To Twill founder and CEO Michelle Volberg, instead of improving the recruiting landscape, ChatGPT and the salvo of generative-AI powered tools are actually making it more difficult for recruiters to find the right candidates and make the best hiring decisions.
Tools like ChatGPT can help candidates tailor their résumés and cover letters to individual job descriptions, taking résumé embellishment to the next level.
“AI has made it really difficult for both candidates and hiring managers,” she said. “[Recruiters are] historically used to getting 1,000 bad résumés and having to spend hours to find one great one, sometimes never finding one at all. Now they’re getting 1,000 perfect résumés, thinking that they’re good, reviewing 20 résumés, interviewing 10, hiring one. And the person that shows up for the job is someone completely different.”
The phenomenon, Volberg contends, means the hiring process is more difficult and takes longer for TA. And it’s harder for qualified and right-fit candidates to stand out in a sea of pristine résumés. So she’s channeling her experience in executive search and boutique recruitment and shipping new recruiting technology that leverages the networks and relationships of working tech professionals with her referral platform for tech professionals, Twill.
Founded in February, 2024, Twill turns its members into vetted lead generators for tech companies to improve their hiring in engineering, sales, product, marketing, and ops. On Monday, the platform announced a $1.4M in pre-seed funding round.
The funding round was led by Bloomberg Beta, with participation from Vitalize VC, Correlation Ventures, and Purpose Built Ventures.
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Twill boasts of an invite-only community of experienced tech professionals and their networks to recommend qualified candidates for open roles inside the platform. Volberg told HR Brew the company was focused on recruiting diverse members, “because the diversity in members directly correlates the diversity in referrals.”
This approach ensures hiring managers receive pre-vetted, tenured candidates personally vouched for by industry experts. The recommended candidate is screened by Twill before being sent out to the recruiting team.
Twill members split the contingent search fees with Twill 50-50. Members can earn between $5,000–25,000 per placement, and TA pros can fill open roles with the right talent quickly, typically in 30 days or less, according to Volberg.
Volberg told HR Brew her background and experience in executive search inspired the idea for the platform. What started as a sales placement firm morphed beyond its original scope because clients kept asking for help filling technical roles, and so she tapped into the networks of technical professionals.
“I had actual engineers from Google and Meta and Amazon just recommending their friends on the side from their W2 job,” she said, “And they were really good at it. Engineers knew really great engineers, PMs knew great PMs and so forth.”
Twill, which is currently in a private beta testing phase and specific for technical roles for startups and tech companies, will launch publicly in Q1 of next year. Volberg said the company plans to build out the platform and grow its team with the funding support from Bloomberg Beta and others.