AI-Powered Seller

Why AI Should Support Your Interviews, Not Replace Them

• Jake Dunlap • Episode 36

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Tired of gut calls and keyword roulette deciding who joins your team? We sat down with Chrissy Manzano, CEO of Blueprint Expansion, to map where AI actually improves hiring today—without pretending it can replace thoughtful human judgment. From SDRs and BDRs to manager and director roles, we break down how to speed up sourcing, standardize interviews, and create a candidate experience that reflects your brand.

We start with sourcing, where legacy tools cling to keywords and miss context. Chrissy shows how to encode practical criteria—real SaaS exposure, tenure stability, and proof of growth journeys—to help AI surface people who match your motion, not just your titles. For private-company rocket ships, we talk about triangulating signals across press, funding rounds, and team expansion. Then we turn to screening, where conversational AI shines for high-volume inbound and entry-level roles by capturing narratives, clarifying gaps, and keeping response times tight, while senior and passive candidates still warrant a human touch.

The heart of the episode tackles interview bias. Too many debriefs end with, “What do you think?” and fuzzy scorecards. We lay out how to record and analyze interviews, tag against a tight ideal candidate profile, and compare candidates on evidence, not charisma or pedigree. We also get real about limits: AI still hallucinates and can be gamed at the edges, so structure and critical thinking remain non-negotiable. Finally, we look ahead at team design—why internal talent teams may shrink while specialist partners using AI deliver faster, more predictable results—and share two immediate plays for CROs: use AI to build a rigorous interview framework and deploy a candidate-facing agent to standardize information and elevate experience.

If you want a hiring engine that moves faster, reduces bias, and keeps the bar high, this conversation is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with a hiring leader who needs a reset, and leave a review with your favorite tactic so we can dig deeper next time.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Welcome everyone to another episode of The AI Powered Seller. Today's episode is with a friend of mine. She's not only an amazing revenue leader, she also started one of the top recruitment firms in the software recruitment space, Blueprint Expansion. In today's episode, we are going to dive into something that might be a little controversial, which is where does AI show up in your hiring process? Are we ready to use AI to screen people or is it annoying? I think probably a little bit of both, right? Maybe some roles, yes, some roles no. Are we ready for it to be a little bit better than human judgment in terms of our scoring? So everybody that doesn't get in a room at the end of an interview process, and you all know exactly what I'm talking about, which is you get in a room and you say, What do you think? But can AI help to eliminate some of that bias? So very excited for today's conversation with Chrissy Manzano, the CEO president of Blueprint Expansion, to talk through all the amazing ways that we should think about both today and tomorrow using Gin AI in our recruitment and hiring process.

SPEAKER_01:

AI-powered seller.

SPEAKER_00:

Look, you know, we work with lots of companies that are hiring salespeople, SDRs, BDRs, they're all looking for ways to speed things up, et cetera. In today's world, where do you see AI having the most impact from? Finding people, uh, the screening interviews, which everybody hates, uh, you know, finalizing candidates, judging, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think AI is going to be really helpful to have interviews where, especially with entry-level individuals or inbound, to remove, you know, one of the many steps that there are in recruiting so you can actually validate better. I don't think it removes people by any stretch of the imagination. Sourcing, I'm so little on the fence on. I actually would love for AI to be better at sourcing, but you know, what I always tell people is if it was that easy to look at folks on paper and go, that's our person, then everyone would do it. That's part of the secret like sauce of recruiting is having those critical thinking skills. I do think that AI will help. Maybe, you know, we can get away from LinkedIn recruiter, which kind of owns a lot of the space, but they're so outdated. And so I would love to see, and I think AI will help as people build their own tools using their own proprietary information, just like us, to help, you know, find people faster to get them on calendar.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about sourcing, right? Like I would think that AI could, you know, better than like just looking at a resume, right? Like go and say, hey, find me everybody who's a sales rep and this company, right? Like I know I want to target, you know, mid-level or entry-level reps. Where do you feel like AI can help in like the sourcing process in particular?

SPEAKER_01:

I I mean, I think it could speed things up if it can do things correctly versus you manually when you do a search going through and going, Did it get this right? Did it get this right? Oh, that person, I don't know why they because when you do searches on a lot of these platforms, they'll they'll pull up the wrong key.

