talked about how you put it out there got feedback really fast and applied it. So it sounds like you instantly applied that advice and that learning of something you learned at carpages very quickly to search list. So.
50:03.42
Jonathan Mirecki
Ah, in part I partly forgot that lesson I'm not going to lie. Um, but I did thankfully have a lot of people who I view as mentors tell me hey look keep it make it simpler make it simpler parrot down. Get it, get it out in front of people. Originally we were thinking December January for that initial um, demoing and I'm glad we did November instead.
50:26.32
mike_flywheel
You that's cool. What are some of so obviously you're working in the ai space. So it could be tech. It could be non-tech but I'm always like curious what are and sometimes I adopt them but like what are some of the most interesting tools or processes or tech that you're using today that you find super valuable to you.
50:36.86
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah.
50:44.31
mike_flywheel
Maybe I could adopt it maybe others that are listening will find it valuable but.
50:47.71
Jonathan Mirecki
Sure sure, um, well Ai the ah the obvious one I mean we we use it in our day to day whether chat gpt or or claude or or for other purposes for for maybe designing sort of elements that kind of thing. Um. Ai is phenomenal just as a coach as something to bounce ideas off to brainstorm with and it doesn't always give you the right answer but it could challenge your thinking, especially if you prompted to do that. Um, so that's that's 1 thing um github copillot is phenomenal. Eli swears by it notion notions is brilliant and they also have an ai copilot built in now as well. So that's extremely helpful if you haven't used notion before for myself hubspot and Apollo really fantastic for. Managing relationships with people and and outreach.
51:41.37
mike_flywheel
I Good to know I think I'll I'll make sure I've got I've got some of those that worry I'm using I know others are using some of those things but Apollo Hubspot notion I Always love me a little bit of github copillot.
51:50.43
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
51:57.52
mike_flywheel
It's kind of in my job description of what I do every day at Microsoft I love hearing it that was not a paid spot I love it when it comes up naturally. Um and maybe this ties back to some of the things that you already talked about but what's something that you think um maybe yourself included.
52:00.65
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, they are.
52:15.27
mike_flywheel
Often overlook as founders but shouldn't.
52:19.38
Jonathan Mirecki
Um, I think I mean I'm so early into the entrepreneurial journey. But 1 thing that I overlooked I ah I guess you could say is that you're not. Going to be ready to be a founder pretty well ever um life stage. You know again, my my I quit my job one week after my wife gave birth um that was inconvenient to say the least to say the least.
52:46.72
mike_flywheel
I would say that yeah inconvenience is a good way to frame it for.
52:51.69
Jonathan Mirecki
I was studying the industry and and the technology that we had to build in the in the hospital so in between doing diaper changes so that was that was kind of wild. But yeah I I think that. You know it's not starting a business isn't a convenient vent endeavor. You know it's not It's not easy to leave your job and and lose that security. Um, it's not easy to dive headfirst into something and not have a job description like. What am I going to do today am I going to make a Linkedin post am I going to go on a podcast am I going to try to sell something what am I going to do I you you have to figure it out so that's kind of daunting all of that so you know the only way you're going to really feel. Perfectly safe. Let's say is if you have ah a large nesteak to fall back on or something. Um, but even then if your career is important to you. You're taking a risk. You're taking a big risk and there's no way about that. You know there's no easy way about that. Um, if you want to be an entrepreneur. You got to just jump in and take that risk.
54:08.13
mike_flywheel
I think those are some sage words Jonathan thank you for for joining us today I think we we called it out and we'll put it in the description. But anyone that wants to reach out or join the paid pilot. It'll be in the description but search list dot ca um, kind of as a closing thing. Any a. Support or help that would be helpful in search's journey and maybe the answer is just hey more people in the paid pilot. But I like leaving it pretty open-ended in case, there's somebody listening and there's something that you're looking for that's more than that anything on your side.
54:36.67
Jonathan Mirecki
Yeah, yeah Thanks, thanks for asking Mike um, yeah I'd say people to join the paid pilot. Absolutely um, it doesn't cost anything unless you actually find an employee through the through the tool at least right now were we're going to have. We're going to have a saas model as well eventually. But for now it's based on. Did you hire somebody or not so that's 1 thing to think about um the other is any investors out there who are looking for seed rounds. We're going to start fundraising within the next three months
55:13.97
mike_flywheel
Okay, that makes sense and I like that you called out the that's a really cool business model as you kind of roll this out to start which is you don't pay until you hire someone. So I mean if I'm an employer and I'm listening. Um. There's a lot of value in that even just trying it out if you make 1 higher or 2 hires you can just get your feet wet and start to see if this if this makes sense for you. Um, John and then thank you so much for coming on I think it's really cool to see you.
55:34.95
Jonathan Mirecki
Um.
55:39.15
mike_flywheel
You know, working on 1 business with your one brother another business with your your next brother as you kind of continue that journey I think this is going to super disrupt the the space of hiring and recruitment I don't see how not so I wish you all the best I can't wait to keep following your journey and and seeing the launch of that paid pilot. And seeing how this goes so thanks for joining us today on the pitch please podcast I'll leave it to you in case, you've got any closing words. Yeah I'll over to you to any closing words for.
55:59.45
Jonathan Mirecki
Thanks a lot for having me. Yeah, no, just thanks so much for having me Mike it's been a pleasure. Love love this conversation and great to be on here.
56:11.56
mike_flywheel
Love it. Everyone who tuned in. Thanks again for listening to the pitch please podcast and we'll catch you on the next episode have a good night. Thanks for watching.