Case Study: Blackbird hires 94% women without quotas with Applied

How Blackbird Ventures hired 94% female candidates without quotas or positive action

Blackbird Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in technology startups across Australia and New Zealand, wanted to improve an inconsistent, unstructured hiring process that relied too heavily on gut feel and CVs. With Applied, they aimed to strengthen long-term hiring decisions, improve candidate experience, and address a visible lack of diversity on the team.

Using Applied’s hiring platform, Blackbird replaced CV-led shortlisting with structured, data-driven assessments and initial sift questions. The result was 17 hires in 2020, 16 of whom were women, without any quotas or positive action policy. Applied helped Blackbird remove bias from hiring and achieve a more diverse team through better process design.

Blackbird

Nick Crocker

Partner