A Voice AI screening interview is a two-way, spoken conversation between a candidate and Ezra, the Voice AI interviewer. Instead of recording answers to a list of prompts, candidates talk through your questions the way they would with a recruiter on a phone screen. Ezra listens, asks follow-up questions, and answers the candidate's questions about the role and your company.
Your team stays in control of the interview from start to finish. You decide what Ezra asks, what a strong answer sounds like, and which signals matter most. Every candidate gets the same structured interview and is evaluated against the same rubric, so your team can screen more applicants earlier in the process without giving up consistency.
Voice AI doesn't make hiring decisions. It gives your team scores, a transcript, a video recording, and a summary of each conversation. A person on your hiring team reviews the results and decides who moves forward.
This article walks through a screening interview end to end: what to set up before you invite candidates, how to help candidates prepare, what candidates see during the interview, and what to do with the results.
How a Voice AI screening interview works
Every Voice AI screening interview follows the same basic path:
- Set up: Your team creates and trains the interview. You define the questions, the ideal answers, the signals to listen for, and how much weight each question carries. You can also add company context, like benefits or PTO details, so Ezra can answer candidate questions accurately.
- Invite: Candidates receive an invitation through your ATS or a public link.
- Interview: Candidates complete the interview in their browser, on their own schedule. There's nothing to download.
- Review: Your team reviews each candidate's scores, transcript, video, and summary.
- Decide: A person on your hiring team decides whether to advance or reject the candidate.
Before you invite candidates
Before candidates can take a screening interview, the interview needs to be created and trained. Only trained interviews can be sent to candidates. For more information, see Create and calibrate a Voice AI interview.
If you're sending interviews through Greenhouse Recruiting or another ATS, confirm the following:
- Your ATS is connected to Voice AI
- The interview is calibrated
- A trigger stage is saved for the interview
- Any provider-specific settings for your ATS are configured
- The candidate has an email address on their profile
Tip: Before you invite real candidates, take the interview yourself. Hearing how Ezra asks your questions and seeing how your answers are scored is the fastest way to calibrate your rubric.
Invite candidates
You can invite candidates through your ATS or with a public link.
Invite candidates through your ATS
We recommend inviting candidates through your ATS whenever possible. When candidates are invited through an ATS, Voice AI knows which candidate each interview belongs to, and results sync back to the candidate's record automatically.
When an eligible candidate moves into the interview's trigger stage, they receive an invitation email with a link to their interview. For setup details, see Voice AI ATS integrations overview.
Invite candidates with a public link
Every interview also has a shareable public link. You can send this link to candidates directly, in bulk, or through your own communication tools.
Note: Candidates who join through a public link aren't automatically matched to a candidate record in your ATS, and their results don't sync automatically. Use an ATS invitation when you need results attached to the candidate's profile.
Before the conversation
Welcome screen
Candidates start on the welcome screen, which shows the job title, company name, location, and job description. To begin, candidates enter their full name and email address and click Continue.
Tip: By default, the welcome screen is filled in with your job description. You can edit it from the interview's Candidate welcome screen settings.
Hardware check
Next, candidates test their camera and microphone. They click Start Camera Test to see a preview of their video, and Start Mic Test to confirm their microphone is picking up sound. Candidates need to test their microphone before they can continue.
Connection check
Before the interview starts, Voice AI automatically checks the candidate's connection, including their network connection, internet connection, connection quality, connection to the interview service, and whether audio and video can get through. When every check passes, candidates see Your connection looks good and can click Connect to start the interview.
The Voice Conversation Tips panel on the same page reminds candidates how to get the best results, like using a quiet environment and keeping their screen awake.
The interview
Once connected, Ezra introduces itself, explains how the conversation works, and asks whether the candidate has any questions before getting started. From there, Ezra works through your interview questions and follows up based on the candidate's answers.
Review results and decide next steps
When a candidate finishes, their results are available in Voice AI. If the candidate was invited through your ATS, results also sync to their candidate record. What appears in your ATS depends on your ATS and configuration.
Each candidate's results include:
- A score from 1 to 4 for each question, based on your rubric
- The full interview transcript
- Video playback of the interview
- Strengths and growth areas
- Suggested follow-up questions for later interviews
Use the results as one input alongside the candidate's application materials. When you're ready, advance or reject the candidate. For more information, see Review Voice AI interview results.
Note: Rejection emails aren't always sent automatically when you reject a candidate. Whether a candidate receives a rejection email depends on your ATS and how it's configured. Confirm your setup so candidates aren't left without an update.
If your company uses integrity features, you may also see additional signals on a candidate's results:
- Cheat Detection flags interviews where a candidate may have used outside help, like reading from a script. It doesn't change the interview score. For more information, see Voice AI Cheat Detection.
- Fraud and resume authenticity assessments highlight signals that may be worth a closer look. They're separate from the interview score and don't prove fraud on their own.
Note: Integrity signals are for human review, not hiring decisions. Always watch the recording and read the transcript before acting on a flag.
Troubleshoot common candidate issues
If a candidate reaches out because something isn't working, these steps resolve most issues:
| Issue | What to suggest |
| Camera or microphone fails the hardware check | Close other apps using the camera or microphone, set both to Allow in the browser, and refresh the page. |
| Page is stuck loading, or the connection check fails | Disconnect from any VPN, check the internet connection, update the browser to the latest version, and clear the browser's cache and cookies. |
| Interview won't start on the candidate's device | Use Chrome or Edge on a laptop or desktop instead of a mobile device. If it still fails, try a different browser or device. |
| Camera or audio cut out during the interview | Phone calls and other interruptions can cut out the camera and audio. Ask the candidate to silence their phone and notifications. |
| Candidate never received an invitation | Confirm the candidate has an email address on their profile, the interview is trained, and the candidate was moved into the interview's trigger stage. |
Tip: If a candidate can't complete the interview, or would prefer not to interview with Voice AI, they can opt out and be reviewed through your standard process. If an issue isn't caused by the candidate's setup and you can't resolve it, contact Greenhouse Support.