People Ops
Pymetrics
WEBSITE CASE STUDY
Okay so you’ve built an amazing product. The technology behind it is changing the world for better, but what part of that draws people to you—the tech or the smiles? We helped Pymetrics shift their messaging from the nuances of their AI to the core benefits for hiring teams.
The opportunity
Diversity and inclusion in hiring
Pymetrics is an early stage startup pioneering the use of AI for unbiased hiring decisions. Their clients are Fortune 100 companies who suffer from the misalignment of new hires to the jobs they’re been hired into and unconscious discrimination in the process.
A greater demand for diversity and inclusion in the workplace from social movements like BLM, #MeToo, LGBTQ+ rights, and others highlighted a need for more unbiased hiring practices. Pymetrics was ready to tackle this challenge head on, but needed a website that would better support prospects through the consideration stage.
Our Strategy.
The challenge
An undefined product
Like most early state startups, products are not fully formed or defined when they start selling to early customers. During our Vision process we started by going in deep with the Pymetrics product team, testing their assessment apps, studying their sales collateral and reflecting back an understanding of their product, audience and emotional triggers to form clear messaging and a visual narrative.
Pymetrics was a team of data scientists trying to sell their favourite features to hiring managers. Our challenge was to realign their products and use cases with core benefits that would resonate with hiring managers, not their team, then reinforce that with a unique visual communication.
Our Web Director went into an arcade and stumbled upon this game after one concepting session. He drew an immediate connection between the rings in the screen and candidates in a crowded pool being matched to the right placement without bias. We ran with it.
From there, our Designer, Illustrator and Animator worked closely with Pymetrics’ product team to build a visual story and differentiation that would capture the value of their product. After a series of interactive whiteboarding video calls we landed on a cohesive workflow story.
The research
Benefits over technology
Our Vision Cycle research revealed that 78% of talent professionals believe diversity is the most important factor influencing the way they hire, but only 12% achieve optimal levels. Most enterprise businesses want to, but are failing in their attempts to diversify the employee pool.
Our research also identified a clear need for AI and unbiased data in recruiting, but the technology itself was not inherently valued by prospective clients. Leading with features appealed to the Pymetrics team, but wouldn’t resonate with this audience. Pymetrics needed to position on core value outcomes over the machine learning algorithms to get there.
of talent professionals and hiring managers say diversity is the most important factor influencing the way they hire.
beileve their organizations provide excellent training against unconscious bais
have reached optimal levels of inclusive company culture
The research
Amplify a layer of humanity
With this knowledge in hand, we set to work creating a unique visual language that would represent the work their machine learning was doing around benefits-focused copy, without emphasizing the technology itself.
But what direction could we take? Neural networks? —Nope, overused. Training models? —Nope, for data scientists, not hiring professionals. Whatever we did had to have a human angle and effectively communicate the emotion of landing a new employee within diversity and inclusion guidelines.
And then inspiration struck from an unexpected place.
Ever played this game as a child?
Spheres with unique colors would represent candidates and flood into the organization, then be carefully redirected based on interview, assessment and the talent matching A.I.
Our Solution.
The moral of the story
To developers and beyond
Like many of our early stage clients, Pymetrics was focused deeply on the product AI features and training massive data sets and unable to see the buyer.
When our research proved that the buyer, although interested in AI, was not looking specifically for an AI solution, we knew we needed to shift to highlighting outcomes. And to resonate with outcomes, you need to lead with emotion—even for the most sophisticated, enterprise buyer, and a unique visual language can do that well.
"Resonating with clients very well ... all good and great to have an amazing new site... we'll continue to optimize with your team. Thanks!!!"
- Bob Toohey, President at Pymetrics