Northwave Recruitment AI Screener

The challenge

Before

Northwave Recruitment runs RPO engagements for AU and NZ enterprise clients, with roughly 21 active requisitions across engineering, sales, and operations roles at any given time. They were receiving about 4,400 inbound CVs a month and a five-person screening team was only getting through a third of them within the 48-hour client-promised window. Quality candidates were dropping out of process before recruiters could engage. The firm was either going to add headcount or lose accounts.

• 4,400 monthly inbound CVs against 21 active enterprise requisitions
• Five-person screening team processing only a third within 48-hour SLA
• Quality candidates dropping out before recruiter engagement
• Initial screening quality varying by reviewer fatigue and time of day
• Repeat applicants across multiple reqs handled redundantly
• Diversity reporting compiled monthly through manual CV-by-CV analysis
• Hiring managers waiting two weeks to see their first shortlist
• No structured capture of why candidates were rejected at screen stage

The solution

What we built

We deployed a screening agent that processes every inbound CV against the requisition's structured criteria — required and preferred skills, location and right-to-work, salary expectation, communication quality from cover material. The agent produces a structured assessment with reasoning rather than a numeric score alone, surfaces strong candidates for recruiter attention, and prepares interview-question drafts tailored to gaps in the candidate's profile. Recruiters approve or override at the candidate level — the agent does not auto-reject. Applicants who match adjacent reqs are flagged for crossover consideration. The system records structured rejection reasons for every candidate, supporting both transparent feedback to applicants and clean diversity reporting for clients. The agent operates inside the existing ATS so recruiter workflow stays intact.

How the system flows

1. CV Intake→Requisition Match→Structured Criteria Comparison
2. Skills + Right-to-Work + Salary + Communication→Assessment Generated
3. Reasoning Captured→Recruiter Review→Approve or Override
4. Adjacent Req Crossover→Candidate Flagged for Other Recruiter
5. Interview Question Drafts→Tailored to Profile Gaps
6. Structured Rejection Reason→Applicant Feedback→Diversity Report
7. Hiring Manager First Shortlist→48-hour SLA Met→Client Visibility
8. Repeat Applicant Detection→History Recall→Single Process View

• Agent operates inside existing ATS without disrupting recruiter workflow
• Quality sampling of agent decisions against senior-recruiter judgment