Euan Blair’s Multiverse recruits firm’s AI to pick candidates

Euan Blair’s workplace training business has bought a technology company that uses artificial intelligence to select candidates for job vacancies.

Multiverse, a business launched by Blair to train people without university degrees, has acquired Searchlight for an undisclosed sum to help provide organisations with employees using machine learning technology that claims to identify candidates four times more effectively than traditional recruitment techniques.

Searchlight shortlists candidates for roles using technology designed to remove the biases and assumptions that may affect decisions by managers who hire by reading CVs and conducting interviews. The company says most interview techniques do not provide an accurate assessment of how a candidate will perform after they have been recruited. In its white paper, Searchlight says traditional hiring practices are held back by unconscious biases, incomplete information on candidates and a lack of training in conducting effective interviews.

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Blair, the son of the former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, founded Multiverse in 2016 to provide apprenticeships andhelp employers hire from a larger pool of talent. The group started providing training paid for by employers to help provide jobs for people without university degrees, but it now focuses on training staff who are already in work.

Multiverse has become one of the UK’s most valuable private companies after raising $220 million in funding at a valuation of about £1.4 billion, and it works with more than 1,500 employers including Microsoft, Citigroup and Just Eat, and has trained more than 16,000 apprentices. The group plans to use Searchlight’s software to match candidates to roles within its network of organisations.

Blair said: “Most companies are on a journey of tech transformation and they want to do it in a way that is both equitable and effective. What often holds them back is the gap between the transformation they want to see, and the skills that will unlock it. Searchlight’s AI platform and exceptional talent will allow us to better diagnose the skills needed within companies and deliver impactful solutions.”

Multiverse announced it would cut about 40 jobs in November last year after its pre-tax losses increased from £14.2 million to £40.5 million.