Phenom
Phenom sells AI that finds candidates and AI that holds a first screening call with applicants. A recruiter reviews every Sourcing Agent message and every voice screening score. Phenom sells this as four products, each with its own limits.
Phenom finds and screens candidates, and asks you to request a price
Phenom’s AI finds people in your talent pool and beyond. It drafts outreach and holds a scored screening call with applicants. A recruiter sends the Sourcing Agent messages and reviews the voice screening scores.
You want searching, outreach and screening from one vendor. You can run a buying process with a quote, an implementation plan and a legal review. You can accept candidate voice passing through several outside companies.
You need a price you can read online. You use Fraud Detection Agent and will not accept voiceprints or face scans of candidates.
Contact a Phenom expert for a quote.
What the four Phenom products do for a recruiter
Sourcing Agent lives inside X+ Source. It searches your talent CRM, your applicant tracking system and outside talent networks in one pass. A talent CRM is the list of past and possible candidates your team keeps. An applicant tracking system is the software where applications are stored. Voice Screening Agent and X+ AI Candidate Screening handle the first check of applicants.
| Product | What it does | Who acts |
|---|---|---|
| Sourcing Agent | Finds people in your talent pool and beyond. Drafts email and text outreach. | A recruiter reviews and sends every message. |
| X+ Source | Searches from a plain-language description. Gives a shortlist with a reason for every match. | Recruiters can email shortlisted candidates one by one. Automation can also run the search and send each invitation to apply. |
| Voice Screening Agent | Holds a screening call that the applicant starts, books or asks for. Scores each answer from 1 to 5. | A recruiter accepts, adjusts or overrides every score. |
| X+ AI Candidate Screening | Screens by text, voice, one-way video or timed case study. | A recruiter reviews the questions first. Your team can review the record after. |
A recruiter starts Sourcing Agent by describing a role, tagging a job or uploading a job description. The agent also starts by itself when a role opens. It builds groups of candidates, each with a plain-language reason for the match. It drafts an email and text sequence. The sequence stops when a candidate applies or replies with a no. When a search returns too few strong matches, the agent proposes a wider radius or looser must-haves. Intake Agent is a separate tool. A recruiter starts it from the job record, and it contacts hiring managers by email, Teams or Slack. Its sourcing criteria feed Sourcing Agent.
X+ Source turns the role description into structured criteria. It matches them against your talent CRM and outside profiles. Recruiters can import an outside candidate into the CRM in one click. Phenom’s Fit Score ranks candidates on skills, title and location.
Voice Screening Agent sends an applicant an email and a text. The applicant can start the call, book it or ask for a callback. It asks job-related questions. It answers the applicant’s questions from the job description and your company’s own reference documents. It scores each answer from 1 to 5 against your marking guide. Screened candidates then move to Phenom’s interview scheduling and structured interviews.
X+ AI Candidate Screening lets applicants answer by text, voice or one-way video. It also offers a timed case study. AI writes the questions from the job description, and a recruiter reviews them first. Personal details are masked before they reach the AI. Your administrators choose which AI features run.
Results from Phenom and its customers
92% of voice screenings finish within a day. X+ AI Candidate Screening screened 4,500 candidates in its first month in use.
| Customer | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| The Aspen Group, over 15,000 employees | X+ Source | A trial cut sourcing time in half and brought on 865 more teammates. |
| Varsity Brands | Voice Screening Agent | The company received nearly 75,000 applications in 2025. An apparel sales pilot lifted interview acceptance from 22% to 70%. The first pilot, for production roles, did not work as the team hoped. |
| Elara Caring, which hires about 17,000 home health aides | Voice Screening Agent | Its vice president says candidates interviewed by AI took their first job faster. They also worked about three hours more a week than candidates interviewed by human recruiters. |
| Alight Solutions | X+ AI Candidate Screening | Alight’s talent acquisition operations manager says it hired over a thousand people. It saved about 8,000 hiring manager hours. |
| ABB | Voice screening | AI voice screening at ABB has a 95% completion rate. |
| A manufacturer | Voice screening, then Sourcing Agent and Intake Agent | Voice screening gave back 70 recruiter hours in the first month. The manufacturer then added Sourcing Agent and Intake Agent. Intake Agent contacts hiring managers about a new role. |
What Phenom does well
A recruiter sends every Sourcing Agent message
Sourcing Agent starts by itself when a role opens. It then asks a recruiter to review and send before any outreach goes out. It never sends on its own. The recruiter can edit each email and text first.
Every match comes with a reason
X+ Source gives a plain-language reason for each match. In Sourcing Agent, the filter criteria behind each search stay visible and editable. A recruiter can mark a suggested candidate with a thumbs down so the system learns. Sourcing Agent also logs the criteria and reasoning for each group of candidates.
Voice screening starts with consent and leaves a record
Every call opens with a scripted consent message. The recruiter gets the full recording, the transcript and a score tied to a point in the transcript. A candidate can opt out or ask for a person at any time. The audit trail can be exported.
