In an environment where hard skills can increasingly be supplemented, or even entirely substituted, by machines, the rarest and most valuable assets are the very things that make us human.

Organizations are struggling to find skilled workers to fill roles, and more business leaders are saying, “Ditch the four-year degree” and still earn a six-figure salary. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that jobs for associate degree holders are expected to grow by 6.3% from 2023 to 2033. With a median annual wage of $62,180—well above the U.S. median of $48,060—these job seekers have the skills employers are looking for. The 2025 High-Pay Associate Degree Jobs Report highlights this year’s top 10 highest-paying associate degree jobs.

The old-school job interview process can be a headache for recruiting teams and feel even more arduous for roles with naturally high turnover, such as call center agents or retail workers. What if a tool could make that headache go away? Enter HiringBranch, a Canada-based software company providing an AI-based talent screening assessment platform for call centers. The company has worked with large employers, including IT company Infosys and Bell Canada.

This webinar focuses on helping your company identify the right candidates in the floods of leads and applications and identify top performers, all without the dreaded resume.

HiringBranch was recently featured in the Miami Weekly as a top solution to help recruiters move beyond the resume.

Every interaction in contact centers shapes brand perception. To streamline hiring, businesses are increasingly turning to AI, often defaulting to large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT or Google’s Flan T5-Large. While these models excel at processing language, they fall short where it matters most in customer service: soft skills assessment.

Turning an idea into a real HR technology company requires more than a compelling concept. In this session, Stephane Rivard shares how HiringBranch moved from early concept to real market traction.

The call center is one of the most important touchpoints in the customer journey. When things go wrong, it’s often the first place people turn. How those interactions are handled can make or break the relationship.

HiringBranch is a company that uses responsible native AI to measure skills by role through tailored, open-ended voice and chat conversations with 98% accuracy. Pulse 2.0 interviewed HiringBranch co-founder and CEO Stephane Rivard to learn more about the company.