SPEAKER_00:

It's just like keyword-based, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I think AI can actually go, you know, hopefully beyond keywords and have more like two and two together, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I I think of it too, where, you know, AI could help me put in like other criteria. I was talking to a leadership team yesterday about this where, you know, you could put in your criteria of like, look, I don't like people that have hot jobs every year. Types of like, you know, anecdotal things that are like me as a leader, I want people that have not just like the skill set or works at a company, but they have tangible or intangible things that I look for.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I think it can actually go do research on all the companies with that this individual was at for the past four years, right? And make sure that it's true SaaS as an example, right? I want to make sure that they don't look like they've, you know, had hopped around and have more than three jobs in the past four years. So now the challenge, and this is I think where AI becomes helpful, is when you're hiring, what are two things that everyone wants to hire for for equity executives, especially in sales? They want to know your industry. Okay, we can figure that out with AI. Sure. They want to know if you have a specific rocketing journey, right? And that's one of the hardest things to find. So, you know, maybe that's something that AI could help.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that thing, though, right? Like they know like what you sell and what the sales motion might be. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, to figure out, like, hey, were you there when the company? So this is the challenge though. If it's a private company, you don't always know. Sure. I was there for when they went from one to 50, right? So how does AI get that information?

SPEAKER_00:

And then what about the screening process? You know, obviously we've talked a lot about you know, doing this. And, you know, you you specifically said entry level. Where do you feel AI can support that kind of? I mean, it really is a time slot where, you know, and at least I think I think we're also in this linear world where we don't want to do disrespectful to the candidate, but you don't want to waste your own time.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not just entry level that I think, you know, this is how we're approaching it, right? So we're gonna have an agent that if you're looking for a job, we can't obviously talk to everybody. So we can get that narrative and then figure out if we have anything available for them. For entry level, they will probably be open to that. Passive candidates that are not entry level or more than likely be like, if you want to sell me on a job, yeah, I'm gonna talk to a human. So and then inbound, right? So I think there's a what like in anything that it's more maybe blue collar, what are they have thousands and thousands of applications online? Well, I think that's a regardless of what it is, that's a perfect way to say go scan it so you don't miss any talent, right? So I think that's where that's gonna be really valuable. And everyone gets like a great experience, especially if you've trained agent to sound like a human and be very specific. And it's not a long interview, it's just basically what I it's like putting the the narrative together. So your resume says this, but what does all this mean? And you ask questions to really fill that so you understand business person, not the potential to talk to like you know, that makes this I mean, I would just game this system though, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Like, couldn't I go to AI and be like, hey, I've got an AI interview coming up, and I want you to give me the exact answers that AI is gonna, you know, put out there, like what it's gonna ask me to where, you know, you would package it back. And I think people are already using AI, and someone's 21 years old, they sound like they like or an industry that how do you think this is gonna evolve the screening process where you know you've got people using AI today, the AI is, you know, oh wow, this person sounds great. Like, let's move them forward. Do you worry about that at all that people will figure out ways to game? I mean, maybe not in the next year or so, but certainly in the next like couple of years.

SPEAKER_01:

What can be more scary? What is happening, especially in IIT security, is people in other countries, right? Pretend to put it full avatars on so they can go and hack to the system. So I think criminal activity is actually more concerning of getting access to people's information. Like everyone thinks you can game an interview even today. If someone can game your interview, then your interview process sucks.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, and so I think that still stays the same with AI. When you ask specific questions, can someone game one interview?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01:

But they can't game a whole process.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, so screening process, I think that's a no-brainer. Yeah, entry-level people. You're doing a lot of bulk hiring, inbound, yeah, active job seekers who are like, hey, I'm open to five or six roles. What's like the cap on that, right? Like, I get that passive job seeker, you reached out to me, right? It's like it's kind of where you go inbound, yeah, like requesting a demo and you gotta talk to an STR. You're like, why am I talking to these personally? I just wonder, you know, could would I be open to that, right? If if I'm like, hey, I'm interested in this job, how senior do you think you could go today? Director, like manager?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I just having done this for six years exclusively, you know, when they're happy and they're getting reached out to by other people, I think it is very unlikely that they're gonna top people you're gonna have to get a hook in.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's fair. If you are a rep and you are sitting there saying, Jake, all of this AI stuff sounds amazing, but how do I actually get tactical? And how do I deploy this to where in day one I'm saving five hours? You have to go check out meetjourney.ai. It is the only platform built for sellers that knows exactly what your role is, what you do, what company you work at. It has different workspaces for each one of your accounts, and it truly is the only sales AI-based co-pilot that's gonna help you close more deals every time, book more meetings, grow your current customer relationships. So make sure, go sign up for your free trial of journey AI. You will not be disappointed in the impact it makes on day one. Okay, let's talk about the interview process, right? Okay. This is where, especially, let's be honest, this is what most revenue organizations second-level interview. You go talk to Ryan, you talk to Ben, you talk to Rachel, blah, blah, blah. Then everyone gets in a room and they go, What do you think?

