HireVue

The company was founded by Mark Newman in 2004, then a 20-year-old undergraduate at Westminster College.[3][4] Newman also served as the company's chief executive officer (CEO).[5] The company is headquartered in South Jordan, Utah, near Salt Lake City.[1][6] An artificial intelligence company, HireVue has been described as a human resources technology or "human capital management" (HCM) company,[7] and has been noted as a "pioneer in the field."[4] To help facilitate long-distance job interviews, the company originally sent candidates webcams.[6] The company offers its clients the ability to conduct one-way job interviews during a hiring process. Job applicants are prompted the same questions through HireVue.[8]

By 2012, HireVue's clients included Nike, Starbucks, Walmart, Geico, and Hasbro, among others.[4] These clients were signed to annual subscription plans with HireVue.[9] In 2012, Forbes staff writer Susan Adams noted that "the typical HireVue interview lasts 12 minutes and has just four questions, with about three minutes to answer each question."[4] Interviewees are also allowed to see each question prior to responding; a practice question as well as interview tips are also provided.[4] For HireVue's clients, the interview setup allowed for recruiters to spend less time on scheduling candidates and more time on evaluating them.[10]

That August, the company acquired CodeEval for an undisclosed sum,[11] allowing HireVue to add programming challenges when hiring developers.[7] By this time, HireVue's CEO was David Bradford.[7] Later that same month, the company announced it raised a $17 million Series C round led by Investor Growth Capital; along with an expansion of its debt facility, HireVue raised a total of $28 million when including what it raised during its B and C rounds.[7]

In 2013, the company began using artificial intelligence to screen interviewees.[9][12] Both proprietary voice recognition software and licensed facial recognition software are used by HireVue's Insights program.[9] The company's HireVue Insights program scans applicants' verbal and facial gestures and cues, matching them with skills employers seek in given roles.[8] Aside from facial gestures, HireVue also assesses an interviewees' tone, vocabulary, and "candidate empathy".[9][13] All of these analyzed data points are then used to generate an "employability" score for a candidate, which is ranked versus other applicants.[8][14] HireVue's AI is able to refine its accuracy over time given new data due to machine learning.[15]

By 2013, the company had 140 employees.[6] Noted by TechCrunch to still ship out webcams to job candidates if needed, the company's software was available on desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.[6] That October, HireVue announced it raised $25 million during its Series D round, led by Sequoia Capital.[6] The company would integrate its products into platforms and websites such as LinkedIn and Salesforce.com.[6] HireVue stated it facilitated three million interviews in 2015, up from 13,000 five years prior.[8]

By 2017, Kevin Parker was the company's CEO.[9] The company's chief technology officer (CTO) Loren Larsen stated the company experimented with giving candidates limited and unlimited attempts to answer interview questions before moving onto the next, with HireVue ultimately opting to provide unlimited attempts to candidates.[9]

Several concerns about HireVue's facial analysis were raised by interview candidates and AI researchers,[16] which led to the company removing its facial analysis function from candidate assessments in early 2020.[17] While the company maintained no bias resulted from its use of such technology, Parker conceded it "wasn't worth the concern" to keep.[17] Later that September, HireVue integrated with Microsoft Teams, allowing for interviews to be offered on the Teams platform to its user base.[18] In October, HireVue acquired AllyO, a chatbot technology startup.[19]

In 2022, Anthony Reynolds succeeded Parker as the company's CEO.[20] In May 2023, HireVue acquired one of its competitors, Modern Hire.[2] On the acquisition, Reynolds stated that both companies "have a fundamental basis or a foundation in science and I/O [industrial-organizational] psychology."[2] At the time, HireVue had around 700 clients and 400 employees, while Modern Hire had around 450 and 200, respectively.[2]