Soft skills may have their chance to shine as emerging platforms seek to eliminate bias—and perhaps even interviews—from the hiring process.
Montreal’s HiringBranch revealed this week that it has raised $5 million in Series A capital to do just that.
The funding round was powered by Crédit Mutuel Equity with participation from Export Development Canada and Anges Québec.
The capital will fuel market penetration of the company’s flagship product, Soft Skill AI.
HiringBranch is transforming the way enterprises hire with its tailored conversational voice and chat assessment experience, according to cofounder Stephane Rivard—an approach that allows candidates to preview the job before getting the job while AI scores role-critical soft skills for the recruiter.
“We want to unlock the power of soft skills in the workforce by measuring what used to be immeasurable,” says Rivard, CEO.
“Our native AI technology provides unparalleled accuracy in soft skills evaluation, enabling organizations to leverage skills data for hiring, talent mobility, and strategic decision-making,” Rivard continued. “This isn’t a multiple-choice or personality test—it’s a precise measure of a candidate’s real abilities to do a job well, creating a fairer path to opportunity.”
By automating soft skills measurement, HiringBranch’s platform reduces the need for traditional interviews in hiring, which can be time-consuming and introduce bias. Compared to human-based assessments, HiringBranch’s AI “has shown greater fairness and has proven to select candidates who perform better on the job compared to those hired with traditional methods.”
HiringBranch also claims to be better than other modern methods: the company recently announced a study demonstrating that its proprietary dataset measures soft skills at 98% accuracy, compared with the next best public language learning model at 64%.
For companies that hire in high volume, “HiringBranch revolutionizes the recruitment process by replacing the interview stage,” according to André Couillard, President at Procom Québec and investor in HiringBranch. “Companies see themselves speeding up the process, dramatically reducing costs and selecting candidates who perform better and stay on the job longer.”
Rivard believes HiringBranch is “uniquely positioned to be a catalyst in the skills-first talent movement with our award-winning Soft Skills AI.”
“The future of hiring starts with skills measurement, and we plan to be at the forefront of this paradigm shift as we scale,” said the CEO.
HiringBranch began in 2014 as LearningBranch, a platform for students to gain communication skills. The company diversified its offering in 2018 and in 2022 rebranded to reflect its focus on hiring assistance tech.
