10+ Best Recruiting and HR Chatbots - 2024
An unbiased look at the top HR and recruiting chatbots along with the essential use cases, pitfalls, and more
Best Recruiting and HR Chatbots
HR chatbots are automated conversational agents that assist in recruiting and HR tasks, engaging with candidates, answering inquiries, and streamlining processes. They can take care of repeatable and straightforward functions so that your HR staff are freed up to concentrate on higher-level assignments.
But which HR chatbot is the best fit for your business? Which features are must-haves, and which are overkill? Our HR experts have demoed, reviewed, and compared the best tools available to help you answer these questions
We select this shortlist of the best recruiting and HR chatbots by simply testing the tools, keeping in touch with their product teams, demoing when they have something new to show (which, in the AI space, is very often), and talking to our community of HR experts. We also gathered user feedback from several platforms.
Three key factors on which we compare these HR chatbot tools are the AI engine behind the conversational interface, the user-friendliness of the interaction, and its automation capabilities.
- AI Engine: Artificial Intelligence is regularly used as a buzzword, so you have to be cautious of what companies mean when they say they are “leveraging AI.” The companies here are not afraid to shed light on what they have under the hood when it comes to this tech. Vendors with a bunch of manual backend processes under the guise of AI get a hard pass from us.
- Ease of Use: Of course, once the AI capabilities are actually leveraged, they are hardly helpful if the interaction is clunky, prone to confusion, and cognitively heavy. We select tools with aesthetic interfaces that are easy to figure out, with chatbots that come across as friendly and warm while not trying to hide the fact that they are not actually human.
- Automation: All of the above counts for little if it’s not saving you tons of time by taking over specific tasks and doing them properly. The tools we pick are all fairly impressive in their capabilities for handling myriads of recruiting and in-house HR tasks. Some may not blow your mind in the age of ChatGPT, but they are more than decent for the price point.
Whether you’re a solopreneur, a recruitment agency, or the head of a massive HR department, there are at least a couple of options here you’ll want to check out.
For more specifics on how we vet tech vendors, here’s a blog covering our in-depth assessment process.
Olivia
Humanly
myInterview
MeBeBot
Radancy
Ideal
HireVue
Eightfold
Espressive
Symphony Talent
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Olivia
Paradox distinguishes itself through its exceptional implementation team and the pioneering AI assistant, Olivia. Olivia's unique approach involves text-based interactions with job candidates, setting Paradox apart in the realm of Recruiting and HR chatbots.
PROS
- Their implementation and customer service is very efficient and accessible. You will not only get a Customer Success Manager to help you with every step during your implementation phase but your issues will also likely be resolved within the same day. Unlike many vendors, you can contact their support team via phone and explain your issue in real-time.
- It’s very time-saving and cuts down on back-and-forth communication between job candidates and recruiters. As Derek B, Head of Recruitment at a large-sized enterprise puts it, “Olivia helped us shave our response time from 7 days to under 24 hours. This time saving ensured that the applicants we chose to interview were the best of the bunch.”
- Olivia, their AI chatbot is programmed to respond to candidates in a way that feels personal, as if a real person is responding. What’s even better is that despite complete automation, you can see all chats and manually override them if need be.
CONS
- Although you can get some data and feedback about your company and its processes, analytics is not very robust in Paradox. If you’re looking for advanced features that let you slice and dice your data in various ways, you’ll have to look for other applications.
- Their AI assistant is intelligent and has a human touch but at the end of the day, Olivia is still AI. At times when you want nuanced answers in conversations, you’ll have to manually operate the chat.
Paradox’s flagship product is their HR chatbot, Olivia, named after the founder’s wife. The founding team at Paradox hated the idea of building a lifeless, robotic recruiting chatbot so they named their product after a real person in hopes of giving it some personality. Interestingly, the chatbot’s profile picture is the actual Olivia’s picture upon which the chatbot is based.
Olivia performs an array of HR tasks including scheduling interviews, screening, sending reminders, and registering candidates for virtual career fairs – all without needing the intervention of the recruiter.
Unilever, McDonald’s, Amazon, 3M, CVS Health, Nestlé, Lowe’s
Paradox adopts a personalized pricing approach. For a tailored quote aligned with your company's dimensions, you'll need to arrange a demo. Upon submitting a demo request on their official site, their team promptly responds within a single business day. Through this engagement, they gain insights into your team's specific challenges, subsequently arranging a customized demo session.
Best For
Paradox caters to large-scale organizations immersed in a steady influx of job candidates.
Humanly
Humanly's HR chatbot for professional volume and early career hiring is simple, personalized, and quick to deploy. You can automate tasks like screening, scheduling, engagement, and reference checks using this chatbot.
PROS
- Humanly’s interface is easy to navigate, both for candidates and hiring managers.
- The platform facilitates candidate sourcing from LinkedIn, Indeed, Facebook, and other platforms, with a seamless organization in ATSs such as Bullhorn, ADP, Greenhouse, Lever, and more.
- Its ability to automate the initial screening and interview scheduling process saves hiring teams a significant amount of time.
- You can take notes and view interview transcripts that Humanly generates and stores for you.
