What was holding hiring back
Integrity In-Home Care is a non-medical home care agency in Portland, Oregon, led by owner Don Farrell. The agency recruits through Indeed, a recruiter runs the interviews, and its CRM, Spark, stays the long-term home for candidate records.
Don estimated the agency was losing 100 to 200 billable hours a week because shifts went unstaffed, and he was turning away business. Indeed cost about $4,000 a month.
The bottleneck was the interview itself. Applicants booked their own interview slots anywhere from 12 hours to 5 days out, and many never showed. By the time a slot arrived, a good candidate could have lost interest or taken another job.
What changed
Care Hero went live on September 26, 2026, four days after the agreement was signed. Every new applicant gets a message within minutes and calls in to a short AI phone interview whenever it suits them.
- Every applicant reached within minutes, 24/7. Evenings and weekends included, when most applicants are free to talk.
- An interview built on Integrity's own criteria. Dealbreakers surface in the AI interview before the recruiter spends a minute: a background check, three references, flexibility on client gender and night-shift-only availability. Oregon residency is weighted in the candidate's score.
- Strong candidates scheduled automatically. Applicants who score 70 or higher (80 since October 2) book a slot through the agency's Spark scheduling link.
- A teammate for the recruiter, not a replacement. The recruiter's time goes to qualified candidates and to the conversations only a person can have.
The numbers
August 2026, before Care Hero, compared with the first weeks since go-live:
| Metric | Before (Aug to Sep 2026) | With Care Hero (Sep 26 to Oct 29, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first interview | Self-booked slots 12 hours to 5 days out | 13 minutes median to a completed AI interview |
| AI phone interviews | None | 80 phone interviews completed by the AI |
| Speed of completed interviews | No baseline | 76.6% of completed AI interviews finished within 1 hour of applying |
| Interviews after hours | Office hours only | 41.3% |
| Time from application to hire | No baseline | 3.1 days median |
Before figures are the owner's own estimates and counts.
Don's goal was to stop turning away business. Within the first week his interview calendar was full, and he switched Indeed ads off for two days because the slots had run out, something he told us had never happened before.
Why this matters for Oregon agencies
In caregiver recruiting, the agency that reaches an applicant first usually gets them, and most applicants are free to talk after a shift, at night or on a weekend. When an interview is booked days out, a good candidate can lose interest or take another job by the time the slot arrives.
Integrity moved the first conversation to the moment the applicant applies. The median applicant finished an AI interview 13 minutes after applying, the median hire came 3.1 days after the application, and the agency's interview slots filled up in the first week.
From first call to a full calendar
- September 15: first call. Goal: stop losing 100 to 200 billable hours a week.
- September 22: agreement. Pilot agreed; scoping call the same day.
- September 26: live. Interview built on Integrity's criteria; first AI interviews ran.
- October 2: week-one check-in. Indeed ads paused for two days because the interview slots were full.
- October 16: two-week check-in. Ads paused again when orientation capacity filled.