AI screening software for high-volume hiring

Some employers get more applications than their recruiters can read. These AI products sort the applicants and interview them by chat, text or phone. They pass the best to a recruiter. Most sit on an applicant tracking system, which is the software that moves each applicant through hiring. Each product charges in a different way. Some can turn an applicant away with no person involved. A US law on calls and a European law on automated decisions can also apply. It depends on where you hire and whom you call.

By Ashish Manchanda Published 14 Oct 2026 Last updated 14 Oct 2026

Start with

Workable for a public price list. Humanly for hourly hiring, with screening and its own applicant tracking system built for it.

Ask first

If your applicant tracking system is iCIMS, SmartRecruiters, Avature or Workday, ask that vendor. Each sells screening inside its own platform.

Phone and chat

Phenom, Maki People, Apriora and HeyMilo interview applicants by phone or chat. Talview runs spoken AI interviews. Look at them when your recruiters cannot hold that many first conversations.

What changes

At this volume a software setting can decide who is turned away. Ask who sets it and who checks it. Then ask how the product records consent for texts and calls.

What changes when applications pile up

Price changes first. Several vendors charge for what happens to each applicant, not for each recruiter. Workable charges credits for each action. Leoforce charges for each qualified applicant. Humanly offers pay per qualified candidate and pay per hire. Other vendors sell a separate high-volume plan. SmartRecruiters has a High Volume plan, and its fees follow employee count. JazzHR has a separate price list for high-volume hiring teams.

The main risk changes too. When nobody can read every application, a software setting can decide who gets turned away. Humanly, SmartRecruiters, Avature, Workday, Workable and HeyMilo each have a setting that can do it. Phenom’s voice score is advice only. Talview’s system flags never disqualify anyone. Maki People rejects on its own only in narrow cases, such as a missing work permit.

Products for sorting a large pile of applications

Humanly is built for hourly hiring

Humanly sells screening, scheduling and an applicant tracking system for hourly, frontline and high-volume hiring. It screens every applicant over chat, text, email or voice. Applicants who miss a must-pass question can be disqualified by rules the employer sets. Mutual of Omaha has more than 6,000 employees. Humanly’s case study says Mutual of Omaha cut its time to screen from five days to five hours.

Four platforms sell high-volume screening inside their own system

iCIMS launched High Volume Hiring on 9 July 2026. It scores applications and screens applicants by text, WhatsApp and web chat. SmartRecruiters puts AI candidate screening in its High Volume plan. Its tool, Winston Screen, writes the questions and ranks the answers. Avature reports that DHL screens 4,000 applications automatically every day. Workday asks must-pass questions by chat or text. Applicants can apply by text, WhatsApp or Messenger.

Five products interview applicants by phone, chat or spoken AI interview

Phenom emails and texts applicants an invitation to start the call, book it or ask for a callback. Elara Caring hires about 17,000 home health aides across 50 branches. Elara Caring’s vice president said AI-interviewed hires started faster. They also worked about three more hours a week than hires interviewed by recruiters.

Maki People sends a text invitation, then runs the phone screen. Capgemini in France gets 8,000 to 10,000 applications a month. Maki says Capgemini’s time to hire fell from several weeks to under 10 days.

Apriora phones every applicant within minutes. It sells its AI interviewer under the name Alex. At Mattress Firm, applicants who clear the assessment hear from Alex within minutes.

HeyMilo interviews every applicant by voice, video, text or form. Its Enforce setting rejects applicants who miss a required qualification.

Talview built its AI interviewer, Ivy, for outsourcing firms, contact centres and technology firms. It asks for a minimum commitment of about 150 to 200 candidates.

