Phone screens

Have InsightHire call a candidate, run your interview template, and post the recording, transcript and summary back — with consent recorded before the call is placed.

A phone screen is an automated call. InsightHire rings the candidate, works through the questions on an interview template, listens to the answers, and posts the recording, transcript and a summary onto their record.

It is for the first ten minutes you would otherwise spend confirming licence, availability, pay expectation and interest. It is not a replacement for talking to someone.

Phone screens are included in the Hire plan. If the action does not appear, ask your InsightHire contact.

Consent comes first

An automated, recorded call to a mobile phone needs the person's prior agreement. InsightHire will not place one until you have recorded how they agreed, and it keeps that record permanently.

Be straight about what this is: InsightHire records what you tell it, it does not verify it. Nothing in the product checks that the conversation you describe actually happened. Recording consent that was not given puts your organization on the wrong side of the law, not InsightHire.

Book a call

1. Open the candidate and choose Phone screen.
2. Pick the Interview template to run. The list shows how many questions each one has.
3. Check the Phone number. It is filled in from their record.
4. Choose Call now or Schedule and pick a time.
5. Under Consent to an automated call, choose how they agreed:
   • Agreed on a call — they said yes when you spoke.
   • Agreed in writing — you have an email or text from them.
   • Application checkbox — they ticked the phone and text consent box when applying.
   • Candidate picked the time — they chose the slot themselves.
6. Write what actually happened in the note, for example "On our intro call today Jordan agreed to a 10-minute automated phone screen this afternoon." At least ten characters, and it goes into the permanent record.
7. Choose Call now or Schedule call.

A call is refused if the candidate has no valid phone number, is on your do-not-contact list, has restricted processing, or already has a screen booked — cancel that one first. One open screen per candidate at a time.

What the candidate hears

The call opens by saying who is calling and why, gives the recording disclosure, and checks whether now is a good time before starting the questions. The disclosure wording is set at platform level and reads:

Just so you know, this call is recorded and transcribed so the recruiting team can review it.

The rest of the conversation is generated live rather than read from a script, so the exact sentences vary between calls. The questions themselves do not — they come from the template you picked, in order, with the role and the candidate's background as context. The call follows up on a thin answer up to twice by default, and runs for a maximum of 15 minutes unless you set something between 5 and 20.

An InsightHire administrator can edit the disclosure wording for the whole platform. Recording law differs by state, and some states require every party to agree. Check yours.

Read the results

Open the candidate and choose Phone screen again. Past and upcoming lists every call with:

• a status — Scheduled, Calling soon, Ringing, On the call, Completed, No answer, Voicemail, Failed or Cancelled;
• the date, the number called and how long it lasted;
• how many of the questions were completed, for example "6/8 questions";
• a Recording link;
• the summary, in line.

The transcript and summary are stored on the interview record, and an entry lands on the candidate's timeline either way — including "AI phone screen reached voicemail" and "AI phone screen: no answer", so a call that went nowhere is still visible.

Cancel anything still scheduled from the same list.

Use one as a sequence step

Add a step with Send as set to AI phone screen, pick the template, and the call is placed when the step comes due. Consent for those calls comes from the Consent basis for automated phone screens you record once in the sequence's Sending rules — you cannot save a sequence containing a phone screen step without it.

A sequence call is skipped, not failed, if the person has no usable phone number or already has a screen booked. The rest of the sequence carries on. See Sequences.

Allowance

Minutes are counted per call and rounded up, and they reset on the first of the month. Phone screens stop when you reach the cap — this is one of the few features that blocks rather than carries on. You will see how much is left under Settings → Plan & features, and the action itself tells you when you are out. Ask about a higher limit if you keep running into it.