How AI can boost your staffing operations

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Meet Jamie, an AI-powered virtual recruiter that can transform your business to deliver quality candidates at scale — and fast.
When TalentBurst, a provider of workforce management solutions, found it was at risk of missing its 2023 staffing revenue growth targets, leaders knew they needed to speed up placements. For help, they turned to a virtual recruiter powered by artificial intelligence.

“Speed at scale is the most powerful combination in staffing, and also the hardest problem to solve,” says Ashwarya Poddar, founder and CEO of ConverzAI, which provides the Voice AI solution TalentBurst engaged. “If you can reach candidates faster, you can get top talent. If you can qualify them faster, you make more money. If you onboard candidates faster, you cash in faster.”

TalentBurst tested the Voice AI platform with a limited number of positions, then quickly ramped up.

“The platform screened 5,000 applicants in under three days,” says Baljit Gill, TalentBurst’s founder and chief operating officer. “That’s 5,000 warm leads that could be converted into submittals and starts.”

The results illustrate the transformational potential of AI: TalentBurst saw a 40% year-over-year jump in placements and $9.5 million revenue increase. Today, TalentBurst submits over 160 candidates per week who were qualified by Voice AI.
Other staffing firms are anticipating similarly profound impacts from AI. According to research from Staffing Industry Analysts, 80% of staffing firms expect AI to have a positive impact on their business. Industry employees are already embracing it: 42% say they have used it in their staffing job in the past year. And staffing industry leaders expect AI to replace nearly 40% of recruiting cycle activities within three years, starting with candidate screening, selection and redeployment.
Figure 1. Staffing industry leaders expect AI to replace nearly 40% of recruiting cycle activities within three years, starting with candidate screening, selection and redeployment.

Source: How the staffing industry can prepare for the AI revolution, Staffing Industry Analysts

“We are standing on the brink of a technological revolution,” Poddar says. “It’s not just about faster computers or larger databases anymore. It’s about using a new set of AI tools that can completely transform your business and the entire staffing industry.”

Demystifying AI’s Benefits
AI recruiters can boost many aspects of staffing firms’ performance, such as increasing both topline revenue and profit margins, accelerating time to hire, improving the candidate experience and maximizing the value of the candidate database by keeping it up to date.
While AI enabled TalentBurst to recover from its slow start to 2023 and meet its growth targets for the year, other staffing firms have found similar benefits, notably through the use of the AI-powered virtual recruiter known as Jamie:
Recruiting speed at scale and a $10 million revenue boost. Integrity Staffing Solutions faced tremendous variations in scale based on clients’ fluctuating needs. With the firm’s human recruiters reaching maximum capacity at times, the firm tested Jamie to qualify candidates.
Within minutes, Jamie reached out to candidates across phone, email and text channels for their screening conversation, invited them to complete the onboarding paperwork and passed them on to a human recruiter. The result: 15,600 interested candidates identified, over 2,000 job offers, a $10 million increase in revenue — and an excellent candidate experience.
Figure 2. ConverzAI’s Voice AI recruiter can communicate with candidates through voice, text or email. Source: ConverzAI

“The candidate was assigned a role within an hour and a half of applying. We got a record number of starts in a short time,” says Todd Bavol, co-founder and CEO. “I was worried this was going to be a case where the [candidate would be] screaming, ‘Operator! I want to talk to a live person!’ during the call. But it couldn’t have been further from the truth.”

Longer assignments due to higher-quality candidates. I.K. Hoffman, a global staffing organization, engaged Jamie to meet high volumes for its light industrial automotive clients.
Jamie called candidates quickly and conducted interviews of up to 22 minutes. The results were immediately sent to the recruiting team and added to the applicant tracking system. For candidates who weren’t available, Jamie followed up via voicemail, email and text.

“When you apply for a job and never hear back, that’s the worst experience you can have,” said Romy Lindner, director of project management office for I.K. Hoffman. A properly designed AI recruiting system is transparent, consistent and always available, connecting with candidates when and how they prefer.

With Voice AI, I.K. Hoffman attracted top talent to its clients by reaching the candidates first and providing them a superior experience — candidates rated Jamie at over 4.3 stars out of 5. This in turn nearly doubled the average length of assignment.

Advice for a Smooth AI Deployment

What does it take to get the most out of AI? Experts offer tips based on their experience:
  • Start small but move quickly. Careful planning is important, as is starting with a small-scale test. The system should be easy to implement and fit into your organization’s workflow — and its value should be quickly apparent. Once that happens, scale up quickly.
  • Build support at all levels of the firm. Executives need to articulate the vision for the technology and celebrate early wins. But having a few handpicked recruiters experiment with AI-enabled recruiting — and share their enthusiasm for it — is also essential.
  • Maximize the value the firm gets from AI. Virtual recruiters that can converse with candidates make for impressive conversation starters. But don’t overlook the less flashy features of AI, such as increasing the value of candidate databases by analyzing their contents and keeping them up to date. This can lead to more opportunities for candidates and more revenue for the staffing firm.
  • Don’t neglect the system’s users. It can be challenging to get employees to use new technology. Strong business operations leaders are essential for driving change management — and for helping recruiters see that AI can make them more productive by giving them more time to focus on candidate relationships.
  • Keep an eye on compliance. Inevitably, regulators and legislators will put legal guardrails around AI, so it’s important to be sure the systems you use avoid implicit bias — and to continually review consent forms, privacy policies and terms and conditions with legal counsel.

To see how AI can propel your operations, contact ConverzAI at team@converzai.com or Request a Demo.