Eleven products compared on screening at volume
Product	How it sorts the pile	Can it turn an applicant away alone?	How it reaches applicants	How it charges
Humanly	Scores every applicant against pass marks you set.	Yes. Rules disqualify applicants who miss a must-pass question.	Chat, text, email or voice.	A subscription. Pay per qualified candidate and pay per hire are also offered.
iCIMS	Scores applications, then screens by chat.	Its code of ethics puts people in charge of hiring decisions. Ask how High Volume Hiring advances applicants.	Text, WhatsApp and web chat.	Ask for a quote.
SmartRecruiters	Its AI sends job questions and ranks the answers. Screening can run fully automated.	Yes. Workflow rules can reject applicants on up to 10 custom conditions per hiring step.	Text, WhatsApp and email.	Fees follow your employee count. The High Volume plan is quoted.
Avature	Ranks by experience, skills and location. Shortlists by shift availability.	Yes. Must-pass questions close out applicants. Top-rated ones get an offer or interview invitation.	Email and text at every stage.	Ask for a quote.
Phenom	Holds a voice interview with each applicant it invites and scores each answer 1 to 5.	The voice score is advice only. Its text screening has must-pass questions.	Email and text invite, then a phone call. 53 languages.	Ask for a quote.
Workable	The Workable Agent evaluates applicants against must-have criteria you set.	Yes. A failed must-pass question on the application form disqualifies automatically. Auto-disqualify by the AI assistant starts switched off.	Applicant chat. Texting costs $89 a month on Standard and nothing extra on Premier.	Credits on top of a paid plan. 1 to evaluate, 10 for a chat.
Maki People	A phone screen and short skills tests, scored and ranked.	Only in narrow cases, such as a missing work permit.	Text invite, then a phone call. 45+ languages.	Tailored quote.
HeyMilo	Reads every CV and interviews every applicant.	Yes, when its “Enforce” setting is on. Enforce rejects applicants who miss a required qualification. Recruiters can override.	Voice, video, text and forms. 20+ languages. Texting works only with US and Canadian numbers.	Credits for interviews, CV screens and texts.
Apriora	Calls every applicant within minutes and interviews them.	Its policy is that AI never rejects anyone on its own. Its Lever connection advances or rejects each new candidate on role criteria. Hiring teams can override any result.	Phone, video, text and WhatsApp. 26+ languages.	From $36,000 a year for staffing firms.
Workday Recruiting	Screens applicants for basic qualifications and grades CVs.	Yes. Must-pass questions by chat or text qualify or disqualify.	Chat, text, WhatsApp and Messenger. 30+ languages.	Priced on size and some usage. 6 Flex Credits per CV graded.
Talview	Its AI interviewer, Ivy, runs spoken interviews and reads non-verbal cues. Built for outsourcing, contact centre and technology hiring.	System flags never qualify or disqualify anyone. Recruiters set rules that move candidates automatically. Ask whether those rules can reject.	Recruiter starts phone screens. Text for reminders.	Priced by unit. A minimum commitment of about 150 to 200 candidates.

More applicant tracking systems with a rule to turn applicants away

Greenhouse, Ashby, Zoho Recruit, Oracle Recruiting, Gem and Recruitee are applicant tracking systems. Each one can turn applicants away automatically when they fail a must-pass question the employer sets. Oracle Recruiting also runs email and social campaigns for high-volume hiring.

Two more AI screening products

Eightfold has the Candidate Agent. It talks to job seekers by text, WhatsApp, web chat or voice in 24+ languages. It is generally available for employers with Eightfold’s Personal Career Site switched on. HireVue reaches candidates by email, text, WhatsApp and a web widget. Ask both who can reject applicants and how they record consent.

Tools for finding people who have not applied

These help recruiters find people before they apply. Look at them when your gap is too few good applicants. SeekOut and hireEZ also screen people who have applied. Read the main guide to compare them.

LinkedIn Recruiter has Hiring Assistant, an AI agent sold as an add-on to a Recruiter contract.
SeekOut searches nearly one billion public profiles and reviews applicants against role requirements.
hireEZ gives every candidate a screening conversation by voice or chat. The customer decides who moves forward.
Findem finds and engages candidates across channels from more than 850 million profiles.
Juicebox is built around PeopleGPT, a search engine that takes plain-language requests.
Pin has an AI recruiting agent that works on its own across sourcing, screening, follow-up messages and booking.
Beamery is a talent customer relationship management tool for building pipelines of qualified people.
AmazingHiring searches more than 50 sources for technical talent.
Indeed Smart Sourcing includes 100 contacts a month on its Professional plan.
Naukri Resdex has over 50 million profiles.
SEEK offers Premium Talent Search across over 50 million candidate profiles.

More applicant tracking systems with AI built in

Ask each of these who can reject applicants and how they record consent.

ADP Recruiting compares candidates side by side on their relevance for the position.
Lever has Talent Fit, which matches incoming applicants to criteria you set.
Jobvite has Talent Fit, which surfaces the most qualified candidates with reasons for each match.
Breezy HR builds its Breezy Intelligence AI features into its applicant tracking system.
Manatal runs automated video interviews with an AI agent.
Teamtailor has a Co-pilot that evaluates candidates against your criteria.
Pinpoint scores every applicant against criteria the recruiter sets and puts the strongest at the top.

Three more tools that screen or interview applicants

Metaview builds an ideal candidate profile from the job description and evaluates all applicants against it.
HackerRank has Chakra, an AI interviewer that runs fully autonomous interviews for technical and non-technical roles.
CodeSignal has AI phone screens that run voice interviews without live recruiters.

What screening costs at volume

Workable charges credits on top of a paid plan. Credits are prepaid units that each action uses up. Workable calculates plan prices from the number of employees. The listed Standard plan costs $299 a month, or $3,588 a year. Premier costs $599 a month and Enterprise costs $719 a month, both paid annually. Ask what your headcount costs. Evaluating an applicant takes 1 credit. A chat with an applicant takes 10. A bundle of 10,000 credits costs $1,000. Evaluating 10,000 applicants takes one bundle, plus the plan fee. A chat with each of 1,000 of them takes another 10,000 credits. Every paid account starts with 3,000 free credits. Credits expire after a year. An applicant who fails a must-pass question on the application form costs no credits.

A chat that starts while you still have credits will finish. The balance can go negative and settles at the next top-up. The AI assistant may end a chat early when an applicant gives irrelevant answers. Workable sets no cap per job or per account.