- Users highly commend the helpfulness and responsiveness of Humanly's customer support team.
- Humanly leverages a huge database of candidates to present you with talent from all corners of the globe. You can also source new ones through their Chrome extension while browsing sites like LinkedIn and GitHub.
- The Humanly tool integrates with hundreds of ATSs, providing an upgrade to your sourcing that won’t require you to switch tools.
- Generative AI is cleverly implemented for messaging candidates, automating campaigns, and ranking candidates at various stages of the hiring funnel, yet a human can step in and take over at any time.
- Their reporting module is among the cleanest and most in-depth we’ve seen for this kind of tool.
CONS
- The platform lacks a mechanism for candidates to reschedule interviews if necessary.
- Interview reminders are not currently sent to candidates or interviewers from Humanly.
- The range of prebuilt third-party integrations isn’t impressive.
- Pricing information isn’t publicly disclosed, and free plans / free trials aren’t offered either.
- Since it’s a tool that was relaunched after a company acquisition, there might be some changes in the near future that could impact your workflows.
- The price point might be a bit steep for smaller teams, but they do offer custom prices based on the functionality you need and the number of users.
Humanly.io’s AI recruiting platform comes with a chatbot that can streamline various parts of your recruitment process. Specifically designed for mid-market companies, this chatbot is easy to implement and helps efficiently engage candidates, screen them, and schedule their interviews while maintaining a DEI-friendly approach. Additionally, the platform seamlessly integrates with your Applicant Tracking System (ATS), eliminating the need for manual data entry in separate systems.
What we’ve found particularly interesting about Humanly.io is that it can use data from your performance management system to continuously improve candidate screening, which leads to even better hiring decisions. Overall, we think Humanly is worth considering if you're a mid-market company looking to leverage AI in your recruitment process.
The Key, Microsoft, Fazoli’s, Mossadams, and World Flight Services are a few of the companies among Humanly’s clientele.
Humanly’s pricing is disclosed upfront. You may contact their Sales team for a price quote.
Best For
Because of what it does, we think Humanly is best suited for medium and large businesses needing to screen and interview a high volume of applicants.
We use Humanly to assist us with our recruitment efforts. The tools support us with candidate vetting, interview scheduling, and post-interview documentation. We also utilize the automated candidate follow-up tools to aid in our relationship management efforts. Once we began utilizing the tools, we saw improvements in our relationships with candidates and decreases in the loss of candidates during the application and hiring process. Humanly has also been helpful in assisting us with tracking recruitment metrics and trends for KPI purposes.
The candidate interview scheduling option is very useful in streamlining the interview process. The candidate notifications have played a key role in providing relevant information to candidates regarding positions and the hiring process. The candidate tracking metrics provide insightful data that can be very beneficial to organizations.
Our small recruitment team was struggling to create solid applicant pools for vacant positions within our organization. We were also missing opportunities to hire qualified candidates in a timely manner because of our highly compliant-driven, paper-intensive hiring and interview process. Our time-to-fill rates were continually increasing, creating a very frustrating environment for the hiring departments, candidates, and our recruitment team. We needed a way to streamline our processes.
Humanly helped us by providing a platform to support the automation of our candidate interviewing and selection process, including ways to reduce our manual documentation steps. During the three years since it was implemented at our organization, Humanly allowed our recruitment team to refocus their efforts on sourcing candidates and relationship building to fill vacancies more effectively and efficiently.
The integration of data may be more challenging with some ATS systems than with others. Our organization experienced several issues in this area, as the process was not as straightforward as we anticipated.
Humanly is not much different from its competitors in terms of the types of tools it provides. Where it shines is in the overall ease of using its tools and the service provided to users.
When considering this type of tool, people should identify the specific service gaps they need to address and how the implementation of this tool will help solve them. Research plays a critical role in this process. Many companies offer similar options, so conducting due diligence is key to finding a company that provides the necessary tools, service, support, and price to fit your needs.
I'm not sure how the tool has changed over time.
Humanly can be beneficial for any type of user or organization.
None that I can think of.
myInterview
We think myInterview chatbot’s talent analytics is one of the best, as it considers both hard and soft skills, as well as personality, language, and other intangibles when shortlisting candidates.
PROS
- Mobile-friendly conversation AI for candidate pre-assessment, scheduling coordination, and post-interview analysis.
- Integrates with myInterview video interview suite.
- SOC2 and ISO compliant.
- myInterview has a neat screening feature that can sift through thousands of video submissions and identify suitable candidates not only based on skills, but also personality.
- The platform provides analytics that help you understand how well your current application process is working, so that you can make improvements as needed.
- It lets you add instant candidate ratings so you’re able to compare candidates and make data-based decisions.
- myInterview lets you create a branded, customized interview process. You can choose from their library of pre-recorded questions, or create your own.
- myInterview ensures that all your interviewers have access to the same information about each candidate. This is so they’re all asking the same questions and given a fair chance at evaluating each candidate's answers.
CONS
- Recently launched so less mature than some competitors.
- Currently supports English only.
- No free trial. Undisclosed pricing.
- A few users have noted that myInterview doesn't offer many customization options. For example, you can't customize the email templates without contacting support.
