At RecOps Con 2025, CodeSignal’s Head of People Operations, Kait Trowbridge, walked a packed room through what it actually looks like to build a hiring process powered by AI. No hand-waving, no lofty predictions—just the nuts and bolts of how CodeSignal recruits today with the power of artificial intelligence.
If you missed it, here are the highlights.
Too many candidates, too few recruiters
At CodeSignal, our numbers tell a story most people at RecOps probably recognized:
- We’ve had 24,000 applicants this year
- Our application-to-hire rate is 0.1%
- We only have two recruiters supporting a global team
Sound familiar? We all know it’s not humanly possible to manually review every application that comes through anymore. To stay competitive, recruiting operations like yours need scalable systems that can sift through volume while keeping candidate experience consistent.
In other words, we need to do more with less.
Rethinking the funnel
So CodeSignal refined the recruitment process for ourselves. Here’s how it looks for us:
- A candidate applies.
- Your ATS automatically invites the candidate to an AI-powered assessment, no matter what the role.
- If they pass, they can move on to an initial interview.
- Still looking good? Now it’s time for a hiring manager interview.
- If necessary, panel and executive interviews can help seal the deal.
- Once someone’s cleared all the hurdles, we make an offer and complete the hire.
Many of those steps may seem familiar, but the second makes a huge difference. That early, automatic assessment step changes everything. Instead of drowning in resumes, recruiters get a clear, skills-based signal right at the top of the funnel. Candidates you might overlook on paper now get a fair shot to show what they can actually do.
And it’s working: CodeSignal’s new average time-to-hire is 39 days (11% faster than benchmark), with an 87% offer acceptance rate (4% above benchmark).
Real-world skills at scale
Not all assessments are created equal. Kait emphasized three pillars that keep them effective:
- Job relevance: Tasks should mirror the actual work.
- AI-forward design: If roles involve AI tools, assessments should too.
- Scalability: Assessments should be easy to reuse and re-share.
At CodeSignal, that means assessments tailored for roles across engineering, finance, sales, and customer support—powered by AI features that bring more depth and efficiency into the process.
Here are just a few examples of how we do that with artificial intelligence:
- AI-assisted coding to see how engineers build products in collaboration with co-pilots
- Conversational AI for realistic customer scenarios
- Written and whiteboard analysis for communication and system design skills
- AI grading & proctoring for faster, more reliable insights
With all that in tow, recruiters get a stronger, fairer signal of skill without adding friction for candidates.
But humans still matter (a lot!)
AI can accelerate the top of the funnel, but people remain at the heart of hiring. Structured live interviews, consistent feedback, and thoughtful recruiter training are still essential, and it’s critical that there isn’t an “Al black box.” CodeSignal’s team reviews why AI scored a candidate the way it did, and then the humans make decisions on who to progress based on the candidate’s overall score, skill breakdown, and assessment integrity status.
The difference is that with AI handling high-volume screening and assessment, recruiters and hiring managers get to spend more time doing what they do best: building relationships and making confident hiring decisions.
What this means for RecOps leaders
For recruiting operations leaders, Kait left the audience with a few clear takeaways when it came to creating effective AI assessments:
- Communicate the “why”: When candidates know the process you’re asking them to go through is fair and job-relevant, engagement goes up.
- Prioritize relevance over gimmicks: Assessments should reflect real job tasks, not generic puzzles.
- Invest in interviewer training: Structure and consistency make human judgment more reliable.
The best news is: you don’t have to be the one to do the heavy lifting. CodeSignal can help on all these fronts. Internally, we’ve ensured skills-based, AI-assisted hiring is no longer theoretical. It’s here, and it’s working. Now, we want to bring everyone along for the ride!
Keep the conversation going
RecOps Con sparked big conversations about the future of talent operations. If you’re ready to see how CodeSignal can help your team hire faster, fairer, and with confidence: Book a demo with CodeSignal.