How to Hire the Best with Kate Glazebrook and Khyati Sundaram

Hiring is the most important decision a company makes.

Any company is only as great as the people building it. But, bias in hiring decisions can often mean the best candidate doesn’t land the job.

Applied solves these problems.

Six years ago, Kate Glazebrook, a behavioural economist and Harvard graduate, was living in the UK and working in part of the government's Behavioural Insights Team, also known as the "nudge unit."

It was here that Kate and her co-founder, Richard Marr, came up with the idea for Applied, a platform that removes information that can lead to bias in hiring – such as names, CVs and education background.

Through blind application processes, ordering effects, and keeping scores anonymous across the team marking the candidates, Applied helps organisations hire the best person for the job regardless of their background.

Late last year, Kate made the tough decision to step down as CEO of Applied.

"On account of my privileged existence I've had in life, it was one of the hardest decisions I've ever taken."

Her replacement, Khyati Sundaram, Applied's Head of Product, went through the platform's application process and was appointed Acting-CEO in December 2019, and as CEO in March this year.

"If you look at the timeline, it goes; Q4 CEO transition, Q1 Series A fundraise as a new CEO, Q2 COVID-19. It's been about the hardest first three quarters of being a CEO as you could imagine."

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Episode interviews: Kate Glazebrook, Co-Founder of Applied, Khyati Sundaram, CEO of Applied and Nick Crocker, Partner at Blackbird.

Key topics covered:

• Uncovering biases in hiring
• Strategies for averaging 9/10 ratings with over 200,000 candidates
• How you can retain 96% of your employees after one year
• Why you should look for mission alignment over culture
• Kate's decision to step down as CEO
• Khyati’s decision to step up

The best of Kate:

"Applied's mission statement is deadly simple; we want to help you to hire the best person for the job regardless of their background.”

"There have been studies over the last 50 years and have shown that the rate of unconscious bias discrimination against people from minority backgrounds is essentially not changed since the 1970s."

"We tend to hire the same type of person over and over again, and often that person will look and feel a lot like us because we tend to get along with those people better."

The best of Khyati:

“Every product decision goes back to the mission and the vision of the company, building that from the ground up.”

“The first 70 days were very much a baptism by fire. There's a certain element of risk when you go knocking on doors saying, “you don't know me, but please trust me. I am the right person for the next phase of his incredible business, a different person than you had imagined, but nonetheless, the right person.”

Nick on Applied:

"Helping people to find jobs where they can be the best is just a fundamentally great thing to be in the business of doing."

"The way that most companies hire is insane and wrong and broken, and it's the reason why companies have such high empl