*This week, the Inclusion, Diversity & Belonging (IDB) technology I’m taking a look at is Searchlight.
4 Questions each time:
1. Can I easily understand this product based on the website and social sites?
2. Is the focus Inclusion, Diversity or Belonging?
3. What caught my eye?
4. What business problem is it trying to solve?
Can I easily understand this product based on the website and social sites?
Yes (the “.ai” helps!)
Website: https://www.searchlight.ai
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/searchlight-technologies/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/searchlight_ai
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=oWz6eC7QXgQ&feature=emb_title
(Great video of one of the founders, Kerry, telling her story)
Is the focus Inclusion, Diversity or Belonging?
Diversity
What caught my eye?
Searchlight is based on a principle I very much believe in: having someone vouch for you is a game changer, and gives you a competitive advantage when looking for a job. This platform (which offers a very intuitive user experience) is trying to tackle things like “prestige bias” by making it easy for candidates to proactively and quickly connect prospective employers with people who can speak to their actual work performance and skills. After all, what others say about you is often far more influential than what you say about yourself!
What business problem is it trying to solve?
Founder Kerry Wang is frustrated by the fact that most hiring decisions are not based on data (who is most qualified) but often come down to a”gut feeling.” Making it easier to get the right data on candidates earlier in the process can really have an impact on an organization’s ability to mitigate bias and more quickly hire diverse top performers. Searchight is NOT an assessment tool per se, but it can help standardize the reference process and add insights to combat things like bias, potentially leveling the playing field in a significant way. How? The very specific (and often structured) data collected from the references is fed into a robust back-end that presents employers with a dashboard that takes advantage of the benefits of data visualization. Employers get a comprehensive view of the candidate relative to what others have reported. Because it is an aggregate of multiple people’s responses, it is designed to help reduce bias that can occur in interviews.
Bonus: ATS integrations exist!