The world has changed since the early 2000s. If you're a hirer, you're faced with a terrible choice:

1. Either hire people in your network, send messages manually, and hopefully get time with people to close the deal.
2. Hire people outside of your network, force them to go through an application process with resumes, then schedule interviews, then finally hire them.

Both approaches are terrible. The first one because it's pretty difficult, if not impossible, to scale. And the second one produces truly terrible results. How many of us have posted a job on LinkedIn, or Indeed, or Job Board X, and got a flood of applications, most of which were garbage?

At Partly, we think the right approach is an automated version of (1). Something where you can reach out to you and your team's network, but does all the manual work of figuring out if the person might be a match for the role, sending the message, and getting the time scheduled.

Yes, an AI recruiter, but not for spamming. The AI only should message people who opt in. It should explain why the person is a good fit for the role based on your JD. And it should explain the relationship between the candidate and the hirer (ideally you overlapped somewhere in your previous work history). And it should do all the hard work of getting the meeting on the books.

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Similarly, on the hiree side, your options for getting another role are:

1. Work your network manually. Get coffee with everyone, see who might be hiring, then figure out if it's a fit.
2. Submit 1 million applications, and eventually hope that some of them convert to interviews, and some of those convert to offers.

And, just like for hirers, both approaches are terrible. The first isn't scalable, and the second doesn't get results. What you want, in some ways, is a broker. Someone who's on your side when it comes to getting opportunities and bringing them back to you. The broker, just like in the hirer case, should explain why the job is a fit for you, whether that's a particular skillset you have, or how you know the hiring manager, or both. And the broker should facilitate getting the meeting to happen.

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For us, the key question is whether this experience can be great for both sides. Not great for hirers, terrible for hirees (most AI screening tools are like this). Not great for hirees, terrible for hirers (most "easy apply" experiences at least seem like they're like this). Because in a hiring context, anything that's bad for one side ultimately means something bad for both sides.

Hiring is hard. You should be suspicious of cheap solutions that seem like it's just AI slapped on an emailing tool. Or AI to generate resumes. We've done the hard work - when you look at candidates on the platform, those are candidates that signed up to be there. And when you look at hirers on the platform, those are companies that have agreed, through Partly, to hire in a new way. To hire people based on introductions and tailored, specific connections, rather than with slop.

The New Era of Work

At Partly we think we're building the future of hiring. We think the "standard" approach in the tech industry in the past is pretty suboptimal. The future of hiring is pretty simple - get introductions, start working together, and if it's a fit, work together more deeply for a longer term. Whether you’re a hirer looking to scale your team with the best talent or a hiree seeking more control over your career, Partly is here to help.