How Workbank increased candidate response rate by integrating chat into their job portal

Workbank is one of the largest job portals in the Philippines that recently built a chat feature into their talent solutions platform by using TalkJS. To learn more about their setup, we had a talk with Reggie Fernandes, the Country Head at Workbank Inc. He’s been leading a team of young professionals in the Philippines while working closely with the development team based in India.

About Workbank

Workbank is all about addressing recruitment challenges; finding relevant talent for job positions in the fastest possible way by providing specific solutions to accelerate the process. The recruiting platform serves companies and job seekers in all industries, both in the Philippines and Qatar.

“At Workbank, we invest in talents not only by connecting them to job opportunities across the globe, but also by ensuring they are equipped with information and resources to help them be the most productive they can be.”
– Reggie Fernandes, Country Head at Workbank

The challenge

Every day thousands of recruiters and job candidates were interacting via email and phone calls after connecting on the Workbank job portal. But, Reggie and his team were hearing complaints from recruiters about having a hard time getting responses from candidates. Many job seekers who created profiles on Workbank were unresponsive to emails or phone calls from recruiters.

The potential hires didn’t like getting spammed with calls and emails. So, to tackle the low response rate from candidates and create a better hiring experience, Reggie and his product team decided to build a messaging solution to circumvent all the phone calls and emails.

The ideal solution for them could be integrated fast without any custom development. Also, it needed to have a solid infrastructure that could handle spikes in user volume, connectivity, and an interface that brings a great user experience.

Using a chat API to connect recruiters and candidates

At first, they were thinking of building the messaging feature from scratch using open source but soon found out that it would take a lot more developer resources than expected. To ship the feature faster, they agreed on using a chat API, evaluated a few providers, and went along with TalkJS.

“Based on feedback from our IT department, TalkJS implementation process was easy, support was readily available, and the pricing was affordable.”
– Reggie Fernandes, Country Head at Workbank

To connect recruiters and candidates they used the TalkJS chat API and the Javascript chat library. The API offered advanced features like email notifications users can reply to without the need to visit the website chat. While the SDK was equipped with a pre-built chat UI with a design that’s easy to customize by changing a few lines of CSS.

The final product was a 1-on-1 chat they embedded into their platform that works just like any other modern messaging app and also keeps the users in the loop with email notifications while they’re offline.

The results

The first thing Workbank noticed after integrating the chat was a spike in response rates as the candidates started talking with recruiters on the chat. It’s still too early to get the exact figures because the chat is live for just a month or two, but the solution is working nonetheless. The chat integration led to a better hiring experience for candidates, which had an impact on the candidate response rate.

“We’ve seen a significant uplift in use since going live and no complaints thus far.”
– Reggie Fernandes, Country Head at Workbank