Career Prep

Hallo's New Career and Jobs Platform for Students Features AI-Powered Coach, 'Boris'

• By Kristal Kuykendall
• 06/06/23

Hallo has launched a revamped website for connecting students to career opportunities, and it features a personalized, AI-powered career coach named Boris that was built on GPT-4 technology, the company said in a news release. 

The free platform, powered by AI and machine learning, “offers students access to virtual conferences, career fairs, and 1:1 talks” by leaders from large employers and Fortune 500 companies, Hallo said. Access to Boris requires a paid subscription.

Hallo’s expansion follows new investments from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and from 4S Bay Partners, the family office of Jessica Sarowitz and Steve Sarowitz working to eliminate prejudice and inequities.

“The Career Services Center represents an antiquated model, offering a one-size-fits-all approach to fostering the futures of students – which simply does not work,” Hallo said. 

Hallo’s AI career coach Boris was built on OpenAI’s latest GPT-4 model with over 2 million proprietary data points to aid in interview coaching, resume review, and simulated interview preparation, the company said. 

The platform aims to help students who weren’t born into privilege and cannot afford to spend thousands on college application consultants in a competitive environment, according to the news release. “Hallo is working to eliminate the ‘silver spoon,’ offering accessibility to opportunities for students no matter their gender, race, education level or college prestige and enhancing the unproductive resource that many Career Services Centers have become.”

Students seeking career opportunities can sign up on Hallo and answer an “onboarding questionnaire” about their background and goals; then the platform recommends virtual networking events and webinars to attend. Boris — named after the infamous 007 GoldenEye hacker — helps high school and college graduates prepare to interview with some of the top companies in the world. 

Instead of practicing in front of the mirror, students can practice for interviews with Boris, which “models the typical behaviors that interviewers look for when interviewing and runs candidates through a mock interview, offering interview question prompts based on the desired role(s), feedback on interview question responses, resume guidance as well as pointers on posture and tone,” Hallo said. “Boris’ interview style adapts to mimic diverse leadership who may conduct interviews with candidates. The tool is trained across thousands of conversations with company personnel and will continuously be improved as more job seekers utilize it.”

“At Hallo, we want job seekers to consider our services as the cool older sibling you wish you had,” said Hallo CEO Vern Howard. “We believe in providing candidates with a personalized coach that aligns with the skills, information, and companies they seek to work for nearly a decade before that first job.”

Hallo said over 1,300 universities are already using the platform to connect with “industry-leading companies” recruiting on the site.

Access to the Hallow platform is free for students, and a subscription to use Boris costs $5/month or $40 for a full academic year. 

Learn more at Hallo.com.