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? Like the scorecards are like mediocre at best. There's a shit ton of bias, you know. Oh, he played lacrosse at Princeton, right? And like, oh, so he must, you know, be ABC. Where do you think this is gonna help in that? I'm gonna call it like mid to late stage vetting, right? Where do you think AI can actually move the needle for people today?

SPEAKER_01:

It's a great question. And I also think just one point, like, we think about AI too much as like, how is this replacing people versus how does it make us better?

SPEAKER_00:

Don't you think it will replace people though?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, like like for recruiting, it's not going to replace like all of recruiting. That's more what I'm saying. Like, how does it come in and help you with like step two and three out of five, right? I mean, right now, one of the hardest things with interviewing is getting people to give their feedback and then come together. I mean, it just elongates everything. It takes forever. And then people are, you know, how do I make sure that like I don't know if I'm a yes or whatever? So I want to hear someone else's point of view. So I think AI can help, if you have the right people, create a really great interview process and then also make it easier to where they don't have to do because they don't have to do the work to type everything in. Can it record everything in a way that can summarize and say, hey, these are the competencies it's hit on and actually give that feedback. The person can look at it, make sure they're allied, and then keep it flowing and then bring everyone together and show that information so it's not just a feeling, but it actually is analyzing the conversation. I think that could be so valuable and make it easier for people interviewing versus I forgot to write down all my notes and I don't know, I don't like this person because I can't remember, but yeah, that's what I'm curious about.

SPEAKER_00:

So, like, let's fast forward, right? So we're in a room, I talk to Rachel, you talk to Rachel, we all talk to Rachel. We also recorded the thing. AI is listening for, and let's say, but look, we've let's say we've trained this AI, it's works good, like it knows our values, knows the job. Like, let's say, like, it's a good, right? Like it really has a good understanding of, you know, Tim is our top performer, it kind of knows what Tim looks like, etc. But then Jade gets in the room and he goes, I don't like him. I don't like her. Like Rachel's okay, like whatever. Like, where is this gonna fall? Like, where do you feel like you're gonna trust AI more or you're gonna you should validate? But again, it's like, is that my bias though, right? Like that I prefer people that are, you know, X or Y? Like, you know, maybe Rachel wasn't like overly charismatic. Where do you feel like the line is around scoring people? And, you know, because I agree, I think there's a ton of benefits to remove bias, but but like what's the what's the point, right? Like what's the point of the screen?

SPEAKER_01:

Garbage in, garbage out. If you are not aware of unconscious bias, because we all have we all have bias. So if you're unaware of that, you don't have a good process, so you just wing it, or you ask questions that don't really help you assess somebody, but help you feel comfortable. It does you can have all the AI, all the things in the world, you're still gonna have the same problems. You're still gonna come in at the end and have bias and probably make poor decisions around that. So the beginning of your process has to be organized.

SPEAKER_00:

But at that point, like, do you just trust the AI more? I wonder, like, we're gonna move to a world where it's like, okay, candidate A goes through this process, candidate B goes through this process that has you know that has relatively no bias. And I think AI might be able to beat the human. Like, I feel like we like you look at actually frontline sales reps, frontline sales reps in particular. I have hired hundreds, if not thousands, of salespeople. I got it bugged so many times. Yeah. And we had scorecards and we had this. And I just wonder that is there a world where we just trust AI more than we trust ourselves.

SPEAKER_01:

I think the only way that that works is if you suck at hiring and AI is definitely no, no, actually, this these people did really good at the interview. And your biases would get in the way of saying yes to them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

There's critical thinking involved. And, you know, humans are the best at critical thinking. I'm just saying where we're at in 2026, AI still hallucinates a ton more than everyone said it was going to be here. It still makes a lot of mistakes. It's very helpful. The trajectory and the scale we can do things is so much better. But I find that, you know, having human beings to validate and do that critical thinking is still just as important as it was a few years ago. It is not where everyone said it would be today. So I was like, yeah, I don't have a crystal ball, but from what I see, that'll still be something that's really valuable.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm sure there's tech companies out there that are like, we're gonna AI our entire hiring process, like their onboarding process. Like they went from like full manual to like full AI onboarding. The reality is like some type of in-between. Let's be honest, most, especially if we talked about revenue, most revenue leaders, I was very fortunate. I when I got my second leadership role, really like my first form role, I got put through a whole leadership development program. And they taught me how to interview and they taught me how to think about these bias questions. But let's be honest, 90% of leaders are not going through this. They're just showing up and they're winging it and they're looking for themselves and other people as a part of that. So that's where I feel like AI can be a good, and you need to check yourself for like, hey, you're you're listening for these things, like just because they didn't play lacrosse at Columbia, like they still could be a good candidate.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it can help them, again, the garbage in, garbage out go, your process isn't good, right? And you are making bad decisions, you need to change these things. So it can help force people understand and care about Vandervean in a way that people haven't cared about before.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Last question. If you were a revenue org and whether you had a recruitment partner or your own leadership, what are maybe the top two areas that you would say you need to use AI to help you with X? Why? For just in recruiting, as a Yeah, yeah. This finding whether it's finding people, getting the right people, you know, we don't have to get in necessarily into onboarding, but if you were advising me as a CRO to say, hey, if you want to make your recruitment process better, do this.

