AI is being used in more and more of the hiring process, especially at high-volume companies

Companies that hire workers at a high volume sometimes never see the best applicants for the job —  they simply get lost in the shuffle.  

Increasingly, high-volume hiring companies in industries such as retail, hospitality and manufacturing, connect with those jobseekers with the help of automation and AI.

How widespread is it? Bill Venteicher, a senior director with the HR technology Phenom, applied to 101 jobs across five industries that conduct mass hiring for seasonal workers, rapid hiring cycles or high turnover areas. The research discovered not many companies fully lean into automation for hiring, but none remain manual, as reported in the State of High-Volume Hiring: 2025 Benchmarks Report, released today.

“It was really interesting to see how some companies, even in industries that have a lot of work to do, like manufacturing or healthcare in particular,” Venteicher told Technical.ly, “have invested in this technology and have started modernizing the way that they engage with a jobseeker.”

The research was part of an audit to find how many companies in retail, hospitality and travel, healthcare, manufacturing and transportation and distribution are using these technologies. 

As part of the audit, which took place between August 2024 and November 2024, companies were evaluated based on how they handled two types of applications for frontline and hourly roles, one applicant who was fully qualified and one who was partially unqualified.

Of all of the industries, retail and hospitality and travel companies led in automation hiring, with 54% ranked with advanced or higher levels of adoption, according to Phenom’s High-Volume Hiring Maturity Matrix, which assigns each company a score based on how well-rounded a company’s approach to automated tools is. There are five levels to the scale, based on company scores in candidate attraction, engagement, conversion and high-volume hiring:

• Level 1 – Basic (0-20% of criteria met) 
• Level 2 – Emerging (21-40% of criteria met) 
• Level 3 – Developing (41-60% of criteria met) 
• Level 4 – Advanced (61-80% of criteria met) 
• Level 5 – Transformational (81-100% of criteria met) 

The majority of companies across the board, 64 out of the 101, are developing, with only 10 companies labeled transformational and another 22 in the advanced category. Five were emerging, and none were basic, meaning zero companies said they avoid AI entirely during the hiring process.

The highest scoring companies in each category were convenience store Circle K, healthcare system Baylor Scott & White, United Airlines Holdings, energy company Global Partners and fast food chain Five Guys Enterprises.

Chatbots emerge as the most common AI hiring tool

Across the automated features Phenom evaluated, 18% of companies allowed a candidate to complete the application in a chatbot or SMS conversation, 12% gave qualified candidates the option to schedule an immediately after completing an application and 1% allowed candidates to record answers to one-way interview questions.

High-volume hiring is not just a challenge for industries that rely on large workforces, though, according to Venteicher. For hiring companies, automation can vet a large number of candidates quickly, helping to find better matches for jobs than old methods like first come, first hired.

“It's a defining factor, whether it's opening a new store or expanding an existing hospital or dealing with a merger or an acquisition,” he said, “you need to have people in place quickly to be able to deliver that customer experience that differentiates you in a very competitive industry.”

While chatbots aren’t yet a common part of the interview process, they are common on the company websites, where 40% have one, according to the Phenom report. Two in ten, 22%, of the companies with chatbots on their sites use the information gathered in those conversations to customize site content and personalize job suggestions. Only 7% allowed jobseekers to schedule an interview via a chatbot.

Why so much focus on chatbots? When the alternative is for applications to disappear into a void, with no response ever coming, automated chats can make jobseekers feel seen, according to Venteicher.

“Frontline job seekers are already feeling left in the dark,” Venteicher said. “We hear that loud and clear from people that are looking for jobs.”