Overwhelmed by applications, recruiters turn to AI pre-screening tools to winnow down applications

If life’s a beach, then recruiters are currently caught in a riptide.

Despite the recent hiring slowdown creating more competition in the job market, recruiters have confoundingly discovered that separating the wheat from the chaff has only gotten more difficult.

Nearly three-fourths (72%) of global companies are experiencing a scarcity of qualified talent, according to ManpowerGroup’s 2026 Global Talent Shortage report. That’s only slightly down from the 74% that said the same in 2025.

The data suggests that challenge is acutely felt by recruiters. Two-thirds of recruiters reported getting more applicants per role last year, according to an Employ survey of talent acquisition (TA) pros. Despite the uptick in candidate volume, nearly half (46%) of respondents reported a lack of quality candidates, and listed improving the quantity and quality of candidates, and hiring speed as their top three priorities.

To help reduce strain, TA pros are revamping their recruitment tech stacks, with a focus on using AI to better identify top candidates in the pre-screening process, or when sourcing candidates, reviewing résumés, or conducting initial screening calls.

The same survey from Employ reported that 67% of TA pros plan to invest more in AI-powered recruiting tools, while 37% plan to do the same for sourcing tools and 27% with video-screening tools. Similarly, a January LinkedIn survey found that 66% of recruiters planned to increase their AI use for pre-screening interviews; 70% said they believed it would help them have more valuable conversations with candidates.

To the rescue. AI-powered recruiting tools can include sourcing tools that identify top candidates, chatbots that assist candidates with applications, and tools that evaluate and rank applicants based on job-related criteria, or even conduct initial screening interviews, which could help TA pros save time, Andrew Chimka, senior director of product management at LinkedIn, told HR Brew. And because these tools can conduct initial screenings, the first human interaction can be spent having an in-depth conversation about the job and candidate’s experience, instead of basic information.

“That’s what I think gets people excited, is building that connection with candidates beyond just running through a standard script with everyone collecting the same information,” Chimka said.

Job seekers will similarly benefit from these tools, he said. For example, anyone who’s applied for a job in the last decade may recall being advised to style keywords related to the job in white and a tiny font on their résumé for the applicant tracking systems’ rudimentary scanners. However, because these newer tools use natural language to analyze and summarize applications, candidates should instead dedicate energy to explaining their work background.

“AI makes the process a lot more human, which is exciting. I think it’s a rare place that AI is making things more human,” Chimka said, adding that “there’s a little bit of a re-education, both on the seeking and hiring side of like, just describe what you do, share the skills and things that you have, which I think is great.”

LinkedIn recently began testing AI interviews with its LinkedIn Hiring Pro tool, an AI agent for small businesses. Small orgs don’t always have a dedicated TA pro—or even an HR pro—and often leave hiring to someone else in the business, Chimka noted. This new offering aims to allow employers and job seekers more flexibility. Employers can input the questions they want the interviewer to ask, and the answers they want to hear, and the AI will compare the candidates’ answers to that criteria. Job seekers can practice and interview at a time that works best for them, instead of having to fit into someone else’s schedule. While it’s early days, 80% of candidates who have completed an interview with the tool have given it a positive rating.

That positive response is critical, Chimka noted. Tools that help improve candidate experience will leave candidates with a better impression of a company, something that will “pay dividends long term,” he said.

Compliance considerations. More and more tools are becoming available to recruiters in the initial screening stages. But with more tools comes more scrutiny. While employers have used TA tools for over 20 years, compliance around these tools has become more difficult, partly because “everybody’s paying attention” to recruiters using AI, Danielle Ochs, an attorney and equity shareholder at law firm Ogletree Deakins San Francisco office, and co-chair of the firm’s technology practice group, told HR Brew.

Two of the most prominent lawsuits currently affecting the TA tech space focus on pre-screening solutions. The first, ongoing since 2023, alleges that Workday’s AI recruitment screening tools violated multiple federal civil rights laws, including the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The second, filed in California earlier this year, alleges that some of Eightfold AI’s résumé screening and candidate scoring tools violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and a similar California law.

In addition to these lawsuits, several states and cities—including in California, Illinois, and New York City—currently or will soon have in place other laws regulating how AI is used in the hiring process. For employers, the risks “really depend on the details of how the tool is being used,” Ochs said. If a tool is determined to be an automated employment decision-making tool—essentially, a tool that makes decisions with little to no human involvement—employers could be found in violation of one of these laws, Ochs said.

TA teams should work with an internal group to develop an AI strategy plan that covers which tools will be used, how they will be vetted, and how decision-making within the hiring process will happen. They must also ensure employees using the tools are trained on the company’s policies and limitations, Ochs said.

When considering different solutions, TA leaders should ensure that there is still a human making decisions around which candidates to advance and ultimately hire.

“All of these tools are just doing what you instruct them to, and if you feel like they’re not putting you in control, then it’s a very easy way to say, ‘This isn’t a great tool for me,’” Chimka said.

He also recommended TA pros look at brands with which their company has a preexisting relationship, though Ochs encouraged piloting and auditing all tools for compliance risk, regardless of the brand. “Even if you know the tool is widely available and even if it’s widely used and easily accessible, you still need to do your own individualized assessment of the regulatory impact on you, Ochs said.

Employers can also work with tool-vetting experts to assess potential solutions, she noted. It’s important employers negotiate terms and conditions around indemnity, about representations and warranties, and about testing and auditioning the tools with vendors before they are used, she said.

Employers should never assume that a vendor will be the party found liable for solutions that are found to be breaking the law, Ochs warned.

“Employers are responsible for any tool that they bring in the workplace. It’s no different than if they bring in a chainsaw and say, ‘Hey, use this chainsaw to cut down trees,’” she said. “They’re going to be responsible, at some level, if something goes wrong with the tools.”