How to use AI for pre-screening interviews
There are many ways that hiring teams narrow down a list of candidates for a role. One method is through pre-screening interviews. Companies looking to streamline hiring can automate part of the pre-screening interview process. If you're wondering how you can use AI to simplify this procedure, this article looks at some helpful methods and tips to enhance your hiring strategy.
What are pre-screening interviews?
Pre-screening interviews are often phone or video conversations that occur before the formal interview process. The purpose of these meetings is to determine if you want to proceed with the formal interview process after analyzing some preliminary information provided by the candidate. The agenda of these interviews may vary slightly but often involves:
- Resume overview
- Salary expectations
- Surface-level questions
How to use AI for pre-screening interviews
Since questions are often the same across multiple pre-screening interviews, many companies opt for AI to handle this portion of the hiring process. Here are some ways to incorporate AI into your pre-screening interviews.
Create lists of questions
There are often several questions that are consistent regardless of the role. This means that AI can potentially generate a list of questions for the pre-screening interview. Some tools may allow you to create lists of questions for different types of roles, but it's important to do your research into different types of AI tools. Reading company whitepapers — such as the one created by CareerBuilder — discussing their new technologies can help you learn the scope of different AI tools.
Review candidate resumes
A large part of the pre-screening process is reviewing candidate resumes. Many interviewers look through them, asking about key highlights. AI can assist by pulling these out, making it easy for you to keep the interview flowing. To make this step work even more efficiently, add some level of candidate ranking to this process.
Conduct pre-screening interviews
Some tools can also conduct AI-assisted or AI-led interviews, eliminating the need for your hiring team to set aside time for these meetings. AI-assisted interviews are often conducted via video recording and aim to make a recommendation about a candidate's compatibility with the role. For AI-led interviews, some companies allow technology to decide whether to advance an individual to the next stage of the hiring process.
These interviews collect visual, verbal, and vocal data to analyze a candidate. If your company opts for this level of AI integration, it's a good idea to include verbiage in an advance email to the candidate about how you plan to conduct the interview.
Collect candidate responses
Another reason for adding AI to pre-screening interviews is its ability to collect information that your interviewers may potentially miss. After completing the interview, your HR team can then use this data to rank candidates and decide whether to advance the individual to the next stage of the hiring process.
"Learning what you can automate, from question list generation to fully hosting pre-screening interviews, allows you to determine the level of AI integration your company is most comfortable with."
Benefits of using AI for pre-screening interviews
One major benefit of using AI in the hiring process is the potential to improve the quality of new hires. This means that it can help you find the best-qualified and most compatible candidates for the role. Here are some other benefits often associated with adding AI:
- Speeds up the hiring process: Automating certain procedures takes tedious tasks away from your hiring team during the workday, since AI is available 24/7. This means you can collect pre-screening interview responses outside of typical office hours, allowing for more interviews to be done at a faster pace.
- Reduces subjective hiring choices: There is always the potential for bias during hiring, and while it's necessary in some places, it's not needed in others. Incorporating AI into the process adds an objective take on a candidate's alignment with a particular role.
- Improves employee satisfaction: As employees don't have to dedicate their time to tedious tasks, they may feel more satisfaction in their day-to-day responsibilities. This can have a positive snowball effect on morale and productivity, as employee satisfaction directly affects these two factors.
Tips for doing pre-screening interviews with AI
There are several things to consider that can help you and your team get the most out of AI. Here are some tips that can help you transform your hiring procedures into a highly efficient process:
Reflect on your pre-screening process
Take a hard look at your existing pre-screening process. Analyzing each step and the questions you ask can help you streamline this stage before automating anything. This can ensure that you have the best method possible after handing over tasks to AI, ultimately leaving your team with a streamlined procedure.
Add a human touch
Ensuring that there are checkpoints along the way in the hiring funnel can provide insight into how your company views its candidates and employees. Having a human touch at these intervals can show that your company values its team members, which can increase the chances of a candidate continuing along in the hiring procedure. As some candidates may not fully buy into AI handling hiring, a lack of human interaction may result in candidates abandoning the recruiting process with your company.
Reevaluate your process
The modern hiring landscape is constantly changing, as is technology. Reevaluating your hiring process regularly can ensure that your practices remain relevant and current. Taking time each week, month, or even quarter to look at your pre-screening interviews and candidate feedback can help you find ways to tweak your hiring funnel. Not setting aside time can result in a hiring procedure that quickly becomes outdated or irrelevant.
Determine your level of integration
Your team has complete control over how much or how little you let AI take over. Analyzing your current tasks, candidate feedback, employee satisfaction metrics, and other factors can help you determine how much AI integration will work for the company. This enables you to balance human and AI interactions while still streamlining the process. Different tools allow for different levels of integration, and finding a solution with several tools, such as those offered by CareerBuilder, can help you customize how much AI you incorporate. For example, the AI tools that CareerBuilder offers include:
- Resume writing: This tool helps candidates create a comprehensive resume that fully encompasses their qualifications and skills.
- Job descriptions: Part of attracting the right talent is having a well-crafted job description. AI can help write and optimize these descriptions, which can improve the effectiveness of the pre-screening process.
- Skills matching: AI skills matching refers to improving the relevance of jobs that candidates apply for. This tool helps candidates discover future possibilities that align with their unique skill set.
- Search and match: This AI tool delivers more relevant candidates to a company for the roles they advertise, which can reduce the time to hire.
Using AI for your company's pre-screening interviews can drastically speed up this stage of the hiring process. It can also help your hiring team reallocate their time, which can boost productivity and satisfaction. Learning what you can automate, from question list generation to fully hosting pre-screening interviews, allows you to determine the level of AI integration your company is most comfortable with. CareerBuilder offers many different AI hiring tools [placeholder for CB AI link], allowing you to get the most out of your hiring strategy.
More tips for transforming your pre-screening process
One way to boost your pre-screening process is by having an effective hiring process set up in the first place.
Another way companies host pre-screening interviews is by using a recruiting chatbot, which asks and responds to a wide variety of questions that can help automate and expedite hiring.