First Impression CV

While first impression matters, they do not outweigh job experience and knowledge in an interview. However, your skills and qualifications are nothing without impressing in the first 20 seconds. This is even more important as more roles are being hired remotely, thanks to the impact of COVID19 requiring social distancing. Though at first a forced strategy, more and more companies are now adopting a remote workforce as it has proved cost efficient and even increased productivity of work output.

First Impression CV is a mobile friendly E-CV remote hiring assistant that allows job applicants to make the best first impressions on recruiters and increase their chances of being hired or at the very least, gaining a second interview.

FICV not only works as an Inclusive Tech but as Assistive Tech in mobile solutions. For remote work or hiring done remotely, they will not be excluded due to their mobility challenges.

• The CV format hasn’t changed in years. We are still using the traditional format of a written/typed CV. Alot of applicants, especially first time job applicants find that daunting. With little experience, the white half blank pages can be discouraging.

• Applicants are first judged by their written CV. One of the main issues with traditional CVs is employers don't get a sense of a candidate's personality. So when recruiters are shortlisting candidates based on their CV alone, they end up missing out on someone who is a better cultural fit for the role.

• Less chances of being hired online with a generic CV. Many recruiters see a CV as a 2D document made of a boring list of duties and responsibilities. After looking at hundreds of them, they end up looking the same. Those that are noticed are because of fancy font, colors and funny pictures. Not exactly the right reasons.

• Cut throat competition. The number of people with degrees and strong educational backgrounds has exploded and everybody uses a CV. The consequence of that is that recruiters are inundated with CVs, so he has less time to scout every CV and your possibilities of standing out are quite reduced.

First Impression is a recruiting tool that allows applicants to make the best first impression. As an E-CV with video feature makes cross-border/remote hiring easier, it allows applicants:

• film their cover letter for the specific job their applying for, conveys passion.
•  can give a detailed brief of the CV focusing on key points (skills, where and when they demonstrated those skills, and their level of experience).
• to pitch themselves for the job roles, explaining why they are best suited for the position, conveying conviction and determination.

As an integrated mobile application, it allows everyone with a smartphone and phone data to film their application and also enter and edit their CVs in a style that recruiters prefer.

FICV is a platform that allows recruiters to send out application invitations and applicants to immediately respond with tailor written/filmed cover letters. The platform will allow recruiters to filter applications in accordance to their specification, skills assessment tools and aptitude tests, and an initial recorded interview with specific questions provided by the recruiter. This way, applicants are not only assessed by their skills, but submitting a pitch and recorded interview eliminates the nervousness that compromise face to face interviews, ruining their first impressions.

For recruiters it saves time, faster processes through the solutions, 20 second pitch to determine cultural fit, experience level and motivation. Recruiters can then decide, from these 20 seconds, whether to go on with a candidate's interview process with the intention of hiring them.

For applicants, it reduces the pressures and anxieties that a face to face interview causes. Many tank interviews not because they weren't prepared or lacked the knowledge, but because of nerves. Allowing them to not only film their pitch for the job but also a tailored cover letter for each position that will accompany a presentation of knowledge and skills for the specific role eliminates the risks brought on by nervousness. Better chance of making a lasting positive impression.

When you meet someone new, his or her brain forms an impression of you in just one-tenth of a second. Our brains are simply hardwired for efficiency and first impressions are crucial. While first impression matters, they do not outweigh job experience and knowledge in an interview. However, your skills and qualifications are nothing without impressing in the first 20 seconds.

This is even more important as more roles are being hired remotely, thanks to the impact of COVID19 requiring social distancing. Though at first a forced strategy, more and more companies are now adopting a remote workforce as it has proved cost efficient and even increased productivity of work output.

11 million African youths are entering the job market each year. In
Kenya, the rate of unemployment doubled to 10.6% due to loss of jobs
caused by COVID19.Remote workforce has increased by 26% and forecasted to increase by another 22% by 2025. Working out of office has started to become the new normal.

As an Assistive Tech solution for people with disabilities especially those with mobility challenges, FICV affords them equal opportunity for all remote work positions, giving them the capacity to live independent and dignified lives. The restricted access to education and employment means that people with disabilities and households with disabled members remain economically disadvantaged and less able to participate in their communities.

