What was holding hiring back
BrightStar Care of Birmingham serves families across Birmingham, Rochester Hills and Troy in metro Detroit, led by President Edwin Wudyka. The office employs about 150 caregivers, and its General Manager oversees hiring with one recruiter who ran every phone screen by hand. The office hires CNAs for 12-hour day and night shifts, mostly through Indeed.
The office received about 300 Indeed applications a month, and 200 to 400 applicants at a time sat in a holding folder waiting for a call. Initial screening took about 2 hours of every 8-hour shift, and applicants were hard to reach during working hours because most of them were at work themselves.
Caregiver supply also swings with the seasons: the office loses up to 40% of caregivers in February and March and another 20% when school restarts in September, so every applicant lost to a slow callback matters.
What changed
Care Hero went live on May 19, 2026, after a referral from a fellow BrightStar owner, and took over first-round screening inside the office's Indeed workflow.
- Every applicant reached within minutes, 24/7. Indeed applicants get a message right after they apply and call in to the AI phone interview whenever it suits them, evenings and weekends included.
- The recruiter's script, scored. A 31-question interview on a 100-point rubric covers driver's license, transportation and insurance, CPR, TB, CNA status and commute, with felony and work-authorization dealbreakers.
- A do-not-hire list matched by phone number, so former caregivers and repeat applicants do not take up interview time.
- Past applicants re-engaged. About 46 former applicants eligible for rehire were invited back to interview in the first weeks.
What a Michigan applicant has to clear at this office: a TB test from the past 18 months (the biggest drop-off point), CNA or higher certification plus CPR, a driver's license, transportation and auto insurance, a drug test and background check at orientation, and availability for 12-hour shifts.
The numbers
Before Care Hero, and in the five months since go-live:
| Metric | Before Care Hero | With Care Hero (May to Oct 29, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| First-round phone screens | The recruiter, by phone, about 2 hours of every 8-hour shift | 344 AI phone interviews, none run by the recruiter |
| Applicants waiting for a first call | 200 to 400 in a holding folder | Messaged within minutes of applying |
| Phone screens completed after hours | Office hours only | 49.7% |
| Completed within 1 hour of applying | Not tracked | 42.5% |
| Median time from application to hire | Not tracked reliably | 6.1 days |
What the team told us
Two weeks in, Edwin rated Care Hero 10 out of 10, pointing to the candidate tagging and the visibility it gives the office into every applicant.
Why this matters for Michigan agencies
In caregiver recruiting, the agency that reaches an applicant first usually gets them, and most applications arrive after a shift, at night or on a weekend. In Michigan, every hire also has to clear a TB test, certification checks, a drug test and a background check before the first shift, so each applicant lost to a slow callback is expensive.
BrightStar Birmingham closed that gap without adding recruiters. Half of its AI interviews now happen after hours, more than four in ten applicants finish within an hour of applying, and the median hire is made six days after the application.
From referral to results
- May 7: referral. Introduced by a fellow BrightStar owner already using Care Hero.
- May 18: kickoff. The recruiter's script became a 31-question, 100-point AI interview.
- May 19: live. Every new Indeed applicant invited to the AI interview, 24/7.
- June 1: week 2 review. The President rated Care Hero 10 out of 10 for tagging and visibility.
- October: five months in. 344 AI phone interviews, 49.7% of them after hours.