- Bimbo Bakeries and Foley Equipment use AI-powered recruiting to crack tough challenges, from filling rural roles to modernizing outdated processes and expanding small candidate pools.
- Change management made AI adoption stick. These organizations rallied stakeholders early, nailed communication, and secured buy-in so the tech worked for everyone.
- Results that speak for themselves: Bimbo Bakeries cut time to fill by 15% and expanded its talent network by 37%, while Foley unlocked internal mobility, boosted candidate engagement, and made hiring conversations more productive.
If you had breakfast today, chances are you enjoyed one of dozens of Bimbo Bakeries’ treats: perhaps an Entenmann’s frosted donut or a Thomas’ English muffin.
Now, what do bakeries have in common with bulldozers?
Both Bimbo Bakeries and Foley Equipment were early adopters of AI in talent acquisition processes. Both directly manage all requisitions within the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform. And both have leadership who have completely rethought how they find, engage, and keep talent.
At Cultivate ’25, Lori Vickery, Director of Talent Attraction for North America at Bimbo Bakeries, sat down with Foley Equipment’s HR team leads Michelle Fichtl, Director, Learning and Organizational Development, and Stacy Gramza, Talent Acquisition Manager, to discuss how they use AI in every step of their recruiting processes, from drafting requisitions to making final offers.
Here are the top takeaways from their conversation.
Foley Equipment’s Director of Learning and Organizational Development Michelle Fichtl talks about her approach to using AI in HR.
Why AI can tackle the toughest recruiting challenges
Many HR teams are turning to AI, but not always for the same reasons. Foley Equipment had been in business for over 85 years, so Fichtl knew some of the processes were likely outdated. They were after increased efficiency and transparency.
Another challenge for Foley is location.
“Stacey and I are based out of Wichita, Kan.,. … it’s a very small market for people willing to [relocate],” Fichtl said. “So one of the things for us is just finding talent in that space and figuring out different ways to recapture that talent given the limited candidate pool.”
Bimbo Bakeries faces a different version of the same problem.
“We have baking facilities, sales centers, and distribution centers that we need to hire for,” Vickery said, “so it was really about being able to navigate solving the pain points for each of those locations.”
Bimbo Bakeries has several types of roles to fill, from frontline workers to office staff — all in locations scattered across the U.S., with many roles located in rural areas.
For Vickery, AI adoption was all about: “How can we reduce time to fill? Because if we don’t have associates in roles, we’re not able to produce and manufacture the goods to go out to the business.”
A people-first approach to AI adoption
The shift to AI started early. Two years ago, Fichtl noticed a rise in fears about AI taking jobs — but she had a very different vision.
“We weren’t necessarily wanting to be first to market in everything,” Fichtl said. “We wanted to be very intentional and make sure that we’re making good choices, and that it is still very much human-first and human-focused.”
Fichtl and her team knew AI was inevitable. However, efficiency gains and cost savings were always secondary to what AI could do for people.
“We wanted to look at improving efficiency, but not just from a cost-savings perspective,” Fichtl said, “but really balancing that idea of making good experiences: employee experiences, candidate experiences, and customer experiences while keeping that human-first [approach].”
The Foley team sought a platform that would support ethical decisions and transparent data use so they could continue to build a people-led organization.
For Bimbo Bakeries, success with AI looked like, “honing in on what you know today, where you have those gaps in terms of efficiency, and then looking at what AI can do in terms of workflow automation,” Vickery said. “How can you lift that pain point from the recruiters to reduce your time to fill and fill your jobs in a meaningful way?”
Bimbo Bakeries’ Director of Talent Attraction Lori Vickery talks about the importance of adjusting your change management plan as you move through it.
Driving adoption by generating excitement
Both organizations wanted to bring AI into HR processes, but while the technology was ready to go, it was still necessary to get buy-in and scale adoption.
“You have to meet your organization where they’re at,” Vickery said. “We started with education, getting that stakeholder buy-in. Then it’s really about driving the change because the change management piece is huge.”
At the start of the implementation process, Vickery’s team created a robust communication plan. They brought in cross-functional leaders to participate in the initial build and testing because they wanted to hear about everybody’s needs across the different functions that would use the platform.
Finally, Vickery said that things don’t always go according to plan during a launch, so be ready to adjust. — and it’s OK.
