Frontier system · Operations · 6 stages · updated 2026-10-23

AI recruiting pipeline

Sources candidates, screens out fraud, gives every applicant a short AI first-round interview, and hands the team a ranked shortlist with transcripts.

1Is this my problem?

Hiring managers drown in applications, fake applicants are rising, and first-round screens take weeks.

You'll recognise this if…

Hundreds of applicants per remote role.
Calendars blocked by 30-minute screens with weak candidates.
Suspicious applications with mismatched locations.

Cost of doing nothingGood candidates accept other offers while you are still screening.

Companies affectedStartups and scale-ups hiring 10+ people a year, often for remote roles with high volume, with 0-3 recruiters.

2Is this solution worth it?

Reported results

Cactus AI screened 600+ applicants with 15-minute AI interviews and hired in under a week (source)

Quoted from the linked source. Results vary by company and setup.

Your ROI, with the assumptions shown

Prefilled with our illustrative assumptions for a typical team (15 h/week of manual work at $60/h, 50% automated). Change them to your numbers.

Build cost (estimate)$5k–$30k

Time to first version (estimate)6-12 weeks

AI agent stages3 of 6

Human checkpoints1

Limits and when not to build it

Skip for senior, low-volume hires where every candidate is referred, or where local law limits automated screening.

Guardrails it needs

People make every hiring decision.
Candidates are told about AI interviews.
Regular bias audits; check local rules on automated hiring tools.

3How does it work?

The agency builds you one internal tool, Hiring Desk, that runs the whole process. Watch it work on a sample case:

Hiring DeskIllustrative demo with sample data

Pick a sample on the left and press Run example to watch Hiring Desk work through a case step by step.

Your tool connects to

CalendarPhoneAI model

Most of it is ordinary automation. AI agents handle 3 of 6 steps, and people approve at 1 checkpoint.

Under the hood: stages, vendors and the learning loop

AI agent Automation Human checkpoint

1Source
Agent builds sourcing lists and runs outreach sequences.
Tezi Max
AI agent
2Fraud check
IP and phone enrichment, location mismatch and VoIP flags.
Zapier
Automation
3Screen CVs
Summaries against explicit criteria.
GeminiClaude
AI agentDecides: Score vs criteria
4AI first round
15-minute adaptive interview for every applicant.
Asendia AIElevenLabs
AI agentDecides: Adaptive follow-ups
5Shortlist
Team interviews the top candidates and decides.
ATS
Human
6Schedule
Booking links and status updates for every candidate.
Calendar
Automation

Learning loop

Each quarter, hiring outcomes and interviewer feedback are compared with the AI scores to check the criteria and look for bias.

Example run

Illustrative sample data showing what moves between stages. Not taken from the sources.

1
Source · inRole: backend engineer
out140 sourced profiles; 38 replies
2
Fraud check · inApplication
outIP country differs from stated city; VoIP number: moderate risk
3
Screen CVs · inCV
outMatches 4 of 5 criteria
4
AI first round · inInterview
out15-minute transcript; strong on system design
5
Shortlist · inRanked list
outTeam picks 6
6
Schedule · in6 candidates
outInterviews booked

Vendors commonly used

Tezi MaxZapierGeminiClaudeAsendia AIElevenLabsATSCalendar

Where AI decides and where people do

AI agents decide

Source: Agent builds sourcing lists and runs outreach sequences.
Screen CVs: Score vs criteria
AI first round: Adaptive follow-ups

Human checkpoints

Shortlist: Team interviews the top candidates and decides.

Maturity ladder

What each level adds. Most teams start at level 1 or 2 and climb. Highlighted: where this build sits.

Level 1Basic automation
Job posts and a shared inbox of CVs.
Level 2AI-assisted
An LLM summarises CVs for the hiring manager.
Level 3Autonomous agent
Agents source, flag fraud, screen and run AI first-round interviews; people pick the shortlist.
Level 4Self-learning system
Hiring outcomes are compared with AI scores each quarter to tune criteria and check bias.

Building blocks

Start with one of these smaller workflows and add stages.

Job applicant fraud check

Every application is enriched with IP and phone data; stated location is compared to real location, internet-based phone numbers are checked, and the applicant is rated no / moderate / high fraud risk.

OperationsAdvanced~2–5 h/week$1.5k–$5k Resume screening summaries for hiring managers

Each CV is parsed and summarised against the role's must-haves, with evidence quoted, then written to a sheet for the hiring manager to sort..

OperationsStarter~3–8 h/week$800–$3k Meeting notes to assigned action items

After a meeting, notes are turned into a summary and action items with owners and due dates in Google Workspace, and owners are reminded..

OperationsStarter~2–4 h/week$500–$2k

Seen in the wild

Links checked 2026-10-23. The pipeline combines patterns from these public builds; we are not affiliated with these companies.

4Who can build it?

Matched on the services, platforms and industries agencies list on their own sites, and on their published projects.