When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March of 2020, the recruitment industry was among the hardest hit. Initially you may think of agencies, in-house recruiting teams â but the tech side was hit just as hard. Martyn Redstone had spent the past few years developing a real niche for himself as a specialist chatbot consultant for the recruitment and staffing industry. He has years of experience working with a variety of different recruitment businesses and talent acquisition teams to help them create the best possible conversational chatbot strategy.
âWhen this all fell through, I had to take a step back and work out what to do. I have a family that needs a roof over their head and I need income to keep that there.â
But as the first economic shutdown commenced in March 2020, Redstone was quickly without any work, contracts or opportunities. âIt was a very frustrating time, as I had just decided to move away from one contract that I had and start a new one offeredâ, he says in an interview. âWhen this all fell through, I had to take a step back and work out what to do. I have a family that needs a roof over their head and I need income to keep that there.â
Job hunting: mission impossible
While the speculation started about how long weâd all be in a COVID-related mess â Redstone knew that the situation was likely here to stay longer than just a few months. âUnfortunately, I was rightâ, he says. âWhen the economic shutdowns happen and people stop recruiting, the first budget that gets cut is the recruitment budget. So, with no prospect of securing any income in the recruitment industry, I felt like it might be a good time to pivot into the chatbot and conversational AI industry.â
âI couldnât get my head around that this was going to obviously be a high growth area in response to the pandemic, but it was almost impossible to find a job to apply for.â
So Redstone pivoted â but to no avail. âI did what everybody would â I immediately started scanning the job boards, networking on LinkedIn and other proactive activity to find my next roleâ, he says. âAnd guess what I came up with â not much! I had a few interviews here and there, or maybe some exploratory calls but nothing else really. I couldnât get my head around that this was going to obviously be a high growth area in response to the pandemic, but it was almost impossible to find a job to apply for.â
A new objective in life
Thatâs why and when Redstone decided to add a new objective to his life plan: set up a service to help others find a job in chatbots and conversational AI. âI didnât really know where to start â I have built recruitment technology products and solutions before, but never a job boardâ, he says. âBut I knew that I wanted to make this resource and I knew that I wanted to give something back to a burgeoning community of professionals that I was enjoying collaborating with. So, in June 2020 I set about trying to create something cool.â
âI knew that I wanted to give something back to a burgeoning community of professionals.â
The birth of bot-jobs.com
And thus bot-jobs.com was born. âIf you are an employer that wants to advertise, then you can simply go to bot-jobs.com and hit the âpost a jobâ button. Complete all the details there and thatâs about it. Jobseekers can come to the site to find jobs relating to chatbots and conversational AI â thatâs not just conversation designers â thatâs sales, marketing, recruitment, software development, product management, business analysis and conversation design. If thereâs another category that an employer wants adding, that can be added pretty quickly.â
âThere is an opportunity to make the experience a better both employer and applicant, build a community around it, monetise it in some way and, of course, add some conversational AI.â
While Bot Jobs started as a completely free resource for the first two years of it's life, it has now grown into the largest job board globally, dedicated to the Conversational AI industry and recently, adding Generative AI categories, such as Prompt Engineering, to it's indexed roles.