- myInterview currently doesn’t have a mobile app neither for hiring managers or candidates.
- Though they do have a free forever plan, it is limited to only 1 active job post at a time.
Taira, the newly launched myInterview chatbot, truly impressed us with how it handled a variety of recruiting tasks.
We like that from the very beginning, the chatbot has presented itself as a dependable virtual assistant. It maintains a friendly manner while listening to candidate interests, guiding them toward relevant information, and suggesting job openings that best fit their profiles.
When Taira teams up with its sibling, the video interviewing suite, she becomes even more capable. You won’t need to set up interviews, send reminders, or vet applicants one by one. The AI can do all these things for you. She even excels in analyzing the interviewees' body language, tone of voice, and other nonverbal cues. This combo of Taira’s deep candidate screens and myInterview video interview technologies is extremely helpful when you have so many applicants in the pipeline yet so little time to vet.
Of course, the AI isn't helpful if the interactions are confusing or clunky. Thankfully, Taira remains approachable and accommodating 24/7 via browsers and mobile devices, while not trying to hide the fact that it’s not a human being.
However, Taira's capabilities are limited to assisting users who primarily communicate in English. Additionally, being a recent entrant means the HR chatbot is much less experienced compared to conversational AI veterans like Olivia by Paradox. For that reason, we were hoping for a test drive before committing, but unfortunately, myInterview neither offers such a deal nor discloses its AI pricing.
Specific customer names are unavailable since the chatbot just launched. But as part of the myInterview video interview suite, it likely serves the same mid-market and enterprise customers.
myInterview chat bot has custom pricing.
Best For
myInterview chatbot is great for midsized organizations hiring for entry-level and seasonal roles.
We use myInterview daily as an integral part of our recruitment process. The platform is employed mainly for initial candidate screenings, enabling us to handle large volumes of applications efficiently. We design custom interview templates and questions tailored to specific job roles to ensure a consistent evaluation process. The AI-powered analysis helps us identify candidates with the right soft skills and personality traits. Additionally, we use the integration features with our HRIS to streamline data management, enhancing the overall efficiency of our hiring workflows.
The AI-powered video screening saves our recruiters significant time by automating the initial assessment process. The platform's integration capabilities with our HRIS streamline data management and improve efficiency. Customizable interview templates and questions ensure a standardized and thorough evaluation of candidates.
To address the inefficiencies in our clients' hiring processes, especially the time-consuming nature of initial candidate screenings, we needed a solution that could handle high-volume applications efficiently while providing deeper insights into candidates' soft skills and personalities. myInterview offered AI-powered video screening, which automated much of the initial assessment, saving our recruiting team time and resources. The platform's integration capabilities with our existing HRIS were also a bonus. We have been using myInterview for approximately one year, and it has greatly improved our clients' hiring workflow.
Our recruiters have provided feedback that the AI analysis, while helpful, can sometimes miss nuances that only a human recruiter might catch.
While other tools offer broader customization and additional onboarding tools, we prefer myInterview for its robust AI-powered video screening, which provides deeper insights into our candidates' soft skills and personalities. The combination of AI analysis and seamless integration capabilities makes myInterview the preferred choice for our recruiters. This ensures a more efficient and insightful hiring process, allowing us to make informed decisions quickly.
Ensure the platform is intuitive for both recruiters and candidates to avoid deterring usage that would then slow down the hiring process. Look for tools with robust AI capabilities that provide valuable insights into candidates' soft skills and personalities, enhancing decision-making. Check if the tool integrates well with your existing HRIS and payroll systems for efficient onboarding and seamless data management.
Consider features that improve the candidate experience, such as flexible recording times and user-friendly interfaces. Ensure the tool can scale with your company's growth and offers customizable options to meet specific hiring needs.
Since we began using myInterview, the platform has continuously improved its AI algorithms, which are essential for accurate candidate analysis. Additionally, the user interface has become more intuitive, making it easier for both recruiters and candidates to navigate.
myInterview is particularly well-suited for organizations that handle high volumes of applications and need to streamline their initial screening processes. For our RPO division, it is ideal for medium to large companies with growing recruitment needs, especially those in tech-savvy industries.
myInterview may not be a good fit for small businesses with limited budgets or organizations that prefer traditional, in-person interview processes every step of the way.
MeBeBot
MeBeBot is a no-code chatbot whose main function is helping IT, HR, and Ops teams set up an internal knowledge base with a conversational interface. It integrates seamlessly with various tech and can provide push messaging, pulse surveys, analytics, and more.
PROS
- No-code tool, easy to maintain. The customer portal makes it very straightforward to find and edit your knowledge base and keep the chatbot up to date.
- If an area of your knowledge center is in the works, we found it simple to set up placeholders for the entire topic.
- SOC-certified for data privacy
- Support is now offered in multiple languages
- 4-6 weeks implementation
- API availability
- No-code tool, easy to maintain. The customer portal makes it very straightforward to find and edit your knowledge base and keep the chatbot up to date.
- If an area of your knowledge center is in the works, we found it simple to set up placeholders for the entire topic.
