How to Choose an AI Recruiting Platform: 12 Questions for Large Employers
Ryan Reisner · · 7 min read
The best AI recruiting platform is the one that fixes your specific hiring bottleneck, keeps a person in charge of the hiring decision, and can show its evidence. There is no single best platform for every employer, because "AI recruiting" covers tools for sourcing, screening, interviewing, scheduling, and onboarding, and a tool that excels at one often does little for the others. For a large employer, the choice also has to survive review by legal, IT security, and procurement. These twelve questions give you a structure for comparing vendors fairly.
By Ryan Reisner, Founder of The Reisner Group and SeekerPitch
Who needs to be in the room
Choosing a platform at a large employer is a cross-functional decision. Include:
- Talent acquisition, who own the problem and the process.
- Hiring managers or operations leaders, whose adoption decides whether it works.
- HR and legal, for fairness, notice, and record-keeping duties.
- IT and security, for integration, data handling, and certifications.
- Procurement, for contract terms.
Bringing them in at the start is faster than discovering an objection after a vendor is chosen.
1. What is your actual bottleneck?
Start with the problem, not the product. If you don't have enough applicants, you need sourcing. If you have too many to review, you need screening.
If candidates go cold between applying and the first conversation, you need engagement or scheduling. If managers lose hours on first-round calls, you need an interview layer, such as an AI recruiter.
A tool built for one stage rarely solves another. Write down the single stage that costs you most before you look at any vendor.
2. What does it measure?
Ask exactly what the tool evaluates and on what evidence. Some tools match keywords on a résumé. Others score responses to structured questions, assessments, or interviews.
The answer determines what the output can tell you. A tool that processes a résumé inherits the résumé's limits, while one that evaluates responses to realistic situations can speak to behavior. Ask the vendor how it defined what "good" looks like for your roles.
3. Who makes the decision?
Ask directly: can a candidate be screened out without a person reviewing them? Some tools only recommend, and some can advance or decline candidates automatically.
The answer affects fairness, legal exposure, and candidate trust. If a tool has automatic settings, ask which are on by default, who can change them, and whether they can be turned off.
4. Can your team see every candidate and the evidence?
A ranked shortlist is useful only if you can look behind it. Ask whether your team can see every candidate who completed the process, not just the top ones, along with the transcript, responses, or evidence behind each score.
Ask whether the score is explainable in plain language and whether a reviewer can override it.
5. What fairness testing has been done?
Ask for specifics. Has the tool been tested for adverse impact across protected groups? Who did the testing, the vendor or an independent party, and how recently? Can you see a summary?
A vendor that can answer clearly is easier to defend than one that gives a general assurance. Also ask how the model is monitored after launch, since performance can shift as the applicant pool changes.
6. How does it fit the rules where you hire?
Rules for AI in hiring vary by place and are changing. Some jurisdictions require independent bias audits and candidate notices, some require notice when AI influences an employment decision, and some apply anti-discrimination rules and record-keeping duties to automated decision systems.
Ask the vendor which rules it supports and what it provides to help you meet them, such as audit summaries, candidate notice language, and retained records. Then confirm with your own counsel, because the legal responsibility sits with you as the employer.
7. What happens to candidate data?
Ask what data is collected, where it's stored, how long it's retained, how candidates can request deletion, and which subprocessors touch it. If the tool records or analyzes voice or video, ask how consent is obtained and whether any biometric-data rules might apply.
Make sure the answers match the vendor's published privacy policy.
8. What security evidence can the vendor show?
Ask for independent attestations rather than assurances. Common ones are SOC 2 Type II reports and ISO 27001 certification. Also ask about penetration testing, single sign-on, access controls, and how incidents are reported to customers.
Your IT security team will ask these anyway, and starting early saves weeks.
9. How does it connect to your systems?
Ask which ATS and HRIS platforms it integrates with, how, and what data flows in each direction. The best answer is that your ATS remains the system of record and results are written back into it.
Ask who builds and maintains the integration, how long it takes, and what happens when your ATS changes.
10. What is the candidate experience?
The candidate's experience affects both completion and your employer reputation. Ask what format candidates face (typed chat, spoken interview, recorded video, assessment), how long it takes, and whether it works on a phone.
Ask how accessibility and accommodation requests are handled, and what alternative path exists for candidates who can't or won't use it. Then ask for completion and drop-off data from a comparable customer.
11. What do the contract terms say?
Read the commercial terms as carefully as you watch the demo. Look at the pricing model (per hire, per interview, per seat, or platform fee), what's included in a pilot, liability and indemnification terms, audit rights, data ownership, data deletion on exit, and how you can leave.
Terms tell you how much risk the vendor expects you to carry.
12. How will you know it worked?
Define success before you start. Agree on measures such as completion rate, time from application to first conversation, recruiter and manager hours spent on first-round screening, hiring manager satisfaction, a fairness review of outcomes, and later outcomes such as early retention.
Ask the vendor for references from employers with comparable roles and volume, and speak to them.
How to run a pilot
A good pilot is narrow, measurable, and honest. Pick a limited set of roles and locations with enough volume to compare against your current process, and set your success measures in writing beforehand.
Run it long enough to see a full cycle, from application through early-tenure outcomes for those roles. Review fairness results alongside speed and cost, and agree up front what happens if the results fall short.
Scorecard template
Copy these twelve rows into a spreadsheet, with a weight column and one column per vendor. Rate each vendor from 1 to 5 on every row, multiply by the weight you give that question, and add up the totals.
- Fixes our bottleneck
- What it measures
- Who decides
- Visibility and evidence
- Fairness testing
- Fit with the rules where we hire
- Data and privacy
- Security evidence
- Integration
- Candidate experience
- Contract terms
- Proof and references
Set the weights before the first demo, not after. Deciding what matters once you've seen a favorite tends to reward the favorite.
Red flags
- The vendor can't say what the tool measures.
- Candidates can be screened out with no human review, and the vendor treats that as a feature.
- Fairness claims with no testing you can see.
- Security claims with no independent attestation.
- Reluctance to share contract terms, references, or a pilot structure.
- Pressure to sign before your legal and security teams have reviewed.
The bottom line
Choosing an AI recruiting platform comes down to fit and evidence. Know your bottleneck, understand what the tool measures, keep a person responsible for the decision, and ask for documentation rather than assurances on fairness, privacy, and security.
Do that with the right people in the room and you'll compare vendors on substance, whatever the marketing says. Start before the first demo: name the one stage that costs you most, set up the scorecard, and send the same twelve questions to every vendor on your list.
Comparing options? See how HireVue compares for frontline hiring, or learn how AI recruiting companies differ by type.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI recruiting platform?
There's no single best platform. The right one depends on which stage of hiring is your bottleneck (sourcing, screening, interviewing, scheduling, or onboarding), whether you want to keep your ATS, and what evidence the vendor can show on fairness, privacy, and security.
How do you evaluate AI recruiting software?
Compare vendors against the same criteria: what the tool measures, who makes the decision, whether you can see every candidate and the evidence, what fairness testing exists, how it fits the rules where you hire, how it handles data, what security attestations it holds, how it integrates, what the candidate experience is, and what the contract says. Then run a pilot with success measures defined in advance.
Are AI recruiting platforms legal?
Generally yes, but they're subject to anti-discrimination law and, in some places, specific rules on bias audits, candidate notice, and record-keeping. Employers remain responsible for how they use a tool, so confirm with counsel which rules apply where you hire.
How long should an AI recruiting pilot run?
Long enough to see a full cycle for the roles in scope, from application through early outcomes, with enough volume to compare against your current process. Set the success measures and the decision rule before you begin.