New High Alpha Startup Tackles ‘Interview Intelligence’
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA new tech startup in Indianapolis seeks to help businesses make better hiring decisions through interviews. Luma, which launched out of the High Alpha venture studio, has developed an interview intelligence platform that is designed to guide interviewers through the entire hiring process with the goal of leading to more equitable and effective hiring decisions. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Grace Tyson says the platform allows companies to make their decisions based on data rather than simply “based on gut feeling.”
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Tyson said in order to improve a company’s hiring efforts, it’s important to follow a structured process.
“But it’s really hard to do that. It’s hard to coordinate; often, we don’t hand off information effectively from one person to the next as we’re going from interviewer to interviewer and we end up asking redundant questions,” said Tyson. “So, the software actually captures interviews, records them, transcribes them, and then layers on AI on the back end to parse out what has and hasn’t been covered, so that ultimately, we’re getting…the full picture of the candidate and we’re covering the same ground with each candidate.”
The startup has been developing the platform for about a year and currently has nine employees. Tyson, who moved to Indianapolis from San Francisco, says starting a new company during a pandemic was “terrifying.”
“I was a little bit nervous and…as we were getting started, we saw a lot of companies having to lay off people and really downsize and we’re a company that’s focused on building teams and hiring and growing,” she said.
Tyson says, however, that it turned out to be the perfect time to build the company because it allowed the Luma team to simply focus on developing the platform.
“Now that companies are really starting to ramp up hiring again, we’re poised for a lot of customer growth and so that’s actually been a really good thing, strangely.”
Tyson is a former sales leader at Chorus.ai in Silicon Valley. She co-founded Luma with Chief Technology Officer Mark Clerkin, who previously served as vice president of data science at High Alpha. She also credits the venture studio for its assistance in getting the company up and running.
“The Luma team brings the perfect blend of experience in data science, conversational intelligence and EQ to lead this new category of interview intelligence,” Eric Tobias, partner at High Alpha, said in a news release. “We’re thrilled to be launching a company that helps customers build not just an effective team, but a team that’s more diverse and makes a more meaningful impact.”
Luma says nearly 2,000 interviews have already been conducted on the platform. Tyson says in addition to streamlining the interview process, the company wants to build up thought leadership around what it means to interview equitably.
Tyson says in order to improve a company’s hiring efforts, it’s important to follow a structured process.
Tyson says starting a new company during a pandemic was “terrifying.”