How Harri Delivered 70% More Hires for Papa John’s

 

With so many more vacancies available than job seekers right now – not just in hospitality but in other competing sectors too – getting your job ads seen and persuading good quality candidates to apply is tougher than ever.

That was certainly the experience of a large franchise of Papa John’s, the popular pizza chain, which was coming up against a raft of hiring obstacles.

A New Approach to Help Reduce Candidate Ghosting

Managers at Papa John’s were facing an uphill struggle to recruit, with job postings getting lost amongst similar positions on crowded jobs boards, candidates being lost due to long application screening times, candidates “ghosting” (not turning up for) interviews or follow-ups, and high-quality candidates getting buried within large volumes of applications.

“In today’s challenging labor market, sifting through applications, identifying qualified candidates, and playing the interview coordination game is a full-time job – and the more time it takes, the more good candidates you lose,” said Luke Fryer, founder and CEO of Harri. 

Papa John’s partnered with the Harri team to launch a pilot project to use Harri’s innovative conversational AI, Carri, to answer employment related questions, accept applications, screen candidates, and schedule interviews in real time.

Meet Carri: Papa John’s Newest Recruiter

After the pilot program was over, the data was clear: with Carri, applications went up, ghosting went down, and quality hires significantly increased.

Carri helps candidates apply on the go through their preferred channel, whether that’s WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or web-based chat on a careers page. They can communicate instantly, friction is removed, and the application process is easier and more flexible.

For the Papa John’s franchise, one of the main attractions of using Carri was that managers had the power to customize application questions or content by location and role, meaning they could be sure of attracting the right candidates, with the right skills, in the right role, at the right stage in the candidate’s journey.

In just 30 days with Carri, the franchise experienced a 23.36% increase in the number of applicants, while 34% more qualified candidates were invited to interview.

Plus,100% of applicants were intelligently screened in real-time, which eliminated the risk of talent being lost due to the administrative burden of screening applications.

Carri auto-scheduled interviews with candidates who passed the screen, and sent friendly, branded communications to those who didn’t, thus lowering admin time, reducing time to hire, and increasing application-to-hire ratios. What’s more, the franchise experienced an over 85% interview show rate, thanks to Carri’s automated reminders. Post-interview, Carri was able to gather feedback from candidates and guide them to the next steps, as well as maintain engagement and optimize the hiring process.

Carri screen

A New Way to Hire

After the pilot, the Papa John’s franchise was in no doubt that hiring in the traditional way – relying on job boards and tasking managers with all the legwork of screening candidates, etc – should be consigned to the past. 

While job boards alone might yield application quantity, they don’t produce such good results when it comes to quality: around 1% of those who apply from a job board are actually taken on, and less than 5% of those interviewed get hired.

What’s more, keeping job seekers offline and off jobs boards, and getting them to interact with your brand as an employer directly (either in person or via SMS), yields application-to-hire ratios that point north of 40%.

As Papa John’s discovered, Carri enables you to turn applications into conversations that lead right through to hiring success. You too can add Carri to your recruitment process and transform the way you hire. 

Meet Carri