Hershey Candidate Care Line

Every candidate call, answered with care.

One person fields every candidate call across about twenty plants. It fills half their day, and most candidates still hang up with no answer, only a promise that a recruiter will follow up.

Kitty is an AI candidate concierge. She answers the candidate herself, any hour, then leaves the recruiter a ready-to-approve summary, so no one waits for a callback.

K
Kitty
AI candidate concierge · Hershey
Ready
An inbound candidate call. You play the candidate. Pick a script below, or just speak naturally.
Your browser will ask for the microphone. Please allow it.
Connecting your call…
Connected
Call ended. The summary is below.
Connection failed.
Call summaryHandoff created
Caller
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Reason for call
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What Kitty said
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Routed to
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Status
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A matching record was written to the Care Line Calls table for the recruiter to approve. The caller never heard any internal status.

Answers the routine ~77%

In the 203-call log, ~77% were status or onboarding questions. Handled live, around the clock, no queue, no callback.

Never reveals your status

The agent shares only general process. Your record stays internal, and a human makes every decision.

A handoff, ready to approve

Every call becomes a routed, auditable record the right recruiter clears in about thirty seconds.

Try it yourself

Play a real candidate. Read a line.

These three are the highest-volume reasons people actually call, taken from the 203-call care-line log. Each plays a real candidate record in the ATS.

203 real calls (Feb to Apr 2026, one operator, ~20 plants). Each bar is a reason people call. The dark part is what the agent answers on the call (it used to be "email the recruiter and wait"). The big number is how much of that reason the agent takes over.
The agent answers on the callAlready answered on the call today
Status updates76%of 54% of calls
Onboarding87%of 23%
Assessment problems70%of 10%
Other questions75%of 8%
Rejection reasons33%of 3%
How to apply50%of 2%
The dark part of each bar is what becomes "email the recruiter and wait" today, and that is what the agent now answers on the call. The light part was already answered live. Recruiters still own the specifics and every decision.
Status · ~54% of real calls

"What happens next?"

"Hi, I applied for the Packer role at Bluffton and finished my pre-hire assessment. I just want to know what happens next."

The agent answers the general process, asks your name and one detail you would know, and closes. It never reads your status back. The handoff routes to Jessica Hoy and a record appears in Airtable.

You are Sarah Kim · (260) 555-6847
Assessment issue · ~10% of real calls

"My assessment broke."

"I was taking the pre-hire assessment and it logged me out, but it shows as done. I never finished it."

Kitty reassures you it does not count against you, takes your details, and drafts a reset request for your recruiter. Ashley's record really is flagged "Issue Reported" in the ATS.

You are Ashley Taylor · (419) 555-3387
Haven't applied · self-serve

"Any openings?"

"Hi, are there any openings I can apply for?"

Resolved live, no lookup, no human. Kitty explains how to apply and offers to note your email for alerts. This is the ~25-30% of calls that need no recruiter at all.

You are Michelle Carter · (717) 555-2048

More to try

The hired path, plus two tests that show the design holding up.

Already hired · onboarding ~23%

"Can I move my start date?"

"I just got hired and I'm set to start, but can I move my start date a little earlier?"

Kitty congratulates you, says it can't change the date itself, and routes the request to the team leader, Kaelyn Wyckoff. It never edits the record.

You are Denise Coleman · (717) 555-2310
Privacy test

Pretend to be someone else

Call as "Sarah Kim" but give a wrong phone number when asked.

Kitty still reveals nothing and behaves exactly the same. You learn nothing about Sarah's record. That is the privacy guarantee, on purpose.

The handoff is simply flagged "unverified"
Live knowledge test

Edit the answer, hear it change

Open the Knowledge Base in Airtable, change one Answer, then call back and ask that question.

Kitty uses the new wording on the very next call. No retraining, no developer. This is the "you control the knowledge" promise, proven live.

Change goes live on the next call

One call, start to finish

A worked example (text, not the live demo): Sarah Kim calls about her status. The full loop, from her question to the answer a human approved.

A candidate on the phone with the Hershey Candidate Care Line

Behind every call is a candidate waiting to hear back. Today, three in four of them just get "I'll email the recruiter."

Real time · while the caller is on the line
1
On the call · Answer

Answer the question, from the knowledge base

CALLERHi, I applied for the Packer role at Bluffton and finished my pre-hire assessment. What happens next?
Searches the Knowledge Base, returns the approved answer
KITTYThanks for calling Hershey Candidate Care. I'm an AI assistant and this call is recorded. After your assessment is submitted, your recruiter reviews it before the phone screen.
2
On the call · Confirm identity

Find the right record before hanging up, revealing nothing

KITTYI'll have your recruiter follow up. What's your full name?
CALLERSarah Kim.
Searches the ATS for "Sarah Kim" → more than one match
KITTYThanks, Sarah. Which role and plant did you apply to?
CALLERThe Packer role at Bluffton.
One record now matches → identity confirmed, silently
KITTYGot it, thank you. Your recruiter will follow up shortly, no need to call back.
Kitty asks only for things the real Sarah would know and searches the ATS live, until exactly one record matches. She never says the role, plant, or status out loud, and she does not hang up until the right record is found. If it cannot be confirmed, she shares nothing and flags the handoff "unverified."
The call ends here. The handoff below runs afterward, and a human approves it.
After the call · async, human-approved
3
After the call · Draft

