Agentic startup that seeks to reinvent the job search wins HR Tech pitchfest

More than 100 startups applied to participate in the annual HR Tech pitchfest this week in Las Vegas.

The judges, along with the audience, winnowed the field from 33 finalists—who pitched in three rounds during the conference and expo—before six were chosen to participate in a final round of head-to-head pitches Thursday.

It was SonicJobs, the agentic AI startup that builds agents enabling job seekers to apply to jobs without any redirection from careers sites, that earned the big fake check, and actual $25,000 prize.

“Ninety-five percent of candidates drop out between clicking ‘apply’ on the job platform and then submitting their data on the ATS,” SonicJobs cofounder and CEO Mikhil Raja claimed during his final five-minute pitch Thursday. “In fact, 70% of candidates bounce as soon as they’re redirected, even before the page has loaded, and a further 25% drop out as they go through the flow and have to reenter their data again and again for every application.”

Raja believes agentic AI can help.

“We’ve built AI agents that understand every single data field in a job application flow, and that enables the candidate to answer all of those questions on site without redirection and without repetitive data entry,” he said.

SonicJobs isn’t a robo-apply tool. It’s individualized for each role, and prompts applicants to answer about 40 questions, on average, Raja said. The agent can interact directly with the web browser to transfer the correct information to the job application, so applicants don’t need to resubmit materials into an ATS. And “the beauty,” Raja pitched, is the agent doesn’t require any integrations or APIs to work.

The SonicJobs agent also assesses and advises applicants of how their skills and experiences match the role—or don’t.

“One of the hardest things for a startup is to get exposure to buyers, to partners, and so this has been an amazing experience to get our story out there,” Raja told HR Brew after the competition. “There’s millions of people that are losing out on careers and jobs that they’d be an amazing fit for, and that impacts millions of lives.”

Representatives from TA and recruiting startups Hallo, Match2, and SCALIS, as well as mental health platform Spirence and identity verification platform Trua, also participated in the competition’s final round.

Spirence, the mental health platform, secured a runner-up prize of $5,000.