We ran an experiment to try and reduce our time-to-hire, which was already excep
By George Barnett Reid 👀 · July 28, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
We ran an experiment to try and reduce our time-to-hire, which was already exceptionally low
And it's all built around a neat WhatsApp strategy which took us over a year to realise
First, what are we hiring for? Amazon advertising managers.
Because we're processing thousands of applications per month, we built a scalable bespoke ATS that involves 4 rounds of screening. Some of these rounds are automated, and now don't involve a human at all.
But, because we were SO fast at processing a candidates application, they weren't expecting the next stage within 30-seconds of applying
As such, they click off the tab. Lose the tab. And our reminders to complete the stage perhaps got stuck in junk boxes or whatever.
WhatsApp was the answer, where open rates are way higher, but we need permission to WhatsApp, otherwise we'd get in trouble just cold messaging
Therefore, we experimented bring a WhatsApp request message inside the profile creation flow during application
Now when users are about to complete their application, they just have to drop us a WhatsApp message first
our system is built to acknowledge the whatsapp has been received, and associate it inside our ATS with that candidate
Which tags them as "whatsapp: on"
Which means, we're then free to send them a reminder message later on.
We only send 1 reminder a day, for 4 days.
And our completion rates skyrocketed.
Meaning we're not losing brilliant candidates
And we're processing faster than ever
Good for them, and good for our clients - who are always hungry to see more validated candidates as soon as possible
#itsalwaysdayone