CarmenAI

For far too long finding the right job and going through the recruitment process meant hiding true identities and conforming to what "professional" society wants from mindless employees. However, because of rapid societal change and with millions of new workers joining the workforce, companies are struggling to understand and attract the right talent from the diverse communities of Latin America and the Caribbean.

CarmenAI helps the new generation of workers remain authentically themselves and draw on their unique culture as the source of the value they portray in interviews. The best part is, Carmen is available where users feel most comfortable - on platforms like Facebook Messenger and SMS... She's not just another app to download and forget.

In the coming years, 50% of all job applicants is expected to be Latino. How will they feel relevant? How will they find the right jobs with the right companies? And how will those companies hire the very best talent - despite cultural gaps? The answer is Carmen - both applicants and employers will use Carmen to bridge the divide - and both will be happier for it. The origins of these job seekers will continue to be from under-represented communities with origins in Latin America and the Caribbean - like the Forefront team.

Though in her infancy, Carmen is able to provide understanding and
resources for applicants as they navigate the complexities and nuances
of landing their first professional job. Users can visit CarmenAi.com
today to request access to Forefront's transitional career assistant,
Carmen.

With insights that come from Carmen, companies (our customers) are
able to make sound hiring decisions - based on a complete understanding
of the value and competencies of potential hires. Through working
closely with the Forefront team developing this product, aspects of
Carmen's personality can be customized to showcase the organization's
values, or track key metrics about their existing cohorts of interns, or
even access new markets that might not have considered the company cool
enough to engage with.

CarmenAI is a chat bot, accessible through Facebook Messenger right now, and other platforms in the near future. For job seekers, Carmen gets to know the individual and makes resume and interview skill improvement recommendations to help them prepare for their ideal job. She can also provide matched jobs. Carmen uses personal attention and AI in an era when the new generation of job applicants say those are important to them when dealing with smart technology.

For companies, the Forefront team works where they are more comfortable - through email, online and in-person meetings. We are dedicated to doing the hard to scale stuff now, in order to best understand what our users and customers value before scaling our offering and automating our processes.

To be sure, Carmen uses real Machine Learning, real algorithms and real user intent analysis through Google's Dialogflow platform. She's just very young in the process and getting smarter every day.

As we've started to build and deploy Carmen, Forefront has experienced the joys and challenges of being at the cutting edge of chat bot technologies. We've already made the move from Watson AI to Dialogflow and can see other platforms trying to address this emerging market. CarmenAI puts into practice what these platforms are enabling, and we expect to bring the tremendous value to our customers that the enablers of the technology envision.

Today there are hundreds of jobs boards trying to address the $2 Billion recruiting market, yet the job seekers of tomorrow are using chat bots and other tools on their phones. We have an insight and a thesis around what it means to bring these two together and are excited to see the early traction and engagement numbers from our pilot users.

We currently have 10 active users with 200 on the wait list. Within 1 year, we expect to serve more than 5,000 meaningfully, and millions in 5 years after two years of scaling from tens of thousands.

Over the next 5 years, we hope to transform what a jobs board like Indeed or LinkedIn focuses on when connecting talent to companies. If successful, we will make it possible for job seekers with diverse backgrounds to have a fair chance of getting hired and supporting their families.

Time is always against us as we try to focus on providing value to our users and customers. The pursuit of funding and the grant application process is frankly necessary while in pre-seed and early pilot, but that's the only thing stopping us for providing more value to our users more quickly.

Forefront is currently a Techstars 2020 company, and we intent to leverage our growing network to help us efficiently solve our current challenges.

CarmenAI.com is available to all, and is currently focused on the Latino market - through language and culture. Though in the early stages, we expect to continue this focus in the near future.

Forefront consists of 3 full time employees, 1-3 contractors and 3-5 interns at any given time

Our team has lived the challenges we aim to solve for our users, and have worked with the companies we aim to solve the challenges we recognize that they have.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of MA on an early Pilot, and many others we can provide more details about in the near future.

We are currently exploring pay-to-post jobs, sponsored content and paid pilots.

We will provide this information soon