Draft one handoff for two people at once

Kitty writes a Care Line Calls record and drafts a single handoff: a notification to the recruiter, with a ready-to-send reply for Sarah inside it. Nothing reaches Sarah yet.
Draft · to the recruiterTo: Jessica HoySubject: [Care Line] Sarah Kim, Packer Bluffton
Candidate: Sarah Kim, (260) 555-6847 What she asked: an update after finishing her pre-hire assessment ATS located (read-only): assessment complete, awaiting recruiter review Kitty's read: she is ready to advance, nothing is blocking her Suggested action, for you to do in the ATS: advance her to recruiter review and schedule the phone screen
Open Sarah's record to review
Draft reply to Sarah
Hi Sarah, thanks for your patience. Your assessment is in and your recruiter is reviewing it now; we'll reach out to schedule your phone screen this week.
Send replyEdit
4
After the call · Recruiter handles it

The recruiter does the action, then sends the reply

Jessica opens the record, advances Sarah and schedules the phone screen in her own system, then clicks Send. Kitty never touches the ATS: the human does the action and owns the decision. The whole step takes about a minute.
Jessica: action done in the ATS, reply sent
Open for discussion

Should Kitty eventually do this ATS action herself, or always leave it to a human? For now we keep the action with the recruiter: there is no ATS write yet, and a person should own the decision.

5
After the call · Candidate hears back

Sarah finally gets her answer

Only after Jessica sends it does Sarah get the reply, now with her actual status. One call, no callback, and a person did the action and signed off on every word.
Sent · to the candidateTo: Sarah KimSubject: An update on your Hershey application
Hi Sarah, Thanks for your patience. Your assessment is in and your recruiter is reviewing it now; we'll reach out to schedule your phone screen this week. Talk soon, Hershey Candidate Care

Kitty does the work; a person signs off on every word. She located the record live to confirm it was really Sarah, then drafted the reply and the suggested action; the recruiter did the action and sent it, and only then did Sarah hear back.

How Kitty is designed to be trusted

Six choices that make this safe to put in front of your candidates, and easy to put in front of your legal and security teams.

A real answer, 24/7

Candidates get plain-language help in their own words, any hour, no queue, no voicemail. In the 203-call log only ~1 in 4 was answered on the spot; the agent answers the routine ones instantly.

Privacy by design

Kitty confirms who is calling using only the name and phone every caller already gives, and never reads anything back from their record. Someone pretending to be a candidate learns nothing.

The human always decides

Kitty answers and routes a ready-to-approve handoff. It never makes, changes, or implies a hiring decision. That keeps it outside automated-decision rules.

It only says what you approved

Every answer comes from your Knowledge Base. If something is not in there, Kitty says it does not know and hands to a person. No invented dates, statuses, or policies.

Always current

Change one answer in the Knowledge Base and Kitty uses it on the very next call. Policy updates go live with no retraining and no developer.

Every call on the record

A transcript, the action taken, and a routed handoff are written automatically. Fully auditable for your TPRM and legal review.

The Knowledge Base is the product you control

Your team owns one simple table of questions and approved answers. Kitty reads it live on every call, so what it says is always exactly what you decided, today. This demo is answering from a Knowledge Base of fifteen real questions taken from your own care-line log.

Built for a regulated hiring line

The agent assists. People decide. Every call is on the record.

Humans decideAdvisory only, never an employment decision. Designed as a non-AEDT.
No status read aloudThe caller hears general process. The record stays internal.
US data, on AWSInbound, AI disclosed, recorded with consent. TPRM-ready.
Fully auditableEvery call logs a transcript, the action taken, and the reasoning.

In short: the four steps, on your 203 calls

The Candidate Care blueprint, with the real number from your own call log behind each step.

~26%resolved on the spot today

1. Answer, from the knowledge base

Routine questions get a plain answer with no person. Today only about a quarter of calls are resolved live; the agent answers the routine ones instantly, around the clock.

Name + phoneon every logged call

2. Identify, the minimum to route

Every one of the 203 calls already carries the candidate's name and phone. The agent collects just that, never more, and only to route the right recruiter.

~54%are "where am I"

3. Look up status, read-only

Over half of calls ask about status or an interview. The agent locates the record for the recruiter and never reads it back to the caller.

~74%became "email and wait"

4. Hand off, human-approved

Today three in four calls end with the operator emailing a recruiter. The agent drafts that handoff automatically, ready to approve in seconds.

Catherine Kitty Hershey, photographed in 1890
Why we named her Kitty

Meet the real Kitty.

This is Catherine "Kitty" Hershey, Milton Hershey's wife. Years later, when Milton was asked why he founded a school to care for children who had no one, he answered simply: "It was Kitty's idea." In 1909 they signed its founding deed together. Her whole legacy is care, education, and a fair chance.

So we named the candidate-care voice after her. The voice is warm, calm, and reassuring on purpose: a candidate calling about a job is often anxious, and the first thing they should hear is someone who cares. It felt like the most fitting tribute to the original Kitty.