HomeUse CasesScreen and Shortlist Job Applicants
Intermediate 1–2 weeks setup $200–600/month (Greenhouse + HireVue)

Screen and Shortlist Job Applicants

Cut screening time from 8 hours to 45 minutes per role — automatically filtering, scoring, and ranking candidates against your exact requirements.

Best for: HR managers, recruiters, hiring managers, startup founders

Recommended Tool Stack

These tools work in sequence — each one handling a specific layer of the workflow.

1
Greenhouse

ATS for collecting and managing applications

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2
HireVue

AI-scored video interviews and assessments

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3
ChatGPT

Summarize CVs and draft rejection/advance emails

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Step-by-Step Workflow

Specific, executable steps you can start today.

1

Define your scorecard before posting

In Greenhouse, create a structured scorecard: 5–7 "must-have" criteria with definitions and 3–4 "nice-to-have" criteria. Every reviewer scores the same dimensions — this removes subjectivity.

2

Add knockout questions to the application

In Greenhouse, add 3–5 disqualifying questions: years of experience, location, work authorization, specific tool familiarity. Applicants who don't meet minimums are filtered out automatically.

3

Set up HireVue one-way interviews

For roles with 50+ applicants, enable HireVue's one-way video stage. Candidates record 3–5 short video responses. HireVue's AI scores communication skills, energy, and response quality.

4

Use ChatGPT to summarize CVs

For remaining candidates, paste CVs into ChatGPT with this prompt: "Score this CV against these criteria: [paste scorecard]. Give a 1-10 score per criterion with 2-sentence reasoning. Output as a table."

5

Calibrate with your hiring manager

Share top 10–15 ChatGPT-scored candidates with the hiring manager. Compare their rankings with the AI scores. Adjust your prompt/scorecard if the rankings diverge significantly.

6

Automate advance and reject emails

In Greenhouse, set up email templates. Use ChatGPT to generate personalized rejection emails for candidates who reached the screening stage: "Write a warm rejection email for [name] who applied for [role]. Mention one specific strength from their application."

Expected Outcome

80% reduction in screening time, better candidate quality through structured scoring

Time to results

1–2 weeks setup

Monthly cost

$200–600/month (Greenhouse + HireVue)

Difficulty

Intermediate

What Can Go Wrong

Common failure points teams hit when implementing this workflow.

HireVue AI scoring can disadvantage candidates with accents, non-standard lighting, or lower-quality webcams. Use AI scores as one signal, not a gate — humans should review all HireVue scores.

Knockout questions that are too strict will filter out qualified candidates who phrase answers differently. Test your application flow by applying yourself as a fake candidate.

ChatGPT CV summaries are only as good as your scorecard prompt. Iterate on the prompt with 10 real CVs before using at scale.

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Ready to build this workflow?

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