Outside experts check the scoring and the security
An independent audit of Fit Score in 2026 found no adverse impact. Adverse impact means a tool picks one group of people far less often than others. The report is public. Voice screening has an independent bias audit once a year. A bias audit is an outside test of whether a tool treats groups of people differently. Phenom also holds a SOC 2 Type II report. It is an outside auditor’s review of how a company runs security and privacy over time.
When Phenom fits the hiring you do
You already hold a long list of past candidates
Phenom’s talent CRM shows past applicants, runners-up, event leads, career site visitors, contractors and current employees against a new role. Sourcing Agent searches it together with your applicant tracking system and Phenom’s outside talent network.
You want applicants who miss a must-have filtered out early
X+ AI Candidate Screening asks knock-out and scored questions when a person applies. They cover availability, location, experience and licences. Varsity Brands used knock-out questions with voice screening. They covered location, hours and certifications.
You hire in several countries or languages
Voice Screening Agent is live with more than 50 customers in over 10 countries and 53 languages. Phenom hosts on Amazon Web Services in the United States, Canada, Ireland or India.
You use another vendor’s applicant tracking system
Phenom connects to your applicant tracking system and HR system in both directions. Those systems stay as the record. EnBW, a German energy company, awarded a public contract to Phenom’s German affiliate TalentCube. The contract is to add four tools to its Avature system. They are Talent Pool, Skill Matching, automated scheduling and Referrals.
Where it stops, from automation to biometric data
Some steps can run before a person looks
Qualified candidates can advance before a recruiter opens the queue. Candidates who do not move forward get an immediate answer, with options for other roles. On Hiring Automation, strong results book an interview. Everyone else hears back the same day. Recruiters review the borderline few. Write down which steps run alone and who can switch each one off.
Candidate data passes through several outside companies
Twilio supplies the voice link for Voice Screening Agent. Deepgram turns speech into text in the United States. LiveKit runs the voice agent’s software. AssemblyAI provides live transcription for X+ AI Candidate Screening. X+ Source uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini to expand questions and write summaries. Amazon Web Services hosts every service. Phenom does not share candidate personal data with third parties unless the contract needs it.
Fraud Detection Agent collects voiceprints and face scans
Fraud Detection Agent checks video, audio and conversation for identity fraud and AI-written answers. It runs inside Phenom’s screening and interview products. When Phenom or its customers use it, Phenom collects, stores and uses voiceprints and scans of facial geometry. Phenom keeps them until their purpose is met or three years pass, whichever comes first. The law can require a longer period. Phenom may pass them to outside vendors and licensees to provide the Fraud Detection Agent. Google’s Gemini models analyse the video. Phenom does not sell biometric data.
Some of the legal duties fall on you
The company that uses the system owns its set-up and human oversight. It also owns audits for each place it hires and an alternative path. It must tell candidates they are speaking with AI.
EU and New York City rules cover AI hiring tools
The EU AI Act puts AI used for recruitment or selection on its high-risk list, unless an exemption applies. That list covers AI that filters applications or evaluates candidates. High-risk means the Act sets strict rules for the system. Employers who use one must tell the people affected. These rules apply from 2 December 2027. In New York City, Local Law 144 requires an independent bias audit for tools that screen candidates. It also requires notice to candidates. The city says the law does not cover searching a bank of CVs. It does not cover outreach to potential candidates or inviting applications either.
Approval can involve many teams
Varsity Brands needed approval from procurement, finance, IT, legal, compliance and an AI governance committee. Ask Phenom which teams its other customers involved.
What it costs, and what happens when you leave
Phenom shows no price on its website. A Phenom expert answers questions on pricing and on tenders, which are formal requests for bids.
The Standard implementation package comes with a purchase and includes a dedicated project manager. The Premier package has a 10-week testing period and four weeks of support after launch. A two-day Bootcamp tests the model against your data before it goes live. Phenom’s support packages promise 99.5% uptime and a committed response and resolution time for faults.
You can define what data your Phenom account stores and purge data from its databases. When you remove a Phenom service and its database, Phenom keeps the storage for one week. It then destroys it. It keeps daily on-site backups for seven days and weekly off-site tape backups for four weeks. Phenom offers ways for your own systems to add, update and delete candidate records and to fetch applicant data. For data Phenom holds on your behalf, a person’s request goes to you.
You could also find and screen people with agents built on your own systems. We have mapped what that looks like. The HR Agent Map
Eight questions to put to Phenom
- What does each of the four products cost for our volume, and what comes with the Standard implementation package? Good answer: A price for each product, the volumes written beside it, and the implementation scope in the order form.
- Which steps move a candidate on or turn them away without a person looking? Who can switch each one off? Good answer: A written list of steps, each with a switch that only our named admin controls.
- Can we see the independent audits for Fit Score and for voice screening, including the figures? Good answer: The full reports from named outside auditors, which we can show a regulator or a candidate.
- In which country does each company in the voice chain process and keep a candidate’s audio, video and transcript? Good answer: A named country for every company and a retention period written into the contract.
- Which of our hiring steps would collect voiceprints or face scans, and can we keep them switched off? Good answer: A named list of hiring steps, a switch we control, and deletion on request.
- What does a candidate get if they opt out or ask for a person? Who deals with them? Good answer: A named alternative that does not count against the candidate.
