Paradox Named Human Resource Executive Top Product of the Year For Third Time in Four Years

Prestigious industry award recognizes the Traitify by Paradox Animated Assessment — a first-of-its-kind solution designed to deliver more inclusive experiences and accurate personality insight.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Aug. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Paradox, the conversational recruiting software company helping companies like Unilever, McDonald's, and General Motors get hiring work done faster by automating repetitive tasks, was today named HR Executive Top Product of the Year by Human Resource Executive.

This is the company's third HRE Top Product honor since its first entry in 2019 — and this year was presented for Traitify by Paradox's Animated Assessment, a revolutionary personality assessment built around custom, relatable images that have been intentionally and scientifically crafted to produce more accurate assessment results.

In 2019, Paradox won HRE's top award for its Hire product — which is fundamentally changing high-volume hiring through fast, mobile-first experiences that automate up to 90% of the process for field hiring managers. And in 2021, the company won for Experience Assistant — which transforms how people engage with career sites, instantly turning them into dynamic, hyper-personalized experiences that evolve with every interaction.

"We've always believed that if you get the people thing right, you can build teams that change the world — and in many organizations, assessments play a key role in that mission," said Paradox CEO Aaron Matos. "I'm proud to work with a team that cares so deeply about building the next generation of recruiting technology. This is just another step in the journey to help our clients transform how they build great teams."

In an article announcing this year's winners, judges from Human Resource Executive noted: "Candidate and employee assessments don't have to be a burden. Paradox has done the nearly impossible by creating an innovative assessment program that is more engaging, perceptive and frankly looks like a dating app. The software provides reports to both hiring managers and candidates based on research culled from more than 5,000 study participants, including a match score for each candidate using Paradox's underlying Ideal Candidate Profile."

Reimagining Personality Assessments, One Animation at a Time

The Traitify by Paradox Animated Assessment continues to innovate on visual-based personality assessments by moving from stock photography to 3D, animated imagery.

"The goal of the Animated Assessment is to allow the candidate to fully immerse themselves in the assessment experience without pausing to consider the physical characteristics of the character," said Paradox VP of Product Dan Sines, one of Traitify's co-founders.  "We've always believed 'a picture is worth a thousand words' — and with the Animated Assessment, we can more accurately measure each one."

Fully engineered in-house by a team of I/O psychologists, 3D artists, and designers and tested on more than 5,000 individuals across numerous studies, the Animated Assessment introduces "Ash," a gender, race, and ethnicity-neutral character, to help candidates project themselves into the unique illustrated scenarios. The broad, relatable appeal of Ash invites every person to see themselves through their eyes, ensuring relatability, eliminating bias, and providing more accurate results.

"Bias is one of the areas that can affect the results of an assessment," said Paradox Chief IO Psychologist Heather Myers. "Creating our own 3D images is one of the ways we can address that bias. Not only will doing so give more accurate results, but it makes it easier for the assessment taker to put themselves in the situation shown in the animated image. This can help with completion percentages and conversion, but also creates a better experience for each unique candidate."

When tested, product studies and analysis showed:

• 81.4% of test takers reported Ash to be their race, an indiscernible race, or no race at all.
• Among those who specified a race, 75.9% said Ash was of their own.
• On a 100-point scale from feminine to masculine, Ash was consistently placed at the midway point.

The Animated Assessment relies on the Big Five model of personality to evaluate factors such as extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. As a completely mobile-first experience, the assessment also reduces candidate dropoff — requiring just 90 seconds to complete and boasting a 95% completion rate.

Leading the Way in Conversational AI

This award continues Paradox's momentum in the HR tech industry. Last year, the company was named to both the Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast 500 lists, which rank the fastest-growing companies in America. Paradox has also been twice-named to Forbes' list of America's Best Startup Employers. The Scottsdale-based startup now partners with more than 700 clients across virtually every industry, helping them:

• Reduce time-to-hire by more than 60% by automating things like candidate screening, interview scheduling, and onboarding — all through a simple, conversational, mobile-first experience.
• Eliminate, on average, more than 10 hours of work from recruiters' plates each week, freeing them up to focus on more strategic, people-focused work.
• Deliver experiences candidates love — with more than 99% rating their experience positively after an interaction with the company's AI assistant, Olivia.

The Paradox team is hosting a webinar on September 8 at 1pm ET to showcase the award-winning assessment. They will also be demoing the Traitify by Paradox Animated Assessment at the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas held Sept. 13-16, where Top Product winners across categories will be recognized. To learn more about Paradox, visit www.paradox.ai.

About Paradox

Launched in 2016, Paradox is building the world's leading conversational recruiting software to drive automation with a human touch. Serving global clients with hiring needs across high-volume hourly and high-skilled professional roles, Paradox's conversational assistant Olivia does the work talent teams don't have time for — streamlining tasks like screening, interview scheduling, and more through fast, easy, mobile-first interactions.

In just five years, the Scottsdale-based startup has earned the trust of the world's largest employers — including Unilever, McDonald's, CVS Health, Lowe's, and General Motors — and won numerous awards, including Human Resource Executive's Best HR Product of 2019 and 2021, and consecutive honors in 2020, 2021, and 2022 as one of Forbes Top Startup Employers. The company was recently ranked the fastest growing company in HR Tech by the Deloitte Fast 500. To learn more about Paradox's product, visit www.paradox.ai. To explore open opportunities on its team, visit careers.paradox.ai. 

Media Contact

Josh Zywien
Chief Marketing Officer, Paradox
[email protected]

SOURCE Paradox