By automatically shortlisting candidates who best meet the job description and key criteria, this feature reduces manual application screening and speeds up decision-making. Recruitment teams can spend less time filtering applications and more time engaging with top talent.

The Shortlisting Agent can be enabled for any active and published job.

1. Click Recruitment in the left-hand side menu.
2. Click the Recruitment submenu.
3. Click the Jobs tab.
4. Click the role that you want to enable the Shortlisting Agent for.
5. Click the three dots button (...) around the upper right-hand side of your screen.
6. Click Edit hiring process.
7. Toggle the switch on for the Shortlisting Agent. It is enabled if the button is purple.

8. (Optional) You can set a budget for how many candidate outreaches you want for this job.

   • For example, if you set a budget of 20, the agent will stop calling candidates for this job after it uses 20 credits.
   • If you leave this blank, the agent will draw from your organisation's shared balance with no specific limit per job. You will receive a notification when a job's budget runs out, with options to increase it or remove the limit.

   

When you turn the Shortlisting Agent on, it immediately assesses all candidates currently sitting in the New stage. It is not limited to just future applications. You will see a notice showing how many candidates will be assessed and your remaining credit balance.

The Shortlisting Agent is enabled for each job. Once turned on, it:

• Reads every CV and pre-screening answer automatically.
• Scores each candidate against your Hiring Criteria.
• Moves qualified candidates to the next stage with no action from you.
• Reaches out to the most promising candidates who are missing a must-have criterion.
• Leaves candidates who clearly do not qualify in the "New" hiring stage for your review.

Recruiters can review a detailed breakdown in each candidate profile that explains how each score was calculated, offering transparency and confidence in shortlisting.

You can always switch the agent off at any time. Candidates already in the pipeline are unaffected. The agent will not take any new actions, but existing assessments and movement of candidates are preserved.

The Shortlisting Agent helps recruiters apply the role's Hiring Criteria consistently. It uses information from each candidate's application, CV, and screening answers to assess relevant skills, experience, qualifications, and candidate responses.

To help manage bias risk, Employment Hero has controls in place across the Shortlisting Agent experience:

• Recruiter control over Hiring Criteria: Employment Hero can generate Hiring Criteria from the job description, but recruiters can review, edit, add, delete, and decide which criteria are must-haves or nice-to-haves. The Shortlisting Agent then applies the configured Hiring Criteria for that role.

• Bias mitigations: Hiring Criteria include checks that help reduce the risk of criteria being based on protected characteristics or other non-job-related attributes.

• Testing, reviews and audits: Employment Hero has completed documented bias and disparate impact testing for the Shortlisting Agent. In the tested scenarios, the testing did not identify statistically significant bias or disparate impact across the protected-characteristic proxies assessed. Employment Hero also performs documented reviews and audits of agent performance to help monitor for potential biased outcomes, red flags, or unexpected patterns.

• Human review and override: Recruiters can review the agent's assessment, including each candidate's criteria breakdown, candidate score, activity log, and shortlisting status. Recruiters can then decide whether to progress the candidate, keep them in review, or override the agent's outcome by moving the candidate to a different hiring stage.

These controls support consistent, criteria-based shortlisting, but the Shortlisting Agent does not replace recruiter judgement. Employers remain responsible for reviewing candidates and making final hiring decisions in line with applicable laws and their own hiring policies.

Your credits are shared across all your AI agents. The Shortlisting Agent only uses credit if it calls a candidate to confirm missing must-haves based on your Hiring Criteria. The agent does not use any credit when it assesses candidates, auto-advances them, or sends an SMS invitation.

The Shortlisting Agent uses one (1) credit when a candidate picks up a call, regardless of whether they qualify for the job or not.

The agent never calls a candidate out of nowhere. It first sends an SMS letting them know a company is interested and asking if they would like a quick call. The candidate taps a link to request the callback, then the agent dials them.

If the agent calls a candidate and they confirm their missing requirement during the call, the agent automatically moves them to the next stage. This is just like what happens with a direct application that met all criteria. If gaps remain after the call, the candidate stays in "New" for your review.

The Shortlisting Agent can only place calls to candidates with phone numbers in the following countries:

• Australia
• United Kingdom
• New Zealand
• Canada

Candidates outside these countries will still be assessed against your criteria. If they would normally be flagged for a call, the agent will skip the outreach step. Since there was no SMS sent, no credit was used. The candidate will then be left in "New" for your review.

Candidate call tracking

Either way, the candidate's profile is updated with the information they provided, and their score updates to reflect it. You can track what happened in three places:

• Activity log - shows each action the agent took and what it did.
• Candidate card - displays the shortlisting status so you can see it at a glance without opening the full profile.
• Candidate profile - shows the updated status and the information confirmed during the call.

If the call is missed or rejected, the agent sends the candidate a follow-up SMS with the original callback link. This allows them to reschedule when they are ready. If the call goes to voicemail, the agent leaves a brief message, and the candidate receives the same SMS link. The callback link allows the candidate to request up to two calls before it expires

After the Shortlisting Agent evaluates the candidates, they will get status badges.

• Shortlisted by agent - The candidate meets all the must-haves and has been automatically moved to the next hiring stage.
• Screening invite sent - The candidate is promising but has some missing information. The agent has sent an SMS and is waiting for the candidate to request their callback call.
• Requires review - The candidate has too many gaps or a confirmed missing requirement. They will remain in "New" for your review.

