With AI Applicant Management, you can set up candidate criteria to guide how applicants are ranked. This helps you focus your time on those who best match the qualifications and preferences that matter for your role.
This feature is available only to employers with Recruiter or Owner roles.
What are candidate criteria?
Candidate criteria are the specific qualifications or preferences you can add for a job. These criteria guide how our AI evaluates and ranks applicants for you to review.
Examples include:
- Structured inputs such as course, graduation year, location, or answers to screening questions
- Skills inferred by AI from your job description (for example: “thrives in team environments” or “attention to detail”)
- Your own criteria that you add, not previously mentioned in your job description (e.g., ‘Internship experience at a Big 4 firm’).
You can combine all types of criteria for a more accurate applicant ranking experience.
Adding or editing candidate criteria
You can add, edit, or delete up to 10 candidate criteria for each job.
Note: Each job must include at least 3 candidate criteria.
1. From your job postings, select the one where you want to add or edit candidate criteria.
2. On the job page, select the Applicants tab. Above the candidate list, select the hyperlinked text Edit criteria.
3. A modal opens with AI-suggested criteria based on your job posting. Within this modal, you can:
-
Star criteria: Click the star icon to mark a criterion as most important. These receive higher weighting in rankings.
Note: You must star at least one criterion to receive recommendations.
Edit criteria: Click the pencil icon to make changes to an existing criterion.
Delete criteria: Click the recycle bin icon to remove a criterion.
Add criteria: Click + Add criteria to create a new criterion in plain language.
4. When finished, click the black button Update criteria.
5. Handshake will refresh your applicant recommendations (typically within a few minutes).
- While the system refreshes, the message “Preparing recommendations based on criteria” displays.
6. Once refreshed, a link will appear: “View updated recommendations.” Click this link to open your updated list of applicants that best match your criteria.
Criteria validation and errors
Handshake automatically checks that criteria are:
- Objective, measurable, and job-related
- Free from discriminatory language
- Under 100 characters per item
- Not containing personal information (such as emails, links, or phone numbers)
If your criteria do not meet these standards, you will receive an error message before saving. Depending on the issue, one of the following messages may display:
- “This criterion has insufficient information. Try adding more descriptive words.”
- “This criterion violates fair hiring guidelines.”
- “This criterion is too subjective. Try using clear, measurable qualifications.”
Update your criteria as suggested, then save your changes. Not sure how to phrase your criteria? Refer to our Guidelines for Writing Smart, Compliant AI Matching Criteria.
How AI ranks applicants
When you post a job, Handshake generates candidate criteria from your job posting to evaluate each applicant.
Note: You can update these criteria at any time.
Applicants are automatically ranked from those who most closely match your criteria to those who least match.
- Applicants who meet a high number of your criteria are placed in the Recommended category, making it easier to focus on top matches.
- Recommended applicants include a short AI-generated summary and highlighted traits that explain why they’re a strong match.
- You can provide feedback (thumbs up/down) on recommended applicants to improve future results.