Verification pending. This write-up describes what was built and how it works. It contains no performance figures, and it will be updated with measured results once they are verified.
Challenge
Certified Contracting recruits commission-only, door-to-door roofing sales reps. The role attracts plenty of applicants and far fewer who show up to a field interview. Every hour spent on the phone with someone who was never going to work the role was an hour not spent training the people who would.
Existing workflow
The first version was a no-code chain: Meta recruiting ads fed a Make.com scenario that texted each applicant through Twilio, logged them to a spreadsheet and sent a Calendly link. It was fast, but it couldn’t hold a conversation, didn’t know which requirements an applicant had already answered, and when we later audited delivery receipts we found a large batch of texts it had logged as sent that were never delivered.
What we built
A single web app with its own database, replacing the chain end to end:
- intake from Meta by webhook with a five-minute poller as a safety net;
- an AI assistant that asks only for the requirements an application didn’t answer, over SMS or Messenger;
- five role requirements rated Confirmed / Needs discussion / Unknown, each with a verbatim quote from the applicant;
- a simple, visible readiness score and a two-slot interview offer, with database locks so a slot can’t be double-booked;
- a trainer feedback step and an owner-only hire approval;
- a post-hire ramp program: daily check-ins, pace against goal, milestone tiers and a Monday digest.
Human involvement
The AI cannot mark anyone hired. Requests for a real person, accommodation questions and policy questions go straight to a human, and the assistant can be paused per applicant. Wording about pay and terms is used only after the owner approves it.
Result
Applicant intake and screening are live: real applications from the old process were imported and screened in the new system. Outbound messaging to applicants is waiting on two external gates — Meta’s app review for messaging permissions and carrier SMS registration — so until they clear, a person sends outreach. We are not publishing hiring or conversion numbers until they have been measured over a full recruiting cycle.
Lessons learned
- Answer once per burst. Applicants send several short texts in a row; replying to each one reads like a bot.
- “ok” is an answer. Short replies carry information the system must extract instead of re-asking.
- Audit delivery, not sends. A messaging service had been silently dropping inbound texts, and the old texter had logged undelivered messages as sent.
- A bounce is not a contact. Outreach that bounced must never count toward “contacted.”
- Start the approvals first. App review and SMS registration took longer than building the software.