DBS will sharply increase its hiring of relationship managers in Asia this year. Candidates will undergo a dramatically different recruitment process.

Singapore's largest bank will increase the number of relationship managers for mass affluent clients it aims to recruit this year by 40 percent, the bank said on Thursday. To support its human resources department, the lender has rolled out Southeast Asia’s first virtual banking recruiter – Jim.

Jim, an acronym for «Jobs Intelligence Maestro», was custom-built to meet the needs of DBS’ recruiters and is the brainchild of Singapore start-up Impress.AI and DBS’ talent acquisition team.

Digital Acclaim

The virtual recruiter is powered by artificial intelligence and over time learns to make better assessments in screening candidates. In pilot since April this year, the technology has helped DBS recruiters to review resumes, collect applicants’ responses for pre-screening questions, and conduct psychometric profiling assessments on candidates.

Over the next few months, Jim will be available in DBS’ core markets of Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and India for wealth planning manager roles.

DBS recently hiked its first-quarter net income by a quarter in part due to productivity gains from spending cuts and the wider adoption of digitization across it business.