BlogHow AI in hiring helps recruiters cut noise
We’ve entered an era where an AI-driven surge in applications is overloading hiring pipelines with duplicates, fakes and spam, burying qualified candidates and overwhelming the recruiters trying to find them.
The 2025 Greenhouse Workforce & Hiring Report found that recruiters now handle nearly three times as many applications per role as they did in 2021.
Ironically, the same technology that creates the overload can also help control it.
It’s fair for recruiters to be cautious about using AI to expedite their processes, as no one wants efficiency to come at the expense of accuracy. But with the right structure, human oversight and visibility into what’s driving results, AI can actually help recruiters quickly separate genuine, high-potential applicants from the noise.
Why use AI in hiring?
AI isn’t the only factor complicating the top of the hiring funnel. Candidates’ expectations for speed and transparency are rising, while budget cuts have left talent teams leaner.
In this environment, recruiters need all the help they can get to focus on what really matters, like personalising outreach, keeping candidates informed and partnering with hiring managers to make better decisions.
But when your inbox fills up with inflated CVs, duplicates or AI-written applications that all sound the same, that gets harder to do.
This is where AI can help. Unlike traditional ATS filters that rely on basic keywords, today’s AI tools can understand context and nuance. That means they can recognise transferable skills, related experience and even tone to surface stronger matches. They can also flag CVs that seem exaggerated or inconsistent with the role.
Some systems even learn from recruiter feedback, getting more accurate over time. This means less manual, repetitive screening and more time for real human connection with candidates.
But to get those results, you have to set AI up the right way.
4 steps to make AI in hiring work for you
Managing application volume doesn’t have to feel like a never-ending game of catch-up. With the right foundation in place, AI can help you cut through the noise of high-volume recruitment, simplify the parts of your work that take the most time and give you space to focus on the decisions that matter most.
Consider these four steps to help you build a more balanced and efficient recruitment process:
1. Build structure before applying AI
Before introducing any automation or AI tools, make sure your recruitment process is clearly mapped and repeatable. Whether you’re using AI built into your ATS, exploring new tools or even experimenting with internal LLMs, structure is what helps those systems perform accurately and fairly.
Standardise how jobs are posted, how applications are reviewed and how interview feedback is collected and stored. Be clear about what “qualified” means for each role, including must-have criteria, nice-to-haves and dealbreakers. Then, use structured hiring scorecards and interview guides so everyone on your team evaluates candidates in the same way.
This consistency allows the system to surface relevant candidate qualifications more accurately and reduce noise in your pipeline. Done right, it ensures AI supports your process rather than complicating it.
AI helps me get up to speed on new roles faster – learning the job, drafting descriptions, building interview questions and even summarising candidate feedback. It’s a big help in setting a structured foundation before the human conversations begin.
– Shannon Castleman, Senior Technical Recruiter at Greenhouse
2. Use AI to simplify repetitive work
Once your foundation is set, start automating the repetitive, low-judgement tasks that eat up your day, like sorting applications by key eligibility factors, scheduling interviews or sending status updates.
We’ve saved a ton of time adding automated knock-out questions and using talent filtering tools to analyse application data and filter out mismatched candidates early.
– Shannon Castleman, Senior Technical Recruiter at Greenhouse
You can also use automation to double-check for missing materials or flag suspicious entries that need human review. Let AI take the busywork off your plate so you can spend your energy on meaningful interactions with candidates and hiring managers.
3. Keep humans in the loop (and in control)
AI can make recruitment faster and more organised, but it can’t replace what makes recruiters effective – empathy, judgement and partnership. The most successful teams use AI to lighten the load, not take the lead.
Use AI for the admin aspects that bog recruiters down. Then lean into the human touch when it comes to building relationships with candidates and being strategic partners to hiring managers. You have to make sure efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of experience.
– Shannon Castleman, Senior Technical Recruiter at Greenhouse
Rather than taking AI’s output at face value, treat it as input that still needs your expertise. Recruiters give AI its meaning by interpreting results, validating decisions and ensuring the process reflects company values. When humans stay in control, AI becomes a tool for better judgement, not a replacement for it.
4. Measure and refine your approach
To make AI work smarter over time, you have to keep learning from it. Track metrics like time-to-first-review, candidate quality by source and conversion rates to see where automation is driving real progress.
If you notice that your AI-enabled sorting or screening tools are eliminating strong candidates or letting the wrong ones slip through, tweak your filters and adjust the parameters and review settings until they strike the right balance. Hold regular check-ins with your team to share what’s working, what’s not and where you can improve.
Remember: Clean data is the foundation of a recruiter's credibility. It elevates their recommendations from subjective opinions to objective, strategic counsel, empowering them to effectively influence and advise hiring managers. Without it, the entire hiring function suffers.
– Shannon Castleman, Senior Technical Recruiter at Greenhouse
When data is consistent and AI insights are grounded in real context, hiring teams can forecast, calibrate and adapt with clarity.
Empower better hiring through thoughtful AI use
AI has become a powerful ally for recruiters, but like any tool, its value depends on how you apply it.
When you use AI intentionally, it strengthens your decision-making and frees up time for the parts of hiring that rely most on your expertise. By combining structure, data and a human touch, recruiters can move faster, make smarter decisions and keep hiring fair and consistent along the way.
Ready to prioritise real, qualified talent instead of endless noise? Explore how Greenhouse Real Talent helps recruiters streamline the top of the funnel.
