Search4maid A.I. Interview: The Next Generation to Hiring Foreign Domestic Helper

We talked to Kathy Choi, Marketing Director at Search4maid Limited, about the digitization of hospitality services and this is what he said about it. 

How are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? 

Kathy Choi: During the pandemic, we changed our working model from offline to online. Our colleagues work from home and arrange online meetings with our potential clients. We will stay at home whenever possible and stick with the 1.5m social distancing.

Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded Search4maid.

Kathy Choi: Search4maid is a startup IT company that provides a one-stop solution with our A.I. technology. We aim to make the hiring process easier, hassle-free, and more efficient. 

Domestic helpers can conduct online interviews and receive A.I. interview assessment reports regardless of time and place constraints. We use the latest Artificial Intelligence – Natural language processing (NLP) for assessment reports. With the technology, domestic helpers are able to do online video interviews easier. 

How does Search4maid innovate? 

Kathy Choi: Our A.I. report provides special insights on the helper’s personality and potential working performance without any subjective bias. It is an official certification from our company to the helpers based on their ability. Helpers with the reports can boost a higher chance of employment. Given the pandemic circumstance, we are able to conduct job matching on our platform without meeting in person. 

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business and how are you coping?

Kathy Choi: Social distancing is crucial during the pandemic. Luckily for us, we focus on online matching and we have an increment in the number of new users of employers and helpers. Also, we collaborate with Philippines YouTubers and Hong Kong employer KOL to share our A.I. interview technology.

Did you have to make difficult choices and what are the lessons learned?

Kathy Choi: Difficult to change the model from offline (visiting our office for registration) to educate people to go online for hire. Luckily, we had the largest private Facebook Group for the domestic helper market in Hong Kong and keep on doing Live Streaming, collaboration with Youtube / KOL in order to change the model from offline to online. Also, from these live streaming/YouTube videos, we could educate the user on how to use our platform in an effective way. We could teach many helpers at the same time by using the online model instead of 1 on 1, face to face, to teaching the helpers how to register. 

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

Kathy Choi: We innovated our own NLP tech for A.I. video interview assessment, it is a combination of The Big Five personality traits, also known as the OCEAN model, and showing a more comprehensive image of the domestic helpers.  Also, we use the Live Streaming tool in social media (including Youtube, Facebook, and IG) in order to educate users on how to register and how’s to do the A.I. interview as well.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Kathy Choi: There are a few online matching platforms in Hong Kong. However, we adopt our latest A.I. technology for better matching which improves the matching rate. As we believe hiring a helper is not only based on hard skills but also soft skills, it is more important to focus on the helper’s personality rather than using a checklist for assessment. 

We are constantly upgrading our assessment content with different situational questions and assessment criteria to match with Hong Kong employer expectations. 

Your final thoughts?

Kathy Choi: Using the A.I. assessment report can assist employers in screening profiles which also saves time for the interview. Also, A.I. technology makes the hiring process easier, hassle-free, and more efficient. It would be our honor to promote the latest technology to helpers. Although the report only assists employers to sort out helpers, together with traditional employment agencies, employers can find a perfect match. 

Your website?

https://www.search4maid.hk/en/home