Today, we’re excited to share how we’ve streamlined and accelerated our recruitment process by using an HR chatbot. It manages company information, job openings, resume collection, and test assignments— all through our hiring process automation system. Plus, it smoothly transfers the conversation to a human operator when needed.
The Painful Hiring Process
Previously, we spent a lot of time sorting resumes, communicating with applicants, copying and pasting information, sending test assignments, and answering repetitive questions. Our hiring process followed these steps:
- Someone from the team describes the role, conditions, and requirements for the candidate.
- We post the job vacancy on Telegram channels and job boards. The vacancy links to an Airtable form.
- In the first two to three days after posting a job, we receive around 100 resumes for each position. For specialized roles, such as SQL analysts or ML engineers, it’s difficult to assess candidates based on a single resume alone. Leaders and managers often craft well-written resumes, but many mid-level candidates, especially specialists, may not highlight the most relevant skills. As a result, the ideal candidate can easily be missed. To address this, we send test assignments to all 100 applicants.
- Our team uses Airtable for tracking, but applicants don't. This is where the major «copy-pasting» stage begins. We gather completed assignments and enter them into Airtable.
- Hiring management reviews the submissions in Airtable, rates them, and adds comments for each candidate.
- We copy feedback into an email and send it to the candidate, answering their questions about the company, position, employment terms, and more.
- We invite candidates who pass the test to an initial interview, and if they impress us, a final interview is scheduled.
- Finally, the much-awaited stage of sending an offer.
These eight steps involving a hundred candidates may seem straightforward, but they require a significant amount of manual work and tracking. We’d prefer to invest this time in our core activities, which can’t be put on hold during hiring. That’s why we’ve been looking to integrate hiring automation software—specifically, a chatbot.
Streamlining Recruitment with our HR-bot
Our team has been active since 2017, and for almost six years, we’ve been focused on hiring top talent. Last year, we launched our own chatbot development team, which has already helped numerous clients automate their business processes. Now, it’s our turn to streamline our own operations.
As a result, we’ve added a new team member: the HR-bot. We built it on our existing chatbot platform, using RASA for automated dialogues, Botfront for the visual interface, and Chatwoot for live operator support.
This is what the HR-bot looks like on our end:
This is what the HR-bot looks like on our end:
And here's how the user views the chatbot:
The HR-bot not only collects resumes but also answers questions, provides information about job openings, and shares details about our company. To make this possible, we created FAQ scenarios by categorizing common questions, drafting responses, and training the bot to understand user inquiries.
At any point during the conversation, users can access a menu to start a different dialogue, such as asking about job openings, submitting a resume, or uploading a completed test assignment. If the bot doesn't understand a question, it will offer to connect the user with a human. Additionally, applicants can request to speak with a human at any time, and the bot will transfer the conversation to our team.
During a conversation with a candidate, both the bot and the operator can switch roles as needed. The operator can pass the dialogue back to the bot, and the bot can transfer it back to the operator based on the situation or the applicant's request.
Our Hiring Tool's Interface
With the HR-bot in place, the hiring process is now clearer, faster, and more efficient.
Here's how it works:
1. We describe and post a job vacancy, asking applicants to respond using the HR-bot.
2. The candidate completes the chat, submits their resume and test assignment, which then appear in the Chatwoot interface.
3. Depending on the position, you can assign a team member to handle candidate communication in Chatwoot and review their test assignments.
2. The candidate completes the chat, submits their resume and test assignment, which then appear in the Chatwoot interface.
3. Depending on the position, you can assign a team member to handle candidate communication in Chatwoot and review their test assignments.
The reviewer in the Chatwoot admin panel can respond to candidates via Telegram and make internal notes accessible only to the team.
4. After reviewing resumes and test assignments, each team member sees candidates listed with their contact details in a convenient format. Candidates can be filtered by status: 'Awaiting First Interview', 'Awaiting Second Interview', 'Under Consideration', or 'Rejected', streamlining the screening process.
This approach reduces the risk of missing candidates, failing to provide feedback, or overlooking interview scheduling. Additionally, Chatwoot lists help us revisit candidates we liked but didn't hire. If a new position opens, we can easily reconnect with them.
How Automation Enhances Resume Management
With the HR-bot in place, we can now focus on other important tasks. Previously, processing 100 candidates took around 25 hours—about 15 minutes per candidate for tasks such as sending assignments, answering questions, receiving submissions, and providing feedback. Now, the chatbot handles all of these tasks with superior efficiency.
If you're looking for an HR-bot like ours for your company, we can create a customized solution to save you a significant amount of time. And if you found this article useful, then you'll enjoy exploring our experience developing a career website for one of our clients.