How Tend Hit Its Hiring Goals While Scaling, With Puck's Branding & AI Recruiter

Who is Tend?

Tend is "dental done differently": a modern dental group built around a hospitality-style patient experience. It was co-founded in October 2019 by Doug Hudson, Andy Grover, and Michael Stenclik; Hudson was previously CEO of SmileDirectClub. Since then, Tend has grown into one of the fastest-scaling dental brands. Each studio is designed to feel approachable, care plans are built collaboratively without judgment, and weekend and extended hours let patients fit dental care around their lives. Every new studio means hiring a full local team of dentists, hygienists, assistants, and studio associates, which is where Puck came in.

At Tend, the team is the experience. Hygienists, dental assistants, and front desk staff shape every visit, so hiring quality matters as much as speed. That responsibility sits with Farrah Zanganeh, Tend's Vice President of Talent Acquisition. Farrah has spent years automating recruiting, and has built the recruiting team and recruiting processes at Tend.

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Executive summary

• Candidates who listened to team content were 2.5x more likely to apply. Audio clips on Tend's job and content pages let candidates hear about Tend from its own people, about 95 seconds per listener, with leaders like Chief Dental Officer Dr. Chris Salierno sharing their story.
• 2x interview completion rate compared with Tend's previous one-way video screen. The majority of candidates now make it through, with the median candidate completing their interview within 3 hours.
• 56% of interviews completed on nights or weekends, outside the hours a recruiter could take a call.

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The challenge: speed without losing candidates

Tend's TA team was already more automated than most. Candidates no longer waited weeks for a call from a recruiter juggling 15 to 20 reqs. One-way video replaced the phone screen, and self-scheduling handled the rest.

But every automation came with a tradeoff: completion. Many candidates who applied never finished the one-way video. In dental hiring, that loss hurts. Hygienists and assistants are chairside during business hours, they field multiple offers, and a candidate who drops out of a screen is usually gone for good.

Farrah also knew that a TA team can only hold so many live conversations a day. Going back to recruiter phone screens would trade completion for speed all over again.

"I'll admit, I resisted at first. But once I tried automation, I've embraced it. Candidates loved not waiting weeks for a call from a recruiter juggling reqs. And, the team member stories keep the candidate experience good while balancing the efficiency gains of more automation."
_{— Farrah Zanganeh, VP of Talent Acquisition, Tend}

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Tend's solution: Puck's AI Recruiter and employer branding

AI Recruiter. Tend uses Puck's AI Recruiter, an AI phone interview agent, for the roles where it fits, not every role. It asks the same structured questions a recruiter would, follows up dynamically, and candidates complete it on their own time. Every completed interview is reviewed by Tend's TA team or the hiring manager, and the transcript and audio help the next interviewers prep.

Farrah built guardrails in from the start: same questions for everyone, human review of every interview, and clear expectations for candidates.

"It asks the same structured questions a recruiter would, follows up dynamically, and candidates do it on their own time. Same questions for everyone makes evaluation more fair and consistent."
_{— Farrah Zanganeh, VP of Talent Acquisition, Tend}

Employer branding. Tend's job pages feature real Tend voices, so candidates hear what it's like to work there before they apply. Puck has produced over 27 team member mini-podcasts for Tend, which are automatically mapped to open roles by department and location. Tend also uses Puck content pages such as "Tend Reviews," where candidates spend about a minute per session on average.

Tend uses Greenhouse as its applicant tracking system. Puck integrates with Greenhouse to map employer branding content to job descriptions automatically when a job is created, and AI Recruiter integrates with Greenhouse to hand off interview responses.

With the growth of the business, Farrah also needed a career site refresh. Working with her internal team and recruitment marketing agency, she added Puck-produced content to the career site plans as another way for candidates to engage.

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The results

Tend got the speed of automation without the drop-off.

• Completion rate doubled. Twice as many candidates finish Puck's AI Recruiter interview as finished Tend's previous one-way video screen. The majority of candidates now make it through.
• 3-hour median from application to completion. Half of candidates finish their interview within three hours of applying, compared with the days of back-and-forth a phone screen takes to book.
• 56% of interviews happen on nights or weekends. More than half of Tend's interviews happened when no recruiter would be available. In a business-hours screening model, many of these candidates would never have been heard.
• Listeners were 2.5x more likely to apply. Candidates who played audio clips on Tend's job and content pages applied at 2.5 times the rate of those who didn't, after about 95 seconds of listening per person.

Candidates noticed the difference too. When Farrah asked candidates about the AI Recruiter interview, most said it was easy and that they were glad to move quickly.

"Completion is higher than one-way video, and candidates are reaching the next step faster. Candidates deserve a process that keeps its promises on speed, fairness, and respect."
_{— Farrah Zanganeh, VP of Talent Acquisition, Tend}

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The takeaway

Dental professionals do their job searching after the last patient leaves. Tend met them there: an interview they could take at 9pm or on a Saturday, reviewed by a human the next morning, plus job pages that let them hear from Tend's own people first. The result was more candidates heard, faster, with a process Farrah's team can stand behind.

Interested in finding your people? Let's talk.

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_{*Methodology: Brand metrics cover July 1, 2025 to October 29, 2026. Completion rate compares candidates who finished Puck's AI Recruiter interview with those who finished Tend's previous one-way video screen. Median time is measured from application to interview submitted. Nights and weekends means interviews started after 6pm local time or on Saturday or Sunday.*}