November 13, 2025
At The Hershey Company, we believe continuous evolution is needed for competitive advantage, and that extends to all aspects of our operations.
Two years ago, as a part of our journey to embrace a digital-first mindset, we began using AI tools in talent acquisition. The transformation has been remarkable, and I was thrilled to share some of the highlights at HCI’s recent Spark Talent 2025 conference.
As you can imagine, AI was the talk of the conference, as organizations everywhere continue to search for tools that enable humans to do their best work, as we’ve been doing at Hershey.
Driving strategic outcomes
Hershey’s HR leadership team decided in 2023 that it was time to reimagine our approach to talent acquisition and I was brought on board to lead that charge. Previously, we’d outsourced recruitment. Under my leadership, we built our own in-house hiring team, while also improving our internal talent knowledge and devising efficient processes that improved our candidate and hiring manager experiences and pipelines to fill roles. We knew that incorporating AI could boost effectiveness in all these areas.
Today, nearly two years later, we’re seeing the many ways that the AI platform we adopted has improved the experience for talent teams, hiring managers and candidates, alike. In sourcing, for example, AI is enabling the team to quickly identify talent that’s aligned to the requirements of the role, including individuals who are in our talent network already because they’ve applied for roles in the past; it’s allowing sourcers and recruiters to quickly pinpoint the best-fit candidates so they can spend more time building relationships with those qualified individuals while spending less time reviewing applications; it’s providing hiring managers with a centralized source for candidate information, including skills, recruiter feedback and match scores. And for candidates, the platform connects them to the hiring manager’s calendar, so they can schedule interviews at their convenience and minimize back and forth.
The impact already speaks for itself. Here’s what we’re seeing:
- A 21% improvement in recruiter productivity
- 40% of hires now come from prior candidates in our talent network
- Hiring managers report high satisfaction with the process, the tools and the candidates, with a happiness rating of four out of five
Building meaningful connections
When we talk about AI, there’s almost always an undercurrent of fear that it’s going to take jobs and dehumanize the way we work. In fact, we’ve seen the opposite at Hershey. Our teams are now able to focus more deeply on the most human aspects of their job—like talking to candidates, meeting with hiring managers, learning the business and understanding what’s important—while the technology handles a lot of the time-consuming, administrative work. Think about it: there are some positions posted at Hershey that will get 1,000 applicants in a single weekend. AI can help sort through those applications quickly, while the hiring team still weighs in and keeps the process moving smoothly.
These aren’t just wins for talent acquisition teams and candidates, they’re wins all around. Because when our sourcing and recruiting teams are equipped to identify talent and hire them faster, it enables the organization to seamlessly serve and support our customers. And those customers, in turn, can continue delivering to consumers without delay. It’s a virtuous cycle.
I know there’s a lot of trepidation around technology and change in HR. But in truth, this profession is always evolving. When I started working as a recruiter 30 years ago, I remember using attendee lists from conferences to make cold calls. AI has made our jobs so much easier, and it’s only getting smarter. As the technology improves, I believe our teams will work even better together. Because when you combine great people with great tools, your organization comes out ahead.