The reason we take on work in Oakland is that the businesses here tend to be sharper about what they want than the brief lets on. AI recruiting for an Oakland team almost always ends up looking different to AI recruiting for a downtown Auckland one.
AI recruiting that lives in your stack, not on a vendor's roadmap. Shipped from California.
Our goal is to give Oakland businesses a three-day weekend, so people can spend more time with their families and the people they love :)
What AI recruiting actually does
Job ads written for SEEK, Trade Me, and LinkedIn. CVs screened against role criteria with reasoning. Phone screens done by voice AI - so shortlists land on your desk ready to interview.
- 01 Drafts compliant NZ job ads with realistic salary bands
- 02 Screens CVs and ranks by fit with written rationale
- 03 Voice AI runs first-round phone screens 24/7
- 04 Bias checks built in - flagged in the audit log
Built on: Claude Vapi Workable SEEK API Vercel
Without Kiwi Dynamics
With Kiwi Dynamics
What you actually get
Every engagement is scoped and quoted up front. This is what is in the box.
- A working pilot, in productionNot a prototype on someone's laptop. The first slice of AI recruiting runs against real work within weeks.
- Your data stays yoursIt runs on your accounts and your tools. If we part ways you keep the system and everything in it.
- The workflow mapped before codeWe write down what good looks like for Oakland businesses first, so nobody is guessing at handover.
- Support after it landsThe people who built it stay reachable when the business changes shape around it.
How AI recruiting compares
The two things most businesses do instead, and where each one runs out.
| Hiring for it | An off-the-shelf tool | Kiwi Dynamics | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fit to how you work | Fits perfectly, costs a salary | You bend your process to suit the tool | Built around the workflow you already run |
| Time to something useful | Immediate, and permanent | Quick to switch on, slow to make fit | A working slice in weeks, then hardened |
| Who owns the data | You do | The vendor, on the vendor's terms | You do, in your own accounts |
| When it breaks | That person sorts it, if they are in | A support queue and a ticket number | The people who built it |
| What it costs | A salary, every year, forever | Per seat, forever, used or not | Scoped and quoted up front |
The pattern across Oakland engagements we've shipped.
- Oakland runs on logistics, healthcare and a wave of businesses priced out of San Francisco - AI here means Bay Area capability without Bay Area rent.
- One of the busiest container ports on the West Coast, a major hospital network, and a growing tech and creative scene that moved across the bay for the rent. Oakland businesses want the same AI rigor as San Francisco without the San Francisco price tag.
We work with teams across Oakland: Downtown Oakland · Jack London Square · Temescal · Fruitvale · Rockridge · West Oakland.
Talk to us about this →
How we build AI recruiting for an Oakland team.
We scope narrow, ship a working pilot, then harden it into production. The first slice is the highest-leverage workflow for your Oakland business, so value lands before the build is finished. AI candidate screening.
Talk to usHow the work runs
- Find the one workflowWe look for the job costing Oakland businesses the most hours or the most leads, and deliberately ignore the rest for now.
- Ship a working sliceA narrow version goes into production in weeks, against real work, so the value shows up before the build is finished.
- Prove it, then widenWe measure it against what the work cost before. If it does not pay for itself, we say so rather than scaling it.
- Harden and hand overLogging, fallbacks and a real handover, so it keeps running when we are not in the room.
The outcome for Oakland teams
Time-to-shortlist drops from 3 weeks to 4 days. For Oakland teams, that almost always shows up as fewer interruptions and a calmer week, not a dashboard chart.
Not your typical AI agency.
Honest about what AI can and cannot do
Ships the one workflow that pays for itself
Hours given back, never the size of the invoice
*Every engagement is scoped and quoted up front. Results vary by workflow and business.
FAQ
How quickly can we see something running?
Week three for a clickable internal demo against real data. Week six for a slice your team can actually use. We hold ourselves to those numbers because they're what stops a project drifting into "endless discovery".
What's the smallest engagement you'd take on?
A two-week paid discovery for Oakland businesses that aren't sure whether the build is worth doing at all. You get a one-page write-up of what we'd build, what we'd skip, and what it would cost. About 30% of those discoveries end with us recommending you don't proceed.
Anyone else in this space using AI recruiting?
Plenty. Time-to-shortlist drops from 3 weeks to 4 days. The interesting question is rarely "does it work" - it's "is your team ready to use the output." That's what we'd scope on the call.
What tools do you build AI recruiting on?
For AI recruiting we usually reach for Claude, Vapi, Workable, SEEK API, Vercel. We're tool-agnostic at heart - we pick what your Oakland team can actually run after we hand the build over, not what looks good on a vendor sticker.
One reply, one direction.
We don't run sequences or follow-up automation. One useful answer, one decision on your side.
Talk to us about this
Tell us what you're trying to do and we'll reply with how we'd build it - no obligation.