Use of Artificial Intelligence in the recruitment process and guidance for candidates
As AI becomes more embedded in recruitment, employers should be transparent about how and when it’s used and clearly communicate expectations around acceptable AI use by candidates.
Clearly communicate when and how your organisation uses AI in recruitment — whether in screening, communication, or assessment — and include links to relevant policies or FAQs in your job adverts.
Safeguard applicant data and equality: align withGDPR and consider whether AI will introduce bias at any stage of the process.
Address use of AI in recruitment directly; frame it as an opportunity to emphasise digital capability, consider adding “AI literacy” as a desirable skill in job descriptions, and encourage candidates to share how they’ve used AI in their applications. Ask how they might apply it appropriately in the role.
Adapt recruitment processes to reflect the evolving use of AI: with AI-assisted CVs and cover letters becoming more common, plan to receive higher volumes and stronger applications. Consider shorter deadlines, targeted vacancies, and automation to streamline processes.
Review shortlisting criteria to ensure that they are clear, specific and are not likely to encourage penalty or favour based on peripheral factors, e.g. giving value to sophisticated use of grammar and vocabulary when you are not shortlisting against this.
Retain human decision-making: AI should support—not replace—human decision-making, and the best predictors of role suitability remain work sample tests and structured interviews.
Humanise application forms to help students express their individual strengths, values, and professional interests authentically. Validate credentials carefully and offer opportunities for candidates to hear from current employees to enrich the experience. Above all, focus on the person behind the application—their skills, values, and potential to add value – not their skills at navigating your recruitment process.
Provide clear guidance about your stance on acceptable AI use during recruitment (e.g. “checking, but not creating, initial application content”) and where it’s not (e.g. “creating responses to assessment tasks”), with examples of good and poor practice if you have specific concerns.
Appropriate (and Inappropriate) Use of AI
Asking AI to provide data, insights or suggestions for the human to consider when creating content:
Job Search
Appropriate Use:
Discussing your job search with an AI tool to seek information, improve search criteria or learn about relevant search tactics.
Initial Application
Appropriate Use:
Researching organisation.
Asking AI to compare your CV to a job. description and person specification, pulling out stronger and weaker areas.
Spelling and grammar checks.
Interview
Appropriate Use:
Finding generic practice interview questions
Preparing summaries, notes or talking points to revise likely topics
Assessment Tests/Activities
Appropriate Use:
Preparing summaries, notes or talking points to support likely topics
Sense-checking/ critiquing pre-prepared materials, plans or ideas
Using AI to generate content for a human to check and approve:
Job Search
Appropriate Use:
Improving search criteria or Linkedin profile text.
Initial Application
Appropriate Use:
Reducing word count
Interview
Appropriate Use:
Generating likely interview questions based on the job description and person specification (at candidate's own risk)
Assessment Tests/Activities
Not considered ethical and professional use of AI by a candidate by this organisation
Using AI to automatically generate and action content on behalf of the human, within pre-set, concrete parameters
Job Search
Appropriate Use:
Automated job searching and enabling automatic application functions
Initial Application
Not considered ethical and professional use of AI by a candidate by this organisation
Interview
Not considered ethical and professional use of AI by a candidate by this organisation
Assessment Tests/Activities
Not considered ethical and professional use of AI by a candidate by this organisation
