By business type
An assistant that serves candidates and clients without confusing the two
A recruitment website has two visitors with almost nothing in common. A candidate wants to know what happened to their application, what documents to bring and when they get paid. A client wants to know how you charge, what your rebate terms are and how fast you can fill a role. The same assistant answers both, and the one question it can never answer is the one candidates ask most.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- what is happening with my application
- have you sent my cv anywhere
- how do i register with you
- what id do i need for right to work
- when do i get paid for last week
- how do i submit my timesheet
- is the rate you quoted before or after tax
- do you have any warehouse work this week
- what are your fees for permanent placements
- what is your rebate period if someone leaves
- can you take me off your database
- do you cover this area
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| Candidate registration process | How to register, what you need at registration, how long it takes, and what happens afterwards. Setting expectations here reduces follow up chasing more than any other single document, because most chasing comes from people who were never told what normal looks like. |
|---|---|
| Right to work and identity document requirements | Which documents you accept, whether originals are required, how digital checks work where your jurisdiction allows them, and what happens if a document has expired. Getting somebody to a first shift depends on this, and it is asked in every single registration. |
| Payroll: pay dates, timesheets and deadlines | When timesheets must be submitted, who approves them, when the pay run happens, when money lands, and what to do about a missed deadline or a query. This is the highest volume repeat question from temporary workers and it is entirely factual, which makes it the strongest automation candidate on the whole site. |
| What a rate does and does not include | Whether a quoted rate is gross or net, whether holiday pay is rolled up or accrued, what deductions apply, and how any umbrella or intermediary arrangement changes the figure. Workers compare an advertised rate with their payslip and conclude they were misled, and this is the material that prevents that conversation. |
| Client terms of business in summary | Your permanent fee basis, temp to perm arrangements, the rebate or guarantee period and the conditions on it, and notice terms. Clients ask before they will brief a role, and a hiring manager who cannot get the terms quickly briefs somebody else. |
| Your data retention and removal policy | How long you keep a candidate record, what you use it for, and how somebody asks to be removed. Data protection law in most jurisdictions gives candidates rights over this, and a recruitment database is exactly the kind of holding those rights were written for. |
What has to reach a person
Application status, which is the most asked question here
Where is my application, has my CV gone anywhere, did I get the job. The assistant has no access to your applicant tracking system and cannot look anybody up, so every one of these becomes a handover rather than an answer.
What it can do is still useful: explain your usual process and timescales, say when somebody would normally hear, and take a name and email so a consultant can respond. A candidate who has been told what normal looks like chases far less than one who has been told nothing.
Anything about a named candidate or a vacancy's internals
Who else has been submitted, what the client thought, why somebody was rejected, what the hiring manager is really looking for, what the budget actually is. This is confidential to one side or the other and sometimes to both, and a disclosure here damages a client relationship rather than just a conversation.
Pay disputes and anything that has already gone wrong
Short pay, a missing shift, a deduction nobody expected, a timesheet the client did not approve. These need somebody who can open the payroll record the same day, and a worker who has been short paid this week is not in the mood for a process explanation.
Acknowledge it, give the payroll contact, take the details, and get it in front of a person quickly.
Employment status and rights questions
Whether somebody is employed or a worker, holiday entitlement in an edge case, notice, dismissal, whether an assignment ending is lawful. These are legal questions about an individual's circumstances, and answering them in the agency's name creates exposure the agency did not price in.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot check the progress of an application or discuss a specific role or candidate. I can explain how registration works, what documents you need, how timesheets and pay dates work, and our terms for clients. Leave your name, email and what you are asking about, and the right consultant will pick it up.
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
Right to work checks have a prescribed form
Where you operate, immigration rules typically specify which documents establish a right to work, how the check must be performed and recorded, and what protection a correctly performed check gives the employer. None of that survives being paraphrased.
Index your actual check procedure and let the assistant state it, and never let it advise on whether a particular document or immigration status is sufficient.
A recruitment database is a large holding of personal data
CVs, identity documents, references and interview notes are personal data, and some of what candidates volunteer is sensitive. Data protection regimes in most jurisdictions give rights of access and erasure over all of it, with response deadlines attached.
The assistant should be able to explain how such a request is made and where it goes, and should never be given access to the records themselves.
Job advertising is itself regulated in places
Rules in many markets restrict how vacancies may be described, require pay information in some jurisdictions, and prohibit wording that discriminates. An assistant summarising a vacancy in the agency's name is advertising it, so it is safer to have it point at the live advert than describe roles in its own words.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- The status or outcome of anybody's application.