- How do our recordings, transcripts and scores come out in bulk when the contract ends? Good answer: A stated file format and time window, written into the contract.
- Which support package carries the 99.5% uptime promise, and what do we get if Phenom misses it? Good answer: The promise and a stated remedy in our own contract.
Alternatives to Phenom
Eightfold, Beamery, Avature, SeekOut and HireVue are the alternatives, along with buying nothing.
Eightfold sells a suite of agents for finding, engaging and hiring people. It covers sourcing, interviewing with its AI Interviewer and making offers on one platform. Beamery sells a candidate sourcing product that engages people who have not applied. It also sells a talent CRM for building pipelines. Avature sells an applicant tracking system and a CRM for building talent pipelines.
SeekOut sells Sourcing, and a separate tool that reviews applicants against role requirements and screens them with AI. HireVue launched its AI Interviewer on 18 June 2026. It asks and records candidate answers, including follow-up questions, in a two-way conversation.
Buying nothing means recruiters keep searching and screening by hand. Our guide to AI sourcing and screening covers what the rest of the market offers.
https://www.phenom.com/products/sourcing-agent · Phenom Sourcing Agent · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/products/x-source · Phenom X+ Source · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/products/voice-screening-agent · Phenom Voice Screening Agent · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/products/x-plus-ai-candidate-screening · Phenom X+ AI Candidate Screening · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/products/talent-crm · Phenom Talent CRM · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/products/fraud-detection-agent · Phenom Fraud Detection Agent · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/products/hiring-automation · Phenom Hiring Automation · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/use-cases/source-specialized-talent · Phenom page on specialised talent · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/use-cases/ai-screening · Phenom AI Screening page · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/use-cases/responsible-explainable-ai-recruiting · Phenom page on responsible and explainable AI in recruiting · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/use-cases/hr-tech-stack-integration · Phenom page on connecting to your HR systems · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/fit-score · Phenom Fit Score · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/resource/phenom-fit-score-report · Phenom Fit Score report · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/ai-ethics · Phenom AI ethics · read 8 and 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/blog/phenom-x-source-step-by-step-guide · Phenom blog, X+ Source step-by-step guide · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/products/intake-agent · Phenom Intake Agent · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/blog/power-of-voice-screening-enterprise-scale · Phenom blog, voice screening at enterprise scale · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/blog/meet-retailer-voice-screening-agent · Phenom blog, Varsity Brands and voice screening · read 8 and 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/blog/healthcare-company-simplified-sourcing-ai-talent-discovery · Phenom blog, The Aspen Group and X+ Source · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/press-release/phenom-conversational-voice-screening-agent-hiring · Phenom press release, Voice Screening Agent and Elara Caring · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/press-release/phenom-workops-ai4-agent-hr · Phenom press release, WorkOps and the manufacturer · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/phenom-hire-packages · Phenom Hire packages · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/pricing · Phenom pricing page · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/global-professional-services-packages · Phenom professional services packages · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/support-packages · Phenom support packages · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/security-and-compliance · Phenom security and compliance · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/security-policy · Phenom security policy · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/privacy-policy · Phenom privacy policy · read 8 and 9 Oct 2026
https://www.phenom.com/biometric-data · Phenom biometric data policy · read 8 and 9 Oct 2026
https://info.phenom.com/sub-processors/ · Phenom sub-processor list · read 8 and 9 Oct 2026
https://developer.phenom.com/ · Phenom developer site · read 8 Oct 2026
https://ted.europa.eu/en/notice/168253-2025/xml · EU public contract award notice 168253-2025, EnBW · read 8 Oct 2026
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj/eng · EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 · read 9 Oct 2026
https://publications.europa.eu/resource/celex/32026R1744 · Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, Digital Omnibus on AI · read 9 Oct 2026
https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/View.ashx?M=F&ID=10369162&GUID=F25C6911-8267-48AF-9048-180D44091624 · New York City Local Law 144 of 2021 · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/about/DCWP-AEDT-FAQ.pdf · New York City DCWP questions and answers on Local Law 144 · read 9 Oct 2026
https://eightfold.ai/products/talent-acquisition/ · Eightfold Talent Acquisition · read 8 Oct 2026
https://beamery.com/platform/talent-acquisition/candidate-sourcing/ · Beamery Sourcing & Matching · read 8 Oct 2026
https://beamery.com/platform/talent-acquisition/talent-crm/ · Beamery Talent CRM · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.avature.net/applicant-tracking-system/ · Avature applicant tracking system · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.avature.net/candidate-relationship-management/ · Avature CRM · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.seekout.com/solutions/recruit/ · SeekOut Sourcing · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.seekout.com/solutions/sam/ · SeekOut applicant evaluation and AI screening · read 8 Oct 2026
https://www.hirevue.com/solutions/ai-interviewer · HireVue AI Interviewer · read 9 Oct 2026
https://www.hirevue.com/press-release/hirevue-launches-ai-interviewer · HireVue press release, AI Interviewer launch · read 9 Oct 2026