The founder's eye for talent, from the first round
At a small company, one hire can shape the business, and the founder makes the final call. Calaris Assess builds the founder's focus, questions, and deciding factors into a conversational simulation and applies them from the first round.
Taking initiative
Live Transcript
Tell me about a time you spotted a problem yourself at work and acted before anyone asked.
Focus points set with the founder: finding problems and acting on your own, and seeing things through.
Founder's eye · Taking initiative: Tell me about a time you spotted a problem yourself at work and acted before anyone asked.Focus points set with the founder: finding problems and acting on your own, and seeing things through.
Problem solving · Customers stop using the service: You work at a two-year-old company. Many businesses that adopt its scheduling service stop using it after about three months. What's your hypothesis, and what would you do first?Make reasonable assumptions for anything not given.
Persuade · Someone happy with the status quo: The AI's position: “Our paper application forms work fine.” Propose accepting applications online too, and change its mind.The AI holds its position, pushes back on a hard sell, and changes its view when convinced.
Transcript
Assess candidates through the founder's lens before they meet
The AI probes what the founder checks in interviews, drawing out how candidates reason and why they acted. The founder reads the results and spends time on those worth meeting.
DETAILED BREAKDOWN
Cognition
Standard criteria shown. Dimensions and weights can be tailored to your company (varies by plan).
Put your standards into words, even with a small team
The report shows what was scored and why, with evidence, keeping everyone aligned as more people interview. On the Standard Plan and above, you can also weight the dimensions the founder cares about most.
Feedback report
1 / 4Cover
Feedback candidates can learn from
Candidates get feedback on strengths, growth areas, and next steps once your team reviews and approves it. Even those not hired learn something, which protects your candidate experience and reputation.
Support cycle
01Design
Consultants by your side, from capturing the founder's eye
Our consulting-firm alumni interview the founder, design the focus points, questions, and criteria, then review them after launch.
Capturing the founder's eye
Our consultants turn what the founder looks for and how they ask into focus points, questions, and criteria. The founder tries it out before it's used with candidates.
Talk with the founder
Who do you want to work with? What do you look for, how do you ask, what decides it? Consultants draw out what founders rarely say.
Set focus points, questions, and criteria
We turn what we learn into follow-up focus points, a session format and topics, and weighted evaluation dimensions.
The founder tries it
The founder and team take it, check the question depth and scoring against their view, and fine-tune.
Matched to the founder's viewUse it in hiring and refine
Invite candidates, then compare results with later rounds and revise the focus points and questions.
Spend founder time on the right candidates
First-round results let the founder spend interview time on those worth meeting. The hiring decision stays with the founder.
Share the founder's view across the team
The report records the focus points and score rationale, so other team members can interview through the same lens.
Refine with every hiring round
Refine focus points and questions with your consultant, based on later rounds.
Pick scenes close to early-stage work to suit each open role.
01
Problem Solving
How do they tackle problems with no set answer?
Mainly evaluates Cognition through dialogue about a business's growth strategy, looking for core skills, like logical and hypothesis thinking, that stay essential as AI becomes the norm.
Typical roles
02
Client Engagement
How do they understand clients and move them to act?
Evaluates the overall ability to understand, empathize with, and influence people in a client scene that recreates how candidates draw out a client's issues and shape a proposal.
Typical roles
04
People Management
How do they understand people and help them grow?
Evaluates the ability to understand others and help them see issues and change how they act. In a scene about managing and developing a team member, the candidate works from that person's own concerns.
Typical roles
Dialogue and criteria built on the founder's view, natural conversation, and candidate feedback.
Select an item for details.
Dialogue design
Focus points (founder's eye)
Founder interviews set what follow-ups look for and where they dig, so the AI asks what the founder wants to check.
Combine parts, such as a fit interview with a case study or a proposal, to match the role you're hiring for.
Set topic, data, and follow-up difficulty for new graduates, experienced hires, or each job level. Questions also adapt to answer quality.
Evaluation criteria
24 dimensions
Standard criteria shown. Dimensions and weights can be tailored to your company (varies by plan).
Calaris's own 24 dimensions in four categories (Cognition, Influence, Drive & Delivery, Coachability), informed by what consulting firms look for in hiring.
On the Standard Plan and above, set dimensions and weights to your standards and mirror what the founder weighs most, like putting Drive & Delivery, vital early on, at the top.
Records the statements and reasoning behind each dimension's score, along with points and questions for the founder's interview.
Dialogue
AI
Speaking
Candidate
Listening
The AI responds when the candidate finishes
No buttons. The AI responds when the candidate finishes, like talking with a person.
No fixed question list: the AI builds on each answer and digs into the focus points, as the founder would.
The AI restates each answer's key point before moving on, so candidates aren't grilled and can share their thinking calmly.
Feedback report
Set the cover color, image, logo, and message, so each report reads as a message from your company.
Strengths, growth areas with tips for next steps, and reflection questions, all drawn from the dialogue so candidates can build on them.
Your team reviews and edits AI-generated reports, then approves and sends them in bulk. Candidates can view theirs via a link for one month after sending.
Session management
candidates.csv40 candidates
Issue session URLs in bulk. Candidates book open slots themselves, with no scheduling back-and-forth.
Many candidates can complete sessions at once, without your team present. Assessment stays just as deep when applications pile up.
Scores and evidence on the same criteria arrive as each candidate finishes. Compare in one list and decide who moves on.
Cheating detection
FaceMain camera
Detects when candidates leave fullscreen, switch tabs, or try to copy text. A smartphone used as a second camera shows their hands and surroundings.
Follow-ups build on each live answer, making it hard to rely on prepared answers or on reading out generative AI output.
Video and audio are recorded, and the AI flags moments to check, such as leaving the seat, off-screen glances, or other voices. Your recruiters review them in the recording before deciding.
Before launch, our consultants design the dialogue and criteria with you, based on founder interviews.
Features such as cheating detection and feedback reports vary by plan.
Contact us
Use the form to share your hiring goals, expected candidates per year and timing. We'll be in touch.
Consultation and demo
We review your hiring process and challenges, show the real session screen and evaluation report, and propose a plan and quote for your expected volume and use.
Contract and design
After signing, we agree on your target profile and pick the simulations and criteria. On the Standard Plan and above, we also set dimension weights and build company-specific simulations.
Launch
Start inviting candidates when you're ready. On request, your team can first try a test session to check the difficulty of the questions and the evaluation criteria.
Post-launch review
We check session results against later hiring outcomes and post-hire evaluations, then refine criteria and questions.
