Scaling Candidate Rerouting: How AI Solves Multi-Application Challenges in Volume Hiring

It's a common problem in recruiting. A promising candidate applies for a role, but they’re just not the perfect fit – at least not for that specific job, at that specific location. Maybe their skills are a little different, or the timing is off. You have to pass on them, but you can’t shake the feeling that they could have been a great asset somewhere else.

And just like that, they’re gone, likely snapped up by a competitor.

Every company knows it needs a talent pool filled with the best candidates, but the reality is that these pools are often untapped. Candidate records sit untouched, buried under limited data and lost context.

Recruiters simply don't have the time to enrich each profile with the kind of insights that could make a difference down the road. And this often results in a perfectly good candidate who was a great fit for one team being rejected for another because the system doesn't capture the whole picture.

The volume hiring bottleneck

But the real challenge in high-volume hiring isn't just about finding candidates; it's efficiently managing the sheer volume of applications once they start rolling in. Recruiters today are drowning in resumes, with some data showing they manage up to 3x times more applications than they did just a few years ago.

A critical imbalance magnifies this volume: candidates often apply to multiple roles or, more commonly, to a handful of popular locations. This is particularly true in sectors like retail, logistics, and manufacturing, where a candidate might apply to a high-demand store in the city center while a branch just a few miles away struggles to attract enough applicants.

The result is a bottleneck that leaves some locations overwhelmed with applications and others starved for qualified candidates. This imbalance forces a time-consuming and inefficient "first-come, first-served" approach. Recruiters, with limited time, may only review the first few dozen applicants for a popular role, leaving equally or even more qualified candidates unreviewed. 

The consequence? Good candidates are overlooked and rejected for the wrong reasons, while less-popular locations remain understaffed – a situation that is no longer sustainable.

Why legacy systems fall short

So, why can't existing tech solve this problem? The answer lies in the limitations of traditional ATS’ and the reality of a recruiter's time.

Legacy systems are built on a simple, one-to-one matching logic: a candidate applies to a specific job, and their application is judged for that job alone. These systems act as a repository of information rather than a proactive recruitment tool.

The manual effort required to identify a candidate who might be a better fit for a different role or location is immense and simply doesn't scale. A recruiter with a limited amount of time can't possibly cross-reference an overflow of applications for a popular location with the staffing needs of a struggling one nearby.

This is where the paradigm shifts. Unlike a static database, AI-powered rerouting can analyze a candidate's profile against every open position in real time. It goes beyond simple keywords to understand a candidate's true potential, skills, and even location preference.

This technology is the first step toward a proactive, rather than reactive, hiring strategy. It allows your team to finally handle the sheer volume of applications, ensuring that a qualified candidate who applies to a popular location isn't lost while a nearby, less-popular location remains understaffed.

Why it matters for ops leaders

For ops leaders, the stakes are high. The inefficiency of a manual recruitment process or outdated recruitment tools directly impacts the bottom line. Candidate leakage, where qualified candidates are lost due to a poor candidate experience or being incorrectly passed over, equates to lost revenue and a slower time-to-hire.

Every extra day a key position remains open is a day of lost productivity and increased strain on the existing team. Furthermore, the wasted recruiter time spent on manual rerouting and reviewing candidates for roles they are a poor fit for translates to a higher operational cost per hire.

It prevents them from focusing on their true priority: hiring a good fit to avoid constant turnover. In high-volume industries, a bad hire is a costly mistake, leading to the need to restaff the same roles repeatedly and draining valuable resources.

When candidates are ghosted or mishandled by the system, it doesn’t just affect one individual; it hurts the company’s employer brand in a broader sense.

How AI-powered rerouting solves these issues

This is where AI-powered systems like Carv can come in to transform the volume recruitment process:

• Candidate matching across roles: When a candidate isn’t a good fit, Carv instantly reroutes them to a position that aligns with their skills – without extra work from your team. This capability ensures that qualified candidates who would have otherwise been missed or ghosted are proactively matched to the roles that need them most. By turning your talent pool into a dynamic, proactive asset, Zero Waste empowers your team to fill critical roles faster and more efficiently.
• Real-time location load balancing: If a specific location is struggling to meet its hiring goals while another is over-subscribed, the system can automatically adjust its rerouting priorities in real-time. It can also consider a candidate's stated preferences, ensuring that any reroute suggestion is not only a good fit for the company but also appealing to the job seeker.
• Automatic nudges and communication: Once a better-fit role is identified, Carv can instantly engage the candidate through automated channels like SMS, WhatsApp, or email. Instead of a recruiter manually having to reach out, Carv's communication engine can suggest the alternative role, explain the benefits, and seamlessly guide the candidate into the right application funnel. This can happen instantly, significantly reducing time-to-hire and improving the candidate experience by showing them their application is still valued.
• Feedback loops: The real power of machine learning is its ability to learn and improve. The system can track which reroutes lead to successful placements and which do not. Over time, the AI algorithms become smarter and more effective at predicting which roles will convert better, continuously optimizing the hiring process for maximum efficiency and success.