“It’s OK to take a step back and say, ‘We need to regroup,’ because sometimes you get into the process and things change because your organization is changing, or you’ve identified things that you didn’t think of,” she said. “You have to be able to pivot and meet your organization where they are.”
For Fichtl at Foley, it was critical to get employees on board.
“Your employees want to grow,” she said. “We were really excited to have this partner with Eightfold where we could create an internal talent marketplace that helps promote transparency in all our processes and helps emphasize taking ownership of your career development in that full life cycle journey.”
Before Vickery launched the change management campaign, Bimbo Bakeries wanted to have users in the system to have some data to help drive adoption.
After one email and a post on an internal channel, they had just shy of 80% of employees engage with Eightfold — with half of them measuring and assessing their skill proficiencies. Overall, there was “huge buy in and excitement.”
A dictionary for recruiters and hiring managers
One of the biggest benefits of a talent intelligence platform was the ability for recruiters to better communicate with hiring managers.
Most managers say they’ll know a good candidate when they see them, said Gramza. “That doesn’t actually help you find a qualified candidate faster. It actually makes it so much harder.” If the hiring manager isn’t able to communicate to the recruiter what a good candidate looks like, then recruiters won’t know what to look for.
With Eightfold, Gramza’s team used the role calibration feature to give recruiters a dictionary for speaking with hiring managers about their ideal hires. Then, on intake calls, the recruiters could pull up the role calibration screen and review it together.
Gramza says they could ask, “‘Here’s what we’re thinking. Does this sound right? Or tell me a little bit about the current skills of your team? Where are those gaps?’ Because we can customize this specific posting in this role to meet and find those gaps on your team … that’s the beauty of the platform.”
This dictionary also helped drive conversations with internal candidates.
“I’m sure none of you have ever heard this before where a candidate or a current employee is just not the right fit for my team right now,” Gramza said. “If we’re trying to become that employer of choice and develop our employees … and keep them from leaving us to go somewhere else where they feel valued, it’s a very important conversation to have.”
For that reason, Gramza is coaching hiring managers on how to give constructive feedback to internal candidates, where they can say, ‘Here are the skills you’re lacking. Here’s what the role requires, and here’s how you can get there.’ ”
Foley Equipment’s Talent Acquisition Manager Stacy Gramza explains why talent intelligence has enabled their organization to reengage candidates in the hiring process.
Reimagining the candidate experience
“Our candidate experience has improved greatly,” Gramza said. “The application process is a lot better. The personalized career site can track the analytics of how many people are using it. The entire flow is a lot easier.”
The other incredible part is how much visibility and transparency candidates gain into the application process.
“It’s very mysterious when you apply for a job, because you’re like, ‘I read the description, but what does this mean? Am I qualified? I don’t really know.’ Whereas in Eightfold, it’s up to the candidate how much they want to commit to [the application process],” Gramza said.
“They can upload their profile, pick their skills, see the job matching, and then the recruiter also can see that,” she continued. “Even if there are people that didn’t apply, we can be proactive and reach out to them and say, ‘Hey, we actually think you might be a really great match.’ That is probably one of the best things that we’ve gained from Eightfold — that candidate communication and inviting. The response rate has been really positive, much higher than most other standard, generic marketing.”
Gramza added that it’s helped them engage with every candidate who had previously applied.
Likewise, Bimbo Bakeries was able to use the Eightfold talent reengagement features.
“The campaigns and events have been something that we’ve launched,” Vickery said. “It’s been very beneficial when you talk about those rural areas or those niche roles to fill. It’s really about capturing your candidates when they’re coming to your website. They may just be interested in you as an organization. They may not necessarily be looking for a job today, but how do you keep them engaged throughout their process and their journey to maybe join the organization at a later date?”
The AI-native talent acquisition team
Using AI-powered talent intelligence, Bimbo Bakeries was able to reduce their time to fill by 15%, and the hiring team, Vickery says, has enjoyed working with the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform, “because it’s a one-stop shop for them. They can communicate with their recruiters and provide interview feedback right in the tool versus sending a manual email.”
Bimbo Bakeries was also able to increase their talent network by 37%, which helped reengage qualified candidates who had previously applied.
For Foley, the transformation was end-to-end.
“The wins that we’re seeing are enabling those conversations TA-side,” Fichtl said. “That’s transferring into using our development plans, having career discussions across the board, giving us better language, and providing tools for everyone to be more enabled and taking ownership of what development looks like.”
Watch the full session from Cultivate ’25, available now on demand.