For recruiters, and for anyone who does their own hiring.
Slate runs a first interview with every candidate.
You decide.
Write the job once. Send each candidate a link. An AI interviewer talks to them for about fifteen minutes and asks about what they just said. Each criterion you wrote is scored out of five, with their own words under it. This is what comes back.
Sign in with Google and name your team. Then you sit the example interview, camera on. Fifteen minutes there shows you what your candidates will hear.
- Slate is free while it's in alpha.
- Candidates never make an account.
- The interviewer speaks 10 languages.
Office Manager
- Reliability
- Judgment with people
- Follow-through
Asked.
Who your candidates talk to
It asks the follow-up you would have asked.
This is the interviewer's voice, with a question and its follow-up from an example interview. In a real interview, it listens to the answer and asks about it, the way you would if you had fifteen minutes.
Interviewer Tell me about a week when everything landed on you at once. What did you do first?
Candidate So, payroll. It had to go on the twenty-fifth and our bookkeeper was off sick that week, so I ran it myself off her checklist. I did get the accountant to look at it before it went out, because I didn't want to be the person who paid everyone wrong.
Interviewer Who else knew you were running it that day, and what would you have done if the accountant had not been free?
Press play. It asks a real question.
You are hearing the voice your candidates hear. The answer is from the example scorecard, shown as text.
That answer is the 4 on Reliability. The scorecard is below.
- It asks a follow-up about what the candidate just said, so a prepared answer gets tested.
- It works from the criteria you wrote, so every candidate is measured against the same things.
- Their camera is on for the recording you keep, and the interviewer hears audio only.
Scored.
After the call
Every score cites the words that earned it.
Each attempt is scored against the criteria you wrote. Every score has a reason and a link to the transcript lines behind it. The recording sits next to them.
You set the weights and Slate does the arithmetic. The model never touches the total.
Who moves forward is your decision.
Every attempt is kept and scored on its own. A bad run is another attempt. You see them all.
Scorecard
Office Manager
Interviewer: Who else knew you were running it that day, and what would you have done if the accountant had not been free?
Candidate: “So, payroll. It had to go on the twenty-fifth and our bookkeeper was off sick that week, so I ran it myself off her checklist. I did get the accountant to look at it before it went out, because I didn't want to be the person who paid everyone wrong.”
Interviewer: What did the founder say when you told them?
Candidate: “The venue pulled out a week before the offsite. I told the founder that same afternoon, which I really didn't want to do, but I'd priced two other places first, so I wasn't walking in with just a problem.”
Interviewer: How did you find out it was still in use a year later?
Candidate: “Someone from there messaged me about a year after I left, asking what one of the steps meant. That's how I knew it was still the one they used. It was just a Google Doc, nothing fancy. I wrote it because nobody had one.”
Select a criterion to see the follow-up the interviewer asked and the words behind the score.
In my own words
Why I made Slate
Hey there.
A friend of mine in HR was fed up. People write the posting with AI. People answer it with a resume that an AI tailored to the posting. Somebody screens the pile with AI. And then the first interview is a dud, because up to that point nobody has talked to anybody.
So I made Slate, as a gift to the recruiters working through this weird transition. It does the first interview with every candidate, so the talking happens before anyone decides anything.
I want to be straight about what it is. It is still an AI. It is polite but firm, and it digs for the details that politeness would normally leave buried, which gets better interviews out of some surprising personalities. It is also almost human and not quite, and now and then it makes a mistake that is just off, and a bit funny.
If you try it, write to me and tell me what it got wrong.
Ajay Krishnan
Toronto slate@krishnan.ca
How it works
From the job to a decision.
You write the job once. After that, each candidate is one link to send and one page to review.
One job, then every candidate
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1
Write the job You write a title, a few opening questions, guidance for the interviewer, and a short weighted list of what you need to learn. You choose the interview's language per job. Your account starts with a worked example.
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2
Send one link Name the candidate, pick an expiry, and copy the link into your own email. They open it in a browser and never create an account.
- The referral
- The strongest resume
- The thinnest resume
- The one there was never time for
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3
The interviewer follows up Their camera is on, and most interviews take ten to fifteen minutes. It works from your criteria and anything they uploaded, and follows up on what they say.
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4
Read the scorecard Each attempt is scored from its own transcript. Every criterion gets a score out of five, a reason, and the candidate's words that earned it.
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5
Decide The recording, the transcript, and the scorecard sit on one page, and that is where Slate stops. Who moves forward is your call.
- Recording
- Transcript
- Scorecard
Kept.
A look inside
Write the job once. Each interview leaves a full record.
It runs twenty-six seconds with no sound through the six screens you will meet.
Before you sign in
Questions
- What does it cost?
- Nothing. Slate is in alpha and free: no billing, no card, no trial clock. What follows alpha is not yet decided.
- Can I try it before a real candidate does?
- Yes, and you should. The button on this page puts you in the candidate's chair for the example job, camera on, with the same interviewer. It takes about fifteen minutes and it is the only way to know what you are asking a candidate to do.
- What if I have never written interview criteria?
- Your account starts with a worked example: a job with guidance for the interviewer, three opening questions, and a weighted list of what a strong answer shows. Edit it into your own role, or write a new one beside it.
- Do candidates need an account?
- No. They open one link and talk. There is nothing to sign up for and no account to delete afterwards.
- Do they have to upload a resume?
- By default, yes. Turn that off on the job for roles where people often have no resume: a nanny, a tradesperson, an internal referral. A cover letter is always optional.
- Can candidates interview in another language?
- Yes. The interview language is set on the job: the interviewer speaks and listens in it, and the scorecard is written in it. There are 10 to pick from, and each job picks its own.
- Does Slate contact the candidate?
- No. You copy the link into your own email or message, so the invitation comes from you and the candidate sees a name they know. Slate sends no email on your behalf.
- Can I turn recording off?
- No. Every attempt is recorded. Candidates are told before they start. If you cannot record, do not use Slate for that hire.
- Does it decide who to hire?
- No. It scores each criterion, cites the words, and adds a recommendation from strong yes to strong no. You decide who moves forward.
- What if a candidate has a bad run?
- They start another. You see every attempt.
- Who can see a candidate's interview?
- Everyone in your organization can see it. While Slate is in alpha, the people running it can see it too. The privacy notice has the rest.
- Does a model watch the video?
- No. The interviewer hears audio only, and the scorecard is written from the transcript.
Decided.
That's it
Run the interview you would run if you had the time.
Write the job once, send each candidate a link, and keep a record you can go back to.
Sit the interview yourselfSigning in creates your account. You name your team — one field, and your own name is a fine answer — then you sit the example interview. Fifteen minutes later you will know if this is how you want to hire.