AI Application Screening: automatically review resumes for SMEs

What you recognize

You post a vacancy and within a week dozens of resumes arrive. But who do you call first? You don't have a recruiter on staff, so you or a colleague in HR falls from one stack of applications to the next. Meanwhile, other tasks pile up.

Imagine: you're an HR manager at a manufacturing company with 80 employees. You receive 40 applications for a production worker position. Manually reviewing 40 resumes, assessing relevant work experience, checking MBO diplomas — that easily takes you a full workday.

What this costs you

| Activity | Time per vacancy | Costs per year (5 vacancies) |

|----------|-----------------|------------------------------|

| Manually reviewing resumes | 4–6 hours | €2,500–€3,750 |

| Sending initial selection emails | 1–2 hours | €625–€1,250 |

| Writing rejection emails | 1 hour | €312–€625 |

| Total | 6–9 hours per vacancy | €3,437–€5,625 |

How AI takes a different approach

AI screening works as a digital filtering step before you even open a single resume.

• Automatic extraction: The AI reads each incoming resume and automatically extracts relevant information — education, work experience, skills, location.
• Matching to your criteria: You set your selection criteria once (e.g., MBO+ diploma, minimum 2 years of production experience, resident in the region). The AI automatically ranks all candidates.
• Shortlist ready in minutes: You open the tool and immediately see who your top 10 candidates are — with an explanation of why. The rest automatically receive a polite rejection email.

> Expert tip: Use AI as a first filter, but decide yourself who moves forward. GDPR also requires you to inform candidates that AI plays a role in your selection — this is easy to incorporate in your job posting.

What it delivers

• 3–5 hours per vacancy returned — directly available for other HR tasks
• €3,000–€5,000 per year saved on recruitment administration (for 5 vacancies)
• 70% less back-and-forth emailing with candidates in the first selection phase
• Fairer selection: AI evaluates on criteria, not on name or language use

How other HR managers in SMEs use this

An HR manager at a transport company in Brabant now processes an average of 30 applications per vacancy. Previously, that took her half a day; now she sees her shortlist within 10 minutes. She uses the freed-up time to approach candidates more personally — and her hiring quality has noticeably improved.

Frequently Asked Questions

*See FAQ section below*

Ready to start?

Do you want to know how AI application screening works for your organization? Schedule a free demo and see within 30 minutes what it could mean for you.