The U.S. Department of Labor’s highly competitive Veterans’ Employment Challenge has selected Eightfold AI Inc. as one of the top five semi-finalists to develop a job-matching solution for the U.S. government.
Ultimately, the goal of this Veterans’ Employment Challenge is to find a solution that will be piloted in a Transition Assistance Program Employment Workshop at selected bases, and then potentially used after that for all transitioning service members. The pool of original applicants was originally winnowed down to 10, Eightfold included. That last round further reduced the group to five. Ultimately, one company will be crowned the grand-prize winner later this year.
Eightfold.AI Co-CEO & Co-Founder Ashutosh Garg said that inclusion in this round of semi-finalists is itself a huge honor. “Eightfold’s artificial intelligence has tremendous power in moving veterans into private-sector roles, honing in on their skills in a way that’s not been done before,” Garg says.
The Departments of Labor, Defense, and Veterans’ Affairs are all involved in this Challenge. It’s part of an effort to better transition service members into jobs in the civilian sector. A million dollars will be distributed to the eventual winners, given to multiple winners in stages.
Right now, there are a variety of veteran hiring programs, such as online skills translators. But Eightfold’s technology goes further. It has analyzed hundreds of millions of profiles and career paths, and is available to break down veterans’ (often hard-to-translate) resumes into skills, and match them with skills needed by employers. As an example, a sergeant’s background may have included a lot of skills that could make him or her ripe for a sales role. But, without the AI, just the person’s title in the military alone would be insufficient to clue employers in to the person’s potential.
Eightfold’s Dan Hopkins, Megan Garrett, and Don Moore are among those working on the veterans-hiring effort at Eightfold.