AI Can Process More Candidates. Recruiters Know Which Ones Matter.

In my last post, I wrote about a client who asked AI to compare three candidates I presented for an interim accounting and finance role. Claude, the AI platform, picked one candidate. I recommended another. The difference was pretty simple: Claude had three resumes and a job description. I had that, as well as six years of experience working with the client.

This story illustrates one of the things I find most interesting about AI and recruiting. AI is getting very good at finding and comparing candidates. This makes the processing of candidates faster at the start of a search, but AI can’t do what’s needed in the final stages of selection.

Recent research conducted by the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) affirmed this. According to its report, 2025 Talent Trends: AI in HR, 89% of HR professionals whose organizations use AI to support recruiting said it saved time or increased efficiency. Only 24% said it improved their ability to identify top candidates.

More Applications Do Not Necessarily Produce a Better Hire

Anyone who has posted a job opening recently knows what I mean. AI makes it easier for people to apply to more positions, faster. Candidates can now quickly rewrite resumes to align their experience more closely with an opportunity, incorporate relevant keywords and draft cover letters. I don’t have a problem with that. After all, employers and recruiters are using AI, too.

But it does mean that, given the sheer volume of AI-assisted applications, the resume itself is becoming a less reliable way to distinguish one candidate from another. According to Ashby’s 2026 Talent Trends Report, recruiters are now processing an average of 291 applications for every hire, compared with roughly 100 in early 2021. However, receiving 291 resumes does not mean you have that many viable candidates. This is where AI creates the most value – sorting through a massive number of resumes to get to a manageable number. It’s great that AI can support processing more applications faster, but it’s not the same thing as identifying the right person for the job.

Going Beyond the Resume

No matter how concisely a resume captures someone’s experience, a resume doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about that person. It can’t tell you how someone communicates, handles ambiguity, earns trust, or works with people who approach problems differently. It certainly doesn’t tell you whether someone is genuinely interested in an interim assignment, willing to be hands-on, comfortable reporting to a less-experienced executive or motivated by the company’s actual challenges.

Over the years, I’ve found that not every professional can go into a company on an interim basis. Some people aren’t comfortable with not having a title and/or an official place in the organization.  It’s hard to come into a company and try to get a project done, not knowing where the files are stored, what the culture is like or who knows the history of transactions. Consultants have to influence without authority and enjoy helping companies succeed without getting the credit.

These qualities may not be obvious on the resume, but recruiters can uncover them. They can ask an experienced candidate why they want the role and what kind of work energizes them. They can assess candidates’ comfort levels with compensation and reporting structures. In asking the right questions, recruiters gather information and insight, compare that with the realities of the roles, and explain the tradeoffs to the client. This process leads to a better hiring decision.

There are a couple of other aspects of AI as it relates to recruiting that I think are worth discussing here.

Rigid Screening Criteria Can Eliminate the Right Person

Suppose a company tells its screening system that candidates must have between 10 and 15 years of experience.

What happens to the candidate with eight years of exceptional, highly relevant experience?

What happens to the candidate with 18 years of experience who has solved the exact problem the company is facing?

What happens to the person with 30 years of experience who actively wants an interim role, enjoys being hands-on, and has no interest in chasing a bigger title?

Their applications may never make it to the hiring manager.

Years of experience can be useful information, but they don’t help you understand capability, motivation or relevance. A person with 15 years of experience may have repeated that one year 15 times. Another candidate may have gained unusually broad experience in eight years, as they were exposed to rapid growth, acquisitions, complex system implementations, or difficult turnaround assignments.

The same issue exists at the other end of the spectrum. I frequently speak with clients who will not consider a candidate with 25 or 30 years of experience because they assume the person is “overqualified.” But what does that really mean? Are they assuming the candidate will be too expensive, get bored, resist change, leave for a more senior position, or lack the energy for the job?  Those are questions a recruiter can ask. They should not be conclusions drawn from dates of tenures or the length of a resume.

This kind of thinking is one of my biggest issues. Someone with 35+ years of experience is usually screened out by AI and hiring managers, BUT these folks (me included!) have more time than ever to work. In general, there aren’t any lacrosse or soccer games to get to by 4pm. No school pick up or drop off. These candidates tend to be focused on the job and not the drama. They have seen so many different problems and solutions, and have so much to offer. They still have 10+ years to work as well! Most companies today have no idea where they will be in 10 years so why screen these workers out??

AI is not the only source of this problem. Hiring managers and recruiters can also make the mistake of relying on criteria that is too rigid. The difference is that a good recruiter recognizes when the rules are getting in the way and can address this with the client. Perhaps the required years of experience are arbitrary. Perhaps the title does not reflect the level of responsibility. Perhaps the position’s salary is out of step with the market. Perhaps the leadership ability the company truly needs can’t be assessed in the resume.

If your job description is unrealistic, your compensation is out of step with the market, or one of your screening factors is eliminating people you should be meeting, a good recruiter will tell you.

AI will generally optimize against the criteria it is given. A good recruiter will ask whether those are the right criteria in the first place. That is far more valuable than receiving 200+ resumes accompanied by no meaningful context.

The Best Candidate May Not Have Applied

Another limitation of AI in recruiting is that it can only evaluate the people who make it into the application funnel. What about the great candidate who never saw the job posting? Or the person who isn’t actively looking? Or the one who saw the posting but assumed the position was not for them?

Recruiters find those people. We start conversations. We learn what would motivate them to consider an opportunity. And sometimes we find the best candidates this way. Maybe there will be a day when AI can do this, but right now, it can’t.

AI is making recruiting faster. I’m glad it is, because I use it every day. But as AI makes it easier to find, screen and compare more people, I think the value of experienced human judgment as applied to candidate selection becomes clearer. 

Use AI to process more candidates. Use a good recruiter to understand which ones matter.

If you’re looking for a recruiting partner who brings judgment, context and honest advice to the search — not just more resumes — talk to one of our recruiters.

Connect with a P4P Recruiter: https://p4pconsult.com/contact/