- SOC-certified for data privacy
- 4-6 weeks implementation
- API availability
CONS
- Not a good match for companies with less than 250 employees
- Mainly aimed for companies that use Slack and/or Teams
- Not a good match for companies with less than 250 employees
- Mainly aimed for companies that use Slack and/or Teams
- No multi-lingual support at the moment
MeBeBot started in 2019 as an AI Intelligent Assistant (as an App in Slack and Teams) so that employees could get instant, accurate answers from IT, HR, and Ops. The goal has always been to help companies develop a robust library of questions and set up a conversational interface where employees can find answers in an easy manner. This way, HR and IT support don’t get bombarded with the common and repetitive questions they answer several times a year.
The tool has grown into a no-code chatbot that can live within more platforms. It crowdsources its questions and answers from your existing knowledge base, and you now get a portal where you can get admin access to this growing database.
We were able to see this inside and out during a demo with one of their team members, and found the platform to be a noteworthy twist on an internal knowledge base. It can effectively function as a screen for customer support queries, and can also replace traditional survey tools.
Further, since employees access it through the tools they already use for collaboration (Slack and Teams, for instance), engagement rates for customers have been known to spike after MeBeBot’s swift implementation.
As of early 2023, MeBeBot is accessed by over 22,000 employees globally, MeBeBot currently partners with employers including: Epicor, e2open, Ziff Davis (RetailMeNot, Spiceworks, IGN, and more), HireVue, Abrigo, CrowdStreet, Terminal, Massage Envy, Toyota Insurance Management Solutions, Care.com and IGT.
MeBeBot is sold as an annual SaaS subscription license. The average pricing is $2.00-$5.00 per employee per month (tiered, based on number of employees), and $250-1,000 per month for AI Portal license. There are no implementation fees.
There’s no free trial, but employers interested in the tool should ask about the MeBeBot paid pilot program.
Best For
Companies growing fast in sectors like technology, finance, and consulting, or similar.
Radancy
Radancy's recruiting chatbot lets you save time by having live chats with qualified candidates anytime, anywhere. One of its standout features is that the chatbot provides candidates with replies in not only text but also video form.
PROS
- Excellent customer support, particularly through chat assistance for prompt responses and step-by-step guidance in setting up online events.
- Monthly calls held between customers and dedicated account representatives to ensure smooth operations.
- Quick response time to customer queries, typically within the same day.
- Radancy is also a virtual career fair platform. They can provide multiple booths for attendees to interact with employers via text, voice, and, of course, chat.
- Detailed analytics and data are provided before, during, and after each event, including information on signups, candidates, attendance, and other relevant metrics.
- They perform regular updates and feature releases based on client and end-user feedback.
- Their customer support is great, especially the chat support. When it comes to creating online events, their team would give you a step-by-step walkthrough of the entire process. Every month, their team arranges a monthly call between their customers and their appointed account representative to make sure everything is working fine. Their response time for customer queries is also fairly quick and you will usually hear back from them within the same day.
- Radancy makes networking easier. There are multiple networking booths for events where attendees can talk to employers via text, voice, or chat. Attendees can also easily switch between different booths.
- Before, after, and during each event, you’re provided with detailed analytics and data about signups, candidates, attendance, and other such metrics.
- Their team comes up with updates on a frequent basis and not only asks for client feedback but also takes end-user feedback into mind when rolling out new features.
CONS
- Limited customizability, particularly with system automated emails for events, which restricts the ability to showcase brand voice.
- The built-in audio and video tool may be less stable compared to other popular video conferencing tools. Occasional bugs were reported.
- Initial setup can be confusing, requiring trial and error to optimize the structure and maximize the benefits of virtual events.
- Lack of transparency in pricing, with no availability of self-signup free trials at the moment.
- Customizations are limited. For instance, emails for the events are system automated and that can limit you from displaying your voice and brand.
- Compared to other popular video conferencing tools, Radancy’s built-in audio and video tool is not as stable and there can be occasional bugs.
- Initial setup can be a little confusing and it takes some trial and error to figure out a structure that helps you make the most out of your virtual events.
- The pricing of the platform isn’t transparent and self-signup free trials aren’t available at this time.
Radancy is primarily a virtual hiring events platform and RadancyBot, their HR chatbot is one of the recruiting solutions they offer in their suite of products. RadancyBot performs multiple functions including promoting your career events, answering candidates’ frequently asked questions, and routing qualified candidates to chat with the hiring manager.
One interesting feature about Radancy’s chatbot is that it provides replies to candidates not only in text but also in video format.
Radancy serves universities, companies, associations, workforce development organizations, and more. Notable customers include Spectrum, CVS Health, Temple University, KPMG, Lincoln Financial Group, and Houston Methodist.
Pricing is not disclosed upfront. You have to request a price quote by filling out a form online with details about your company.
Best For
Radancy works best for large organizations, such as universities or large companies, with hiring needs that are ongoing and high in volume.
It’s a good potential choice for those who want a chatbot to automate certain tasks and route qualified candidates to real conversations. If you’re looking for a ‘smarter’ chatbot that can be trained and has more modern AI capabilities, their current offering may not satisfy your needs.
