AI Receptionist for Staffing and Recruitment Agencies
Answer Every Candidate and Client Call

Candidates ringing about a live vacancy, candidates registering, clients briefing a new role, and the temp desk chasing a shift that starts in two hours. DeskCaller answers all of it on the first ring, captures what the consultant actually needs, and escalates the urgent ones. It works the same way for employers hiring direct. Live the same day.

See How It Works
First ring
Candidate and client calls answered
24/7
Cover for shift fills and no-shows
Every call
Routed to the desk that owns it

Where the recruitment phone line actually costs you

Agency desks and in-house hiring teams lose the same calls for the same reason. Everyone who can answer them is already on the phone to somebody else.

A same-day shift goes unfilled

A worker does not turn up for a 6am start and the client rings the agency line before anyone is at a desk. If the shift is not covered by the morning it is gone, and so is a chunk of the client relationship. Voicemail cannot escalate a booking, so the call sits there until someone plays it back.

Consultants are already on the phone

Candidates ring about a live vacancy while every consultant on the desk is mid-call. Clients ring to brief a new role and get a voicemail greeting. Both audiences are shopping around by definition, so the call that rings out is the one that goes to the agency down the road.

The same screening questions, over and over

Which role are you calling about, when can you start, where are you based, how far can you travel, who have you spoken to here before. Agency consultants and in-house hiring teams ask the same set dozens of times a day, and it swallows the hours that should go into placing people.

Built for recruitment desks

Every call a recruitment line takes, answered properly

Candidate calls, client briefs, registrations, shift fills and interview scheduling, handled to the standard your consultants would set and passed on with the detail intact.

Candidate Call Capture

Take the role or job reference, availability, location and travel range on the call, so a consultant picks up a candidate record rather than a name and a number.

Client Role Briefs

Capture the role, headcount, start date, pay rate or salary band and site location while the hiring manager is still on the line. The brief lands with the account owner in full.

Interview Scheduling

Book, move and rebook interviews and phone screens against your live calendar. Candidates who cannot make a slot get rescheduled instead of quietly dropping out.

Same-Day Shift Fills

Recognise an urgent temp booking or a shift going short today, capture the shift pattern and cut-off time, and escalate it to the temp desk immediately rather than logging a message.

CV Requests By Text

Send a link mid-call so the caller can upload a CV or a certificate while it is still on their mind. No chasing an email that never arrives.

Registration Calls

Handle candidates ringing to register: what work they are looking for, their availability, their area, and the tickets or certificates they hold. Routed to the right desk to complete.

Out-Of-Hours No-Shows

Evening, night and weekend calls about a worker who has not arrived are answered and escalated by your rules, so the on-call consultant hears about it while the shift can still be saved.

Desk And Consultant Routing

Send the call to the desk that owns it: perm or temp, by sector, by branch, or straight to the consultant a candidate has already been working with.

Right To Work Flagged, Not Judged

The agent notes that a right-to-work check is still outstanding and flags it on the record. It never treats a verbal answer as verification. That check stays a documented one done by your team.

Availability Updates

Workers ringing in to say they are free next week, finishing an assignment, or unavailable for a stretch get logged against their record instead of into a notebook.

New Client Enquiries

A company ringing to ask whether you cover their sector gets a proper conversation: what they need, where, how many, and when. Passed to business development with the detail intact.

Out-Of-Hours Coverage

The line is answered outside office hours, so an early morning client call or a late candidate call is captured and escalated rather than left ringing.

For recruitment agencies and for employers hiring direct

Both sides field the same phone calls from the same people. The difference is who the call needs to reach at the end of it, and that is a configuration, not a different product.

If you run an agency desk

  • Candidates ringing about a live vacancy or a job reference from an advert
  • Candidates ringing to register, with their availability, area and tickets captured on the call
  • Clients briefing a new role, with headcount, start date, pay rate or salary band and site location taken in one pass
  • The temp desk chasing a same-day fill, escalated as urgent instead of left as a message
  • Every call routed to the consultant or desk that already owns the candidate or the account

If you are hiring direct

  • Applicants ringing about one of your adverts reach a voice on the first ring, not a mailbox nobody clears
  • The same screening questions get asked the same way every time, so you are comparing like with like
  • Interviews booked, moved and rebooked against your own calendar, so a candidate who cannot make Thursday does not simply vanish
  • Speculative callers and agency cold calls filtered from real applicants before they reach your hiring manager
  • No hiring decision is ever made on the call. Everything lands with whoever owns the vacancy

