You likely already have great candidates in your database from past applications and talent pools who could be a fit for your current open role.
But without an easy way to find them, hiring teams often end up manually searching or starting the sourcing process from scratch.
The Matching Assistant helps you rediscover these candidates. Using your job criteria, it analyzes your talent pools and other active jobs to surface candidates worth reviewing.
It turns your database into an active sourcing channel, helping you quickly find and prioritize candidates while maintaining full control over every hiring decision.
With the Optimize plan, you get 65 searches per month. The Advance plan includes 3 searches per month.
Enable the Matching Assistant
To use the Matching Assistant for a job, you must first enable it for your organization and accept the required legal terms. The feature is turned off by default.
Only users with full access at the organization level can turn this feature on or off for the entire company.
Go to Settings > Organization > Tellent Intelligence and switch on the Matching Assistant.
A dialog box will appear for you to read and accept the legal terms and conditions.
Settings
To refine your recommendations and stay compliant, you can set specific exclusion rules for your company.
After turning on the Matching Assistant, click the three dots on the card and select Settings.
Skip candidates in active recruitment for other roles: Exclude candidates who are already in a hiring process for another role.
Skip candidates based on their disqualify reason: Choose specific reasons to filter out candidates you’ve previously disqualified.
Skip candidates based on their GDPR status: Ensure you only see matches for those who have agreed to be considered for other roles.
By default, candidates with an Expired status are excluded.
To request consent, send an email to candidates with a link to give or withdraw their permission. You can use the GDPR Historic Data Retention template found in Settings > Templates > Email templates for this.
Turn on the Matching Assistant for a job
Once the Matching Assistant is active at the company level, you can turn it on for a specific job.
To enable the Matching Assistant for jobs, you need the Manage jobs permission.
To view and manage matching candidates for jobs, you must have both the Manage matching candidates and View all existing job data permissions.
Administrators will have access by default.
Go to the relevant job and click Workflow in the job editor.
Scroll to the Screening and matching candidates section.
Click Set criteria to define the job requirements.
Once set, you can turn on the Screening Assistant, the Matching Assistant, or both.
Both features use the same criteria, so you only need to set this up once.
Set criteria
You can define up to 6 criteria.
The system will suggest criteria based on your job posting and screening questions. It will highlight any potential bias or clarity issues with a warning, so you can review and make changes before saving.
Set your criteria at the job template level so they automatically apply to any new jobs created from that template.
View and manage matching candidates
Once the Matching Assistant is enabled for a job, it searches your talent pools and other jobs for candidates who meet the job criteria.
The AI checks candidates’ CVs, cover letters, and answers to screening questions.
It ignores sensitive information such as names, age, contact details, social media links, gender, and nationality.
It excludes deleted, anonymous, and hired candidates, as well as those who were matched in past searches or previously disqualified by the same knockout questions.
Depending on your company settings, it can also skip candidates in active recruitment for other roles, those with specific disqualification reasons, or those without valid GDPR consent.
The AI only recommends candidates who meet at least 75% of the job requirements.
The quality of recommendations depends on two factors:
1. Clear and specific criteria help the AI accurately identify matches. Check out our tips on how to write effective criteria.
2. A strong candidate pool results in more relevant suggestions. The AI can only find what is actually there. We recommend organizing candidates into talent pools and keeping their profiles up to date.
In the pipeline
You’ll see a dedicated Matching candidates stage in the job’s pipeline.
Click Search for matches to generate a short list of candidates from talent pools and other jobs that meet your criteria. The Optimize plan includes 65 searches per month, while the Advance plan includes 3.
Each candidate card shows the results, e.g., 5/5 criteria met.
Move your cursor over a candidate card and choose Assign to add them to the job’s pipeline, or Dismiss to remove them from the list.
You can also assign all recommended candidates to your job at once.
Once assigned, candidates will be in the Sourced stage. This allows you to review their information and send them personal messages, instead of the automatic replies typically sent when someone applies.
Before contacting candidates, please follow our responsible use guidelines. It’s important to respect candidates’ consent and let them know that AI is involved in the hiring process.
All actions related to matching candidates, such as assigning or dismissing them, are automatically recorded.
You can find these details in the Activity tab of both the job and the candidate profile, as well as in your company’s Audit logs.
On a candidate’s profile
When you view a recommended candidate’s profile, you’ll see a section that shows the job they’re matched to.
You can see a summary of how many criteria they meet. Click to expand the criteria for an explanation of how the AI made its assessment.
If you disagree with an assessment, click Edit manually to override the result. You can then provide a reason for the change, which will be visible to your team.
From this section, you can click Assign to add the candidate to the job or Dismiss to remove the recommendation from their profile.
Turn off the Matching Assistant
To turn off the assistant for your organization, go to Settings > Organization > Tellent Intelligence. From there, switch off the Matching Assistant.
To turn it off at the job level, navigate to the relevant job and click on Workflow.
Scroll to the Screening and matching candidates section and switch off Match existing candidates.
If the assistant is turned off and then re-enabled for the same job, the system will reuse the criteria that were already created when the feature was previously enabled. You will not have to define them again.
Notes on responsible use
The Matching Assistant uses AI to help you discover potential candidate matches already in your database, but it’s not a substitute for human decision-making.
Ensure that everyone involved in hiring understands its functions, limitations, and appropriate use.
How it helps
How it helps
It helps you find candidates from your talent pools and other active jobs that fit the criteria you’ve set.
It supports you in the discovery process, but it doesn’t replace human judgment. A human must review all AI recommendations.
What it doesn’t do
What it doesn’t do
It won’t provide rankings (e.g., “top 10 candidates”), suitability scores (e.g., “85% match”), or comparison lists.
It will never automatically add a candidate to a job pipeline or advance them in a process.
Although it can suggest starting criteria, it does not independently set or approve requirements. You are responsible for defining the final requirements, reviewing the results, and making decisions that affect candidates.
It shows potentially relevant candidates, but does not hide others. You can always access and search your entire database in the Candidates section.
Keep data relevant and unbiased
Keep data relevant and unbiased
Ensure all input data is relevant, accurate, and free of unverified or biased information, including candidate details and evaluation criteria.
Get consent and inform candidates
Get consent and inform candidates
Before processing candidate data with this feature, you must get their explicit consent and inform them of their data subject rights.
You must also inform candidates that AI is used in the hiring process. This allows them to exercise their rights, such as asking for a human review or challenging AI-assisted decisions.
Here are several suggestions on how to effectively inform candidates:
Update your Terms & Conditions or other applicant-facing policies to include a section that discloses the use of AI in the recruitment and screening process.
Include a statement about AI usage in any legal agreements candidates may sign during the application process.
Add a specific screening question during the application process that informs candidates of the use of AI.
Add a clear statement to the bottom of your job postings informing applicants that AI-assisted tools are used.
💡 Tip: In Screening questions, you can use the Infobox answer type to show a notice.
If you want candidates to acknowledge the information, use the Legal answer type for an optional or mandatory checkbox.
You can also add a Legal agreement checkbox in your CareersHub settings that candidates must accept before submitting their application.
However, please consult your legal counsel to ensure that any communication complies with applicable laws.