CV screening and shortlisting
A popular advert brings more applications than a consultant can read properly, and the best candidate may be among the ones nobody reached. An AI agent can read every application against the criteria you approved for that job and say why each person fits or does not. The consultant reads the reasons, opens the CVs and decides the shortlist.
The role in brief
Reads each application against the criteria approved for the job, ranks the applicants and gives a written reason for every one.
Your ATS, where the applications and decisions are recorded, and Microsoft Teams, where the ranked list is returned.
The consultant who owns the job. They approve the criteria before any CV is read, review the ranked list and decide who is shortlisted, held or turned down.
Applications read for each job, consultant changes to the ranking, and applications waiting for review.
Who reads the CVs today
The CVs are read by the consultant who took the brief, or by a resourcer working from it. They open each CV, compare it with the job specification and the notes from the client call, and sort the applicants into yes, maybe and no. On a busy desk it is done last and in a hurry, and the criteria in one person's head are not the ones in another's.
The good applicant nobody reached
When an advert draws a large response, the first CVs get a careful read and the last get a glance. A strong candidate near the bottom of the pile is found after the shortlist has gone, or not at all, and the client sees a thinner list than the response deserved.
Criteria that drift from CV to CV
Sifting by hand drifts. One applicant is passed over for a career gap that was forgiven in another an hour earlier. Discrimination law covers selection, and the government's guidance to employers is that they may be breaking it if discrimination happens in the process, even where a recruitment agency runs it.
A rejection with no person in it
The ICO treats a decision that affects someone's job prospects as significant under UK GDPR. If software makes it with no meaningful human involvement, the candidate must be told, and must be able to have a person look again and to contest it. A sifting tool that rejects unaided puts an agency there by default.
How a pile of CVs becomes a shortlist
The AI worker reads applications and gives reasons; the consultant sets the criteria and makes every decision. Criteria, stages and wording follow how your agency shortlists, agreed with you for each kind of job you fill.
Criteria
Drafts the screening criteria from the job specification and the consultant's notes of the client brief: what is essential, what is preferred and what rules someone out.
The consultant edits and approves the criteria before any CV is read.
Reading
Reads every application and CV against the approved criteria, the same way for each applicant, and notes where a CV does not say enough to judge.
Nothing.
Ranked list
Returns the applicants in order in Teams, with a short written reason beside each name, and marks the ones it is unsure about.
The decision. The consultant reviews the list, opens the CVs and chooses who is shortlisted, held or turned down.
Record
Writes the consultant's decision and the reason to each candidate's record in the ATS, and drafts the message to those not going forward.
Every message to a candidate, and any confirmation the Conduct Regulations require before a candidate is put forward.
Applications read for each job
Of the applications received for a job, how many were read and ranked against the approved criteria before the consultant's review. Reviewed with you each month.
Consultant changes to the ranking
How often the consultant shortlists someone the agent ranked low, or passes over someone it ranked high. A rising count means the criteria need another look.
Applications waiting for review
How many ranked applications are still waiting for a consultant's decision after the number of days you set, shown by job.
Questions owners ask
Does the agent decide who gets shortlisted?
No. It puts the applicants in order and writes down why. The consultant reads the list, opens the CVs, moves people up or down and decides who is shortlisted, held or turned down. Nothing is sent to a candidate on the agent's ranking alone, and the consultant can overrule it for any applicant.
Is CV screening by AI allowed under UK GDPR?
UK GDPR does not ban it. It puts extra duties on a significant decision that is solely automated, meaning one with no meaningful human involvement, and the ICO says the reviewer must be able to overturn the software. Here a consultant makes the decision. What your privacy notice tells candidates remains yours. This is not legal advice.
How are the screening criteria set?
Job by job, from the client's specification and your consultant's notes of the brief. The agent drafts them as essential, preferred and rule-out, and the consultant edits and approves them before a single CV is read. If the client changes the brief, the criteria are approved again and the list is ranked again.
How do we know it treats every applicant the same?
It applies the approved criteria to every applicant and writes its reason beside each name, so a consultant can see why someone ranked where they did and disagree. The criteria are about the job. Discrimination law applies to your shortlist whoever sifts it, which is one more reason the decision is a person's.