Ideal
Ideal lives up to its name. It's an exemplary recruitment chatbot that lets you send questionnaires, gauge a candidate's competency based on the replies, and help you screen qualified candidates.
PROS
CONS
Ideal’s chatbot saves recruiting time by screening and staging candidates throughout the hiring process, all done through their AI powered assistant. Also worth checking out is their ATS re-discovery product which will go into your ATS, see who is a good fit for your existing reqs, resurface/contact them, screen them, and put them in front of your recruiters.
Bell, Dish, Staples, Novant Health, Purolator.
Pricing and plans are not disclosed on the vendor's website.
Best For
Ideal is made for high-volume hiring in any industry.
HireVue
Although more of a video interviewing tool, HireVue also excels at providing AI-powered chat interviews to automate the screening process of numerous candidates. This can translate to an up to 4 times faster time-to-hire.
PROS
- HireVue’s text-based virtual assistant can match candidates to good-fitting jobs while providing a conversational interaction.
- On top of this, the software does pack on-demand video interviewing, which means recruiters can catch the interviews asynchronously and zero in on certain key moments of the conversation.
- HireVue is also notable for the responsiveness of the implementation and customer support teams.
- HireVue is very useful when it comes to screening a large number of job candidates in a short frame of time. Its virtual assistant can do an initial screen of applicants on its own, leave messages for them, and get responses in return. All of this frees up recruiters’ time.
- It has a great on-demand interviewing feature. Recruiters can sit and watch candidates’ interviews as per their convenience. The ability to change the speed of the interview while watching can also help recruiters save time.
- Their implementation team and customer support is extremely responsive or in the words of a Global Talent Attraction Director, “I love the support, tenacity and just constant desire to do the right thing. They take the time to understand our business and I never feel like it is a ‘catch and release’ relationship that is so common in this space”
CONS
- When compared to similar software, HireVue is not the most affordable bet. Their pricing is aimed at companies with more than 2,500 employees, so it’s not precisely SMB-friendly.
- We’ve found that the integrations they offer are limited, as they mostly connect to popular ATS products.
- For those looking for a simpler text-based screening tool, HireVue might pack more than they need.
- HireVue is not very affordable compared to its alternatives, especially when you factor in the functionality. Their pricing plans are geared towards companies with at least 2500 employees and even then, you only get a small set of features.
- HireVue does not have a lot of integration partners and the range of software it integrates with is also very limited (mostly ATS).
- Too much automation can at times lead to unwanted candidates. For instance, the asynchronous interview feature can allow candidates to adjust their responses in order to fit the job criteria. However, HireVue wouldn’t screen such candidates out and your company may need human intervention to pick up on visual cues and body language.
HireVue is a hiring software that’s powered by AI. Their HR chatbot makes use of text messages to converse with job candidates and has a variety of use cases. Their chat-based job matching can help you widen your talent pool by finding the most suitable candidate for a particular opening. After a candidate initially chats with HireVue’s HR chatbot, HireVue continues conversing with them throughout their hiring lifecycle. It schedules, sends reminders, and reschedules with candidates on its own, thereby saving your time and bandwidth.
HireVue has customers in a variety of industries ranging from aviation to retail. Some popular names include Amazon, Unilever, Vodafone, Beacon Health System, SmartLynx Airlines, The Co-operative Bank, and National Safety Apparel.
HireVue has two pricing plans:
- Essentials: This plan starts at $35,000 per month for a company with 2500-7500 employees. It includes live and on-demand interviewing features, custom branding, and single language configuration.
- Enterprise: This plan is suitable for companies with over 7500 employees. Pricing is custom and you would have to request a demo to receive a quote. In addition to all the features of the Essentials plan, this plan comes with scheduling, chatbot, pre-built ATS integrations, analytics, among others.
Best For
HireVue is a great bet for large organizations with ongoing hiring needs.
We use Hirevue to screen candidates for our customer service positions in our retail stores. We can populate our own questions, indicate how long they will have to read and respond to each, and specify if they can retake them. Hirevue allows us to add comments and review candidates so that if they apply again, we know what happened or why they were not selected. We can also provide an immediate response if someone was selected for the role or not. This tool is used regularly as part of our hiring process.
It saves us a lot of time to focus on other tasks. We can find great candidates faster. It helps the company save money by not having to hire extra help for scheduling phone screens.
My company bought Hirevue to screen candidates faster and decrease the time to fill all customer service-related positions. This tool is a great addition to our recruitment team because we save time by not having to phone screen or interview. Hirevue allows us to streamline our hiring process, making it more efficient. We have been using this tool for about a year, and it has significantly improved our hiring workflow. Personally, I have used Hirevue since it was implemented and have found it to be very effective.
There are times when the video malfunctions and we cannot see the candidate, which can be frustrating. It would be helpful if Hirevue could detect if the camera is not working or if the camera is covered. This way, candidates could correct the issue before submitting their responses.
Hirevue offers more options to make the experience unique for candidates, such as a welcome message and automated emails for scheduling interviews. It also has reminders for candidates to complete their interviews, which can be set up by the employer. These features enhance the overall candidate experience.
