How Chatbots Can Be Used to Re-Engage with Applicants During Recruitment

Finding the perfect combination of people to work within an organisation is one of the most challenging elements of the recruitment process. Without a complete recruitment strategy, a company cannot grow and innovate. To help gain new talent, the viability of a chatbot integration into the recruitment process, specifically during the re-engagement of past applicants was explored during this thesis. Design Thinking was the main methodology used to discover, define and ideate with the various stakeholders and pain-points in mind. This investigation demonstrates two applications of the ideation in order to 1. Update the applicant's information and search status 2. Comply with GDPR regulations on the transparency of how the applicant's data is being stored. Interviews were carried out in order to investigate deeper into the current process from both the recruitment and applicant angle. Once needs were defined, a persona was created based on current chatbot targets and interviews. The prototype of the chatbot was designed in BotSociety, a chatbot prototyping interface technology, and was tested with participants who were interviewed during initial stages of research. They were asked to interact with the chatbot as if they were the user described in the persona. From there, they were given a survey and asked to describe their answers and reasoning. These answers were then both recorded for qualitative analysis and used to evaluate the probability of the chatbot. This thesis showcases the use of a chatbot to re-engage with past applicants and validates the tool as an alignment for recruiters to gain the search status of the past applicant. This chatbot also allows for the applicant to be more aware of how the company is complying with GDPR regulations, whilst learning more on how their data is being stored. This further demonstrates the value of any application to the company for the applicant, whilst creating a more positive experience ensuring transparency during the recruitment process and data management