Mobile Internet is becoming one of the most widely-used methods of
connectivity worldwide and the vehicle for such connectivity is
smartphones for many. This is due to advances in technology that have
allowed for mobile phones to stand in place of desktop or laptop
computers in areas of the world where Internet connectivity is a more
recent adoption.

As a digital solution, designed to fit smartphones that uses mobile data for easier and faster access no matter the geographical location, anyone can access the platform and jobs published by recruiters, especially remote ones that are favorable for those with disabilities.

As an online platform in the developed countries where ServiceNow is located, and data on employment rates, smartphone/mobile penetration, data usage, remote workforce statistics are conclusive, it will be easier to implement FICV and partner with existing platforms of resources like LinkedIn to engage recruiters and job applicants.

Having LinkedIn as our Go-to-market strategy will allow us to test and validate FICV in different regions quickly and implement just as fast:

• Identified ready and willing paying customers as there is a premium plan for job applicants and one for recruiters. 39% of 738 million users are Premium Subscribers
• There are 55 million companies listed on LinkedIn and 20 million open jobs
• 89% of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn. With 1 in every 20 profiles identified as belonging to a recruiter, this suggests that there are 1 million recruiter accounts on LinkedIn
•  Though the exact number of job applications through LinkedIn is not revealed, what is known is that 122 million people received interviews through the career social platform; 35.5 million successful hires through connections, 300,000 being remote positions (6 times hire than ever before, seen from March to December 2020)

Another Go-to-market strategy would be acquiring market share through brand partnership.

• Through LinkedIn with the corner market as the global career social network, by replacing their 'upload CV' feature.
• Partnership with a phone with great picture, sound and camera quality. Globally, 46.5% of the population have Smartphones, 89% of Smartphone buyers buying decision is influenced by Camera Quality and in the USA currently stands at 83% vs Sub-Sahara's 23%, with a forecast of 86.7% in 2025 vs SSA's 60%.
• Partnership with a telecommunication carrier for affordable FICV data bundles.

16% of companies in the world are 100% remote. 44% of companies don't allow remote work. Better work-life balance is the main reason why people choose to work remotely. 77% of remote workers say they're more productive when working from home.

Thanks to COVID19, 2020 became the year of the big remote work shift, with LinkedIn registering six times the normal hiring rate of remote workers and Upwork featuring 105 jobs in December on their free remote job board vs 51 in February.

Working remotely as a key word was searched 4.4 thousand times in November 2019, jumped to 9.9 thousand times in November 2020, a 125% jump. The topic trended to 52.3 thousand searches in February 2020 and jumped 67% in January 2021 to 87.3 thousand.

Here are some articles to support our venture into remote hiring:

https://review42.com/resources...

https://www.businesstoday.in/s...

https://remoters.net/remote-wo...

https://hirehive.com/remote-hi...

The traditional CV has always been typed, including the digital CV that are more popular, sent out through emailing.

FICV is a video 20 second pitch that an applicant makes to 'sell' themselves as to why they are fit for the position they're applying to. The pitch, being the very first impression that will encourage a recruiter to look at the applicants qualifications is then presented in presentation form.

This new strategy not only works in the applicants advantage but also a quick way to sort applicants by first assessing their cultural fit then their skills, experience and knowledge. We are reducing and may eliminate boredom. Quoting a recruiter "A CV is a 2D document made of a boring listing of duties and responsibilities. As a recruiter, I have seen hundreds of CVs, I can tell you, they are all the same." When we reduce boredom, we create time for recruiters to give feedback to candidates with positivity and less impatience.

With the increased demand for work-from-home arrangements by employees, with now about 80% of employees saying the wish to continue to work from home even after COVID19 is under control, companies will need to adapt or lose out on top talent. It is estimated that 25-30% of jobs will be remote by the end of 2021, making it the best time to launch our solution so that applicants can prepare as employers and recruiters begin to learn and adapt to the new reality of  having/hiring a remote workforce.

https://globalworkplaceanalyti...

Mobile integration platform

Video software to record pitches that also detects bad video and sound quality, giving recommendation as to which phones are best for filming.

Presentation software that uses AI to automatically design slides using the outline of a traditional CV.

