I. Introduction
For 25 years, Upwardly Global (UpGlo) has worked to help immigrants, refugees, and asylees restart their professional careers in the U.S. We have helped place over 35,000 jobseekers in thriving-wage roles, and our diverse network of alumni contribute more than $700 million annually to the U.S. economy.
Our work is anchored by our relationships with jobseekers, recruiters, and other stakeholders invested in the future of the workforce. We know that when immigrants contribute their talent and expertise to skill-aligned jobs, the results lift up the U.S. economy, strengthen communities, and radiate across generations.
This case study highlights a pilot project testing Upwardly Global Fetch, a custom integration with HiredScore AI for Recruiting. Upwardly Global Fetch uses a skills-first approach to match qualified immigrant professionals with open roles. Developed in collaboration with Workday, this initiative marries Upwardly Global’s nonprofit insight with groundbreaking technology from one of the industry’s most influential HR tech platforms.
II. Qualified but Overlooked: The Crisis for Global Talent
50% of recently arrived immigrants have at least a bachelor’s degree, yet 1 in 4 are unable to get a job at their skill level. This leaves more than 2 million work-authorized immigrant professionals unemployed or underemployed.
Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is reshaping the way employers hire. And as recruiters look for skill-aligned candidates with diversity of experience and mindshare, they are relying on AI systems that may exclude global talent. Digital screening tools and AI filters, while efficient, often overlook candidates whose credentials or career histories don’t contain certain keywords.
This results in a doctor from Afghanistan driving a taxi while rural hospitals face staffing crises, or a recruiter missing an opportunity to interview the engineer from Istanbul because AI didn’t recognize his university. It’s a phenomenon known as “brain waste,” which weakens innovation and slows economic growth.
By 2035, immigrants and their children will be the sole source of U.S. workforce growth. The need for AI-enabled, skills-first hiring tools could not be more critical; embracing this reality now ensures employers can meet future labor demands and build dynamic teams that reflect the American workforce.
III. A Smarter Way to Hire: Inclusive AI in Action
From the Source: Uncovering Recruiter Pain Points
In 2023, UpGlo set out to partner with employers nationwide to understand how we could help them diversify their talent pools and overcome barriers to finding and hiring immigrant jobseekers.
Over two dozen corporations participated in a series of sessions aimed at understanding these challenges and determining the kinds of solutions they wished existed.
“Understanding our partners’ needs was crucial,” said Mary Lee, National Director of Employer Engagement at Upwardly Global. “From the very beginning, we recognized that to provide valuable and sustainable solutions, we had to prioritize a customer-centric approach.”
Participating corporations identified needs including:
- Quick Candidate Identification: Finding the right candidates is challenging, especially with thousands of applicants. Fast identification of well-suited candidates streamlines the hiring process.
- Accurate Recommendations: Speed is valuable, but accuracy is critical. Shortlisting candidates with the right skills saves time, while missing well-matched candidates means untapped potential.
- Reduced Manual Work: Automating tasks like resume sorting frees up recruiters to focus on higher-value activities, such as engaging with and evaluating candidates more deeply.
- Seamless Integration: Solutions that integrate with existing HR systems ensure efficiency, data consistency, policy compliance, and easy adoption across the organization.
Employers united around a strong interest in AI-powered candidate job-matching solutions that could seamlessly integrate with existing hiring processes and software — specifically their Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). The goal? To streamline hiring practices by automatically identifying the best-fit candidates from large applicant pools, reducing manual screening time, enhancing hiring accuracy, and allowing HR staff to focus on engaging top talent and improving the candidate experience.
Workday: A Values-Driven Partner
Through experimentation with AI-powered solutions, we quickly learned that getting it right was complex. Two crucial factors clearly emerged that defined the effectiveness and impactfulness of AI solutions when applied to our use case:
- Human-Centric Design:
AI solutions must be designed with input from diverse users, including underserved communities like immigrants. The more design decisions reflect users’ lived experiences, the more effective the solutions are. - Robust Data: Effective AI models rely on algorithms trained on extensive, diverse datasets to ensure they work for all jobseekers, including foreign-born candidates. These lessons guided us to prioritize partners who demonstrated a commitment to inclusive design, real-world effectiveness, and broad data representation.
We were introduced to HiredScore AI for Recruiting, a Workday company, by a corporate partner and came to learn how their approach to transparency sets them apart from growing competitors.
