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According to some recent statistics, employers are flooded with job applications. Employers running graduate training programs in the UK alone received an average of 140 applications for each job in 2024, up 59 percent from 2023. according to To the Institute of Student Recruiters. And despite some tremors among several employers, many companies are turning to AI platforms to help, especially the Gen Z generation even now exceeded number of millennial population.
It was certainly a factor in the news Maki — a conversational, skills-based AI agent for job interviews and candidate filtering — has now raised $28.6 million in Series A funding led by the UK. Flower capital. Also participating were DST Global and existing investors Frst, GFC and Picus Capital. It previously raised 11 million euros in previous funding rounds. The money will be used to accelerate the product roadmap, expand in the US and expand the team.
Founded in 2022 by Maxime Legardez, Paul-Louis Caylar and Benjamin Chino, Makin’s platform interviews candidates via voice, video or text. The company claims to have experienced more than 300% growth in 2024 after securing recruitment deals in over 50 markets with the likes of H&M, BNP Paribas, PwC, Deloitte, FIFA, Abercrombie and Capgemini. It also claims its platform can make hiring easier, create a better experience for candidates and reduce employee turnover.
Makin’s AI-powered agents chat with potential candidates in natural language, and the company says it can automate the process by 80%, cutting hiring time by a factor of three.
“We are using artificial intelligence to create agents that we can customize to our customers’ needs, and agents to replicate the tasks that are mostly done by humans during recruitment,” Maci CEO Maxime Legardez said in an interview with TechCrunch. Our agents can source, screen, schedule and interview candidates.
According to him, the name of the agent created for the clothing giant H&M is Maria. He can call candidates on the phone or be a visual avatar on a video call: “We have a built-in avatar with Synthesia, so it’s a very visual experience. It can speak to candidates 24/7 in multiple languages and conduct 5-, 10- or 15-minute conversations with candidates to assess hundreds of skills,” Legardez said.
He added that AI is capable of evaluating a candidate for customer empathy, collaboration or sustainability, among other things.
However, if that sounds impersonal, it’s far from it, especially given the number of candidates they have to interact with, Legardez said: “If a candidate is rejected, they get personalized feedback with some tips to learn new things to help them improve. it increases their chances next time and thus makes them good ambassadors of the brand”. He said: “98% of BNP Paribas candidates now say it was the best recruitment process of their life, making them more likely to join BNP Paribas.”
Additionally, despite the so-called age of DEI’s death, Legardez said Maki is less biased than humans: “We’ve been audited by the state of New York and it’s been proven that our AI is less biased. it is specific to a person’s ethnicity, gender and age, and the more data we have, the better we can calibrate and pre-train it. Who knows, maybe AI recruitment will lead to an even more diverse workforce in the future?
Maki’s competitors include companies such as SHL, EON, Pymetrics and Saville. Recruit CRM, BrainTrust, Recruitee, Manatal and many others.
However, Legardez says Maki is less about selling traditional HR software and more about “working through our agents, automating people’s work.”
Legardez previously created a digital freight forwarder called Everoad, which was acquired by Sennder.
Blossom Capital partner Ophelia Brown said in a statement: “We believe Makin’s agents have the potential to bring large organizations to the next level of efficiency and decision-making, redefining how HR drives business success.”
Maki’s fundraising is certainly trending. Today, LinkedIn’s new AI product, Jobs Match, immediate advice on whether or not a particular job is worth your time to apply for.