SPEAKER_01:

I would use AI to create a great interview process. So at least give me 90% of the way for a framework that can help have predictability in hiring. And I would also use it to try to create a great candidate experience as much as possible to help your brand.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, to make sure like you're following up with people.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. And also to do things like create an ideal candidate profile, right? So, hey, this is what I want out of this person. This is what success looks like. What are the things that I need to care about and be looking for in an interview? So that because people often just think about the job description. They don't like about that ideal candidate profile that's very different than the job description because it's very specific on if the candidate has these five things, they will be successful and it gets you to a place of predictable hiring. Look, a stat we always share with our clients or you know, people talking to us was we have a 97% candidate retention rate. So that means that they stay and they're top performers for anyone that ends up hiring from candidates that we help find and nurture through the process. And that's because we use AI and our process and methodology to make sure that interview process is slick and it's assessing for the things that they really care about.

SPEAKER_00:

So have the structure, yeah. And I think too the other the flip side you said the candidate experience. I think what AI can also do is help give a candidate a realistic, I guess, view of like what it's like to work at the company. Whereas like we do this, our values are this, where you know, you as a leader can start to say, like, look, these are the things that I care about.

SPEAKER_01:

And get referrals, like it, those things matter so much. So I mean, it can make a huge difference, right? And make sure that, you know, everyone is again for inbound, right? How do we make sure we're not missing people and can get through all that? I do think this, but this actually I'll agree with you for replacing here. I think hiring internal talent teams is something that is gonna disappear more and more. You know, you need specialists and with AI, like it really just allows me to save money and have better hits faster. You know, you you hire, but then you stop for a little bit. So I mean, I think some companies will still need that, but that's one of the reasons that, you know, these companies struggle and then they go hire recruiters outside, anyways, because they need specialized help. So I think internal teams are the ones that you're probably gonna see getting replaced in them. We're already seeing that more. You know, again, it they'll be smaller and maybe on, you know, roles that don't need specialization, but the whole like, let's hire that to be cheaper and spread them out, you know, across 15 roles. Well, I didn't work before, but now I think in people caring about hiring smarter and using AI and specialist, I think it's gonna, you know, become more dominant.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I yeah, but it's got quotas or like, well, you're supposed to fill the swing roles, et cetera. There's also like some incentive stuff. So, all right, build a process, number one, as a part of it. What's number two? So I built a process, I'm using AI. What's your number two?

SPEAKER_01:

My number two would be to create an agent that can talk to candidates to just give them more information about the company. Every candidate gets the same information. It also helps you validate how to move them out faster because you're like, you had a great experience, but the questions you're asking show me you don't listen. And I think just making sure like helping with your inbound, right? So you can clear that out faster. You know, you're typically not going to get hires from inbound consistently, depending on your size, but there are people in there that are worth talking to. And I think having an agent that can assess that is really valuable.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and also do the people as we answer the same questions about the company and the role, you know. If you give that to people ahead of time, you can assess, you know, did they show up?

SPEAKER_01:

People are still doing the interview, but they're coming in with only a few candidates.

SPEAKER_00:

And spend time with people that already know what they're getting into.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. You're not like, oh, you know, I want this person to really impress me because I'm exhausted from interviewing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, Chrissy. The future of recruitment. I'm excited for it. I think a lot of companies today could be saving tons of people hours coupled with an amazing amount of like higher accuracy in the process if they just, you know, obviously listen to you. Make sure you check out Chrissy on her social channels. Um, they've got an amazing new course out around helping organizations to get better at a lot of this too. So go check that out. Uh, make sure to follow her on LinkedIn as well. And thanks everyone for tuning in. Chrissy, thank you. We were just at the Atlanta Hawks game. Great. We had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

We might have some line after too, but but it was fun. We had a good time.

SPEAKER_01:

We did. It was great.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, awesome. Thank you, Chrissy. Thanks everyone for tuning in, and we'll see you on the next one.

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Jake Dunlap

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