Tees Business Tees Business Issue 18 | Page 70

70 | Tees Business RECRUITMENT SPIKE Management – Baxter Personnel marketing officer Katherine Sykes with managing director Andrew Harrow (centre) and senior software engineer Matthew Stott. WORDS BY ADAM STEEL PICTURES BY DOUG MOODY Baxter Personnel’s new AI-powered online tool, Cactus, is saving clients time and money D arlington-headquartered recruitment company Baxter Personnel is excited about the future after launching a new online AI-powered self-service recruitment tool called Cactus. So-called because “it takes very little attention once it has been potted and planted”, Baxter Personnel managing director Andrew Harrow explains, Cactus is designed to dramatically reduce the time and money companies spend on permanent recruitment. Andrew believes Cactus puts Baxter Personnel at the cutting edge of technology and gives them a unique advantage in the national online recruitment marketplace. Companies looking to fill permanent job vacancies pay a flat fee of £249 to use Baxter Personnel’s in-house designed, developed and patented recruitment tool, posting job adverts, and the system then recruits on their behalf. Cactus uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate onerous tasks such as posting to multiple job boards and sourcing passive candidates. It proactively searches CV databases, such as LinkedIn and Totaljobs, its own national database and all the social channels and pinpoints and approaches prospective candidates via email, WhatsApp, SMS or Facebook Messenger to see if they are interested in a particular role. If they are, a digital registration is completed before a screening interview takes place online. Once passed, an interview date and time is scheduled. Baxter Personnel launched Cactus in