Impress: AI Bots Meet Recruitment Processes

Having worked with senior HR personals at large enterprises, Sudhanshu Ahuja observed recruiters struggling with voluminous paperwork and countless hours of interviews. The hiring process seemed a tedious job to Ahuja as keeping track of applicants, sifting through piles of resumes, and communicating with them over the phone or email got difficult to handle at times. To understand the problem better, he also interacted with the applicants which led him to discern that monotonous recruitment processes demotivated applicants to work in particular companies.

With the verve to formulate a solution to address the concerns of candidates as well as hiring managers, Ahuja, with his colleagues Amrith Dhananjayan and Vaisagh Viswanathan, laid the foundation for Impress in 2016. Today, the Singapore-based company provides an artificial intelligence (AI) tool for HR and talent organizations which, to put simply, simplifies their jobs. The AI-powered recruiting assistant accelerates candidate screening, offering benefits to enterprises as well as enhancing candidate engagement and experience. “AI products are often seen as enemies of divisional jobs, but we don’t believe in that. We have designed our product in a way that multiplies the productivity of humans and makes the jobs more fulfilling,” says Ahuja, CEO, Impress.

To meet customer’s specific demands, Impress follows a unique methodology called SEEDERS (Speed, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Diversity, Experience, Recruiter impact, and Saving).

“We try to identify the metrics that a client wants to improve. Our regular communication with all the stakeholders helps us in going forward with the process, and in 100 percent of the cases, we have delivered the agreed improvement in metrics, in the agreed time frame,” asserts Amrith Dhananjayan, Ph.D., COO at Impress.

The company works with enterprises, recruiters, and startups. While the underlying service and strict customer-centric approach remain constant for each, it's the variable of customizability that equates specific results for every customer. For example, when it comes to enterprises, they have complex processes and metrics that often require extra support. The Impress team, in addition to the product, leverages the SEEDERS and hand-holds a client to achieve the desired metrics for which it takes the ownership. On the other hand, startups generally have simple processes and metrics that can efficiently be worked upon with in-house expertise; in such cases, Impress, only, comprehensively educates clients in how to best utilize the product to achieve desired business outcomes.

The firm has worked with clients like DBS, Singtel, Tata Consultancy Services, Panasonic, and Randstad in resolving recruiting and HR issues through its virtual recruitment assistant. One of its clients having had to review 3000 profiles manually approached Impress for assistance. The bots that Impress deployed to conduct interviews completed the entire process till shortlisting in just four and a half days. A yielded completion rate of 89 percent translated into a condensed list of 130 suitable applicants reflected on the recruiter's dashboard. This allowed the client to be more productive and efficient in its hiring process and thus, affording quicker return on investment.

Understandably, Impress having been found just a year ago might not strike as a strong proposition for many. But factoring in the two decades of market experience the founding partners carry and the enviable clientele clearly delineate the value proposition Impress brings to the table. Looking at the future, Impress envisions making a global impact with its AI-powered recruiting assistant. “We want to move beyond the recruitment process and pervade further along the value chain to help companies with efficient data-driven performance management,” concludes Vaisagh Viswanathan, Ph.D., CTO, Impress.