Reactivating dormant candidates predictably – with a permission-first AI voice agent
How we turned thousands of dormant contacts into a predictable pipeline for a UK recruitment agency: 315 to 470 reactivated candidates per month, at around €450 in running costs – GDPR and EU AI Act compliant.
The starting point
In our client’s database, a UK recruitment agency, thousands of candidates lay dormant who had once made contact months or years ago and had been silent ever since. Reactivating them manually was expensive and slow; simply calling them would have been legally risky. What was needed was a way to bring these dormant contacts back into active conversations, predictably and compliantly.
Our approach: permission-first, not cold outreach
We built an AI voice agent that operates exactly in between: with permission, measurable, and at a fraction of the previous cost. Instead of starting with consent, the candidate starts with a simple, honest question: "Are you currently open to new jobs?" Only after this internal yes do they choose the channels through which they want to be contacted, right next to a short voice preview of the assistant.
- A call happens only after double opt-in: no call without documented, time-stamped consent. The agent discloses from the first second that it is an AI, and a "do not call again" is respected immediately and permanently.
- Proven building blocks instead of a black box: orchestration on n8n, telephony on Twilio, voice on ElevenLabs, connected to the ATS (here Vincere) as the leading data source – embeddable into existing recruiting processes without rebuilding everything.
- Compliance by design: built to GDPR, the EU AI Act (Art. 50, clear AI disclosure from second one) and the relevant UK standards (UK GDPR, PECR), with clean opt-in, easy opt-out and a complete log.
The results
Over roughly 20 to 22 working days, the agent handles about 150 conversations per day, exclusively with people who have consented. At a reactivation rate of 10 to 14 percent, that adds up to 315 to 470 reactivated candidates per month, at running costs of around 450 euros (about 300 euros for tools, 150 euros for infrastructure). That is a fraction of what the same reactivation output would cost manually – and the documented compliance is not a burden but a selling point in itself.
Note: This case describes a technical and product implementation approach and is not legal advice. Consent wording and legal bases must be reviewed by a lawyer before going live.