Southwest Airlines Co.

is increasingly turning to digital recruiting tools, including chatbots, to help speed the hiring process amid recovery in demand and a competitive job market, a senior recruiting official said.

“The job market is probably harder than I’ve seen it before, and that’s why we need to be able to move forward quickly, and that’s where all of these tools come in,” said Greg Muccio, director of talents for Acquisition airline.

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Southwest has about 2,000 open positions, from flight attendants to gate agents, Muccio said. It has taken the company between 35 and 45 days in the past to make a conditional offer after posting, he said, but he wants to cut that in half with the help of tools that can automate routine recruiting tasks.

The airline uses a software platform from Phenom People Inc. to manage its recruiting. The software supports Southwest’s careers site and uses artificial intelligence to tailor job postings and messages to potential candidates.

The platform’s job chatbot has had 1.2 million interactions and answering job-related questions that would have taken its employees between 18,000 and 92,000 hours to complete since Southwest launched last year. said Mr. Muccio.

The chatbot is expected to play a major role in the recent hiring drive, including answering basic screening questions on topics such as work eligibility or convenience with pay.

Southwest did some video interviews about Zoom and Microsoft Teams. However, it is expected to switch to a video conferencing tool that is part of Phenom in the coming months to take advantage of its potential archiving capabilities and keep all recruiting tools on one platform.

The platform also offers deep learning algorithms that can evaluate job candidates based on their skills and experience and help recruiters decide which candidates should be prioritized, said Mahe Bayireddi, chief executive of Phenom.

Mr Muccio said he did not use any of these skills because he preferred that people control this part of the process.

Airlines are scrambling to bring back workers on leave last year and bring new ones on board as the U.S. vaccine rollout drives travel activity to pre-pandemic levels. The Transportation Security Administration screened 1.98 million passengers on Sunday, a 15-month high.

The job market is so far has fought to keep up with recovery.

That’s why companies are relying on AI, chatbots, and other recruiting tools to help them identify the best job prospects faster before another potential employer steps in, said Brian Kropp, research director for human resources at Gartner Inc.

The research and consulting firm found that 46% of HR managers used chatbots for recruiting in 2019, according to a survey published last fall, up from 38% in 2018. And 96% of those who use them said that they have a medium to high level of value.

The aviation industry faces some challenges in hiring staff as passenger traffic increases, said Bob Mann, industry analyst at RW Mann & Co., an aviation consultancy. The industry has laid off or on leave thousands of workers, many of whom may have moved into other sectors or are still on the sidelines. And income from business and international travel is still subdued.

Mr Muccio said Southwest did not have any employees on leave or laid off during the pandemic. And unlike many airlines, their business is mostly domestic vacation travel.

“The planes are getting full, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are very profitable,” said Muccio. “But because the planes are so full, you still need people to serve the customers.”

Write to Jared Council at jared.council@wsj.com

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