Hiring You Can Stand Behind: Building Mutual Trust With Candidates

Distinguish what’s on paper from real skills

With AI tools readily accessible, resumes across the applicant pool look remarkably polished. The central challenge for talent teams is teaching interviewers how to separate legitimate presentation from inflated claims.

At Greystar, which employs more than 30,000 team members globally, the frontline defense is interviewer education. 

“The biggest thing we are doing is really focusing on hiring manager interview training,” said Alison Donnelly, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Greystar. “As resumes all start to look very similar, or like a cut-and-paste from the job description, we are showing our recruiting team and our hiring managers how to dig deeper into the actual experience listed. Help them ask the right questions so candidates can speak to what exactly they did on a specific project. Help them distinguish what is on paper from what is real.”

Donnelly emphasized that using AI for editing is understandable, but interviewers must probe how candidates utilized specific tools rather than simply accepting surface-level claims. Greystar also prioritizes video during pre-screen calls to observe whether candidates speak thoughtfully to their background or appear to read from prepared text.

For CodeSignal’s Adam Vassar, the influx of identical resumes calls for evaluating demonstrated work behavior rather than paper claims. “From our perspective, we are using AI to counter AI, in a way,” Vassar explained. “The current challenge is that with AI tools, candidates can apply en masse and make themselves look exactly like the job posting.”

While knowledge reflects what someone knows, skills represent demonstrated work behavior. To verify skill objectively, CodeSignal designs high-fidelity simulations where candidates demonstrate capability in real time. In a sales role-play, for example, an AI agent acts as a demanding customer, allowing candidates to prove discovery skills, connection, and product positioning. AI agents serve as the actor, grader, and report writer, giving employers consistent, job-related proof of performance.

Create guardrails to set candidate expectations

Building candidate trust requires clear, reciprocal transparency about how technology is used throughout the hiring journey.

At Warner Bros. Discovery, Chandra Williams partnered with internal AI teams to define boundaries before communicating with candidates. “We have done a really good job of partnering with our AI team to first educate ourselves on how we use it, and then create guardrails around how we want to use it,” Williams said. “Part of our standard communication to candidates is that we are encouraging no use of AI during the interview process, unless it is specifically an evaluation of their AI skills. Other than that, we do not want them to have to guess what is okay and what is not.”

Williams stressed that employers must be equally candid about their own tools: “I encourage my team to educate candidates on how we will use it, in any capacity, throughout the process.”

Greystar takes a similar posture ahead of state disclosure regulations, while giving interviewers the confidence to address live AI usage directly. “We definitely want to be honest and upfront about where we are using AI, so candidates have clarity,” Donnelly noted. “We also want to set expectations for candidate AI usage, giving hiring managers and interviewers the power, and the comfort, to say: ‘Hey, this is against our policy. It looks like you are reading a screen. Please turn that off so we can continue the conversation.'”

CodeSignal’s Vassar added that AI proficiency can also serve as a positive training diagnostic. By offering simulated safe spaces to work with LLMs on tasks like drafting project plans or synthesizing notes, employers can evaluate whether a hire needs training or is ready for advanced work, turning AI into an empowering development pathway.

Evaluate the skills needed for each role: From screening bots to executive simulations

Assessment methods must match the operational stakes of the position. At GE Appliances, evaluation strategies diverge by organizational level.

“At GE Appliances, a human is always making the hiring decision,” Martinez emphasized. “For lower-level roles, we have been testing the ability to have a bot interview candidates. That is followed up by an individual who reviews the results of that interview, which was set up by a human based on job criteria and competencies, and makes the final determination.” For executive leadership, the company switches to in-depth project simulations to confirm global strategic capability before making critical hiring commitments.

At Synechron, Ranjana Sagar led an initiative to align assessments with essential human capabilities. “It became very important to distinguish between what technology can help with and what we genuinely need to evaluate in a candidate: problem-solving, judgment, communication, collaboration, and the ability to apply knowledge in a real situation,” Sagar explained. Involving frontline hiring managers early ensures these evaluations reflect the daily realities of the role.

Understand candidate perception of assessments

While employers often fear that rigorous assessments will alienate applicants, empirical findings indicate that candidates appreciate structured evaluation when it creates genuine equity.

“We were very pleasantly surprised by our candidate experience survey results when we compared proctored versus non-proctored assessments,” Vassar revealed. “Perceptions of fairness, of how job-related the assessment was, and of the overall experience were all higher for people who went through the proctored version. Candidates felt reassured that everyone else was as locked down as they were, so it was about what they could do, not how well they could game the system.”

Candidates also report greater psychological safety in AI role-play simulations, where they can demonstrate skills without the pressure of reading an interviewer’s subtle reactions. Furthermore, asynchronous AI interviews provide vital flexibility. “We hear a lot from candidates who appreciate being able to do the interview at night when their kids are asleep, rather than sneaking an hour away from their day job,” Vassar said.

Ultimately, automated evaluations preserve human connection where it matters most. “Where we have seen this be very effective is top of funnel,” Vassar noted. “With thousands of candidates qualified on paper, recruiters cannot have every initial conversation. Automated evaluations give everyone a chance to showcase their skills, moving qualified individuals into human interviews where trained managers dig deeper.” Donnelly confirmed this need at Greystar, where certain postings draw 4,000 applicants, making technology essential to surface top talent fairly.

Manage application surges without losing humanity

The volume generated by AI auto-apply tools can quickly overwhelm hiring teams. Managing this surge requires combining intelligent deduplication with empathetic communication.

At Warner Bros. Discovery, Chandra Williams pointed out that application spikes stem from both automated bots and anxious candidates submitting repeated applications across multiple job boards. 

To address this, the company configured Workday to require unified candidate profiles. “The system detects duplicate applications and merges them because it looks at the body of the work, not just a match on email or name,” Williams said. “We can get close to managing volume, the more we use AI to detect AI and eliminate duplicate efforts.”

Felix Martinez reminded leaders that candidate anxiety over the recruiting “black hole” is a decades-old issue amplified by modern tech. To maintain humanity, GE Appliances hosts virtual informational sessions for high-volume roles and enforces a strict policy against instant rejections, ensuring candidates who progress through key stages receive personal phone declinations.

How can you use this information today? 

• Train managers to probe past resume polish: Equip interviewers with behavioral questions that dig into what candidates personally executed on projects.
• Counter AI inflation with demonstrated skills: Replace static resume screening with work-like simulations that evaluate practical capability.
• Set transparent guardrails upfront: Clearly disclose company AI usage, define candidate expectations, and empower interviewers to redirect conversations when unpermitted tools are used.
• Build candidate trust through consistent standards: Remote proctoring and structured simulations reassure candidates that evaluations are fair and cannot be gamed.
• Automate top-of-funnel screening to protect human connection: Use objective skill evaluations to confirm minimum qualifications, enabling recruiters to spend meaningful time with qualified finalists.
• Audit AI tools for scientific validity and bias: Hold all automated evaluation tools to rigorous consistency testing, criterion validation, and adverse impact audits.