Job candidates are gaming applicant-tracking methods, and recruiters are struggling to sift via mounds of AI-generated resumes. In the meantime, massive tech corporations are chopping jobs — but nonetheless scrambling to rent folks with AI expertise.
Enter Provn.
The brand new Seattle startup, led by longtime entrepreneur Nikesh Parekh, needs corporations to scrap the standard resume and change it with portfolios of actual work and challenge-based assessments.
Provn’s software program facilitates “AI challenges” — for instance, constructing an AI agent or fixing a enterprise downside. It additionally information candidate video walkthroughs and makes use of analytics to measure efficiency. Firms get data-driven insights and candidates construct profiles they’ll reuse throughout employers.
Parekh described it as a skills-first market for AI expertise, timed to a shift the place “each job is changing into an AI function.”
Parekh informed GeekWire the thought faucets into a number of converging traits: “the thrill round AI changing folks, altering nature of labor, and AI jobs being the one progress space.”
He stated conventional job platforms like LinkedIn and Certainly have huge scale however are much less efficient at serving to corporations discover top quality candidates, particularly with extra “AI slop” to wade via.
Provn additionally goals to transcend technical-testing instruments corresponding to HackerRank and Codility, which Parekh described as slender.
The corporate is concentrating on two important buyer teams:
- Massive corporations that frequently rent early- and mid-career data employees and need a database of candidates assessed on actual expertise;
- Smaller startups with out recruiting groups that want entry to pre-vetted candidates who can reveal AI fluency.
Provn is partnering with startup communities and corporations together with Learn AI, Yoodli, and different Seattle-area employers to launch its minimal viable product. It’s additionally working with recruiting corporations.
The startup is self-funded up to now, plans to lift a seed spherical, and isn’t producing income but. Its enterprise mannequin will cost employers per rent and provide premium instruments for candidates — corresponding to an “AI agent” that helps them market themselves and discover new alternatives.
Parekh is a well-known title within the Seattle tech startup scene. He co-founded Suplari, an AI-driven spend intelligence agency acquired by Microsoft in 2021, after which spent 4 years engaged on Copilot Studio and Energy Platform. His profession additionally consists of management roles at actual property tech corporations (Market Chief, Trulia) and early stage ventures.
Parekh’s former colleagues are a part of the staff at Provn, together with:
- Kate Hill, former vice chairman of gross sales and buyer success at ActiveRain, former enterprise growth chief at EY
- Ravi Mohan, former enterprise capitalist at Shasta Ventures and former board member at Suplari, Apptio, and Anaplan.
Provn joins a rising listing of recruiting tech startups within the Seattle space that features hiring platform Humanly, technical interviewing firm Karat, staffing startup ConverzAI, and others.