AI rerouting in practice

Let’s walk through a typical scenario to see how an AI-driven system handles the rerouting process.

1. A job applicant applies to Role A, a position at a popular location that is already heavily oversubscribed.
2. The AI-powered system, acting as a smart recruitment software, immediately begins its screening process and analysis. It scans the candidate's profile, including their resume and application data, and cross-references it with all open positions across the company.
3. The AI identifies Role B, an open position at a different location that is a better fit for the candidate's skills and has a higher need.
4. The candidate instantly receives an automated message via their preferred communication channel (email, SMS, etc.). But a Voice AI agent can also handle the conversation, highlighting the fact that AI is now capable of full, real-time conversations that don't feel like you're talking to a robot. This approach is much faster and more direct. The AI can suggest the alternative role and gauge the candidate's interest with a simple, natural-sounding question like: “Thanks for applying to Role A! We think you’d also be a great fit for Role B – a similar role at a different location. Are you interested in learning more?”
5. If the candidate replies with "Yes," the AI handles the rest of the application process. It can automatically update the applicant tracking system, schedule an initial screening, and move the candidate into the new funnel.
6. The recruiter is only looped in once the candidate is engaged and pre-qualified, allowing them to focus on the human element of recruitment strategies and avoid time-consuming administrative tasks. This approach preserves the human touch where it matters most, in the later stages of the interview process.

This seamless, AI-driven workflow streamlines the entire recruitment process, ensuring that no candidate is ever lost due to a lack of bandwidth or an inefficient system.

Strategic benefits for hiring teams

The implementation of AI recruitment and rerouting tools offers a wide range of benefits for ops leaders and their teams.

• Better staffing coverage: By automatically load balancing applications, the system ensures that critical staffing gaps across all locations are addressed more effectively. This leads to more consistent staffing coverage and improved operational stability.
• Better candidate experience: The proactive, automated communication and swift rerouting process ensure that candidates are never left in the dark. This reduces candidate ghosting and builds a positive reputation for the company as a responsive and considerate employer, which is crucial for attracting top talent. What’s more, candidates can then tell others about the employer and role, helping to attract more applicants down the line.
• Time saved on manual rerouting: Recruiters are freed from the monotonous and time-consuming task of manually sifting through applications and identifying rerouting opportunities. This allows them to focus on high-value work, such as interviewing, building relationships with qualified candidates, and strategizing with hiring managers.

Real-world rerouting wins

The value of AI-powered rerouting isn't just theoretical; it's being proven by companies that have made the strategic shift. A prime example is how global retail giant Carrefour leveraged conversational AI to solve its high-volume hiring challenges.

With thousands of stores and tens of thousands of applicants, Carrefour's store managers were overwhelmed. They struggled to keep up with the volume, which led to delays in hiring, lost talent to competitors, and a poor candidate experience. The core issue wasn't just volume; it was the need for a solution that could handle the administrative burden of screening and scheduling while also ensuring candidates were matched to the right store.

By partnering with Carv, Carrefour implemented a “hands-off” conversational AI solution that automated the most time-consuming parts of the process. When a candidate applied, Carv’s AI took over, instantly screening their qualifications and intelligently matching them to the right store based on location. This rerouting ensured that a qualified candidate who applied to a store with too many applicants was seamlessly guided toward a similar role at a location that needed them most.

The results were significant: Carrefour achieved a 50% reduction in time to hire across all regions. Candidate satisfaction scores jumped from 67% to 82%, and hiring managers were freed from administrative tasks, allowing them to focus on the most qualified applicants. Carrefour’s success demonstrates how AI-powered rerouting can transform a time-consuming administrative function into a fast, proactive, and strategic process that delivers measurable business outcomes.

AI candidate rerouting is a need-to-have

Speed and accuracy are what make or break your success. The manual, reactive approach to rerouting is an operational liability, costing your organization time, money, and valuable candidates. 

While generic AI tools like ChatGPT are powerful, they aren't built for recruitment. They can't distinguish between a casual comment and a crucial detail like a candidate's location preference. They lack the contextual understanding to manage the nuances of hiring effectively.

A specialized, purpose-built AI tool, on the other hand, understands the most important parts of the hiring process. This gives your team the AI tools to act at scale without adding headcount or burning out recruiters. The ability to make data-driven hiring decisions and streamline the entire hiring process is a competitive advantage.

Rerouting is no longer just a recruiting task; it’s a strategic ops lever that ensures you are getting the right candidates to the right roles at the right time. If you'd like to see how Carv handles this part of the volume hiring process, book a demo below to experience it for yourself.