Healthcare recruiting is among the most challenging in any industry. Demand for qualified caregivers consistently outpaces supply. Applicant-to-hire ratios are high, margins are tight, and the consequences of mis-hires — or unfilled positions — are measured in patient outcomes, not just business metrics.
For one of the largest home care providers in the United States, receiving over 250,000 job applications annually, the fundamental problem was conversion. Despite massive inbound volume, their screening completion rate was 8%. The vast majority of applicants who expressed interest never completed the early stages of the process — they fell off during the phone scheduling phase, dropped off asynchronous video tools, or simply moved on to a provider that made it easier to apply.
The Core Problem: Friction in the Front of the Funnel
The home care market is particularly competitive at the top of the funnel. Candidates have options — multiple providers are hiring simultaneously, and the one that creates the least friction wins. A process that requires a candidate to schedule a call, wait for a recruiter, take time off to be available at a specific hour, and then go through a formal 30-minute screen is fundamentally misaligned with the lives of the people they're trying to hire.
Many of this provider's candidates are working caregivers themselves — people with irregular schedules, family obligations, and limited windows to complete a formal hiring process. Traditional scheduling-based screening was quietly disqualifying them by design.
The AIR Deployment
By deploying Braintrust AIR, the provider replaced the scheduled phone screen with an on-demand conversational AI assessment. Within minutes of applying, candidates received an SMS inviting them to a short video interview they could complete from their phone, at any time, with no scheduling required.
The AI asked questions calibrated specifically for caregiver roles: empathy in difficult situations, experience with vulnerable populations, reliability and communication under stress, and familiarity with documentation and care protocols. Candidates who engaged found the conversation natural and respectful. Those who completed it received rapid follow-up.
The Results
Screening completion rates jumped from 8% to 26% — a 3x improvement — without any change to the applicant pool or job postings. The increase came entirely from removing the scheduling friction that had previously caused 92% of applicants to fall off.
The provider made 30 qualified hires in three weeks using AIR, compared to a process that previously stretched over months for comparable cohorts.
Cost-per-interview dropped from $125 to $18 — an 86% reduction. The $125 figure reflected recruiter time, coordination overhead, and the rate of no-shows and rescheduling that plagued the manual process. At $18, the AI interview is essentially a rounding error in the cost-to-hire model.
Quality of hire held steady or improved. Candidates who completed the conversational assessment and were subsequently hired showed equivalent or better early performance metrics compared to the cohort hired under the previous process.
For healthcare organizations struggling with applicant drop-off, recruiter burnout, or the cost of unfilled patient-facing roles, book a demo to walk through how AIR has been configured specifically for healthcare staffing contexts.