Care Hero is an approved recruiting vendor for Home Instead franchise owners. Michael Boyd's three offices hired 200 caregivers through it. (Hires marked in Care Hero, Dec 19, 2025 to Nov 2, 2026.)
Michael owns three Home Instead offices, in Owasso and Vinita, Oklahoma, and Round Rock, Texas. Below is what changed in those offices, how the screening works day to day, and the questions any franchise owner can ask a recruiting vendor. It is written by Care Hero, which builds AI phone screening for home care agencies.
Which recruiting tools are approved vendors for Home Instead franchises?
Care Hero is one of them. It takes on the first step of caregiver hiring. Every applicant gets a message within minutes of applying and can call in to a short AI phone interview at any hour.
Your franchise support contact can share the current list of approved vendors. If you are comparing tools across a franchise system, our guide to the best AI recruiting software for home care franchises goes into more detail.
What changed when Michael Boyd's three offices started using Care Hero?
Applicants reached a phone screen in minutes instead of a day, and the offices hired 200 caregivers through Care Hero.
The offices went live with Care Hero on December 19, 2025. Before that, an applicant waited about 24 hours for a first phone screen, and only on weekdays (the offices' January 2026 estimate). With Care Hero, the median time from application to phone screen is 24 minutes (Care Hero data, Jun 1 to Oct 17, 2026).
Since go-live, the offices have hired 200 caregivers through Care Hero (hires marked in Care Hero, Dec 19, 2025 to Nov 2, 2026). The median time from application to hire is 9.4 days (Jun 1 to Oct 28, 2026, from the offices' own records).
Many caregivers can only talk after their own shift ends. Of 998 completed AI phone interviews across the three offices, 45% happened before 8 a.m., from 4 p.m. or on weekends, when nobody is at the desk (Care Hero data, Jun 1 to Oct 17, 2026, Central time).
“...my business grew a lot over the last six months.”
Read the full story of Michael's offices.
How does AI phone screening work in a Home Instead office?
The applicant gets a message within minutes, calls in when it suits them, and the recruiter sees the results the same day.
A caregiver applies on a job board or on the office's careers page. Within minutes, Care Hero sends a message with a number to call. The applicant calls in whenever they are free, even late at night, and answers the office's own screening questions in a short AI phone interview.
The recruiter gets a summary, a score and a recording of each interview. Clients can set an automatic score threshold. Applicants above it go straight to interview scheduling. Below it, the recruiter reviews the scores and decides. HR can then spend its time on the right candidates instead of on phone tag.
The in-person interview, background checks and orientation stay with the office, as before. What changes is how fast the first round is done.
Does it fit the job boards and hiring steps an office already uses?
Yes. Care Hero works with the job boards and applicant tracking systems agencies already use, such as Indeed.
Applicants keep applying where they apply today. The office keeps its own screening questions, its own recruiter and its own hiring steps after the phone screen. For Indeed in particular, see the best AI tools for Indeed caregiver hiring.
What should a franchise owner ask any recruiting vendor?
Ask for real numbers from offices like yours, and ask who stays in control of each decision.
- How fast does an applicant reach a first phone screen? Ask for the median from real clients, with the period.
- What happens when someone applies at 9 p.m. or on a Sunday?
- Does it use your own screening questions?
- Who decides on the score threshold, and what does the recruiter see?
- Does it work with the job boards and applicant tracking system you already use?
- How are hires counted for each office, and over what period?
Michael's offices can answer the first two with their own numbers: 24 minutes from application to phone screen, and 45% of AI phone interviews after hours.
Results from three Home Instead franchise offices owned by Michael Boyd (Owasso and Vinita, OK; Round Rock, TX). 200 hires: hires marked in Care Hero, Dec 19, 2025 to Nov 2, 2026. Time to hire: Jun 1 to Oct 28, 2026, from the offices' own records. After-hours share and screening speed: Care Hero data, Jun 1 to Oct 17, 2026. Before: the offices' January 2026 estimate. After hours = before 8 a.m., from 4 p.m. or weekends, Central time. Individual results vary. Home Instead is a registered trademark of its owner.