It’s official. Social Robotics startup Furhat Robotics and TNG, specialists in unbiased recruitment, just announced a global partnership in which they will jointly develop the world’s first unbiased job interview robot. You are invited to join us on the journey to bring Tengai to life in our weekly blog.
Cognitive bias is a well-known issue in the recruitment process and “Tengai Unbiased”, as the robot will be called, will be used to assist recruiters in the early stages of the recruitment process, where questions are primarily skill and competency based. The vision is to better analyze, understand and perform competency-based interviews and assessments while eliminating unconscious bias.
Research by TNG in 2018 shows that almost 73% believe they have been discriminated against while applying for a job based on their age, gender, ethnicity, handicap, sexual preferences, appearance, weight or health.
Next level of unbiased recruitment
Following on from the recent launch of Furhat’s new social robotics platform, this partnership is designed to create a more objective and unbiased recruitment process, contribute to research on social robots and commercialize the robot in Sweden and internationally. It is a completely unique offering, as current AI-recruitment solutions that the HR world calls robots are actually automation products, while Tengai is a physical advanced social robot with a human interface – considered the next thing amongst the tech world.
“At Furhat, we believe that social robots are the most natural, accessible and engaging user interface for humans. Part of bringing this vision to life is by working with world-leading companies such as TNG. We’ve been very inspired by their vision of eradicating bias from the recruitment process, potentially giving people a better chance to have the right career, and for employers to find the right candidates”, said Samer Al Moubayed, CEO at Furhat Robotics.
“This project marks one of the earliest and most significant partnerships to develop commercial applications for Furhat, one that is extremely well suited to the unique contributions social robots can have on human interaction.”
– Samer Al Moubayed, CEO at Furhat Robotics
Åsa Edman Källströmer, CEO at TNG agrees:
“The collaboration with Furhat Robotics will take unbiased recruitment to the next level. We have worked with unbiased recruitment for years, and have explored various AI-platforms and robotic solutions. We have found Furhat’s product to be the best on the market. With Furhat, we can create an unbiased competence-based selection process and a new and completely unique candidate experience that will engage and enthuse job seekers. The combination will help us get even better at finding the best candidates for our customers, increase the diversity in their workplace and help us in our journey and vision to create a more sustainable labor market.”
Join us on our Dev. blog
During the coming year, we will document the process of bringing Tengai to life on our blog, providing a transparent and fascinating insight into the creation of the world’s first unbiased recruiter robot. So keep in touch!