Payne Search - A new website, brand, and incorporating AI

The Payne Search website is now live, with new logo and branding. Something else you will notice is our new focus and investment on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Technology, and 'going digital' is to harness technology to make things easier. It can be utilised to reduce manual tasks, especially volume/repetitive tasks. Used in the right way, it can improve a business and give customers a better experience of your service. I regularly look at my recruitment process and ask myself 'what can I digitise?', 'where can I save my time and add value in other areas?, 'what can not only be automated, but also in fact improve the customer experience'?

I have been operating as a small business with a few consultants for quite some time now, and I recognised the need for technology to help me, and as an alternative option to hiring many full-time staff. Then in December 2019, I had a terrible accident where I fell over and snapped my cruciate ligaments in my knee (full ACL injury), and had surgery on December 24th (yes, Christmas day here in Denmark!). So, it was several months of recovery at home and unable to walk. It was here where I really used the time to research and commit to getting technology on-board and integrated into my business.

In March 2020, COVID-19 had affected us all, and lockdown kicked in. Wow. This terrible virus has seriously impacted everybody, and the economy. If there is one clear outcome of this (from a business and technology perspective), is that digital is now needed more than ever. Video technology such as Zoom and MS teams have seen astronomical growth, where physical meetings have no longer been possible. Companies that have been overly dependent with in-store sales have been hit the hardest, and it is evident that eCommerce is crucial.

So, with the combination of my tech curiosity, the ACL injury I sustained, COVID-19 pushing the need for more digital ways of doing things, then a new digital Payne Search was born so to speak!

Here I will talk about the different areas, and the companies I am partnered with. I am happy to name them, and hope they receive great recognition - They all deserve it.

Our logo and brand

Our previous logo and branding were better suited to Executive Search, it had a more formal look to it, and it did not feel like a brand associated with technology and digital. The website also resonated this same look and feel.

I started on the logo first. I wrote a detailed brief on my company and advertised this on Logo Tournament (a website for freelancers that are specialised in logo design). I received over 150 logo design ideas from almost as many different freelancers from all over the world. The winning design just captured me immediately, it had that "Yes that's the one" effect! It is simple and yet spot on for what I was looking for. We decided with all lower case, and two-tone colour of blue and black. The digital target in the middle was the real attention grabber for me. It draws you to the centre of the logo, and it indicates 'search', where we search for the right candidates. This is far better for us, than an old-school magnifying glass to illustrate search, we are digital! The type font also looked great. This is called 'Sansation Bold', and I felt it had a simplistic yet somewhat futuristic look to it. So, this is the font to be used across the website.

Our Website

From here, I manually drew out pages of how the website should look. I researched many other sites and made notes on all the elements I liked. I then put together a very lengthy document with screenshots of examples and mapped out my new site.

I have partnered with Tay Digital, a UK based Web Development company, who are experts in building websites using Jamstack with React and Gatsby, providing super-fast and secure sites. What caught my attention from the beginning was the detail, and the agile way of working. We had daily online 'stand-ups', we use Slack for collaboration, and Jira to follow the project plan. This served as a great intro for me into the world of web development and agile process!

Given that I am in the people business, I really wanted a brand of characters, a consistent look and feel of our human (and bot) business. I was inspired most by Workable, with their illustration style, and somewhat simplistic look and white background. You will also notice the 'accordions' that I used on both the homepage and the about page. This was a fun way to showcase parts of our digital process and makes good use of space. This also encourages the user to click on the different buttons and see the different pictures and descriptions. (By the way, these images will eventually be animated in a months' time!).

I picked the slogan "The innovative digital recruitment agency, sourcing the best talent - globally", as this best captured what we do in a single sentence. The accordion then does a great job be explaining each part that makes up this slogan, with both a description and illustration!

The home page shows our latest 3 jobs, and our latest 3 blogs, so the user can easily at a glance see the latest updates.

Then you will notice tags/buttons on the jobs and blog page, at the top. This is about making things easier for the user. We hope in the future that we will be fortunate to have lots of different and exciting jobs, and with a button, you can jump straight to the job area of interest.

It is now easy for a user to add their CV to our database, it is just one click to the form, and the form is also quite minimal. Also, the signup to our digital newsletter is easy to access from our footer of each page.

Finally, we have Payne Bot, who you can find in the bottom right corner. There are also a few buttons that call him up when needed. I decided against having the bot pop-up automatically, as personally I can find it irritating to visit a site, start reading something, then get either a bot or a newsletter pop up on my screen! So, I thought, if a user wants to talk to the bot, they know where to find him!

The entire development process has been a pleasure to work with. The Payne Search website exceeded my expectations (and I have very high expectations!), and I am so proud of the whole site. I now have a truly awesome brand that I am proud of.

