One standard for every panel, so the same senior candidate is never scored two different ways.
Evaluation depended on who was on the panel
Pierian hires for mid-to-upper management finance roles, where a wrong call is expensive. But evaluation depended on the panel: the same candidate could be rated strong by one panel and weak by another, with no reliable quality benchmark to hire against.
That variability made results hard to trust, let bias creep in, and gave the organization no reliable way to compare candidates across panels, precisely the consistency senior hiring needs most.
“Every candidate evaluated against the same role-specific benchmarks.”
One standardized first round, then a second product on top
Pierian made Zeko AI’s AI Interview the standardized first round, calibrated to its hiring managers and to finance-specific competencies, deployed through Pierian’s ATS. It then added the AI Panel Companion, which transcribes sessions, captures structured notes, and aligns competencies end to end, from what the job required to what L1 and L2 each tested.
L1 conversion for these roles rose from about 10–15% to about 30–35%, more than double, because a standardized first round sends better-matched candidates forward. About 20 recruiters work on the product today.
L1 conversion for first-round candidates rose from about 10–15% to about 30–35% once first-round evaluation was standardized.
Period: since April 2026. Source: Zeko AI platform data.Calibration, a fix, and what shipped
The evaluation was tuned to Pierian’s hiring managers for these roles and to the intricate skills and competencies of financial services, so the standardized first round reflected real senior-hiring judgment rather than a generic template.
Because the product ran through the ATS, hiring managers had little hands-on exposure, which kept their involvement in calibration lighter than a standardized evaluation needs. Zeko AI ran more direct sessions and trained recruiters to own day-to-day calibration instead.
Setup ran through Pierian’s ATS with significant customization, recruiter training, and the rollout of two products, the AI Interview and the AI Panel Companion, with roughly 20 recruiters onboarded.
Renewed within the first year
Live only since April 2026, the deployment has already earned a renewal, the strongest revealed preference a young account can offer. In that short window Pierian did not just keep the AI Interview running. It expanded, adding the AI Panel Companion and pushing the standardized evaluation into its most senior, highest-stakes roles.
Scope: period covered April 2026 to September 2026 (about 5 months). “L1 conversion” = first-round (AI Interview) candidates who advance to the next round. Figure from Zeko AI platform data. Named and quoted with Pierian Services’ approval.
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4.8/5 Average Candidate Rating
Act Now
Build a Consistent, Audit-Ready Hiring Process
Standardize interviews across geographies and improve hiring quality with Zeko's AI platform.
Trusted by 150+ enterprises
SOC2 · GDPR · ISO27001
4.8/5 Average Candidate Rating
Act Now
Build a Consistent, Audit-Ready Hiring Process
Standardize interviews across geographies and improve hiring quality with Zeko's AI platform.
Trusted by 150+ enterprises
SOC2 · GDPR · ISO27001
4.8/5 Average Candidate Rating