How Screening Works | CONFIRM Docs

CONFIRM screens candidates with an AI voice agent. It calls each new applicant, asks your job’s screening questions, answers their questions about the role, and records the results on the candidate’s profile. This page walks through that process from your side.

When the call happens

Every new applicant is called automatically. You don’t need to start the call yourself.

Shortly after they apply. CONFIRM waits a few minutes, so the welcome text your communication rules send arrives first, then places the call.
During calling hours. Calls are placed within your organization’s calling hours, by default 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday, in your organization’s time zone. Applications that arrive outside those hours are called when the window next opens. To change your calling hours, contact your CONFIRM account team.
Added by hand. When you add a candidate yourself, Screen by phone now queues the call right away.

A call isn’t placed when:

The candidate lives too far away. If the job has a maximum distance and the candidate is beyond it, they’re closed as Ineligible for Screening and no call is placed. Use Override on their profile to call them anyway.
The job is paused. Queued calls are cancelled. When you reactivate the job, applicants from the last 14 days who haven’t been called yet are queued again.
The candidate has no phone number. Add one on their profile and CONFIRM offers to start the call.
Your organization has no calendar connected. Calls wait until a calendar is connected.
Your trial has ended or payment is overdue. Calls pause, but applicants keep arriving. They’re called once your account is active again.

What happens on the call

Introduction

The agent says it’s calling from your company about the candidate’s application for the job, and confirms it’s speaking with the right person. If not, it ends the call politely and doesn’t change anything.

Disclosure

The agent says it’s an AI assistant on a recorded line, that the call takes about three minutes, and that the candidate can ask questions about your company at any time. It then asks if now is a good time. If the candidate isn’t ready, the agent tells them they can call back at any time.

Screening questions

The agent asks the job’s screening questions one at a time, word for word. If an answer is unclear, it asks again. It asks every question, even after a missed knockout.

Candidate questions

The agent answers questions about the role and your company using your knowledge base. For pay, it quotes the job’s posted pay range. If it doesn’t know an answer, it says so and tells the candidate your team has the recording.

Wrap-up

The agent thanks the candidate and says your team will be in touch about next steps. It never tells the candidate whether they passed and never promises an interview.

Calls are in English. The candidate must agree to the recording. If they decline twice, the call ends and the candidate is marked Refused Recording.

After the call

Result	What happens
Met the job’s requirements	The candidate moves to the next step in the job’s pipeline, usually a review by your team (Screening Complete).
Missed a knockout question	If the job has a review step, the candidate goes there so your team can check the answer and decide. Otherwise the candidate is rejected. Their profile shows which requirement they missed and how they answered.

Either way, the profile shows the recording, transcript, answers, and requirement checks. See Reviewing Results.

Missed calls, voicemail, and hang-ups

Not every call connects the first time. Each job allows a set number of call attempts. By default, that’s the first call plus one more.

No answer. If the call isn’t picked up at all, CONFIRM tries again, up to the job’s number of attempts.
Voicemail. The agent leaves a short message. It says who’s calling and about which job, and asks the candidate to call this number back to finish their application. By default, the candidate also gets a text asking them to call back, and a second text a day later if they haven’t. CONFIRM calls again about 24 hours later, and again at about 48 hours if the job allows enough attempts.
Hang-up partway through. By default, the candidate gets a text saying the call was cut off and that CONFIRM will try again tomorrow, or they can call back. CONFIRM calls again about 24 hours later.
Candidate calls back. Once the candidate calls back or finishes the screening, the scheduled follow-ups stop. A screening that was cut off starts again from the beginning; answers from the earlier call aren’t carried over. See Inbound Calls.

When CONFIRM is about to call again, the candidate’s Overview tab shows Screening call scheduled for the date and time, with Cancel if you’d rather it didn’t.

If every attempt is used up without reaching the candidate, they stay in Screening. When the calls didn’t connect at all, CONFIRM also sends a final email and text asking them to call back. You can try again yourself with Restart Screening from their profile, which starts a fresh set of call attempts.

The texts and emails sent around screening come from your communication rules. See Templates & Automation.