Workable ATS and AI Recruiter

In January 2019, I finally found a recruitment ATS (Applicant Tracking System) that was right for my needs, and I was happy with. I have tried a lot of ATS's and CRM's, with varying levels of satisfaction. It was Workable that ticked all the boxes for me. The way I found Workable was by looking at which ATS's had full LinkedIn integration functionality. I checked this list on LinkedIn and went through the 10 or so ATS providers one-by-one. There were some obvious large players in the recruitment market (very expensive and more enterprise solutions), but the then lesser known Workable won me over.

Later in 2019, I noticed Workable launched their AI search functionality. I was delighted! This was my first chance to test out an AI search from my own database. How this works, is the AI scans my job description/advert, then I can also provide other key data (location and key words). The 'AI Recruiter' then uses this data and performs a search. AI Recruiter then automatically generates a list of up to 50 candidates, and this takes around 2 minutes. From here, I can easily move these candidates into my Sourced stage channel, and often the email address is already identified. From here, the human touch returns, where I will screen through these AI sourced candidates, and reach out to those that look suitable.

This AI Recruiter function is very useful, and does in fact yield some good results, and can identify candidates that I had not found in my search. I always do my search in parallel, and I am certainly better at the search process (for now!) than the AI. However, it is great to have this as another sourcing tool, backup, and really enables a wider market search and outreach.

About 'Payne Bot'

I chose my chatbot very carefully. I had demos from several bot providers, and soon learnt what functionality mattered to me. It was always about candidate and client experience. I wanted a bot that could learn over time and improve, what is known as a Natural Language Understanding (NLU).

I decided to partner with BotXO, a Copenhagen based bot company that specialises in conversational AI, Machine Learning and NLU. When I met online with these guys, I knew this was the right bot company for me, with their awesome bot, their can-do approach, flexibility, and professionalism.

So, to start with, I am beginning with the basics, where I have opted for simple multiple-choice conversation, which is very easy for a user to navigate around. There is also the option for the user to type their comments, but I wanted the button option for simplicity.

I searched online for other examples in the recruitment industry but did not manage to track a good one down (I am sure there are some great ones out there though). So, I created the chatbot scripts and did it all from scratch. I essentially start with an opening main menu, asking if the visitor is a 'client' or a 'candidate'. From here, the chatbot scripts flow to the relevant sections.

I always kept the user in mind and wanted the clicks and comments to be as minimal as possible and get the user to their desired path. I speak from experience that when I use a chatbot and find myself getting frustrated with too many clicks or getting the 'sorry, I do not understand' message!

Beyond the chatbot conversation, I have also created some great additional features. One example is the ability to book a meeting with me through my chatbot. Payne Bot is all synched up to my Outlook calendar, and will book our meeting, and send us both the invite with information needed for the call.

This is very early stages, and go-live for Payne Bot is today, at the same time as the website. I have no doubt I will encounter lots of suggestions for improvement, and that is the fun of adopting new technology, right?! Luckily, I have an intelligent bot that also learns along the way.

About 'Whaii Bot'

Whaii is a Danish based AI candidate screening tool. Whaii Bot is a brand-new addition to Payne Search, and an exciting one! Whaii is being fully integrated to my Workable recruitment system, and over the coming months I am looking forward to testing out its functionality and measure its success. In a short summary, Whaii performs two key functions for us:

1. Screens every application (scans their CV, cover letter), and will rank all the applications in order. This really helps me in working from the top down and maximises the chances of the suited candidates being screened almost immediately.
2. Uses AI for skills, culture, values, and personality profiling. This is done by screening all written data provided by the candidate using linguistic analysis, and the bot reads for tonality, and if Whaii is missing information in order to get a more complete profile, it will automatically email candidates with some additional questions.

An interesting point is that there is now the potential for us to have candidates screened and profiled without human intervention, and without relying on subjective "gut-feelings", meaning clients receive an objectively analysed shortlist.

I will write a more detailed article on Whaii and talk about my findings in a near future article. For now, this is just a quick overview to share with you!

About Roger.AI

Behind the scenes, there is more AI at work at Payne Search! I looked at other areas of my recruitment process I can automate, and invoicing was another use-case. Previously I have been receiving the invoices and logging in to the bank and manually paying each one. Then I also had to log these transactions separately in my accounting system. Now I have Roger.AI, and this is all automated. My consultants can simply email their invoice to my Roger.AI address, and the invoice is paid. I do not need to do anything, and my bookkeeping is all up to date!

Roger is an AI automation software for Accounting, based in Copenhagen and San Francisco.

Summary:

I hope you like the new Payne Search website and branding. I am looking forward to working with a lot of new candidates and clients, and to continue to provide a great service to all. Technology is here to help, but not to replace! AI is assisting the process, it plays a small contribution, that will evolve over time. We are at the early stages of our AI journey.

We will be following up with more articles over time, and to update you all on how we are progressing with AI, and share the good, and also the bad (or better phrased, 'the learnings').

If you are a candidate that is open to exploring job opportunities (now or in the future), do please look at our current openings with clients, or upload your CV to our database.

Finally, if you are looking to hire and would also be keen to experience our AI digital recruitment process, do please contact us! Email: christian@paynesearch.com, or chat to Payne Bot from our website!