The key buying criteria for this tool would be the options for customization, reliability, and easy of manage. Customization really comes down to the experience of the candidates who go through these video interviews. You really want to be able to customize the welcome page and/or welcome emails to reflect the culture of the company. The reliability of this system is a no-brainer as this is something we expect from any system we use.
Lastly, having a system that is easy to manage is probably one of my biggest criteria. Hirevue is a system that anyone can learn to use rather quickly, especially for candidates. Doing a video interview where you need to record yourself for this new chapter in your life can be very nerve-wracking. Not having to worry about how to work this tool when you have to do this interview helps a lot!
Hirevue has prioritized making the system easily customizable, which truly makes a difference.
Hirevue is very good for companies that hire large numbers of entry-level or customer service positions.
Hirevue might not be suitable for companies that don't hire often, unless they do not have a specific person for recruitment or HR. It is most beneficial for organizations that are constantly hiring or need to decrease the time to fill positions.
Eightfold
Eightfold’s AI chatbot can answer candidates' questions on your behalf. The chatbot can also help interviewers schedule interviews, manage feedback, and alert candidates as they progress through the hiring process.
PROS
- Eightfold's AI technology analyzes job postings to find well-fitting candidates and ranks them based on skills and potential.
- You can filter candidate searches by experience or salary range to focus on suitable matches.
- Their anonymous screening feature attempts to reduce unconscious biases during screening.
- Tailored training opportunities based on individual skills and interests
- Eightfold uses AI technology to analyze your job postings and find the best fitting candidates. It can also rank those candidates based on their skills, experience and potential.
- You can filter candidate searches by experience level or salary range so that you only see candidates that fit your hiring criteria.
- The platform encourages diversity hiring and enables you to eliminate hiring bias through anonymous screening, aka profile masking
- It improves overall employee experience by providing tailored training and development opportunities based on their skill sets and interests.
- It has a built-in CRM to store and manage HR data about potential candidates, current employees, and previous employees.
CONS
- You can’t add notes within candidate profiles, which isn’t ideal for collaborative recruitment.
- The mobile app focuses on employees and skills development, but not on the hiring and recruiting workflows.
- Eightfold’s pricing isn’t disclosed up front and there is no free version or trial.
- There isn’t a way for hiring managers and recruiters to leave notes on candidates profiles within the system which is rather inconvenient.
- Eightfold has a mobile app that employees can access for skills development but doesn’t currently have one for hiring managers and recruiters to manage their pipeline and perform other actions relating to the hiring process.
- Several users reported that the tool does not search for candidates outside its database.
- The platform’s pricing isn’t transparent and there is no free trial at this time.
Eightfold’s built-in HR chatbot can help hiring teams automate candidate engagement and deliver better hiring experiences. The technology schedules interviews and keeps candidates updated regarding their hiring process, saving time for both parties. This way, candidates are always aware of their application status without having to call or email recruiters repeatedly. The chatbot can also answer questions about applying for positions, job benefits, company’s culture, and even walk candidates through their applications.
Eightfold’s client list includes prominent enterprises like TATA Communications, LG, Vodafone, Bayer, Chevron, Morgan Stanley, and more.
Eightfold's pricing plans are not disclosed on its website. Contact their Sales team for a custom quote.
Best For
Eightfold’s best fit are companies looking to hire more than 100 candidates per year.
Espressive
Espressive's employee assistant chatbot aims to improve employee productivity by immediately resolving their issues, at any time of the day. But that's not all. It also walks employees through workflows, such as vacation requests and onboarding.
PROS
CONS
Espressive’s solution is specifically designed to help employees get answers to their most common questions (PTO, benefits, etc), without burdening the HR team. Employees can access Espressive's AI-based virtual support agent (VSA) Barista on any device or browser. Barista also has a unique omni-channel ability enabling employees to interact via Slack, Teams, and more.
Dexcom, Guardant, First American, Survey Monkey
Pricing details are not provided by Espressive upfront.
Best For
Enterprise level companies looking for a top HR chatbot should take a look at Espressive.
Symphony Talent
After acquiring Smashfly, Symphony Talent added an HR chatbot to their offering, covering CRM-functionality, career sites, programmatic advertising, and talent assessments on a single tool.
PROS
- Incorporates career sites, programmatic job ads, referrals, recruitment events, and a chatbot.
- Self-optimizing recruitment campaigns.
- Numerous features powered by proprietary machine learning.
- Comprehensive product training and dedicated CMS for ongoing support.
- In-house advisors will work directly with users to develop, measure, and optimize recruitment marketing plans.
CONS
- The price is on the higher end. Requires annual subscriptions. No free trial.
- Reports and analytics aren’t very user-friendly and can be slow to load.
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The team that pioneered the recruitment marketing software space is back with the first chatbot that is tightly integrated into a leading candidate relationship management (CRM) offering.
Please note, this solution is only for companies who’re using Symphony Talent and is not available as a standalone offering.
Dick's Sporting Goods, FCA, RioTinto, Mars.
Pricing is undisclosed.
Best For
This solution is designed to work with businesses of all sizes, but it's particularly good for recruitment teams that see digital advertising as a big component of their recruitment strategy.
PandoLogic
PandoLogic focuses on automating recruitment processes. It's available to chat with talent 24/7 and will source, screen, and recommend qualified candidates to your team in an instant.
