Client story · PostNL
Recruitment costs dropped 73%
With a digital recruiter that replies within a minute.
How PostNL handles 40,000+ applications a year with Charlie, an AI recruiter that screens, cross-sells and schedules on WhatsApp and by phone.
With 40,000+ people applying every year, PostNL needed to hire at scale without letting the candidate experience slip. We helped them build Charlie, a digital recruiter that connects the right candidates to recruiters faster, day and night.
73%
lower recruitment costs
4,000+
hires from 40,000+ applicants a year
91%
candidate satisfaction, rated 4 or 5 stars
Industry
Delivery
Team
HR & Recruitment
Markets
The Netherlands
Scale
40,000+ applications a year
Agent
Charlie
What the agent does
Pre-screening, rejections and cross-selling, interview scheduling, follow-ups
Channels
WhatsApp (text and voice), phone calls
The challenge
Manual screening couldn’t keep up.
In high-volume hiring, your candidates are your future workforce. With 40,000+ applications a year for roles like postal worker, PostNL didn’t have the capacity to respond quickly enough. Manual screening slowed hiring down, strained recruiters and led to inconsistent pre-selection.
Competition for the same candidates was strong. People dropped off during pre-selection, and almost half stopped responding before they were ever interviewed.
The solution
Meet Charlie. PostNL’s digital recruiter.
Charlie replies to every application within a minute, on WhatsApp or by phone, and runs the pre-screening chat. Candidates who aren’t a fit for the role they applied for get a clear answer, and Charlie proactively matches them to other open roles at PostNL.
Charlie checks recruiters’ calendars and candidates’ availability, books the interview and sends reminders, with everything kept in sync in SAP SuccessFactors. Status updates and follow-ups go out automatically, and when a question needs a person, Charlie hands over to the recruiter.
Watch the journey
The results
Faster answers, fewer no-shows.
Speed changed everything. Candidates hear back within a minute, interviews are booked within hours, and recruiters spend their time on the conversations that need them.
91%
Candidate satisfaction
Rated 4 or 5 stars by candidates, including those who were rejected.
73%
Lower recruitment costs
Across PostNL’s high-volume hiring.
4 hrs
Time to interview
Down from 4 days.
375 hrs
Recruiter time saved
Every month.
18%
Matched to other roles
Candidates offered an alternative role instead of a plain rejection.
23%
Pre-selection ghosting
Down from 49%.
"The Scotty AI 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
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