We've worked with enough operators in San Francisco to know that the brief that arrives in our inbox is rarely the brief that ends up shipped. The first thing we do on any AI recruiting project is sit with your team for a day before we propose anything.
For San Francisco operators who want a working pilot in weeks, not a year-long programme.
Our goal is to give San Francisco 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
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 San Francisco 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 San Francisco context, plainly.
- San Francisco is where the AI industry itself is headquartered - any AI pitched here is judged against the frontier labs a few blocks away, not against a competitor's landing page.
- The highest concentration of AI research labs and startups anywhere in the world, sitting alongside legacy finance and professional services firms adopting AI for the first time. San Francisco is the least forgiving market for a weak AI product, and the best one for a genuinely strong one.
We work with teams across San Francisco: Financial District · SoMa · Mission District · Marina · Nob Hill · Hayes Valley.
Talk to us about this →How we build AI recruiting for a San Francisco team.
We scope narrow, ship a working pilot, then harden it into production. The first slice is the highest-leverage workflow for your San Francisco 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 San Francisco 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 San Francisco teams
The shape of the result for San Francisco teams: Time-to-shortlist drops from 3 weeks to 4 days. Built on Claude, hardened with the rest of the stack as it scales.
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 long does AI recruiting take to ship for San Francisco businesses?
We aim for a working pilot inside 4-6 weeks - narrow scope, real San Francisco businesses data, measurable outcome. From there it's another 6-8 weeks of hardening before you'd consider it production. Full rollouts (multiple sites, multiple teams) typically land in 3-4 months.
How do you price AI recruiting engagements?
Fixed-scope pilots first, then either project pricing or a small monthly retainer for the ongoing work. No long lock-ins, no 18-month black-box deals. Most San Francisco businesses are surprised how small the first cheque is.
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.
Who owns the code and the model setup?
You do, on delivery. We deploy AI recruiting into your own cloud account where possible, with the model setup, prompts, evals and integration code all checked into a repo you own. Claude sits in your account too - we don't operate it from ours.
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.