PROS
CONS
PandoLogic’s recruiting chatbot helps your team by sourcing passive candidates, and screening candidates that come in via your careers page or sourcing activities. Their solution learns over time which profiles are a good fit for a given role which results in better and better matches. Overall this is designed to save your TA team time, and allow them to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Randtsad, Comcast, E-Trade Financial Corporation
The pricing of PandoLogic’s plans isn’t disclosed on their website.
Best For
PandoLogic is a good bet for large recruiting teams within companies and recruitment agencies.
Benefits and Use Cases of Recruiting Chatbots
Benefits of HR chatbots include saving time and costs, smarter candidate sourcing, and improved conversion rates on career sites. Below we’ll delve more into each one along with the common use cases:
- Interview Scheduling: HR chatbots are wonderful at scheduling screens and interviews. They can easily update calendars and look across multiple people’s openings while taking the burden of the cumbersome back-and-forth off the plate of an HR coordinator.
- Automated Screening: Chatbots are great at screening candidates with rudimentary questions (are you available to work starting in 4 weeks, does this comp align with your expectations, etc). They can also leverage natural language processing to have a deeper conversation with your job seekers about their experience, expectations, and how well they align with the open roles. This is a core use case for all of the best recruiting chatbots. For example, IKEA used it to increase conversion rates by 10% in one of their operating regions.
- Candidate Sourcing: Most of the sourcing capabilities we’ve seen revolve around re-engaging your talent pool members and ATS database. A recruiting chatbot from some of the companies we’ve listed could look at open requisitions, match them to people in the database, and then reach out to see if they want to engage. It will also screen candidates and schedule the ones who make it through the screen. Not bad!
- Career Site Conversions: This is a page out of a typical marketing playbook. The bot’s conversational interface can help people who land on your career site get critical questions answered and then guide them to the relevant job postings in your ATS or send them directly to a recruiter to engage and start the application process. All the while, the chatbot can get contact information, give candidates the link to your privacy policy, and, if it all flows seamlessly through a well-designed portal, elevate your employer brand.
- Text-Based Recruiting: Chatbots can communicate via many different mediums; of course, SMS is one of those. Probably our favorite use case here is text-to-apply, where you can drive candidates to apply by texting a shortcode and then screen candidates all via text. This is especially useful for places where you’re engaging candidates where texting is easiest (billboards, PR, presentations) or for candidates who don’t necessarily have a resume and are more likely to text than apply via a job board.
- Employee Referrals: The best recruiting chatbots now enable employees to make referrals through their interface - and will ping your employees with reminders about open roles and how much the bounty is for each. There is most likely a day in the not-too-distant future when these bots will leverage a bit of machine learning to reach out to employees and ask if they’d make an intro to a person in their network for an open role that seems to be a good fit.
- Candidate Experience: Candidates have questions, and job application bots have answers. Throughout the interview process, a chatbot can quickly answer applicant questions about the status of an application or many of the pertinent details you may find in an employee handbook (benefits, PTO policy, etc). These days, a recruitment bot can even follow up on a process that has grown cold and encourage candidates to at least go through the pre-screening process, for instance.
- Employee Onboarding: Most HR chatbots also have a module for onboarding new employees. Many of these workflows are pre-built, but they allow the easily accessible “virtual assistant” interface that you get with the chatbot. The bot will also learn answers to common questions that come up during onboarding, providing a better employee experience and less strain on your HR team.
HR Chatbot Pitfalls
Common pitfalls associated with using HR chatbots include losing site of the human interaction, lack of experimentation, and unmanaged expectations.
- Human interaction is key to making sure your candidate experience doesn’t degrade. Whether for recruiting or HR, AI and chatbots should augment what your team is doing, not replace it. Both the human recruiter and the automated processes unleashed by them should never lose sight of the person who matters most: the applicant.
- Don’t get overwhelmed with the many ways a chatbot can help. You likely came to this page because you have one or two use cases in mind. Start there, but try to pick a vendor with a broad offering you can leverage further over time.
- Many companies are interested in the benefits of AI but hesitate to take the plunge. You won’t know if it’s right for you until you get some hands-on time with the tool, so start exploring! It’s as easy as getting an OpenAI account and getting it to polish job ad copy, some of your candidate emails, or signing up for a demo or trial with one of the companies we’ve listed.
- Some chatbot offerings can be set up quickly but take a long time to do “right.” Instead of “AI,” they are regurgitating the hundreds of responses you had to input into a spreadsheet when you get set up. Be warned that these offerings are not that functional and can take a ton of your time to get started.
- Don’t get caught up in the hype around AI. It’s here, and it’s helping, but it will not solve all of your problems or completely replace recruiters and HR professionals.
- Engage your hiring managers to help you understand what’s important to them. Get sales and marketing’s take on how they think about using chatbots to engage customers. There are a lot of parallels and ways you can learn from chatbot examples across your business.
ROI of HR and Recruiting Chatbots
Regarding recruiting, the Return On Investment (ROI) driven by chatbots is fairly straightforward: These bots allow you to get more quality applicants into your funnel who would have bounced from your page without applying. You can measure the efficacy directly by assessing the number, speed, and quality of hires made and the number of TA team hours saved.
