AI recruitment chatbot for UK recruitment agencies

What an AI recruitment chatbot is

An AI recruitment chatbot for an agency is a text chat on your website that answers job seekers' questions about the roles you are recruiting for. A candidate types what they are looking for, a finance director role near Leeds paying over a certain figure, or whether a particular role is remote, and the chatbot answers from your live vacancies: which roles match, what each one pays as the listing states it, where it is based, and the link to the page where they can apply.

The important word is only. The chatbot we build answers from your vacancy listings and nothing else. If a listing does not say whether a role offers visa sponsorship, the chatbot does not guess; it says it does not know and that one of your consultants can tell them once they apply. It never names the company behind a role. It never tells a candidate whether they are a good fit. And it never takes a CV in the chat; it sends the candidate to the application form on the role's own page, so every application still arrives where your team already works.

That makes it a narrower thing than most of what is sold as recruitment AI. It does not screen, score or rank anybody. It does the part of the job that eats a consultant's day without needing a consultant's judgement: answering the same questions about the same vacancies, accurately, at whatever hour the candidate happens to be reading your jobs page. We build it for you rather than selling you a product to configure yourself, and it is one of the agents we build as an AI automation agency.

The one we built for Hoxton Circle

We built one of these for Hoxton Circle, a recruitment firm that places senior finance leaders, as part of the work in the Hoxton Circle case study. It reads the thirty or so roles on their vacancies page and answers questions about them, inside the rules on this page.

It runs on our own demo page, not on Hoxton Circle's website, so there is no figure to give you about it yet. What it does show is the shape of the thing: the rules a recruitment chatbot has to work within, written down before it answers anyone, and the small details that decide whether its answers can be trusted. One of those details came up in the build. Some listings left the pay field blank and stated the salary only in the description, so a candidate asking about pay would have missed those roles. The refresh now copies the salary line from the description into the pay field wherever the field is empty.

What the chatbot does in a conversation

The conversation is the same in every agency we build this for, even though the vacancies, the wording and the application form are yours.

1. It finds every role that matches. When a candidate describes what they want, a title, a place, a salary, a specialism, the chatbot goes through every role on your board and lists each one that fits. Missing a matching role is the worst mistake it can make, so it is built to check them all rather than stop at the first good one.
2. It reads the request the way a candidate means it. A salary figure matches any role whose range reaches it. A role counts as remote only if its listing says it is remote; a role that asks for three days a week in the office is not remote however flexible it sounds, and the chatbot says how many days on site the listing states.
3. It quotes the listing exactly. Title, location and pay as the listing states them, the full range rather than just the top of it, with a link to the role's page so the candidate can read it in full.
4. It says when it does not know. Start dates, benefits, hybrid policy, sponsorship: anything the listing does not state, the chatbot says it does not know and that a consultant can tell them once they apply.
5. It sends them to apply. Applications go through the form on the role's page, with the candidate's details and CV. The chatbot cannot take an application in the chat, and it says so.
6. It hands a steer to your team. It offers options as "you could consider", never "I recommend". A candidate who wants advice on which role to go for is pointed to your contact form and a conversation with one of your consultants.
7. It stays on the subject. Replies are short, a few sentences or a short list, and it politely declines anything that is not about your open roles or applying for them.

Keeping your clients confidential

Many agencies keep the company behind a vacancy confidential, because a named client is one a candidate, or another agency, can approach directly. A chatbot that is only trying to be helpful is the easiest way to lose that, because a candidate who asks "is this the role at a particular company?" is asking a direct question, and a careless chatbot answers it.

Ours is built to keep that secret. It describes the company behind a role only the way your listing describes it, such as "a private equity backed energy company", and nothing more. It never guesses, hints at or confirms a client's name, even when it is asked directly or a candidate offers a name and asks it to say yes or no. That rule is written into the chatbot before it answers anyone, and it is one of the questions we put to it before it goes anywhere near a candidate.

No judgement on whether a candidate fits

The chatbot does not tell anyone whether they are qualified or likely to be hired. That judgement belongs to your consultants, who know the client, the brief and the candidate, and a chatbot that started making it would be making hiring decisions nobody had agreed to.

It also never asks about, or comments on, age, race, religion, sex, disability, pregnancy, nationality or any other protected characteristic. If a candidate raises one, the chatbot says it cannot advise on that and tells them what the role asks for in experience and skills instead. Everything it says about a role comes from the listing, so it can only repeat what your consultants already chose to publish.

