Background

Nemak is an auto parts manufacturer. It is among the 60 largest suppliers worldwide, and is recognized for specializing in lightweight aluminum components for electric mobility, structure and chassis, and ICE powertrain applications. This global leader has more than 36 production plants and more than 21,000 employees in 16 countries. Its customer base includes brands such as Porsche, Audi, BMW, and Land Rover.

Challenges

Nemak's growth and expansion brought both opportunities and challenges. One of their main challenges was to keep their plants with 100% coverage. Like many companies with mass recruitment, it seemed impossible to find and hire at the necessary pace. In addition, Nemak's employer brand was weakening, as limited hiring resources prevented them from constantly following up on each candidate. This resulted in a loss of talent and a shrinking pool of candidates.

“Our goal was to contact 100% of the candidates to stop losing interested applicants and increase the number of successful hires.” Arturo Ramos, Attraction and Onboarding Leader at Nemak

In addition to this, pre-filtering candidates consumed recruiters a lot of time, relying on inefficient manual methods, leaving aside tasks of greater value to the operation.

As if it weren't difficult enough to fill vacant positions, the rise of nearshoring in Mexico added new challenges. The entry of new employers into operational roles increased competition, offering more employment opportunities for candidates.

Nemak partnered with Emi because she faced the following challenges:

• Delays in tracking candidates, leading to the loss of applicants and a reduction in their candidate pool
• A lot of time spent pre-filtering candidates, leaving aside other tasks with greater added value
• Efforts aimed at ineffective manual recruitment processes
• Direct increase in the cost of attracting operational talent, due to high competition in the region

Solution

Nemak needed a long-term solution that was more efficient than its lengthy job application forms for unionized employees. These manual processes not only created difficulties for those applying for jobs, but also for the talent attraction team. That's why Nemak chose Emi to simplify and automate its recruitment processes.

Using Emi's chatbot, Nemak was able to respond to 100% of the candidates who applied to the company, while they were able to get answers to their questions 24/7, instead of having to wait for office hours. Using EMI in the first half of 2023, Nemak hired 54% more employees than they did in the same period last year.

In addition, the talent attraction team managed to reduce 80% of the time it spent filtering candidates and other operational activities, investing it in higher value-added tasks such as 1-on-1 interviews with candidates and building a better employer brand.

Finally, by simplifying its recruitment process, Nemak reduced the costs associated with outsourcing it by 75%. The team managed to focus on more valuable channels instead of trying to diversify by running campaigns across all social networks.

Results

Nemak achieved the following results after implementing artificial intelligence to optimize and automate its recruitment process:

‍Reposition the brand as a company committed to recruiting operational roles

Before implementing Emi, keeping track of candidates was nearly impossible for the Nemak recruitment team given the tremendous amount of applications received and manual tasks that the talent attraction team had to do. Hundreds of applications were being received for vacancies at once, and the talent attraction department was drowning in hours of manual tasks, trying to review them all. Now, with the Emi chatbot and the intelligent, bias-free filter, the Nemak team can dedicate their time to more strategic tasks.

24/7 communication with candidates on their preferred channels

Nemak had relied on traditional hiring methods that left recruiters exhausted, as if they were filling a bottomless bucket with water. With Emi, recruiters no longer worry about candidates receiving a timely response. Now, Emi is responsible for providing an immediate response via WhatsApp, Messenger, or SMS.

Combating increasing competition in the market for employers for operational roles

The candidate experience at Nemak used to be far from optimal. Now candidates can apply from their mobile devices without having to worry about creating a CV or filling out a resume. Improving the candidate experience gives Nemak an advantage when faced with competition for the best talent.