- Anything about a named candidate, client or hiring manager.
- Who else has applied for or been submitted to a role.
- Whether a particular document or immigration status gives a right to work.
- Whether somebody's pay, deductions or employment status are correct.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a recruitment agency rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- Application status questions, and the answer that is not a statusThe most asked question a consultancy gets and the one it cannot answer in a widget. What to say instead so the candidate stops chasing.
- Candidate registration, explained before anybody picks up the phoneRegistration steps, right to work documents and what happens before a first shift, answered at the hour candidates actually ask.
- Client billing questions, and the terms of business behind themTimesheet driven invoices, permanent fee triggers and rebate conditions. The client side billing questions with fixed, publishable answers.
- Erasure requests from candidates, and where they have to landA CV holding is exactly what erasure rights were written for. How the assistant routes the request and separates it from unsubscribing.
- Which side of the desk is asking, and why it decides everythingTwo audiences, two inboxes and one confidentiality wall between them. The handover starts by working out which side of the desk is typing.
- The word fees means two opposite things on a recruitment siteOne site, two prices. A candidate is never charged, and a client wants a percentage of salary or a margin inside an hourly rate.
- Why a hiring manager cannot get a number out of one messageA recruitment quote is arithmetic on a salary nobody has settled yet. What may be said about contingent, exclusive and retained work.
- Nobody got back to me, and the three complaints hiding in itThe commonest complaint here is hearing nothing after applying, and it is the one an assistant cannot resolve. What it can honestly do.
- Two buildings, and one of them is not the agency'sA branch you control and a client site you do not. What a recruiter may say about access, and where an adjustment request has to go.
- The lockout that costs somebody a week's payA temp who cannot log in on the evening of the cut off has a deadline, not an inconvenience. What an assistant can honestly do about it.
- Which login is it, and which address is sitting on itA candidate area, a timesheet system and a client approval login all look alike from outside. Getting the reset pointed at the right one.
- What an assistant may say about how candidate data is heldProcurement wants to know how a recruiter stores identity documents and worker records. Only published answers, because each one is a commitment.
- Cancelling a search is not cancelling a subscriptionWithdrawing a brief, ending a temp booking and the introduction that stays live for months. Terms answers, never a decision on a case.
- Three clocks running on a recruitment websiteA shift starts before the office opens and the cut off falls at the weekend. Which times a recruitment site actually needs to publish.
- Three addresses, and the one that must not be publishedRegistration is at the branch, the interview is at the client and the work is elsewhere again. Which address may be given out, and when.
- The questions candidates will not ring a branch to askWhat to wear, how long it takes, whether there is a test. The registration nerves nobody will phone a branch to ask a consultant about.
- A refund here is a clause, and usually not moneyRebate scales taper, a replacement usually comes first and conditions void both. What may be quoted when a hire leaves in week three.
- Two things called an appointment, one of them not yoursWalk in or by appointment, which branch, and why an interview is never the agency's to arrange. Booking answers without any diary.
Questions
- Candidates only ever ask about their application. If it cannot answer that, what is the point?
- The point is that it answers everything around it. Timesheet deadlines, pay dates, what a rate includes, registration documents and how long a process normally takes are high volume and entirely factual, and they are what consultants spend their afternoons repeating instead of filling roles.
- Can it tell a client our fees?
- It can quote your published terms: the fee basis, the rebate period and the conditions on it. What it should not do is negotiate or imply flexibility, because a hiring manager will hold you to the version they were told first.
- How do we keep candidate and client answers apart?
- In the material. Keep the candidate pages and the client terms as clearly separate documents with distinct vocabulary, and the citations on each answer show you immediately when the assistant has reached into the wrong set.
- Can it handle a request to be removed from our database?
- It can explain how the request is made and where it goes, and take the person's details so somebody actions it. The action itself is yours, and the deadline attached to it in most data protection regimes means it needs to reach a real inbox rather than sit in a chat log.
Keep reading
- For a law firmFee structures, consultation terms and onboarding checks are answerable. Anything applied to a caller's own facts is legal advice.
- For a accounting firmDeadlines drive the volume. What an accountancy practice can automate, and why no answer may touch a caller's own numbers.
- For a insurance brokerProduct information is safe ground. A personal recommendation is regulated, and no assistant may confirm whether a loss is covered.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.