Where its answers come from

The chatbot's only source is your vacancies, read from the place you already publish them. For Hoxton Circle that was their own website: their recruitment software had no chat for applicants, so we read the vacancies page rather than the system behind it. A script reads every role page and replaces what the chatbot knows, so a role you take down stops being offered and a new one starts being answered. We agree with you how often that runs, and for most agencies once a day is enough.

Because each answer is drawn from a listing, the quality of the answers is the quality of the listings. A role that states its salary, location and days on site gets precise answers. A role that leaves them out gets "I don't know, but a consultant can tell you", which is the honest answer and the one you want. We also agree with you which questions it must hand to your team, and the wording it uses when it does.

The chatbot is built on an established agent platform rather than code we wrote from scratch, and it sits on your site as a chat box. Every conversation is saved, so you can read what candidates asked and what it told them.

How we build it, and how long it takes

We build the chatbot around your real vacancies, and you see it answering questions about them before it does the job on its own. You pick one person on your team to work with us day to day, usually whoever looks after the jobs page. Here is how it runs.

1. A 30-minute consultation. You tell us where your vacancies are published, how you describe the companies you recruit for, and what candidates ask you most. We tell you what we would build and give you the price.
2. Scope. We watch how your team answers candidates today and write down the chatbot's rules with you, so we agree what it will do.
3. Build. We build it inside the tools you already use, connected to your vacancies, with the refresh that keeps it current.
4. Test. Your team asks it the questions candidates ask, including the awkward ones: who the client is, whether they would get the job, what a role pays when the listing does not say. Then it answers real candidates on your site, checked by us, until it gets them right.
5. Live. It does the job on its own, and we keep it working.

How it reads your vacancies depends mostly on how they are published. A jobs page on your own website it can read directly; vacancies that live only inside your recruitment software depend on what that software lets another program read. Fully functioning and delivering value in 30 days guaranteed, or you pay nothing more until your agents are.

What it costs

Ours is one flat monthly fee for unlimited agents: this chatbot, and any other agent you want after it, for the same fee, month to month. We give you the price on the call.

We set it on the consultation once we know how many vacancies it has to read and where they are published. What it will not do is charge you by the conversation: the usage is in the fee, so a busy month costs the same as a quiet one, and you can stop any month. Fully functioning and delivering value in 30 days guaranteed, or you pay nothing more until your agents are. What it would cost you to run an agent like this is the subject of what an AI agent costs.

A chatbot, a search box, or a consultant's inbox

There are three ways to answer the questions candidates have about your vacancies, and the right one depends on how many candidates read your jobs page and how many of their questions are the same.

A search box and filters on your jobs page cost nothing extra, and for a candidate who knows exactly what they want they may be enough. What they cannot do is answer "does this one let me work from home?" or "is there anything in the North West paying over a certain figure?" in a sentence, or explain that a role's hybrid policy is not stated.

A consultant answering by email or phone gives the candidate judgement and a relationship, which is what your agency sells. It is also the most expensive way to say "the listing says three days a week on site" for the tenth time in a week.

A chatbot sits between the two: it answers the repeated questions from your listings, at any hour, inside rules you agreed, and it sends every candidate who wants advice to your team. Testing it on your real vacancies is how you find out which of the three you actually need.

For the rest of your agency

The chatbot answers candidates. Agencies that want help on the other side of the market, finding the hiring managers who need them, can read about lead generation for recruitment agencies, and the full picture of what we build for recruiters is on AI agents for recruiters. If what your agency misses most is the phone rather than the jobs page, we also build an AI receptionist that answers calls in your agency's name.

Your data, and what the chatbot can reach

We handle your data under UK GDPR, and we walk you through exactly where it goes on the consultation. The chatbot reads only the vacancies you publish, and it takes no applications or CVs in the chat: candidates apply through your own form, so their details go where they go today.

The conversations are saved so that you can read them. What it collects from candidates, and whether it asks for anything at all, is your decision, agreed before it goes on your site.

Tell us what your candidates keep asking

Tell us where your vacancies are published, how you describe the companies behind them, and the questions your consultants answer over and over. We will tell you on the call whether a chatbot can take that work, what we would build, and what it would cost.

One flat monthly fee for unlimited agents, month to month. Fully functioning and delivering value in 30 days guaranteed, or you pay nothing more until your agents are.