We pioneered the Interviewing Cloud to unlock opportunity
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150K interviews conducted
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Millions of developer hours returned to clients
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Up to 4x gains in interviewing speed and 3x improvement in prediction
Why we do what we do
Karat’s purpose is to unlock opportunity, for both hiring companies and candidates. Karat helps connect the best people to right organizations so together they can grow, thrive, and change the world.
We believe the interview status quo is deeply flawed, hindering the potential for individuals and organizations to truly thrive. Interviews are opportunities to change lives. But expert software engineers aren’t necessarily expert interviewers, and software engineering time is crucial for business growth. Most engineering leaders view interviews as a drain on company financials and team morale. Many organizations are unable to conduct the number of interviews with the quality and consistency required to hire great team members, creating an Interview Gap.
The Interview Gap forces shortcuts and limits access to interviews. Inconsistent interviews and restrictive screening processes inject bias and lock organizations out of robust, diverse talent pipelines, creating an Access Gap. These artificial barriers contribute to the growing inequality in the world by locking talented, diverse candidates out of life-changing jobs.
How we do it
We elevate people to do their best work. We operate as a deeply integrated, strategic partner for CTOs and CHROs, and we make technical interviewing a customer-centric experience for candidates. We measure ourselves by our clients’ success, and we never stop innovating.
What we offer
We pioneered the Interviewing Cloud, a human+tech solution for conducting interviews on behalf of companies worldwide, 24/7. Karat’s Interviewing Cloud delivers better results than code tests or traditional interviews, and unlocks opportunity for companies and candidates alike.
Our Story
Mo Bhende and Jeffrey Spector connected on the shared commitment to unlocking opportunity in a world where access to career growth is often limited to where a person went to school, who their friends and family are, or their past work experience.
While leading global strategy within XBOX at Microsoft, Mo needed to hire 300 software developers as fast as he could. He learned quickly that the traditional approach to technical interviewing no longer worked. There had to be a better way.
Meanwhile, as Chief of Staff at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Jeffrey had been researching and addressing economic disparity. Through his work with job seekers, it became clear that the interviewing and hiring process often felt uncomfortable and unfair. He became focused on ways to reduce bias and create greater opportunities for job seekers.
The two friends realized they were thinking about different facets of the same fundamental problems: The interview is the gateway to economic prosperity for companies and individuals alike. It needs to be treated as a scientific discipline and a profession. Continuously optimized like other mission-critical processes. Through their own experiences and research, they came to recognize that improving the interviewing and hiring process for software engineers, in particular, would connect millions to opportunities and power economic growth. The technical interview itself must be re-engineered. In 2014, they came together to create Karat.
Today we’re recognized as the experts and the global leader in technical interviewing, conducting thousands of interviews each month on behalf of leading technology companies and enterprise engineering groups.
Our core principles
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Be human-centered
We care about people and prioritize their happiness and success.
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Celebrate!
We celebrate one another and learn from our failures.
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Own it
We move quickly to solve the problem.
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Be a partner
We build trusted relationships inside and outside Karat.
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Create the future
We operate from first principles and we value innovation.
Why Karat?
We partner with customers who know that hiring the right engineering talent is essential for success — but it’s harder than ever. Teams often lack interview capacity and expertise to meet hiring needs; they take a hit on productive developer hours (and morale); they miss talent by being slow to recognize strong candidates (or mistakenly screening them out) because of a flawed interview process. A hiring brand is often affected by a poor interview experience for candidates and hyper-competition for software developers as the tech industry booms.
These are existential problems in today’s market, and we help you solve them.
Economic growth depends on closing the Interview Gap, and engineering teams must transform their interview process and the candidate experience or risk losing the war for talent. Karat can help you win, and that’s how we measure our success.
Yeah, but why Karat?
Oh, we see what you mean now. Our name 😉
A “karat” is a measure of the purity of gold. At Karat, we believe people are the most precious and valuable asset to any company. Our name helps us reflect on our mission, and why we work as hard as we do for our customers.
A “caret” is a symbol (^) used to express exponents. In Karat’s case, the caret symbol represents the potential exponential growth of the people we hire. Putting it in our logo reminds us to walk the walk every day, and that it’s important to be a human-centered company.
Finally, a “carrot” is an orange vegetable, unrelated to Karat. Though they do make for healthy snacks, and Karat employees love snacks.