Melt Studio turned Otterwise's manual pre-hire project process into a skills-based hiring platform in four weeks — employer and candidate dashboards, automatic data capture from forms, and AI candidate-to-project matching — as part of its pro-bono prototype program.

Otterwise: a skills-based hiring platform built on pre-hire projects

Otterwise lets employers and candidates test each other before a hire. Instead of judging a resume, the employer runs a short, real project with the candidate, and both sides see whether the fit works in practice. For emerging professionals, it breaks the "no experience, no job" loop.

The challenge: a hiring model that worked, run by hand

The model was working, but everything behind it was manual: candidate and client feedback came in through Google Forms, and the team analyzed it by hand. That back-office work kept Otterwise to three small clients at a time. To grow, the process itself had to become software.

The solution: automating the pre-hire workflow, one step at a time

We planned the product in three stages — proof of concept, prototype, MVP — and built the proof of concept that automates the core loop, on Melt's Startup Starter Kit:

• Roles and workspaces for employers, candidates, and a super admin.

• Automatic data capture from Google Forms, so candidate self-assessments and feedback land in the platform without copy-paste.

• Candidate career profiles built from each candidate's own self-inventory.

• An employer dashboard to create and configure projects and follow each candidate.

• AI matching that suggests the most suitable candidate for each project.

• A 360-degree evaluation set up for every project.

  
  

How a dedicated team built it in four weekly sprints

A developer and a project manager in one-week sprints: the platform foundation and roles first, then form integration and profiles, then dashboards and projects, and finally matching and evaluations.

Results: a working proof of concept that replaces the manual back office

• Employer and candidate dashboards live, with projects, profiles, and evaluations in one place.

• Form responses captured automatically instead of processed by hand.

• AI candidate-to-project matching in place.

• A clear path to the next stage: automated reports and a full candidate feedback dashboard.

Have a process that works, but only as fast as your team can run it by hand? That's the gap we fill. Explore how:

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