Tech employee placement company Clapself Inc. has added a dedicated artificial intelligence professionals service to its roster of business offerings.
The 2022 Sacramento startup company launched to use artificial intelligence to more efficiently place tech employees at client companies.
Clapself has seen huge demand from its clients for artificial intelligence-savvy tech workers, said Dave Sanders, an adviser to Clapself and managing partner of WorldBridge Partners LLC, an executive search firm in the technology industry.
"We are seeing where the demand is going," Sanders said. “The talent gap is huge, and it is growing.”
People fluent in artificial intelligence go far beyond the current fad of those who are experienced with large language models like ChatGPT, released by OpenAI just over a year ago, Sanders said. There is also demand for data scientists and those fluent in machine learning, he said.
"They are all hard to find," Sanders said. "We want to be the leading platform."
In its model, Clapself is the employer of consulting tech workers, and it places them with client companies for projects those companies are trying to complete. In its placements, it uses AI to make sure its employees fit a hiring company’s needs for each particular position, rather than just sending a body.
In addition to paying, vetting and placing employees, Clapself also finds its tech worker employees engagements for them to work as much as they want. Clapself offers its tech workers ongoing job security, paid time off, benefits and ongoing training.
Clapself’s customers are medium- to large-enterprise companies, Sanders said. Often those companies need a team to tackle a project or a problem, and they don't need an ongoing long-term hire.
Sanders said Clapself’s customers include “marquee clients that have offices in the U.S. and India,” and some that are multibillion-revenue companies, though he declined to name them.
Clapself has 16 core employees as well as 40 contract employees in the U.S. The private company does not release revenue, Sanders said. Clapself is self-funded by the founders along with friends and family.
Tech-worker placement contracting is only part of the business model for Clapself, Sanders said. The platform itself has potential to provide more of the company's revenue into the future. The platform has upskilling modules for technology workers. It has self-service modules for client companies, including the ability to use Clapself’s AI modeling for client companies to perform deep vetting of potential employees.
Another part of the platform is AI co-pilot for hiring managers, which helps them to attract, interview and hire tech talent with a narrow focus. That is an important feature in a tech marketplace where job descriptions tend to be vague, and a high percentage of applicants don’t actually fit the parameters of the position, Sanders said. "The way it works now, hiring managers ‘post and pray,'" essentially putting job descriptions on job boards and hoping the right person applies for it, he said.
"With our platform, they have an opportunity to do that better," Sanders said.
Clapself also supports its tech contractor employees by using AI to perform assessments to find their strengths and weaknesses, and then recommends courses they can take to advance their careers and income potential. It will also offer mentorship between Clapself employees on the platform.