Workday sells Flex Credits, which are units bought in one yearly bulk purchase. Grading one CV takes 6 Flex Credits. Its price also follows employees, users or other size measures. SmartRecruiters bases fees on total employee count. The unit price stays fixed during the term. The High Volume plan is quoted.

Humanly’s terms bill a subscription, not usage. Fees are not refundable once paid. Fees can rise each year by up to 3% plus the change in US consumer prices. Apriora starts at $36,000 a year for staffing firms. Talview prices each feature by unit. It asks for a minimum commitment of about 150 to 200 candidates. Its interviewer has a one-month plan at $5,000 on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, and that plan renews automatically. Ask iCIMS, Avature and Phenom for a written price at your volume.

What goes wrong when software turns people away at scale

A setting can reject applicants with no person involved

Six of the eleven products compared have a setting that rejects applicants. They are Humanly, SmartRecruiters, Avature, Workday, Workable and HeyMilo. It acts on a missed must-pass question, a pass mark or a workflow rule. The Workable Agent starts with auto-disqualify switched off. Decide who owns these settings before launch.

European and UK law limit decisions made only by software

GDPR is the EU’s data protection law. Article 22 gives people the right to avoid decisions made only by software that significantly affect them. Where the law allows such decisions, the person can ask for human intervention and contest the result. Fines reach EUR 20 million or 4% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. UK law uses the test of meaningful human involvement.

New York City requires a bias audit of screening software

New York City covers software that scores, classifies or recommends applicants. The rule applies when the software substantially helps or replaces a person’s judgement in screening. It requires a bias audit in the year before use. The employer must also publish a summary. Each day of use in breach counts as a new violation. A first violation costs up to $500.

Calls to applicants carry consent rules

In the US, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act covers calls to mobile phones. It bars calls that use an automatic dialler or an artificial or prerecorded voice without prior express consent. Damages are $500 a violation or actual loss, whichever is greater. Phenom opens every call with a consent script. SmartRecruiters collects text consent at application or through an emailed link. Humanly’s terms make the employer responsible for consents.

A court is testing who answers for automated screening

In Mobley v. Workday, applicants say Workday’s screening tools discriminated against them. A US court let a group aged 40 and over sue together. It held that the group includes people whose applications HiredScore features scored, sorted, ranked or screened. The court told the parties to plan how Workday would list the customers who switched those features on. Thousands have joined. On 14 September 2026 the plaintiffs asked for a class with subclasses for African American, female, older and disabled applicants. A hearing is set for 9 March 2027.

What to ask each vendor

Every vendor: How do you record consent for each text and call to an applicant? Good answer: A consent record for each applicant that we can export.
Humanly: Which rules disqualify an applicant when no recruiter is looking, and who can change them? Good answer: A list of the rules and the named people who can edit them.
Humanly: Your terms give us two days to export our data after the contract ends. Will you give us 30 days? Good answer: Yes, in the order form.
Workable: Will you write a cap on credit use into our order form? Good answer: Yes, as a written contract term.
HeyMilo: Is the Enforce setting on or off when we start, and who can change it? Good answer: Off until a named person switches it on.
Apriora: Your policy is that AI never rejects anyone on its own. Your Lever connection advances or rejects applicants on role criteria. Which will apply to us? Good answer: One written answer in the order form.
SmartRecruiters: Which workflow rules reject applicants at our volume, and who can change them? What does the High Volume plan cost for us? Good answer: A written price that stays fixed for the term.
Workday Recruiting: What does one Flex Credit cost, and how many credits does a month of our applications use? Good answer: A written price per credit and a monthly estimate.
Avature: Can we switch off the automatic offer or interview invitation for top-rated applicants? Good answer: Yes, for each job, by a named administrator.
Phenom: What do you charge for each voice screen at our volume? Good answer: A written price for each screen.
Talview: Can we start below 150 candidates? Good answer: Yes, with the price per candidate in writing.
iCIMS: Can we see the latest bias audit of the AI that scores our applicants? Good answer: A report dated within the last year.

Where to go next

Read the mid-market guide or the enterprise guide if size matters more than volume. Employers hiring in India should read the India guide. The comparison puts every product side by side. The guide to AI sourcing and screening covers the whole market.

More in this guide

The AI sourcing and screening guide
Compare the 41 with their own page what each of the 41 products with its own page here does, what it costs, what it can decide alone and which have an outside bias audit.
Mid-market companies which AI sourcing and screening tools suit a company of 200 to 2,000 people, the prices you can see, how the bill grows and what to ask before signing.
Enterprise companies which platforms replace an applicant tracking system and which add to one, what they cost, how the contracts end and the hiring rules by place.
Hiring in India what Indeed charges for search in India and how Naukri sells Resdex, which products host data or launched in India, what India’s data protection law asks of employers and ten questions to ask sellers.
High-volume hiring which AI screening products can reject applicants with no person involved, how they text and call, and what they cost at volume.