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HR Chatbots: Benefits, Use Cases, and Examples for 2024

Kamila Tokarska and Jacquelyn Dunham

17 min read

Jan 16, 2024

Reviewing hundreds of resumes, handling administrative tasks, and creating relationships with candidates sounds like a big challenge that demands lots of work and resources from Human Resources (HR).

However, there is a solution that can make it much easier - HR chatbots. These intelligent virtual assistants can improve the recruitment process and, at the same time, handle other HR processes and interactions for you and your team.

In this article, we will explore HR chatbots, their benefits, uses cases, and examples.

We want to show their potential and how they can cooperate with HR professionals, making your workplace more efficient and focused on a good employee experience.

Chatbots and HR chatbots

Let's start with the chatbot itself. It is a computer program, a virtual assistant, that can converse with people, making them feel that they are talking to a human being. Thanks to artificial intelligence and other technologies like natural language processing, it understands what people say and naturally responds using text messages in a chat window. 

The best part is that chatbots don't need human help. They can take care of many users and HR related inquiries simultaneously, giving HR leaders more time to focus on complex matters. You can use them in many different areas of your business: sales, marketing, human resources, etc. If you want to learn more about using chatbots in business, we encourage you to read our chatbot guide. 

So what is an HR chatbot? It's a tool that makes HR processes smoother, increasing employee satisfaction and improving their experience. You can see its positive influence across the whole human resources area. It can simplify onboarding and offboarding processes or manage many everyday HR tasks. It can speed up the hiring process or gather feedback from your employees. 

It is a powerful and valuable chatbot with many benefits that can make your HR department work more effortlessly and efficiently. Now, let's move into the details. 

HR operations managed by HR chatbots

Let's start with two essential functions where HR chatbots are a precious helping hand, onboarding and offboarding, as well as absence and attendance tracking. An HR bot can significantly impact all of them, resulting in employee and HR team satisfaction.  

Onboarding and offboarding

Welcoming new hires in the company and saying goodbye to those leaving it are two very complex and important procedures. In their Research Brief, The True Cost of a Bad Hire, Brandon Hall Group states, “Organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%.” 

Onboarding and offboarding may demand lots of attention and effort from your team. These two processes include training and guiding your employees, answering many urgent questions, and handling lots of important documents. The good news is that HR chatbots can automate these tasks and leave HR operations for other issues. 

Using the help of this virtual assistant results in your HR team having more time for making your new and existing employees feel supported, taken care of, and valued. 

Remember that an excellent onboarding experience may boost employee engagement, while a good offboarding may strengthen positive memories about your company.

Absence and attendance tracking

Whether you have a big or a small company, tracking employees' absences and attendance may be an endless task for your Human Resources Department. HR chatbots can easily take care of all time off requests submitted by your workers and then provide them with appropriate responses. While doing that, it can also quickly answer other questions, like how many vacation days a particular employee can still take. 

In addition to absence tracking, this AI tool can monitor employees' work hours and track when they come and leave work. It keeps this data organized and updates it continuously so other departments, like the payroll team, can easily access and use it to complete their work.

How HR chatbots impact recruitment

Each recruitment process is one of the biggest challenges for the HR department. First, HR professionals need to collect and screen many resumes and applications. The HR and recruitment statistics in 2023 made by OnHires say that “52% of recruiters believe that the most challenging aspect of recruitment is screening candidates from a large pool of applicants.” 

Next, recruiters must assess who might be a perfect fit for a role and schedule interviews. Very often, there are additional tasks, such as ensuring good information flow with the manager wanting to hire a particular person. These complex responsibilities may cause delays in the hiring process and, in some cases, result in missing out on some talented individuals.

The HR chatbot is able to collect and categorize resumes and source and screen candidates. It can inform people about all the open positions and guide them to the one that is the best match. It can also take care of the initial assessment by asking candidates specific questions and later scheduling interviews with the ones the manager has chosen. HR chatbots can do all of this with its natural language processing skills and the option to be powered by AI or use a template, for example, a job application template.

As a result, when your chatbot is doing all the basic and repetitive tasks, the hiring team can focus on decision-making responsibilities or build closer relationships with candidates.

Employee experience and HR chatbots

Your HR chatbot is often a company's first point of contact and the first impression. That is why we will now focus on the chatbots' interactions with people and their cooperation with the HR team.

Instant and personalized support

HR chatbots don't take breaks and provide people with immediate assistance. They help employees 24 hours, 7 days a week. 

