New York-based Ropes AI was founded in January 2023 and is on a mission to bring a new type of coding assessment, powered by AI, to the HR world.

UNLEASH speaks to Ropes AI Founder Ken Schumacher about the startups mission and thoughts ahead of UNLEASH America 2024.

Q: What is Ropes’ USP? How are you changing the world for HR leaders?

Ropes is an async coding test that mimics a live, onsite interview. We let companies evaluate engineering talent as if they were in the room.

It’s hard to screen engineering talent. You can either rely on coding tests, which can be bypassed with ChatGPT, have low completion rates, etc. – or you can use live engineering time, which bottlenecks the recruiting funnel.

With Ropes, you get the scale of a coding test, but the evaluative detail of a live interview. We use AI to evaluate *how* engineers code, not just the final solution, so you can pass more candidates through the initial screen.

Our problems are short, custom, and dynamic – making Ropes the most candidate-friendly tool on the market.

Q: What do you see as top of mind for HR Leaders this year?

We think it has to be how AI is going to impact the HR ecosystem later this year. AI is such an overused term at this point – it seems every product has a new chatbot or additional suggestion feature that takes advantage of new LLMs.

But there’s also a few fundamental products that are built from the ground up on AI. We think Ropes is squarely in that category. And I’d imagine sharp HR leaders are approaching UNLEASH looking for these new tools.

“What can I accomplish this year, that I couldn’t do last year, with AI?” I think this question will be top-of-mind for attendees this year. We’d love to help answer this question in the space of interviewing – but there’s lots of exciting companies throughout the stack.

Q: What are you expecting to get from UNLEASH America 2024?

Most importantly, we’re hoping to leave UNLEASH with several new friends that are excited about the future of evaluating talent.

UNLEASH is a special opportunity to network in person with the leaders in our field – we’re looking forward to sharing our vision and forming partnerships with who we resonate.

Q: What are you most looking forward to hearing more about at the event?

We’re obsessed with the future of talent assessment – so we’re excited to meet leaders in HR that are thinking of innovating in that space. It’s probably one of the most applicable areas to apply today’s AI advancements within HR.

Beyond that, we’re excited to see how else AI is applied throughout the HR ecosystem. We feel there’s a huge opportunity to bring better quality-of-life to both recruiting teams, and our candidates. I’m sure we’ll meet similar thinking peers at UNLEASH America.

UNLEASH America 2024: Joining us?

If you already have your ticket and want to get THE definitive guide to the UNLEASH America 2024 experience from our Founder & CEO Marc Coleman click here.

Worried about feeling the FOMO? It’s not too late to grab a ticket and join us in beautiful Las Vegas May 7-9.