For new jobs, the Hiring Criteria is built as part of the job creation process. To read more about it, please refer to the tab Step Two: Build your Hiring Criteria tab in this article: Create and post a job.

You can update the criteria on a job that is already live. When you save changes, all candidates already in the pipeline are automatically re-evaluated against the new requirements. You do not need to do anything extra.

1. Click Recruitment in the left-hand side menu.
2. Click the Recruitment submenu.
3. Click the Jobs tab.
4. Click the role that you want to update the Hiring Criteria for.
5. Click the three dots button (...) around the upper right-hand side of your screen.
6. Click Edit job.
7. You will be taken to the Job Details page. Click the Save & Continue button in the lower-right part of your screen.
8. In the Hiring Criteria page, you will see the criteria generated by the platform after analysing the job description. You can:
   1. Add criteria.
   2. Change a must-have to a nice-to-have, or the other way around
   3. Delete criteria.
9. If you are already satisfied with the criteria, click the Continue button.
10. Review the details in the next pages and Save each time.
11. In the final page, you can choose to post the job or finish editing without posting.

(Optional) Add criteria

The AI works from what is in your job description. If there is a requirement you know is important but did not mention in the job ad, you can add it yourself. This may be a specific certification, a tool your team uses, or something niche to your industry.

You can add as many criteria as you need. Manually added criteria are preserved even if the job description is updated later.

1. To add criteria, click the Add criteria button. Then:
   1. Describe the requirement in plain English.
   2. Select a category (Experience, Qualification, or Skill).
   3. Choose whether it is a Must-have or a Nice-to-have.
2. If you are already satisfied with the criteria, click the Save button.

Any criteria you type yourself go through an automatic check to ensure they do not contain requirements that could be discriminatory or unlawful. If something does not pass, you will see a clear message explaining why, and you can edit and resubmit straight away.

Tip: If you are unsure how to reword a criterion, try focusing on the actual work capability rather than background attributes. For example, enter "ability to lift stock up to 20kg" rather than "physically fit".

(Optional) Change a must-have to a nice-to-have, or the other way around

Tip: fewer must-haves, better outcomes. The more must-haves you set, the narrower the shortlist. If you find very few candidates are being automatically advanced, consider whether some must-haves could become nice-to-haves. Candidates are still ranked on them; they just are not blocked by them.

1. To turn a Must-have into a Nice-to-have, click the Nice-to-have circle button.
2. To turn a Nice-to-have into a Must-have, click the Must-have circle button.
3. If you are already satisfied with the criteria, click the Save button.

(Optional) Delete criteria

1. To delete criteria, click the delete button (trash bin icon) for the criteria you want to remove.
2. If you are satisfied with the Hiring Criteria, click the Save button.

Candidate matching scores are displayed differently depending on which view you're using:

List View: In List View, candidate matching scores appear as a numbered badge next to each candidate's name on the left-hand side panel. The score is displayed prominently in a coloured circle (e.g., a candidate with a score of 100 would show in a larger badge). This view allows you to quickly scan and compare scores across all candidates and sort by Best Match to rank them accordingly.

Board View: In Board View, candidates are organised in columns by recruitment stage (New, In Review, Phone Screen, Assessment, Interview, etc.). The candidate matching score still appears on each candidate's card, displayed as a numbered badge. This view gives you a visual overview of where candidates are in your recruitment pipeline while maintaining visibility of their candidate matching scores.

Firstly, you will need to create a new job in Employment Hero. The Best Match AI sorting method will only apply to roles created after 4th September, 2025. Follow the instructions in this article to create a new job. Then you can follow the numbered steps below.

1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. On the left-hand side menu, click on Recruitment.
3. Click on Recruitment.
4. Click on the Jobs tab.
5. Click on the job whose candidates you want to shortlist.
6. On the left-hand side menu with the candidate names, click on Sort By.
7. Click on Best Match AI.
8. This will display your candidates in List View, ranked by Employment Hero. The highest-scoring candidates will appear at the top of the list with their candidate matching score displayed next to their name.

Board View is ideal if you want to see candidates organised by recruitment stage while still having access to their candidate matching scores. Follow these steps to view your candidates in Board View:

1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. On the left-hand side menu, click on Recruitment.
3. Click on Recruitment.
4. Click on the Jobs tab.
5. Click on the job whose candidates you want to view.
6. At the top right of the page, look for the view toggle options. Click on the Board View icon to switch from List View to Board View.
7. Your candidates will now be displayed in columns organised by recruitment stage (New, In Review, Phone Screen, Assessment, Interview, etc.). Each candidate card will display their candidate matching score as a numbered badge, allowing you to quickly identify top matches within each stage of your pipeline.

By clicking on Profile, this will show how Employment Hero calculates the candidate scoring method. Candidate matching, powered by Hero AI, rates the skills, the experience and the qualifications of the candidate and how they match against your Hiring Criteria. The scores are between 1-100, and the higher scores demonstrate a better match. Lower-scoring candidates may still be suitable when hiring for junior positions where on-the-job training is provided.

Click on View more to see how Employment Hero has factored in the candidate's skills, experience and qualifications.

You can also manually update the score card if you want to factor in any new information, or values that have not been factored in from the candidate's resume or cover letter.

Candidate matching, powered by Hero AI, extracting matching criteria from the Hiring Criteria. The more complete and tailored the profile is for a specific role and employer, the higher the quality of matches and candidate matching scores will be.

Additionally, all candidate profiles now include a detailed breakdown of how each score is calculated. This helps users quickly understand the matched experience, skills, and qualifications of each applicant.