Key components of Responsible AI at HiredScore include bias mitigation, transparency and explainability, human oversight, compliance, and privacy. As we came together over these shared values, we found we also share the goal of using AI to drive systemic change in hiring and create opportunities for marginalized groups that are often overlooked.
With HiredScore as our technology partner, we built a custom API (application programming interface) integration, one that focused on an underrepresented talent pool, and tested that AI data to ensure it would read our population with equity.
The Result: Introducing Upwardly Global Fetch
In partnership with Workday, Upwardly Global Fetch utilizes a custom-built API that pulls relevant profile data from Upwardly Global’s candidate database. Through the Fetch integration, recruiters and hiring managers gain seamless access to UpGlo’s talent alongside their existing candidate sources, thereby expanding and diversifying their talent pipelines without altering their workflow. It requires no new software or workflow changes and makes inclusive hiring practical at scale.
Key Features of Upwardly Global Fetch:
- Custom API integration: Seamlessly pulls qualified candidate profiles from Upwardly Global’s database into existing HiredScore workflows.
- Skills-first matching: AI-driven technology identifies candidates based on skills and qualifications.
- Automated candidate recommendations: Provides both active search capabilities and passive candidate suggestions based on job requirements.
- Zero workflow disruption: Integrates directly into existing recruitment processes without requiring changes to established workflows.
IV. Hiring Reimagined: Seamless Integration, Transformative Results
Pilot Implementation
We tested UpGlo Fetch in a pilot with Pfizer and Cummins to see how AI could expand talent pipelines for recruiters without adding cost or complexity. Because Upwardly Global Fetch integrates directly within Hiredscore, it immediately surfaced highly qualified immigrant professionals previously invisible to traditional filters.
Pilot Objectives
- Demonstrate how skills-first AI identifies underutilized talent.
- Reduce bias by removing credential-based filters.
- Test ease of integration and workflow efficiency.
- Measure placement rates and candidate visibility gains.
Strategic Insights
We focused on high-level takeaways to evaluate the success and scalability of our pilot. By understanding what drives adoption and efficiency, we can refine our approach and build systems that make inclusive hiring both practical and sustainable. Key learnings include:
- AI can amplify inclusion when paired with human oversight.
- Seamless integration encourages adoption across large organizations.
- Skills-based matching improves efficiency and inclusion simultaneously.
During the pilot, we performed regular qualitative analysis that validated Fetch’s performance: the algorithm consistently recommended roles that aligned with candidates’ skills, experience, and professional backgrounds. This is especially significant for highly skilled immigrants who are often underemployed in positions far below their qualifications.
The pilot also tested whether employees could access skilled immigrant talent without adding complexity to their existing hiring systems, and our findings demonstrate that the HiredScore AI platform integrates seamlessly into recruitment workflows at Pfizer and Cummins. Recruiters did not need to learn new systems or use separate databases; instead, they accessed Upwardly Global’s talent pool directly through the platforms they already use.
What’s to come?
V. Conclusion
As demand for qualified candidates to fill vacancies grows and AI revolutionizes recruitment, the question is not whether to use AI, but how to use it in an ethical manner. Through our pilot, we are demonstrating that ethical AI can uncover global talent that is often hidden in plain view, helping to bridge the gap between skilled immigrants and employers who need their knowledge and experience.
While the development of ethical AI matching tools is a critical step forward, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Lasting impact requires adoption and ongoing education, as well as human-powered training and oversight to ensure technology translates to equitable outcomes. Upwardly Global is committed to using AI strategically and responsibly — pairing innovation with human insight to drive systemic change.
“We are thrilled that our partnership with Workday unlocks one solution to the challenge we’ve been tackling for 25 years,” said Alice Kang, President of Upwardly Global.
“Leveraging ethical AI as a strategic tool to drive progress is a priority for Upwardly Global. Upwardly Global Fetch greatly enhances our ability to serve our employer partners and open doors for immigrant professionals whose talents deserve to be recognized — and whose skills are essential to a vibrant, resilient workforce.”
Upwardly Global is on the leading edge of this movement, proving that inclusive technology can be a powerful force for good. We invite employers, donors, and fellow nonprofits to join us in expanding this work. Together, we can transform AI from a barrier into a bridge, creating a future where global talent is acknowledged and celebrated for driving innovation and growth.