Thanks to advanced technology, chatbots can understand and process specific questions about HR or the company itself. By analyzing each conversation, these assistants can adjust responses to meet employees' needs and provide them with fast and appropriate support. 

With this personalized approach and quick access to the necessary information, HR chatbots make your workers feel appreciated.

Transparent communication and feedback

Giving your employees a chance to share their thoughts, ideas, and concerns is important as it makes them feel valued and heard. According to the Workforce Institute, in their The Heard and the Heard-Nots report, “92% of highly engaged employees feel heard at their workplace compared to 30% of highly disengaged employees.” 

HR chatbots can fulfill these needs. It can collect all the feedback anonymously and comfortably, resulting in a positive work environment and a sense of belonging to the company. 

The balance between chatbots and HR professionals

Chatbots are assistants that can easily handle many basic interactions simultaneously, but they don't have human qualities such as empathy or emotions. They won't substitute an actual human, so creating natural and strong relationships, handling complex situations, and making important decisions need to be done by people. 

When using chatbots, you must remember that the balance between technology and the human touch has to be maintained.

The benefits for the HR industry

When looking at all the ways an HR chatbot can be used in human resources, this is a handy and valuable tool for boosting HR processes.

These intelligent tools cooperate with HR professionals, making their everyday work easier and allowing them to focus on strategic actions and creating meaningful employee relationships. The HR chatbot is a beneficial partner because:

• It automates repetitive tasks, giving your team more time to handle more complex issues. 
• It's extremely useful in improving the recruitment experience because it reduces manual tasks and paperwork and speeds up the whole process. 
• It provides employees with fast responses to their questions and collects their feedback and opinions, which creates a closer relationship between them and the company.

Exploring key HR chatbot use cases

The introduction of chatbots into HR has changed how these departments operate. Imagine a job applicant visiting your company's career page and meeting a friendly HR chatbot that guides them through the application process, answers their questions, and collects relevant information. In the meantime, the chatbot approves your employees' time off requests, resolves HR queries, and recommends personalized learning courses.

Isn't this the perfect scenario for your team?

We will explore some use cases of HR chatbots in recruitment, employee engagement, attendance tracking, and general HR support and show you how this tool unlocks efficiency and productivity in the workplace.

Recruitment chatbot

Imagine your company is planning to open a new department, and you need to hire new employees. When recruitment opens, each job position gets hundreds of applications from potential candidates, and your HR department needs to manage all of them and still take care of other responsibilities.

The recruitment process is more than just collecting and screening resumes. Your HR team needs to answer repetitive questions from the applicants, pick the most promising applicants, and plan interviews with them. Throughout the process, they must also collect lots of data, like contact details.

How can chatbots help here? The Job Application Template is one of the many templates offered by ChatBot. It enriches your chatbot by making it HR-oriented and allows you to customize it to your needs to improve your recruitment process and enhance employee experience.

Key features:

• Automated candidate sourcing: The chatbot provides candidates with information about available positions. It offers detailed job descriptions and assists them in finding roles that match their interests.
• Real-time answers: The HR chatbot instantly responds to common questions from candidates.
• Efficient data collection: The HR chatbot smoothly collects contact details and resumes from candidates.
• Personalized candidate experience: The HR chatbot educates candidates and new hires about your company and its culture.
• Lead generation: The HR chatbot groups all candidates based on their selected roles, changing them into valuable leads.

Source: Chatbot.com

HR chatbots can help improve the overall hiring process. They take care of repetitive tasks while your HR team can focus on building relationships with top candidates. They speed up hiring thanks to their automated data collection and lead generation capabilities. The interactions with the potential candidates and new hires are personalized so they feel special and well-informed every step of the way.

HR support and attendance chatbot

Have you ever been late due to an unexpected traffic jam and worried about how it will impact your attendance record? Do you remember a situation when you had an urgent family matter but did not know how to apply for a day off? Or have you ever had a question about the company's new travel policy but couldn't find the relevant information in the lengthy HR documents?

One of the AI-powered chatbots designed to help such cases for the HR department is Phia. This virtual assistant can solve common HR problems of your workers in many ways.

Key features:

• 24/7 real-time support: The HR chatbot provides workers with round-the-clock and instant assistance. It also generates HR tickets and assigns them to the right agent or department.
• Document search: The HR chatbot has DocuSense capability that helps it find answers to employees' queries from lengthy documents.
• Personalized and efficient HR support: The HR chatbot's interface allows employees to conveniently access and manage their leave balance, submit leave requests, and view the holiday calendar.