On the other hand, the ROI of HR chatbots is 100% about time savings with hiring and recruiting. We recently talked to HR thought leader Bennet Sung, who suggested that the internal effect of these tools is massive. Based on his years of experience, he shared that the most common use case for HR chatbots is self-service automation for FAQs from employees.
If you’re an HR pro, you know that a significant part of your day is spent connecting employees with available information that is hard to find in company handbooks and policy documents. Taking the HR human out of the equation makes it more efficient for everyone, and it is a clear boost to ROI.
To run your own numbers, feel free to download our ROI calculator for HR and Recruiting chatbots.
Stay Organized
If you’re considering adding an HR chatbot to your recruiting efforts, you’re probably evaluating vendors based on specific criteria. It is critical to stay organized as you vet various providers, and we recommend using a simple spreadsheet like this one that tracks which vendors meet which criteria, along with other key considerations such as pricing and rep likeability.
Recruiting & HR Chatbot FAQs
What is an HR chatbot?
An HR chatbot is a virtual assistant that simulates a human conversation with candidates and employees. Chatbots automate tasks like interview scheduling, employee referrals, candidate screening, and more. But that is far from everything! You can get creative with the tasks that these AI tools can handle.
How does an HR chatbot work?
HR chatbots use AI to interpret and process conversational information and send appropriate replies to the sender.
What is a recruiting chatbot used for?
A recruiting/HR chatbot is used for many purposes, including:
- Interview scheduling
- Candidate sourcing
- Automated screening
- Employee referrals
- Career site conversations
- Text-based recruiting
- Candidate experience
- Employee onboarding
Why use an HR chatbot?
You can use an HR chatbot to automate processes that generally require employee attention, making HR operations more efficient. This saves recruiters time and decreases time to fill. Besides time gains, companies also see a return on investment from getting more quality applicants in their funnel.
What major companies are using HR and recruiting chatbots?
Some major companies using HR and recruiting chatbots include:
- IKEA
- Netflix
- Heineken
- Hot Topic
- McDonald’s
- Arby’s
- Cheesecake Factory
Key Metrics for HR Chatbots
Yes, we are data nerds here at SelectSoftware Reviews. Here are the metrics we think you should be tracking for HR Chatbots and why:
- Conversion rate: What percent of career site visitors are converting into your ATS and talent communities; for example— “We were getting 5% of traffic into the ATS before implementing the chatbot, and are now getting 7%, which means 250 more applicants/week, 3 of which we hire on average.”
- Quality of applicants: How many applicants are interview/hire worthy— “We were hiring 1% of applicants that applied through our career site; now it’s 3%.” HR bots can often convince better talent to apply by answering questions and ushering them to the right place on a career site.
- Chat engagement: What percent of visitors interact with your chat— “15% of career site visitors chat with our bot, which is around 200/month.” You should look at this for different talent demographics and different use cases. Perhaps your sourcing to high-volume candidates is great, but not so much for engineers. Maybe your chatbot is great at entry-level employee onboarding but messes up regarding more senior hires.
- Candidate Net Promoter Score: Do candidates enjoy engaging with your chatbot— “Our candidate NPS for applicants has increased from 10% to 15%.” Job seeker and employee experience are two of the most often overlooked (hence why most ATSs on the market are terrible) but are among the most important aspects of any WorkTech tool.
- Time saved: HR and recruiting chatbots will save your team time, full stop. How you measure this is another story. One way is to track all of the tasks the HR bot was able to accomplish in a given period and compare that with how long your team would’ve taken to do the same. Another is to assess the relative effectiveness of your team post-implementation; are recruiters hiring more people, and are HR leaders able to get more done?
Beyond metrics, it’s important to ensure that your recruiting process remains human despite your newfound efficiency. While unconscious hiring bias should be eliminated through standardized, automated screens, this can be exacerbated in edge cases. Make sure you have sanity checks in place via metrics you track as opposed to letting artificial intelligence start to dominate your recruiting process.
Final Advice
Getting an HR Chatbot is a no-brainer for talent acquisition teams. They’re so popular because they work in driving leads down the funnel. In the world of talent attraction, it’s the same concept - get more leads down the funnel by engaging passive candidates.
Beyond conversion, a recruiting chatbot can help with many use cases. We have glossed over non-recruiting workflows like onboarding, answering employee questions, new hire check-ins, employee engagement, and internal mobility. The best HR chatbots are extremely powerful and only getting better.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re serious about adding an HR Chatbot to your recruiting tech stack. Whether it’s to cut down on scheduling and screening time, drive more applicants into the ATS, or one of the many other use cases, the next step will be to get a demo with one of our pre-vetted vendors to take a deep dive into their product. You can use this spreadsheet to stay organized as you do demos.
About Us
- Our goal at SSR is to help HR and recruiting teams to find and buy the right software for their needs.
- Our site is free to use as some vendors will pay us for web traffic.
- SSR lists all companies we feel are top vendors - not just those who pay us - in our comprehensive directories full of the advice needed to make the right purchase decision for your HR team.
