Innovation, when done well, is not about ideas in isolation. It is about helping customers explore complex problems quickly, de-risk decisions, and move from ambiguity to validated solutions with confidence.

That was the intent behind a recent AI-focused hackathon Systango conducted in partnership with WhoHire, a US-based applicant tracking system (ATS) platform serving recruiters and hiring teams across the United States. The objective was clear: explore how AI could meaningfully transform first-level candidate screening in high-volume hiring environments - without increasing interviewer load or compromising candidate experience.

Rather than approaching this as a theoretical exercise, Systango structured the initiative around a real, high-impact customer problem and focused on delivering working prototypes that could inform WhoHire’s product roadmap.

1. The Customer Challenge: Scaling Screening Without Losing the Human Touch

WhoHire operates in a hiring landscape where speed, scale, and candidate experience must coexist. In the US market, SMS remains a dominant and candidate-friendly communication channel, making it an ideal medium for early-stage interactions.

The challenge presented to Systango was multi-dimensional:

• First-level screening in high-volume hiring creates significant manual effort
  
  

• Resume-job description matching is often inconsistent and subjective
  
  

• Interview questions lack personalisation at scale
  
  

• Recruiters need structured, comparable scoring without additional overhead
  
  

• Any solution must meet candidates where they already are on SMS
  
  

The underlying question was not whether AI could help, but how it could be applied responsibly, intelligently, and in a way that genuinely improves outcomes for both recruiters and candidates.

2. Why a Hackathon Was the Right Tool

Instead of pursuing a single linear solution, Systango proposed a hackathon-driven approach to accelerate learning and reduce risk.

The goal was not to “run an event,” but to:

• Explore multiple solution paths in parallel
  
  

• Stress-test assumptions quickly
  
  

• Build functional, production-adjacent prototypes
  
  

• Generate evidence to guide product decisions
  
  

This approach enabled WhoHire to view multiple interpretations of the same problem across conversational design, AI reasoning, scoring frameworks, and automation within a compressed timeframe.

3. How Systango Approached the Problem

The hackathon was designed to reflect how Systango works with customers on complex challenges:

• Customer-first by design: Every team worked against the same real client problem, not a hypothetical use case
  
  

• Reasoning over assumptions: Teams analysed job descriptions, resume parsing logic, interview flows, and scoring models before implementation
  
  

• Outcome-driven execution: The expectation was functional prototypes, not conceptual presentations
  
  

• Cross-functional collaboration: Engineering, AI, and product thinking converged to solve the problem holistically
  
  

The central concept explored across teams was an SMS-based AI interview assistant capable of:

• Reading and interpreting job descriptions
  
  

• Analysing candidate resumes
  
  

• Generating personalised, context-aware interview questions
  
  

• Conducting structured interviews via SMS
  
  

• Producing consistent scoring outputs for recruiters
  
  

4. What Was Delivered

The outcomes demonstrated both speed and depth:

Quantitative Outcomes

• 14 teams participated
  
  

• 7 fully functional MVPs were delivered
  
  

• Prototypes were built alongside regular client commitments, reflecting strong ownership and accountability
  
  

Qualitative Outcomes

• Multiple viable solution patterns emerged, offering WhoHire optionality
  
  

• AI was applied not just for automation, but for reasoning, context, and structure
  
  

• Teams demonstrated how complex hiring workflows could be simplified without losing rigour
  
  

More importantly, WhoHire was able to review tangible solutions rather than abstract recommendations.

5. Client Perspective

This feedback reinforces the value of a partnership model where teams are mobilised quickly around meaningful customer problems and held accountable for outcomes.

6. What This Means for Our Customers

For organisations evaluating Systango, this initiative reflects how we engage with complex, ambiguous challenges:

• We anchor innovation in real business problems, not experiments in isolation
  
  

• We use structured exploration to reduce risk before committing to scale
  
  

• We prioritise working solutions over speculative ideas
  
  

• We combine AI, engineering discipline, and product thinking to drive outcomes
  
  

The hackathon served as a foundation for WhoHire to shape the future of AI-led first-level screening, particularly around personalized interviews that feel human, despite being automated.

7. Looking Ahead

 

This was not an end state; it was a catalyst.

 

As WhoHire reviews the prototypes in detail, the insights gained will inform next-stage product decisions with far greater confidence. For Systango, the initiative reaffirms a simple belief: innovation accelerates when curiosity is paired with accountability, and creativity is grounded in real customer outcomes.

 

At Systango, this is how we help our customers move from possibility to impact.