A shift fill call, before anyone is at a desk

Sample call: Client rings at 5:50am about a warehouse no-show

Call Duration
1 min 20 sec
Outcome
Shift, site, rate and cut-off captured and escalated to the temp desk
AI Receptionist:
β€œGood morning, thank you for calling Northgate Recruitment. I am the AI receptionist for the temp desk. How can I help?”
Caller:
β€œThis is Dan at Brightwood Foods. One of your warehouse pickers has not turned up for the 6am shift and we are a body down on the line.”
AI Receptionist:
β€œSorry to hear that. Let me get this straight to your consultant. Can I confirm the site and the shift you need covering?”
Caller:
β€œBrightwood Foods, Unit 4 on the Stanley Road estate. Warehouse picking, 6am to 2pm today, one person.”
AI Receptionist:
β€œThank you. Is a forklift ticket needed for this one, or is it picking only?”
Caller:
β€œPicking only. They need steel toe boots, we can lend a hi-vis.”
AI Receptionist:
β€œNoted. And the rate agreed on this booking, so the consultant is not calling you back to ask?”
Caller:
β€œSame as the standing rate, Β£12.60 an hour.”
AI Receptionist:
β€œThank you. Is there a cut-off after which the shift is no longer worth filling?”
Caller:
β€œIf nobody is on site by half eight, do not bother.”
AI Receptionist:
β€œUnderstood, 8:30am cut-off. I am sending this to Priya on your temp desk now as an urgent same-day fill, with the site, the shift, the rate, the kit and the cut-off. She will call you back on this number, and you will get a text confirming what I have logged.”

Syncs to the CRM and calendar you already run

Candidate calls, client briefs and booked interviews land in the systems your consultants already have open, so nobody is copying notes across from a separate inbox. Where a direct connector is not available, a webhook or an automation platform does the same job.

HubSpot
Salesforce
GGoHighLevel
ZZoho CRM
Pipedrive
15Google Calendar
Calendly
Zapier
Make
Webhooks
REST API

What your AI receptionist captures on a recruitment call

A message saying somebody called about a job is worth almost nothing to a consultant. These are the notes that make the callback a short one.

  • Which role or job reference the caller is ringing about, so the call is not a mystery to the consultant who picks it up
  • Availability in the terms that actually matter: the days, shifts and earliest start date the caller can genuinely work
  • Location, and how far they will realistically travel to a site
  • That a right-to-work check is still outstanding, flagged on the record for your team to complete as a documented check
  • The consultant or desk that already owns the candidate or the client account, so the call lands with the right person first time
  • On a client call: the role, the headcount, the start date and the pay rate or salary band
  • On a temp brief: the site location, the shift pattern, any tickets or kit needed, and the cut-off time for filling it

There are things the agent will not do, by design. It never makes a hiring decision and never tells a caller they are right for a role. It never verifies right to work on the phone, because that is a documented check against real evidence. It never discusses another candidate's application or personal details with anyone, and it never gives employment or legal advice. Candidate information is personal data, and it is captured for one purpose: routing the call to the person who can act on it.

Recruitment and hiring questions

Does it handle candidate calls and client calls differently?

Yes. The agent works out early which kind of call it is and follows a different script for each. A candidate call captures the role or reference they are ringing about, their availability, their location and travel range, and which consultant already owns them. A client call captures the role, headcount, start date, pay rate or salary band, site location and, for temp work, the shift pattern. Both are routed to the desk that owns them.

Can it deal with a same-day shift fill or an out-of-hours no-show?

That is the case it is built for. When a client rings because a worker has not arrived or a shift has gone short today, the agent captures the site, the shift times, the skills or tickets required and the cut-off time after which the fill is pointless, then escalates it straight to your temp desk or on-call consultant by your own rules. It does not sit in a voicemail box while the morning disappears.

We hire direct rather than through an agency. Does this work for us?

Yes. Employers running their own vacancies get the same line. Applicants ringing about an advert are answered on the first ring, asked the same screening questions in the same order every time, and booked into an interview slot against your calendar. Reschedules are handled on the call rather than turning into a chain of missed voicemails. Everything lands with whoever owns the vacancy.

Does the AI decide who is suitable for a role?

No, and it will not pretend to. The agent gathers the facts you ask it to gather and passes them on. It never makes a hiring decision, never tells a caller they are right for a role or would be a great fit, and never rejects anyone. Screening judgement stays with your consultants or your hiring managers, where it belongs.

Does it verify right to work over the phone?

No. Right to work is a documented check against original or digitally verified evidence, and a phone call cannot do that. The agent notes that the check is still outstanding and flags it on the record so your team completes it properly before a placement goes ahead. It does not treat anything a caller says about their status as verification.

Will it discuss a candidate's application with someone else?

No. The agent never discusses another candidate's application, personal details or progress with a caller, including a client asking about someone they have already met. Candidate information is personal data, and it is captured for one purpose only: getting the call to the right person with the right context. It also does not give employment or legal advice to candidates or clients.

Does it work with the CRM and calendar we already run?

Yes. Calls sync into the CRM and calendar your agency already uses, so a candidate call or a client brief appears where your consultants already work rather than in a separate inbox. Where a direct connector is not available, a webhook or an automation platform gives you the same result. We will confirm exactly what connects to your stack during setup rather than guessing at it here.

How quickly can we get it on our line?

Same day. Set it up yourself in a couple of hours through self-serve onboarding, or we do it with you: point your number at it, load your desks and consultants, set the escalation rules for urgent temp calls, and set the questions you want asked on candidate and client calls. No hardware and no change to the systems you already run.

Stop losing shifts and candidates to a ringing phone

Whether you run a temp desk, a perm desk or your own hiring, every candidate and client call gets answered on the first ring, captured in full, and sent to the person who can act on it. Live the same day.

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