Message each applicant the moment they apply, and let them call in to an AI interview. At four Care Hero agencies, up to 49.7% of interviews came after hours. (Care Hero data, through Oct 29, 2026)
Your next caregiver might apply after you clock out. Many caregivers look for work after their own shifts end. At BrightStar Care of Birmingham, Better Home Health Care Agency, AccuCare Nursing & Home Care and HomeWell Care Services, 45.6% to 49.7% of AI phone interviews happened after hours, when no recruiter was at the desk.
Below are the stories of two of them, BrightStar Care of Birmingham and Better Home Health Care Agency. This guide covers what happens to an applicant who applies in the evening, how those two agencies reach them without anyone on call, and what to measure each week. It is written by Care Hero, which builds AI phone screening for home care agencies.
How can a home care agency reach caregiver applicants after hours with Care Hero?
Send every applicant a message within minutes, and let them finish the first-round interview on their own time.
The message should arrive while the applicant is still thinking about your job. It needs one clear next step: call this number for a short phone interview, at any hour. The interview then has to be there at 9 p.m. and on a Sunday. One recruiter can't cover those hours, and shouldn't have to.
What happens to an applicant who applies at 9 p.m.?
Without an after-hours option, nothing happens until the next business day.
The application waits overnight. In the morning, the recruiter works down the list, calls and leaves voicemails. Many caregivers apply to several agencies on the same evening, so the agency that reaches them first often gets the interview. An application sent on Friday night can wait the whole weekend. By the time the call goes out, some applicants have booked somewhere else or stopped answering. For more on that, read why caregiver applicants stop responding to agencies.
What changed at BrightStar Care of Birmingham and Better Home Health Care Agency?
Both offices now get about half of their first-round interviews done after hours, and many applicants finish within an hour of applying.
BrightStar Care of Birmingham, Michigan
Before Care Hero, screening took 2 hours of every 8-hour shift (the office's own estimate, May 2026). Now every applicant gets a message and calls in to an AI phone interview. 49.7% of those interviews happened after hours, and 42.5% of applicants who completed the interview finished it within 1 hour of applying (Care Hero data, May 8 to Oct 29, 2026). The median from application to hire is 6.1 days (hires marked in Care Hero, May to Oct 2026).
Two weeks in at BrightStar Care of BirminghamEdwin rated Care Hero 10 out of 10, pointing to the candidate tagging and the visibility it gives the office into every applicant.
Read BrightStar Care of Birmingham's story.
Better Home Health Care Agency, New York
Better Home Health recruits with Care Hero in two offices, Forest Hills and Rockville Centre. 49.4% of its AI phone interviews happened after hours. The AI completed 314 phone interviews, and 45.8% of completed interviews were finished within 1 hour of applying (Care Hero data, Jul 17 to Oct 29, 2026).
The view from HR at Better Home HealthVal and her recruiter told us candidate quality and clarity were notably better than with their previous outside recruiter, and the live pipeline beats the old spreadsheet.
Read Better Home Health's story.
To see the after-hours share at 10 Care Hero clients, read do caregivers mind AI phone interviews?
How does it work without anyone on call?
The first round runs on its own. Your team picks up in the morning with the results.
- The applicant applies on Indeed, your website or another job board.
- Within minutes, they get a message with a number to call for a short phone interview.
- They call in when it suits them, 24/7. The AI asks your own screening questions and scores each answer.
- Your score threshold sorts the list. You can set an automatic score threshold: applicants above it go straight to interview scheduling, and below it your recruiter reviews the scores and decides.
- HR starts the day with results, not voicemails. Your team can focus on the right candidates instead of returning last night's calls.
At BrightStar Care of Birmingham, that first round used to take 2 hours of every shift.
What should you measure each week?
Track when applicants apply and how fast they reach a first-round interview.
- Share of first-round interviews done after hours. 49.7% at BrightStar Care of Birmingham and 49.4% at Better Home Health Care Agency.
- Share finished within 1 hour of applying. 42.5% and 45.8% of completed AI interviews at those two offices.
- Median time from application to completed first-round interview. This shows how long a typical applicant waits.
- Median time from application to hire. 6.1 days at BrightStar Care of Birmingham.
If your first-round interviews only happen during office hours, start with one check. Look at when your applications arrive. The ones that come in after 4 p.m. or on weekends are the applicants waiting longest for a reply.
BrightStar Care of Birmingham: results from one BrightStar Care franchise office, Birmingham, Michigan. Before: the office's own estimate (May 2026). AI interviews, after-hours share, time to screen and time to hire: Care Hero data, May 8 to Oct 29, 2026 (hires marked in Care Hero). Better Home Health Care Agency: AI interviews, after-hours share and speed of completed interviews, Care Hero data, Jul 17 to Oct 29, 2026; HR comment paraphrased from the client's Jul 28, 2026 check-in. AccuCare Nursing & Home Care (Middletown, NY): after-hours share, Care Hero data, Jul 21 to Oct 29, 2026. HomeWell Care Services (Lee and Collier counties, Florida): after-hours share, Care Hero data, Jan 20 to Oct 29, 2026. After hours = before 8 a.m., from 4 p.m. or weekends, Eastern time. Individual results vary. BrightStar Care is a registered trademark of its owner.