Jessica O'ConnorTribepad has launched a new AI-enabled talent acquisition feature, Tribepad Sidekick, as new research reveals widespread scepticism about fairness in hiring.
The company said the tool has been designed to help organisations hire “smarter, faster, and more fairly” amid rising application volumes and declining trust in recruitment processes.
New data commissioned by Tribepad revealed that 61% of candidates believe “cultural fit” is often used as an excuse for unfair hiring decisions.
The research also found that 80% of candidates trust human recruiters more than AI, yet 36% said they do not fully trust humans either.
Neil Armstrong, chief executive officer at Tribepad, said: “Our research shows candidates are losing faith in fairness, and efficiency is a growing challenge too.
“With some roles seeing hundreds of applicants, recruiters are spending huge amounts of time reviewing CVs or creating shortlists from only a fraction of the candidates, potentially missing out on great people.
“Sidekick can score every application in seconds, making the process faster, fairer, and less risky, while leaving final decisions where they belong: with skilled human recruiters.”
Tribepad said Sidekick reviews every application consistently to prevent strong candidates from being overlooked and to reduce administrative strain on hiring teams.
Its AI-enabled functions include salary benchmarking based on role and location, skills generation and ranking to help standardise job criteria, automated advert creation with optional bias checks, detailed scoring of candidate applications with transparent reasoning, natural-language search tools for recruiters, strengths and weaknesses analysis, and automated skills extraction from CVs.
Sidekick can also summarise applications and suggest tailored interview questions, with future versions expected to prompt candidates to improve weaker areas before submitting applications.
The tool has been developed in-house using Amazon’s Bedrock platform with Anthropic Claude, with additional data automation support from HrFlows.
Armstrong said the platform is intended to support hiring teams rather than replace them.
He added: “Sidekick will never reject a candidate. It is there to provide insight, consistency, and efficiency, giving recruiters more time to do what only humans can: build relationships, spot potential, and make the final call.”