Source: peopleHum.com

Using HR chatbots in your HR support saves time and HR resources. These smart tools not only ensure employee satisfaction but also improve internal communication. By efficiently handling numerous administrative tasks, HR chatbots reduce stress among your staff, allow them to focus on core activities, and increase the overall employee experience.

Employee engagement chatbot

For some employees, working fully from home makes it challenging to stay engaged and connected. Turned off cameras during online meetings and the lack of face-to-face interactions make many workers feel isolated, decreasing employee engagement and becoming unmotivated and disinterested in their roles.

At the same time, you may have other employees struggling to find growth opportunities and feeling unsure about their career paths within the organization. The absence of clear guidance, personalized development plans, and good internal communication may also impact their overall employee satisfaction.

In today's competitive and, very often, remote job market, attracting and retaining top talent may be an essential challenge for your businesses. However, HR chatbots may be the best solution to these problems.

One good example is Jinie, an AI-powered talent coach that strengthens employee experience and engagement.

Key features:

1. Personal talent coach: The HR chatbot offers tailored recommendations of courses based on each employee's unique career path, succession plan, and individual talent profile.
2. Feedback and support patron: Thanks to artificial intelligence, the HR chatbot handles daily pulse check-ins and in-app messaging to collect employee feedback. It also offers guidance and resources in promoting mental and physical well-being.

Source: peoplestrong.com

Integrating HR chatbots with other solutions

HR chatbots are powerful tools themselves, but there are options to integrate them with other solutions to awaken their full potential:

• Payroll systems: Integrating your HR chatbot with the payroll system can benefit salary and benefits management, ensuring accurate and timely payments and reducing manual errors.
• Learning platforms: When the HR chatbot is linked to a learning platform, it can suggest appropriate courses for specific employees and make accessing these courses easier.
• Help desk or IT support: Connecting your HR chatbot to the help desk or IT support systems simplifies technical issues and improves internal communication.

It's worth mentioning that instead of using separate solutions for your HR chatbots, you can choose a comprehensive chatbot platform that, besides the virtual assistant, offers powerful capabilities like a help desk or live chat.

If you want to read more about different options, we've compared chatbot platforms for you!

The best HR chatbots for next-level hiring

It's a Monday morning, and your team faces a wave of resumes in their inboxes in response to a few new job openings in your company. As the chaos is about to take over, your team's recruiting chatbot assistant steps in. It sorts through resumes, interacts with candidates, suggests the most promising profiles, and answers common queries from potential hires. Your team has gone from overwhelmed to in control with a few clicks.

In today's HR industry, innovation is the key to staying ahead. In this article, we're closely examining something significantly changing recruitment - the best HR hiring chatbots. So, prepare to see how they help employ new team members.

The evolution of hiring with an HR chatbot

The past approach to hiring new employees had its challenges. Navigating through stacks of resumes, conducting a series of phone calls, and answering multiple questions from candidates at the same time was difficult. This significant workload often led to some good candidates being overlooked.

HR chatbots are made to simplify and automate the recruitment and HR processes. They can engage in meaningful conversations with candidates, address their queries, and even organize and select resumes that match the position best. With these HR tools, identifying and selecting new team members can become significantly more efficient and faster.

While discovering the world of hiring with recruiting chatbots, it's essential to consider what suits your team's needs:

• Customization: Seek chatbots tailored to match your company's goals.
• Candidate screening and shortlisting: Prioritize chatbots that can analyze resumes, ask relevant questions, and identify top candidates based on specific criteria.
• Candidate engagement: Look for chatbots to maintain conversations with candidates, answer queries, and schedule interviews.
• Integration with existing tools: Choose chatbots that integrate with your current systems or other HR tools.
• Ease of deployment: Look for chatbots that are easy to implement and don't require extensive technical knowledge.

With these considerations in mind, it might be easier to find the right chatbot that aligns with the unique needs of your HR department and significantly enhances your recruiting processes, making them more efficient and productive. 

Introducing the leading HR chatbots

In our exploration of recruiting chatbots, it's essential to get familiar with some of the great options available to HR professionals on the market. We will review ChatBot with its ready-to-use templates, Paradox, Ideal, and Humanly.

ChatBot

ChatBot is a comprehensive platform that empowers you to build and deploy conversational chatbots without any coding skills required. It's an ideal tool for proactive engagement with website visitors that is constantly innovating.

For those looking to improve their recruitment process, ChatBot offers a valuable Job Application Template. This template automates candidate sourcing, provides detailed job descriptions, and collects contact details efficiently. Candidates can submit their applications directly within the chat window via LiveChat or Facebook Messenger.

