A Quick Look at Dex:
Dex is an AI-powered recruitment matchmaker focused specifically on software engineers and tech talent. Founded by former Atomico VC executives and backed by a16z, Dex acts as a two-sided marketplace: "Jack" (the AI career agent) works with candidates via conversational voice/chat to understand their goals and apply on their behalf, while the company-facing side matches hiring teams with a small number of highly aligned, motivated candidates.
The Mokka Difference:
Dex is building a curated talent marketplace for tech roles. Mokka empowers your internal recruiting team to screen your entire applicant pipeline—including the unique candidates who only apply to you.
- Your Pipeline vs. Shared Marketplace: Mokka evaluates 100% of your inbound applicants with custom screening criteria. With Dex, you're competing with other companies for the same pre-vetted talent pool, and you lose access to candidates who only applied directly to your company.
- Build Your Team vs. Outsource Recruiting: Mokka strengthens your internal TA function with tools and data ownership. Dex is a marketplace service where the AI agent owns the candidate relationship, not your recruiters.
- Your Brand, Your Voice: With Mokka, candidates interact with a screening process you control and that represents your employer brand. With Dex, an AI agent you don't control represents your company to candidates—you have no say in how it communicates, what promises it makes, or how it positions your culture.
- Candidate Choice and Comfort: Mokka gives candidates the choice to respond via text, voice, or video—meeting them where they're comfortable. Dex's "Jack" AI agent conducts conversational interviews on its terms, not the candidate's preference.
- All Roles vs. Tech-Only: Dex focuses exclusively on software engineering roles. Mokka screens knowledge workers across all functions—marketing, operations, finance, product, customer success, and yes, engineering too.
- Custom Fit vs. Generic Matching: Mokka screens against your specific role requirements and company culture. Dex provides candidates it deems "highly aligned" based on its own matching algorithm.
Key Questions to Consider:
- What happens to candidates who apply directly to your careers page but aren't in Dex's marketplace? How do you screen them?
- If Dex presents a candidate to you and your competitor simultaneously, who wins? How do you differentiate?
- How comfortable are you with an AI agent you don't control representing your employer brand to candidates?
- When you stop using a marketplace service, do you lose access to the candidate data and relationships you've built?