What was holding hiring back
Home Instead in Winston-Salem is a franchise office serving Forsyth County, NC. Denise Bustos, CEO, runs it with George Bustos. A small team handles recruiting: one person reviews Indeed applicants and keeps the interview calendar, another runs phone screens, in-person interviews and onboarding.
Before Care Hero the office hired about 8 caregivers a month, and Denise's goal was 12. The first conversation was the bottleneck. The team ran about 24 phone screens a month, and the median wait from application to phone screen was 1.7 days (the office's own data, April to July 2026).
Reviewing Indeed took 1 to 2 hours a day, and phone screens and follow-up took about 10 hours a week (the team's own estimates). Many applicants could not cover the whole county, and about half of the people booked for an in-person interview did not show up.
What changed
Care Hero went live on September 11, 2026, the day of the kickoff. Applicants from Indeed get a message with the Care Hero number and call in to a short AI phone interview whenever it suits them. The team gets a summary and a score for each one and books on-site orientations from there. Care Hero works alongside the office's Indeed account, ApplicantStack and Outlook calendar.
- A first conversation at any hour. Evenings and weekends included, when a working caregiver is free to talk.
- Screening on the office's own questions. Territory, availability and experience are covered on every call.
- A teammate for the recruiting team, not a replacement. Their time goes to qualified candidates and the conversations only a person can have.
“Care Hero is effectively replacing their pre-screen step.”
The numbers
The office's earlier process compared with Care Hero:
| Metric | Before (Apr to Jul 2026) | With Care Hero |
|---|---|---|
| First screening | Recruiter phone screen, office hours | AI phone interview, available 24/7 |
| Application to phone interview | Median 1.7 days | Median 1 hour (first 30 days) |
| Phone screens per month | About 24 | 176 AI phone interviews (first 30 days) |
| On-site orientations booked | No baseline | 68 (first 30 days) |
| AI phone interviews after hours | No baseline | 49.8% (Sep 11 to Nov 9) |
First 30 days = Sep 11 to Oct 12, 2026, reviewed with the office at the pilot recap. From Sep 11 to Nov 9, 2026 the AI completed 251 phone interviews.
Why this matters for home care offices in North Carolina
Caregivers who are looking for work often already have a shift. They apply in the evening and are free to talk then, not at 10 a.m. the next day. An office that waits 1.7 days for the first call loses some of them to whoever calls first.
In Winston-Salem the first conversation now happens within the hour, and half of the interviews take place after the office closes. The team's time goes to orientations and the applicants who are a real fit.
From first call to go-live
- September 1: demo. Goal: 12 hires a month.
- September 11: kickoff and live. Indeed applicants get the Care Hero number the same day.
- September and October: weekly check-ins. Weekly calls with the recruiting team.
- October 12: 30-day recap. 176 AI phone interviews, 68 on-site orientations booked.