Presenter view that allows applicant to be seen as they present.

Data filter tools

Hosting plugins to host recruiters assessment pages as an alternative to creating a new one on FICV.

Video and audio conferencing

Gaming

Slidebean- presentation software to create pitch decks using AI

Presenter view on PowerPoint allows a person to be seen while presenting

WordPress is a hosting platform https://geekflare.com/build-co...

Zoom video and audio conferencing tool

Security risks. As a platform that will hold applicants and recruiters information, steps will be taken to protect user information in case of hacking attempts and to avoid data leaks.

none as it is still a concept

Increase connections between recruiters and applicants in the remote workforce

Educate more applicants on how to make the best first impression through tutorials and online events

Increase community outreach to 'restricted demographics'

Increase access through partnerships

Track registration on platform by day, week and month

Track DAU, WAU, MAU of the features

See how many have successfully uploaded pitch videos taking into consideration quality of sound and video, speech, confidence and first impression

Track number of people who done and passed assessments

track the different demographics that use the platform and if there has been an increase in specific demographies (unable bodied, working parents, geography)

See how many people proceed to the second stage interviews and successful hires through their recorded pitches

Get feedback from recruiters on how the innovation compared to traditional hiring

get applicant feedback on the number of second interviews offers received vs traditional hiring

Measure improvement in candidates applications thanks to FICV resources

Compare data collected from users on the traditional way of hiring vs FICV to gauge mental health impact

As it is still a concept, it is just me, so 1

I have no expertise on the topic of remote work besides being one of the many judged first by my written CV.

There is a funding program, where they decide whether or not a founder will join their program through their CV and LinkedIn profile as many other programs do and yet they have a 'founder first view', in other words, checking for a cultural fit. How do you see that from a written document?

From there, questions on how to reduce stress in job seeking, anxiety during the first interview and most important marginalization. 'I have the knowledge and skill for this position but can't get it because: I'm disabled and can't travel to work, have children forcing me to give up one for the other; I'm not in the right geography to do it and moving cost would be astronomical'.

I wish to build a team of people who will assist job seekers in eliminating these barriers through connecting them with recruiters looking for remote workers.

I am a woman, African with a startup in Africa. I belong to two vulnerable demographics and a continent with minimal funding in SaaS directed to it, compared to other places.

Our focus has been to build a women run business no matter the age,
race, tribe or location (as a marketplace the platform will allow us to
hire remote workers). There is no bias here but to encourage the
normality of having women leadership and to inspire women to not be
afraid and remain stuck in the pigeon hole society has placed them in
but to break the barrier and confidently step out and up.

We are applying to Digital Workforce Challenge to help us navigate the barriers of Financing, Technology and platform support.

We are seeking financing that DWF is able to provide to help us reseatch further on remote hiring and design a more comprehensive solution to ensure inclusion of otherwise excluded demographics by traditional CVs, and traditional workforce.

As for tech, the fund partner ServiceNow has developed similar platforms such as Alexander Mann Solutions and are best positioned to assist in our platform.

1. Improve opportunities for certain populations. Besides the launch location Kenya, and the ServiceNow locations, we hope to reach other areas especially those with a high number of unemployment, availing them a chance to attain remote work.

2. Reduce mental strain for job applicants. The innovative approach of First Impression CV will reduce the mental strain that job applicants suffer doing job hunting. For example, 10% that don't get employed because of a weak handshake, 93% who feel anxiety during job interviews, 67% who are unable to make eye contact, 39 % of the candidates get rejected due to overall confidence level, voice quality or lack of smile and the over eager 84% who rush into job interviews without preparing.

Besides the financial aspect, we will require a professional and able team for the development, launch and scaling of the product and we would require expert recommendation for the positions.

1. Recruiters who use tests for research and data collection: Accessing the tests that recruiters use and their database of applicants will allow use to design these tests into games and have the same applicants, as a control group who have already done the test in Q&A format to do so again in the game format. Many applicants answer test in the way they believe the recruiter would answer and not themselves.

2. Gaming company to turn these tests into games

3. LinkedIn the largest career social platform. 87% of recruiters use Linkedin to source for applicants and with over 738  million users, a good percentage of them are job applicants. As a marketing channel it is a great place to source.