New Case Story | PostNL
Automating high-volume hiring
from 40,000+ applicants to 4,000+ hires
Automating high-volume hiring from 40,000+ applicants to 4,000+ hires
With 40,000+ people applying each year, PostNL needed to hire at scale, without compromising the candidate experience. Using AI-powered automation, we helped connect the right candidates to recruiters faster and reduce friction.
Watch the journey
INDUSTRY
Delivery
REGION
The Netherlands
INTEGRATIONS
SAP SuccessFactors + MSFT Outlook & Teams + WhatsApp
SCALE
40,000+ applications annually
Challenge
Manual screening is slow and resource-intensive
In high-volume hiring, your candidates are your future workforce. Manual screening slowed hiring, strained resources, and led to delays, inconsistent screening, and a poor candidate experience.
👎 Manual screening slows down high-volume hiring.
👎 Strong competition demands faster hiring.
👎 Candidate drop-off during pre-selection.
👎 Candidate ghosting and lost hires.
We had a high volume of applicants for the postal worker position, but not enough capacity to respond quickly. We quickly came to the conclusion: it's all about speed in the process, but we can't provide that quickly enough right now. That's why we wanted a digital recruiter. With the added bonus that it could also lead to cost savings.
Loes Quinten
(Former) HR Manager Transport Services
What PostNL needed
Speed: Contact candidates almost immediately, keeping them engaged.
Bonding: Quickly schedule interviews to maintain candidate interest.
Efficiency: Automate repetitive tasks, freeing up recruiters for in-depth interviews.
Cost-Effectiveness: Significantly reduce costs.
The solution
Meet Charlie.
The digital recruiter
Charlie is the AI recruiter powering PostNL’s high-volume hiring. More than automation, Charlie orchestrates conversations, screening, cross-selling, scheduling, candidate experience measurement, and system integrations - at scale, without bias, and without delays.
Charlie responds to applications within a minute, via WhatsApp or phone call. He handles the introductions and pre-screening chat instantly.
Charlie handles rejections, while proactively matching candidates to alternative roles, maximizing hiring efficiency.
Charlie checks recruiters calendars and the candidates availability, and books the interview automatically, keeping everything synced in SAP SuccessFactors.
Charlie delivers real-time visibility, enriches SAP SuccessFactors automatically, and drives personalised follow-ups, reducing drop-off and keeping hiring transparent.
Scotty AI orchestrator
💬 WhatsApp & phone conversations (voice & text)
⚡ Instant, human-like responses
🔀 Cross-sell candidates
📅 Interview scheduling & reminders
🌙 24/7 availability
🔗 Orchestrates ATS, tools & channels
🤝 Human handover when needed
Enterprise-grade orchestration. Candidate-grade experience.
The result
What this means for the business
91% candidate satisfaction
91% of candidates rated the experience 4 or 5 stars. Ghosting in the pre-selection stage dropped from 49% to 23%, with response times under one minute, even at massive scale.
73% lower recruitment costs
Recruitment costs dropped by 73% compared to pre-Charlie. On top of that, thousands in software costs were eliminated through automation.
Interviews scheduled within 4 hours
Time-to-interview dropped from 4 days to 4 hours. Instant responses, automated scheduling, and reminders eliminate delays and keep hiring moving.
375 recruiter hours saved per month
Coordination, follow-ups, and scheduling are automated, freeing teams to focus on their core work.
18% of candidates matched to alternative roles
Charlie successfully matched 18% of candidates to alternative roles, maximizing talent utilization.
The ScottyAI platform has elevated the overall quality of our recruitment process. We now operate more efficiently and effectively, while also significantly enhancing the candidate experience. It’s great to see that even rejected candidates provide positive feedback on our digital recruiter.
Roos de Lange
Recruitment Process & Innovation Lead
With the Scotty AI platform, we've seen a remarkable increase in the number of high-quality hires, significant process improvements, and a vastly improved candidate experience throughout the recruitment journey.
Paula Frese
(Former) Senior Specialist Recruitment
In the news
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Ready to let Scotty do the work?
PostNL redefined their hiring journey. Let us show you how to automate your complexity and put your candidates first.
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