The template simplifies the recruitment journey, allowing your HR team to focus on building relationships with the most suitable candidates, all while saving valuable time. It's an excellent addition to your website, LiveChat, Messenger, Slack, and other platforms to increase employee experience and establish long-term customer relationships.

Template features:

• Answering common questions
• Promoting open positions
• Collecting contact information
• Generating leads
• Educating candidates about your company
• Can be customized and take care of more than just hiring
• Part of the ChatBot platform that offers a range of solutions and integrations
• Easy to deploy

Source: ChatBot.com

Paradox

Paradox offers an HR chatbot named Olivia. It is designed to simplify the job application process. It allows candidates to apply comfortably through their smartphones in a text conversation. It can facilitate video chats with candidates through a simple link and screen candidates for job requirements. Olivia can also autonomously schedule interviews and integrate with various systems, applications, and devices through direct integrations and an open API.

Key features:

• Job application through texting
• Video interviews
• Candidate screening
• Interview scheduling
• Integrations

Source: Paradox.ai

Ideal

Ideal offers a recruiting chatbot that enhances candidate engagement, eliminates the need for extensive phone screenings, and efficiently assesses applicants. It can streamline the pre-screening process 24/7 and deploy chatbot questionnaires through instant messages and emails. The chatbot can efficiently automate up to 70% of initial interactions.

Key features:

• Enhancing candidate engagement
• Pre-screenings
• Prioritizing top candidates
• Candidates qualification
• Sending chatbot questionnaires

Source: Ideal.com

Humanly

Humanly is a tool that automates conversations with candidates through various channels, such as email, text, job boards, and your website. It ensures that candidate profiles remain updated and employs unbiased questioning to get a view of the candidates' skillsets and backgrounds. Humanly looks for candidates who can contribute positively to your organization's culture.

Key features:

• Answering candidate questions
• Screening and scheduling
• Candidate engagement
• Assessing candidates' skills and backgrounds
• Maintaining and updating candidate profiles

Source: Humanly.io

HR chatbots and benefits for your recruitment processes and beyond

The right recruiting chatbot can be a valuable addition to your recruitment toolkit, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your hiring process. The decision of which one to choose should align closely with your HR department's specific needs. When wisely chosen, an HR chatbot can bring many advantages to the table, not only for your recruitment process. 

Incorporating an HR chatbot into your processes isn't just about efficiency but also about delivering a better candidate and employee experience. These digital assistants can be an extensive HR support by handling repetitive tasks and allowing your team to focus on building relationships with candidates and making important strategic decisions.

Looking forward, the future with AI-powered chatbots looks even brighter. As AI technology constantly advances, these chatbots will become even better at understanding and meeting your HR needs. This ongoing evolution in AI-powered HR chatbots will undoubtedly lead to a future where HR support is better and increasingly insightful, enhancing your organization's overall efficiency and effectiveness.

Why is ChatBot your best choice?

ChatBot, with its Job Application Template, can be a very effective hiring assistant that will simplify your recruitment, save lots of your hiring team's time, and foster relationships with potential future employees. However, it is unique among different recruiting chatbots because it can also help you in other areas beyond human resources.

If you need help in the marketing, sales, or support area, you can create your ideal task-specific and industry-oriented chatbot with only a few clicks by using diverse ChatBot templates. A unique approach focusing on building lasting customer relationships with minimal effort, blending artificial intelligence with a human touch is like an identification mark for ChatBot. Our tool allows you to easily customize your chatbots and test their functionality before deploying them. 

We offer our users their preferred channels for engagement through integration options with various platforms, like Facebook Messenger, Zapier, or Slack. Moreover, ChatBot provides detailed reports to monitor and improve chatbot performance. As a dedicated product within the Text company's portfolio, ChatBot benefits from continuous development and excellent dedicated customer support.

However, the most exciting fact is the upcoming release of ChatBot 2.0, which will allow you to create AI-driven conversational bots to automate customer service across your website and diverse communication platforms. This AI chatbot reviews your website, KnowledgeBase, or Zendesk Help Center, effectively answering frequently asked user questions. It relies entirely on the data you provide, giving you absolute authority over its responses, and can be equipped with many diverse integrations.

Create your personalized recruitment journey today!

Recruiting chatbot is leading the way in transforming the hiring landscape. These helpful tools improve recruitment and create efficiency and engagement among future and current workers.

Exploring the world of HR chatbots and finding the one that perfectly fits your organization's hiring vision is essential. By making this choice wisely, you'll create the way for a more prosperous and personalized recruitment journey and simplify your general HR support.